snacking

No Snacks, no sweets, no seconds. Except on Days that start with S. Too simple for you? Simple is why it works. Look here for questions, introductions, support, success stories.

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Jen
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Aug 27, 2017 1:44 pm
Location: Michigan

snacking

Post by Jen » Mon Sep 18, 2017 1:28 pm

I'm still really struggling with not snacking. It seems like all I'm doing is thinking about food. When will that go away, and when will I not be hungry between meals. I'm eating enought, but still...the snacking...

Jen
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Aug 27, 2017 1:44 pm
Location: Michigan

Sweets

Post by Jen » Mon Sep 18, 2017 1:34 pm

I was eating Nutella with a spoon because I was craving sweets so much...Is that norma;l???

Teach5
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2017 7:29 pm

Post by Teach5 » Mon Sep 18, 2017 3:11 pm

I don't have an answer because I have the same problem. I am looking forward to the replies.

mitchelll
Posts: 126
Joined: Mon May 05, 2014 12:45 pm

Post by mitchelll » Mon Sep 18, 2017 3:58 pm

Snacking is my personal NoS beast, so I feel your pain. Here's my experience.

I found the first week to be hell. I didn't even think I snacked that much, but I was wrong. I constantly found myself in the kitchen looking for "just a bite." I just had to plow through it, focusing on my goals of weightloss and normalizing my relationship with food.

By the end of the second week, it wasn't nearly as painful, and by about 6 weeks, not snacking felt like normal.

Tricks I used to help fight the snacking urge:

1. Hot tea and coffee. I would put milk in the coffee for my afternoon pick me up.

2. Identified my snacking danger times and adjusted my meal times. I can crush the urge for a pre-lunch snack, and I, luckily, never got into the habit of late night snacking. But come afternoon, around 3, and I wanted to eat from 3 to dinner time. I often found myself eating cheese and crackers (my favorite snack) while cooking dinner, telling myself it was a first course/appetizer.

I have a flexible schedule, so I started pushing breakfast and lunch back, sometimes not eating lunch until 2. We have no kids, and my husband is fine with an early dinner, so sometimes I'll start it as early as 5. After dinner, hot tea will usually dispell any snacking urges, and I'm usually in bed pretty early.

3. I don't keep my trigger snack foods in the house.

4. I will, if junk food is calling me, like potato chips, include a serving with meals. Or have my beloved cheese and crackers as my evening meal, completing it with fruit or salad. Sometimes it's the snack food I want, not the snack at a certain time.

5. I am conscious of not overdoing the snacking on weekends. Weekends, meal wise, are a little different, because I usually only do two meals on Saturday and Sunday--a later, bigger breakfast, and an earlier dinner. So snacking usually occurs, but I try to keep it to one or two small ones per day. I find it hard to snap back on Monday, if I grazed all day long on Saturday and Sunday. I found it, in the long run, not worth.

If I remember any more tips, I'll post them. And for the record, I know the struggle. I fell off the No-Snack wagon this spring, have the 10 or so extra pounds to prove it, and am feeling the pain of going back to no snacks.

LifeisaBlessing
Posts: 337
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2016 1:08 pm

Re: snacking

Post by LifeisaBlessing » Mon Sep 18, 2017 5:50 pm

Jen wrote:It seems like all I'm doing is thinking about food. When will that go away, and when will I not be hungry between meals.
I agree with many of the strategies that mitchelll described above, specifically the ones about not keeping trigger foods in the house, or alternately, just including them as part of your meals. My modified NoS approach is to have three meals of any food, seven days a week. I don't really take "S" days since I can have treats/snacks/sweets with any of my meals. This mod has led to my success of staying very lean for my height, and maintaining it for over a year and a half.

Another tip that is very old school but that I found works for me is to brush and floss my teeth immediately following dinner. That usually puts a stop to any late night snacking.

