Everyday Systems

Propelled here by my friend Vorpal, I'm choosing an S day to begin using the system. As a former anoretic, I cannot follow a diet plan which involves counting calories as I tend to the extreme. I've dabbled in programming. The no-s algorithm looks promising to me.

I used to be relatively in shape when I had an active job, but now after years in a deskjob I'm obese. I'm a 37 year old female, 5'7 and 220 pounds, and very excited about finally putting some (non-extreme) control into my eating habits.

So nothing to report this Saturday, but I'm going grocery shopping this afternoon to try and nip the delivery monster in the bud.

rah you're here

Welcome and good luck!!!
You will love this diet! It's actually fun and a real self esteem and willpower builder!
Not a chore, but a real tool for helping in the most pleasant of ways!
Delivery monsters are real expensive too, so you are doing yourself a massive financial favor as well
I used to eat Chinese delivery at least twice a week, in the pre NoS days..Sometimes more..
I was pretty fat that year and I lost around 25 lbs so far, in a year an a half...
Doesn't sound exciting, but it is.. I haven't ever felt the need to truly binge again... I love the fun of S days and enjoy the lack of micromanagement during the week, yet benefit from the simple and straightforward structure...
*This*, to me, is exciting...
And what's most exciting, is that in a whole 17 months I haven't regained any of my loss... Sometimes I don't lose for a long time, but I am maintaining every pound...
This is huge!
Good luck again and let us all know how you fare next week!
Peace and Love,
Deb

Hi Ceu,

Welcome to NoS. This plan is *so* sensible and straightforward that you could actually use it as a refeeding plan for someone who had gotten seriously underweight as well. Provided you follow Reinhard's simple rules, stick to eating your proper meals and nothing extra during the week, there is no chance that you'll do yourself any damage by overdoing the dieting again.

I hope this plan brings you as much peace as it has me, I wish you great success in repairing your relationship with food.
C.

thanks for the support.

So saturday and sunday were definite S days. I feel ok about it. Normally I'd be punishing myself right now. Instead, I'm embarking on my first no-s day feeling pretty good. I'll post how it turns out, later.

Today went pretty well.

I had a big breakfast because I knew I'd get hungry by the time lunch rolled around. A bit of fiddling as it involved putting two bowls on a plate with room for a small piece of multigrain toast with butter. I had some multigrain cheerios and banana in one bowl, and some lowfat sugarfree yoghurt with cutup apple in the other.

lunch: I opted for convenience and took an Amy's veggie burrito dinner and an orange. I was ravenously hungry after my hour walk and had to really push myself for dinner.

dinner: small green salad with a chicken fajita in a black bean tortilla.

It seems it's all about fiber and protein for me, or I'm just famished and get all shaky and irritable. I plan to work some carrot sticks onto my lunch plate for tomorrow.

So, I call this a
Success day despite the bowl fiddling. There wasn't much vertical pileage and I feel pretty good. I'm going to have a decaf coffee to relax with.

today:

breakfast: yoghurt and half a banana. multigrain bagel with black beans, salsa and melted light havarti cheese

lunch: chicken fajita. crudites with light ranch dressing for dip

supper: fusili pasta with chicken, spinach and zucchini. green salad with poppyseed dressing

Success

Are crudites like Luddites?

Crudites - they're 'crude' cos they make you break wind a lot, perhaps?!!

Sorry about that.
C.

*chortle*

croo dee tay.....

Thats the pronunciation...
You would have to start saying

Weekend Loo dee tays....

LOL...

Yer funny Vorpal!

Carolejo, remind me to avoid you when you are having crudites!
LOL....

Peace and Love,
Deb

carolejo wrote:Crudites - they're 'crude' cos they make you break wind a lot, perhaps?!!

Sorry about that.
C.

Well, I'd be more inclined to blame the black beans from yesterday's breakfast.

O man, I'm starting to feel like I know all you people... a little too well

so I've noticed when I'm cooking, my hand goes to my mouth to taste/eat scraps. I've had to consciously stop myself a few times now. Weird how you don't notice these things.

so today.

Breakfast: small amount of yoghurt with half a banana. sauteed onion, green pepper, leftover shredded cooked chicken, salsa verde, put on a multigrain bagel and broiled with light havarti cheese

Lunch: fusilli pasta with chicken, spinach and zucchini. cara cara orange

Supper: (very large) mound of chicken ravioli with pesto. giant green salad with poppyseed dressing.

I'm going to try to cutdown on the meat and eat more meat substitutes. I was a vegetarian for 8 years and felt so much more energetic then.

