Thanks, y’all for the helpful suggestions; I’ll check out the recommended books.
Oolala,
the IE bit didn’t work for me either. I tried it for about 5 years, and I remember at some point losing and gaining back the same 20 pounds three different times. Looking back at that totally frustrating time, I can summa summarum say that the sweets were the culprits. At NoS you learn how to slowly deal with sweets, at IE you don’t. At the latter, sweets & co. are constantly dangled in front of you. After all, you’re allowed to have them, so why not keep 'em as staples?!
oolala53 wrote:...most of my friends know about No S and I don't want them thinking there's a chance I'll decide on an individual basis, if I say yes once...
Consistency with friends – insightful; this in turn helps you to stay compliant at future get togethers.
oolala53 wrote:I suggest as a kind of training wheel exercise that you go one month with having sweets in the house only on Fridays, holding out until the S days to eat them. Then you might experiment with Thursday and Friday, working up to the whole week. Give yourself time to wean yourself off having to keep them out of the house. If it takes a few months, so what?
If you fail, you can always have the option of ousting sweets for another month and trying again later, or keeping them and chancing it...
This strategy has written my name on it; I’ll definitely start implementing it in 2-3 months.
oolala53 wrote:I think the French kept hardly any food in the house, never mind sweets. They shopped daily, had small fridges, few cabinets, and cooked to avoid leftovers. What we would call dessert they had once a week and bought only enough on the day of the event for everyone to have one serving.
I was brought up in Germany. We had one of those small fridges but had plenty of storage space in a separate room and the cellar. My mother usually baked 1-2 cakes for the weekend; friends often visited Sundays. During the week we didn’t have dessert. I remember that it was common in some households to throw away leftover cake Sunday night. Unthinkable in my later life...
oolala53 wrote:...The weather has been very hot and I was having a "that would be a good idea" thoughts. At the same time as "this is a bad idea." I even got to the door of the freezer, but had to admit to myself I would end up eating half the carton if I took it home. I bought fruit and left. I'll save ice cream-- for now- to share with others.
I like the way you handled this prickly situation, your choice of thoughts. My challenge would’ve been, “I need to buy this for my poor DH who is so deprived because he can’t have any sweets i.t. house,†then I'd buy the ice cream and end up eating ¾ of it. Well, that was last year. Today I’d say, “we can get something special this weekend.â€
bonnieUK wrote:...Occasionally, DH and I buy an apple pie to share, but that means I eat 1 piece and he eats 3 LOL He much taller/larger than me so can get away with the extra calories. Plus, when we do that, he usually has his 3 pieces of pie instead of a meal LOL.
You made me laugh. You buy a pie and he eats most of it? My husband is also taller/broader than me and can eat more without gaining. Can you go to a different room, house, part of town when he inhales the pie? It would be hard for me to watch DH eating this amount of sweets.
SpiritSong wrote:...my mom gave me a box of orange chocolate candy for Easter. I gave it to my husband to hide and asked him to only bring it out on S-Days. That box of chocolates lasted a loooooooooong time.
I used to ask my husband now and then to hide sweets; it didn't work so well in our household because I have a “nose†for where the candy is. It would go well for a week or two, but then I would feel “emotionally challenged†one day and get the candy, LOL. It could've happened..and it did.
Jethro wrote:
Since everyone in my household is slim - except me - I had to allow sweets. I couldn't deprive my loved ones from their joy.
How did it affect me? It took me a year to not succumb to temptation on N days.
That’s my problem too. DH is slim and eats sweets in small amounts...can stop eating the most delicious dessert when full.
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
Well, I’m glad he’s slim and can stop...
I don’t want to deprive him of an occasional sweet. However, he understands my problem and is more than willing to keep the sweets out. I have a lot of weight to lose and can't afford to experiment.
osoniye wrote:
...While it is very, very hard to pass them by in the supermarket, it is MUCH easier to roll past them there, than it is to keep walking every time I pass my pantry...
This is so true. I want to keep this in mind when I hit the supermarket. Besides, it could be helpful to have someone go shopping with me, when I need a little extra strength that day, LOL.
It has been real fun reading this post! Thanks again for each and every post, comment, and tip. Overall you confirmed what I suspected with trembling: Get and keep out what ails ya.
For now I decided to keep the sweets out of the house on N-days and S-days (mostly), for 2-3 months. Then I’ll try to slowly add them week by week as Oolala suggests. If it gets harder again to stay compliant, I’ll take a step back. I am reminded of Reinhard’s suggestion of the "fence around the law.†To me, keeping the sweets out is also part of that fence; it needs to be upheld carefully.
Oh, and this week has been green so far.
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Hedster