But the fact of the matter is, you may never completely get rid of random days when you're not consistently thinking about food, or not getting hungry between meals. There are still MANY days like that for me, so I've just learned to deal with them as they happen, not fight them, and know that they will eventually pass. I will try to get busy with something else, specifically NOT dealing with anything food-related. Days when I'm keeping the busiest are usually ones where thoughts of food or hunger take a back seat simply because I don't have time to dwell on them.
I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
~Jimmy Dean

The second you overcomplicate it is the second it becomes the thing for which it is a corrective.
~El Fug, on the NoS Diet

Larkspur
Posts: 438
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2017 3:30 pm
Location: Pennsylvania

Post by Larkspur » Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:37 pm

It got much, much better for me after a few weeks. I do use seltzer and juice or a milky coffee if I'm really having difficulties. My theory is that your body is primed to produce insulin at certain times. If you train it to understand that you don't need that insulin at say 3:30, you won't get the same hunger. Once you get used to it, it's so much nicer not to be always wanting food.

eam531
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Jun 08, 2014 9:17 pm
Location: Buffalo, NY

Re: snacking

Post by eam531 » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:59 am

Jen wrote:I'm still really struggling with not snacking. It seems like all I'm doing is thinking about food. When will that go away, and when will I not be hungry between meals. I'm eating enought, but still...the snacking...
It's normal to be hungry between meals. Seriously. "Hunger is the best sauce", the saying goes. In other words--you enjoy your food more when you are hungry. It is only in the past 30-40 years in this country (USA) that 24/7 access to food and permasnacking became normalized.

Eat enough at each meal to keep you going until the next one. For me, this means that about an hour before a meal, I'm pretty hungry and very much look forward to my next meal.

Water is your friend. Keep hydrated. Thirst is often confused with hunger.

I concur with the advice to get rid of any trigger foods.

Jen
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Aug 27, 2017 1:44 pm
Location: Michigan

Post by Jen » Tue Sep 19, 2017 1:32 pm

Thank you all for great ideas. I like the mod S where you can have a sweet as long as it's part of your meal. I feel like this would help lessen my black and white thinking. Also, I apparently need to get rid of Nutella and cereal bc those are the two things that make me eat and eat and eat.

I also like the idea of just going along with my hunger instead of fighting it, which is of course, what I do!!!

Thank you for great ideas and support!

Teach5
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2017 7:29 pm

Post by Teach5 » Tue Sep 19, 2017 3:40 pm

I like the idea of having sweets with meals too.

Diligence
Posts: 80
Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2013 6:09 pm

Post by Diligence » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:28 pm

I would like to caution against sweets with meals, especially for those new to No-S and those for whom sweets are a trigger.

In the past, I have tried to tell myself that it was okay to have sweets as long as it was part of the meal; but, it really wasn't. I was still enslaved to my sweet tooth and looked forward to meals for the sake of getting that sweet. I felt so self-disciplined in waiting for the meal. There have even been numerous times where I made my entire meal just a sweet or sweets--feeling good with that because that was my meal, not a regular meal plus sweets. Again, this did not help my relationship with eating or with sweets. It also didn't help me desire the right foods--the ones that will truly nourish and support my body. Frankly, the best foods I've found for that (for me) are vegetables. If I don't eat vegetables during my meals, I know my eating habits are liable to go south. Personally, without vegetables, I no longer crave good-for-you foods and gravitate toward junk.

Taming your taste buds and reordering your habits is difficult. A unsweetened, non-caloric beverage, such as tea, coffee, or water, might help get past the snacking hump; but, in reality, it's your willpower, determination, motivation, and self-discipline that will put feet to your goals and bring them to fruition. You can do this. It will be hard, but you can succeed and create a sustainable way of eating with food its proper place.

oolala53
Posts: 10059
Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2008 1:46 am
Location: San Diego, CA USA

Post by oolala53 » Tue Sep 19, 2017 9:13 pm

Struggling with snacking is probably just jonesing. Yes, eating Nutella from a spoon is normal for someone trying to break the overeating habit. You're going through withdrawal of the habit. It's up to you if you want to just tough it out or wean yourself off them. I never found that giving myself permission to have them ever dulled the allure, no matter what the IE people say.

I agree with Lifesablessing. I can still have some afternoons where I can hardly think about anything else but a box of Triscuits (an improvement from a half a pound of chocolate). It was the time I used to start the compulsive sweet eating that would last the rest of the day and evening. Something about some combination of things will just kick in. Oh, well. Some days, some people have headaches or whatever. You either put up with it sometimes or probably overdo it forever.

I know we have some people succeed with a small sweet a day, but I still say it's risky territory for previous overdoers. Their brains can be so sensitive to sweet; there's some benefit to going several days without playing the pinball machine. Now, there's no guarantee that it will suddenly be easy after that. That pull varies in its strength with different people. And no one can predict anything about this or weight loss or any other reaction with complete accuracy.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)

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