I think today was a Success, even with the horking big dinner (I let myself get hungry.)

Sounds like a great day. Your meals sound so tasty. I hear you on the tasting while cooking thing. I do it all the time, particularly when baking.

Shade & Sweet Water!

thanks I think they actually sound better than they taste usually as I'm not much of a cook. I'm making an effort to stop ordering food with the No-S system.

I don't think I will count my saturday and sunday start as an official start, so *officially* today is Day 4.

so far:

Breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled with broccoli, pepper cheddar, green peppers, onions, salsa verde, 2 black bean tortillas, 1/4 glass of cranberry juice. -- I couldn't finish the tortillas... too much.

Lunch: (more) fusilli pasta with spinach, chicken, zucchini (getting kind of sick of it ), navel orange

Dinner: coming!

I've been trying to alternate an hour walk after work with half an hour on my stationary bike with some weights. I walk to work every day, about half an hour all told. Usually it's a really fast walk as I'm always running late.

"too much" is what happens when your stomach gets those long rest periods!

Good job thus far, and Saturday and Sunday SOOOO count as starting the habit, I've found gearing up for the week up deprivation is still in my habits... although I'm getting better about weekends.

Yogurt inside USA
Yoghurt outside USA...
I learn something every day.

You rock keep it up, saturday will have you feeling good!
Although some of the veterans run S from Friday night till sunday around 6, I recommend not starting until you awake saturday. I almost gave in one Friday and then I realized for me it would never stop, I would sneak it sooner and sooner until S days were close together....

You can do it!

thanks for the positive comments!

Dinner: I've not eaten it yet, but I bought (yeah, I know takeout) sushi. It's not so bad except one type has tempura shrimp and the other has tempura flakes, so, um greasyish.

I'm going to hop on the bike and unwind for a little bit. The sushi does fit on a plate. Despite the not-incredibly-healthy nature of dinner, I'm calling this day a Success!

bleh. the sushi was way too much, but I ate it all. I can't believe only a week ago I ordered that much sushi and had no problem with it. I was conscious of just how greasy the tempura flakes were, and I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually do. I think it will be sashimi next time, and less of it.

Try making your own calefornia rolls. Then you can put whatever healthy yummy veggie goodness in them that you like!

C.

Day 5 Success... too tired to type in the details. Thank goodness the S days are upon us.

So yesterday, Day 6, I had a healthy breakfast: eggsalad on a bagel with a banana. Then I went til late with no food while out looking for a bridesmaid dress. I got home super hungry and ordered chinese. While I did overeat, I didn't order a whole bunch of dishes, and I threw a bunch out. So not as bad as it used to be. And, it's an S day anyhow.

Today: Breakfast: leftover chicken ravioli. I'm eating some baked chilli lime nachos right now and contemplating a cheeseburger with a salad at my favourite corner diner.

I kinda went a little crazy on Sunday and finished those damn baked nachos PLUS had a turkey sandwich with thai noodle soup for dinner. OH well. I'm not too worried about it.

I picked out a bridesmaid dress size which arrives in one month which is about an inch and a half too tight around the waist. I'm gonna have to start thinking about maybe doing a little bit of crunches. Luckily the wedding itself isn't until the end of October, but we are talking spaghetti straps.

sounds like you had fun.

Thanks for stopping by. Yeah...a little TOO much "fun"! LOL Back on track today!

My dgtr was a bridesmaid just this past October......w/ spaghetti straps.......and had no problems. But, then again, the wedding wasn't held in Canada! lol However, Upper Michigan isn't all THAT far "south" of you, either! LOL

Have a GREAT N-day!

::

Day 7 and 8: Success

I'd call today, day 9, a success with some moderate fudging.

Moderate fudging is okay as long as it's not covered in hot fudge!

Good going Ceu!
Peace and Love,
Deb

gratefuldeb67 wrote:Moderate fudging is okay as long as it's not covered in hot fudge!

Good going Ceu!
Peace and Love,
Deb

nah, no hot fudge, but my cravings aren't usually sweets. I went for thai food and had a small bowl of green curry soup with rice, BUT I also had two rice rolls. The rice rolls were dipped in chilli sour sauce instead of the more calorific peanut sauce and they are simply wrapped in steamed rice wrappers, but it would be a pretty stacked plate.

today: success. I ate a large dinner. We ordered it as I'm too busy packing etc for tomorrow morning.

I'm off to LA for 5 days to visit with my sweetie. I'm trying to determine if these are strictly N days, or if I allow myself an extra S. I'll get back to you.

I say your sig other will understand the diet, and in exchange for the understanding, you can have unreasonable dinner with dessert on one of your N days, making it a kind of halfway S day.


Have fun!

Have fun in LA!

I'm sure any extra S's will be off-set by the extra "cardio"!

CEU...
You can only have the non sugar "S"
as an extra one!
LOL..

Have a nice time with your guy!
Peace and Love,
Deb

ok so for an N day on vacation, I did pretty well yesterday.

breakfast: the airport, surprisingly I ate an egg mcmuffin and a large orange. It could have been really unhealthy there.

lunch: sandwich, salad.

supper: two dealcoholized beer; chicken, garlic, onion on foccacia with really greasy fries which I left most of. Also, I fudged cuz I ordered a banana espresso smoothie. My boyfriend ate most of the whipped cream off the top, but yeah, I ate some of it.

failure. I think it was a pretty successful failure though.

OH, and I weighed myself. I've lost 5 pounds in the past two weeks. Granted most of that is likely water, but I'm not GAINING ANYMORE!! Yay, 215.

Hey! I think you did pretty darn well for being on vacation!

5 lbs! That's AWESOME!!! <insert cheerleading smilie here>

Keep up the good work!

::

Woo hoo!!!!!!!
Water shmawter!!!

You have gotten off to a great start Ceu!!!!
Congrats!!!
That's a nice way to start your weekend!
Yay!!!!!

Peace and Love,
Deb

Ok. So my S days went well. Then Monday morning I woke up with food poisoning and spent the day sick and puking. It's going to be a long while before I eat rare steak again. Needless to say it was saltines and jello most of monday.

yesterday I flew back from LA, and it would have been a success, but my lunch consisted of trail mix on the plane which had smartie-like things in them, ie. chocolate. So unfortunately a failure.

Oh, and I got engaged on Saturday.

Days when you get engaged are automatically SUCCESS

Congratulations

Oh, and I got engaged on Saturday.

Girl! Where are your priorities?! THAT statement should have been at the TOP of your post and in huge, HUGE letters!!!

Congratulations!!

details: I love rollercoasters, so he asked me on Space Mountain. *grin* The ride had just started up. I couldn't hear what he was saying. He repeated, I said: Yes, of course I will! He slipped a ring on my finger (which was too big and I was worried would go flying off into space) and said, "It's going to be an interesting ride." How can you tell he's a writer?

Anyhow, I spent the rest of the ride all goofy and mixed-up and happy. We got off the ride and looked at the photo, which turned out horrible, so we didn't buy it, but I think he chose the moment wonderfully. *dance*

oh wow!!! congrats... that made my heart flutter!!!!!
YAY!! congrats congrats!

Wow! Congratulations on your engagement. I sincerely wish you both a long and happy life together.


C.

Yesterday -- Day 1B -- Success and NO funny business.

I'm sticking to No-S during the day today, but I will likely deviate tonight as my mom's taking me out for dinner to celebrate my engagement. Is that technically a valid S? I think so. When my friend Daniel takes me out next week for same reason, I'm treating it as a N-day, so I don't think I'm fudging.

hee, sounds like some heavy rationalizing on my part. *grin*

Anyhow, I hope to take my ring in for resizing AND purchase a scale tonight. It's kinda silly that I can only weigh myself when I'm a) at the vet's (yes, last time I jumped on the vet scale when I took my guinea pigs in) or b) at my fiance's... 1500 miles away. I don't plan to weigh myself often, but it will probably help if I have a sense of progress.

I think its a valid S...

....unless you get engaged every week!

C.

Congratulations! What a great engagement story! It seems that you have the makings of a wonderful life together, lots of love and laughter!

M

Day 2 & 3: success!

yesterday was a bingey S-day. Today should be less so.

ceu wrote:yesterday was a bingey S-day. Today should be less so.

Hmmmm....me, too! Wonder if we can blame it on whatever phase the moon is in right now....or sun spots.....or some OTHER astro-thingie! LOL

Well I was no angel yesterday either. *sigh* Hopefully this week will be better.

That's the beauty of a new week, ceu -- we get a "clean slate".

I'm hoping that eventually the N-day "control" will spill over to the weekends, too. Now THAT would be huge!

Have a great day!

::

*meep*

adorable. I love rabbits. Actually I pretty much love the rodent family, particularly guinea pigs and capybara. What's a capybara you ask? It's a giant amazonian rodent, world's largest I think. It looks like a massive guinea pig.

So yesterday was a success. day 6 to be exact.

You're on a roll now - 6 days! WhooHoo!

I posted a reply to your comment in my check-in but wanted to come over here and say that you should hop on your new scale at least ONCE - just to give yourself a baseline - then it's all downhill from there (but in a GOOD way!)

Our oldest son had a hamster once.......he kept it in a 10-gal aquarium. The bloody thing kept trying to escape (guess it's in their nature).....at least until our cat (at that time) decided to start napping IN the aquarium WITH the hamster - !! Fortunately (for the hamster), the cat was not interested in eating it!

Have a GREAT day!

::

capybara:

Back before I went vegetarian...

I...

um...

ate that.

you ate a capybara?

Not like, an entire capybara.

But yes.

Crunches? That might *build* ab muscles tho! Make sure you counter with back exercises.

I recommend running or DDR along with the crunches, both will tone your abs (and legs of course) and give you a lot of cardio. At least medium impact, because then your abs are working to stabilize you...

For spaghetti straps, I recommend pushups, they will add that nice "line" to your arms pretty quickly, and you don't have to do full ones, which having more weight behind them have more chance of bulking you up. (I still can't do more than 6 regular ones but my arms are getting pretty good).

I recommend either pushups from the knee (keep your back/butt/legs in a Straight Line just like regular pushups...) or pushups on a counter (bathroom sink works great for me, and it doesn't wiggle).

Wait - spaghetti straps.. in October... in Canada!!???? Brrr!

OMG i just saw your capybara picture. The babies are so cute!!!

But so good at hiding in the mud along the riverbanks.

yeah capybara are one of my favourite animals.

So yesterday was a success.

I got some unhappy news this morning. My fiance's dad (who was ill for awhile) passed away at 2 am. I wish I were nearer my fiance to hug him and help him out.

A little behind, but I just saw the engagement news!!!! Wonderful!!!!!

How awesome and special! Happiness and love to you.

oh and in happier news, yesterday was my first successful uninterrupted week of No-S. Yay me!

yesterday was a success. I made a giant pot of irish stew and portioned it out into lunch sized portions. I had some today. It's pretty good, although I dropped half of lunch on the floor (I'm gonna be hungry by dinner :/)

I think I'm starting day 9 today.

Oh, and I weighed myself. I lost another pound, so 6 pounds since the beginning of March.

I want you to make my breakfasts!! Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and most of the time I am in such a hurry, I repeat and repeat ad nauseum. Yours sound delicious! Do you use the black bean tortillas to wrap up the rest of the stuff or just eat them together?

You sound like you are doing great. Enjoy the S day treats. They keep me going from Thursday on. This week I am dreaming about pumpkin bread that is in my freezer and circus peanuts. I have been thinking about them all week. I will have to buy a small bag because I won't be able to stop if I buy a large one. Want to see V for Vendetta again this weekend and circus peanuts will make it even better. Love those weekends.

Day 9 was a success.

breakfast: shredded chicken, mixed salad greens, chipotle salsa, black beans, grated low-fat cheddar in a black bean tortilla. glass of milk.

lunch: half a bowl of irish stew with potatoes and carrots. baby carrots and grape tomatoes with low-fat ranch dressing for dip.

supper: sushi: tempura shrimp. bakudan roll. garden vegetable roll. shitake mushroom roll. decaf green tea.

counting the hours til the weekend. Sad, eh?

well, I think I have to learn to rein my weekends in. I'll get there slowly.

so starts day 12.

day 12: success

day 13 and 14 success

Yay Ceu!!!!
Rock on with your successful week!!!
Peace and Love,
Deb

Yeah, now that summer is threatening to hit the Great White North, even folks out in Winnipeg can make more a habit of getting out in the evenings for a walk or something instead of staying cooped up in the living room with a bowl full of ice cream or chips or something.

God bless Daylight Savings Time. Much better than the spring equinox.

good for you céu!

Thanks

Day 16: success

er also day 15.

day 17: I'd be fudging if I called it a success, my dinner would have been pretty piled on a plate.

Stuff happens

You'll do better every week, less fudged days, etc.

That's right.

Less fudged days, and less fudge days.

thank you for the support.

I started birth control pills on Friday, and I've noticed MAJOR water retention. Meh. I'm feeling bloated.

In other news, I've noticed I'm no longer ravenously hungry all the time. My appetite has diminished considerably since I started No-S. I'm also noticing I'm full a lot sooner.

We've finalized a date for the wedding: November 11th in Kauai. My matrimonial leave has been booked, and I have over two weeks for a lovely romantic honeymoon. Yay! Hopefully I won't be bloated by then.

I'm going to start over counting.... again. So Saturday would have been Day 1. Day 1-Day 3: success

I'm with you on that 'full' thing.

Though I'm sometimes ravenous as a bear coming out of hibernation in the spring just before meal time, a sensible-sized meal is all that I need to fill myself up comfortably.

Congrats on the impending nuptials!!

day 4 success.

Lots of congratulations go out to you!!! Congrats on the wedding plans and all those No S successes! You are a rising star.

You are also so right about the appetite thing. For the first time in my life I am finding out that when I feel like I am starving and that I will never make it to supper, if I just give it a minute or two, I sometimes can do another hour. I do have to learn how to not devour dinner. It seems like my plate goes from full to empty in about 30 seconds. I ought to at least draw a breath in there somewhere. Haha.

Congratulations on all your successes (and engagement) thus far! No-S really does work!

I just got back from a week or so, visiting with my fiance in Portland and LA. I'd say I stuck to No S about 70% of the time. Unfortunately I ate a bunch of fried stuff, and my clothes feel snug again. Meh. I'm too scared to weigh myself.

On a positive note, I didn't binge binge like I used to. Also, a few times I made healthier food choices over unhealthier ones, sharing a fajita platter with my sweetie (MORE than enough food) instead of getting two, for example. There seemed to be an awful lot of corn chips consumed last week though. *sigh*

We did do a fair amount of walking. He got a splitter for headphones for his ipod, and we both plugged in and walked up a storm. That was fun.

Ok, so essentially I'm chastened and back. Wish me luck.

Day 1 begins for the fourth time.

You can get right back on track girl!!!
Go for it!
Congrats for not really going too wild (at least with your food!) on your visit to you sweetie

Peace and Love,
Deb

ok, so tuesday was an unqualified failure. It started off ok, but when I went out for thai food, I had a LARGE soup (like a two person soup) and these veggie rice rolls. Then, I went home and had one of the stuffed chicken wings I'd brought home for my mom, which then lead to eating two bran fibre biscuits, bran fibre biscuits of sin I say.

Today went a little better. I had healthy meals AND I managed to clear a bunch of leftovers out. I got home really hungry and was going to work out on the bike, but instead I sat down and ate. Later on I actually managed to get myself on the bike. Yay me.

So today Day 1 (again) was a Success!

I've sorta fallen off the official keeping track thing. I am sticking to No-S about 95% of the time. I've been trying to eat better food, although I confess french fries, pastries and potato chips have figured recently.

good news though. I weighed myself yesterday, and I'm down two more pounds in the past month. It seems I'm losing 0.5-1 a week. That puts me at 8 lbs lost since the beginning of March. I can fit back into the pants which were too tight on me.

Only another 62 pounds to go.

My wife wants to get a bathroom scale so we can keep our boys' weight measured. The side benefit for me is that I'll be able to check in on myself too. I haven't weighed myself since starting this No-S deal last month and am curious to see what sort of progress I've made.

I figure, from the beginning, I had about 25 pounds I wanted to shed or replace with sexy toned muscle. If I can be most of the weigh, err, way there by the end of the year, I'll be a happy camper.

Keep checkin' in; it sure helps keep one mindful.

Hi Sime!
I'm sure you are plenty sexy enough already!
Watchout Wifey, it's gonna get better! LOL....

Anyway... At the risk of being like a NoS broken record, since I've made this point countless times, if you are trying to replace fat tissue with muscle tissue, then expect to have some weird and maybe frustrating discrepancies when you step on the scale...

Years ago I had less muscle under my fat and when I lost weight just through diet and some aerobic activity, like some jogging and some home stretching 34" waist would have translated as about 170 lbs...
At the moment, I have a 36.5 inch waist, but I am 206 lbs... If I go down another few inches, I'm certain that my weight will still be semi high...
Probably like 185 or even 190...
I'm sure it's because I've increased my muscle mass over the last year and a half through yoga and shovelglove... Muscle is 3 times as dense as fat and that will skew your readouts.. Shovelglove is extremely good at laying down muscle tissue...

I strongly encourage you, besides weighing on the scale alone, you take some tapemeasurements as well and update them every month or so... If you only lose two or three pounds but that translates as one inch down, you will be more encouraged as opposed to bummed out when you see that scale readout..

Good luck getting ripped!
Peace and Love,
Deb