I am new and not yet convinced this is the way

Marjolein · Post by **Marjolein** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 10:56 pm

Hi,

I am Marjolein. I am Dutch and live in Germany, so forgive me my bad English. I read about the No S diet today and it sounds very logical to me.

I am very heavy (240 lbs) and as most fat people on a diet almost all my life. Which ofcourse made me as fat as I am right now.

I went to WW last year March. I go to every meeting and have gained another 20 pounds since then.

I have a digestive disease. One of the symptoms is that I get a stomach ache when I don't eat for a longer period of time.

So, I was wondering. Wouldn't it be possible to take in stead of 3 (bigger) meals a day, 6 half meals a day? Or would that ruin the whole idea of the No S diet.

I would be gratefull for your thoughts on this.

If you guys think it is possible I will order the book on Amazon.de. But if you guys think it isn't I won't bother and struggle on with WW or the SCdiet, or Atkins or one of the many, many other diets I have followed in the past.

Kathleen · Post by **Kathleen** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:12 pm

Do you know why you get a stomach ache? Is there a medical reason that has been diagnosed?
Kathleen

Marjolein · Post by **Marjolein** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:14 pm

Hi,

Yes there is. It is quite common with people who suffer from Celiac desease. I can do without food for about 3 hours and then it really starts to hurt.

Marjolein

Kathleen · Post by **Kathleen** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:52 pm

The author explicitly says that you determine the number of meals and then stick with it. What I see is that the basic philosophy is to have two days per week that are set for no rules about eating (Saturday and Sunday), and then you have some weekdays that have no rules about eating (Special Days) and then you have rules that you follow (limited number of times for eating so no snacks, and then no sweets, and then no seconds). It seems as though people do make modifications to this diet to suit their needs. The guy who just posted his pictures on the success story category said he followed no starches on N Days.

What I see is that following rules on N Days dampens down your consumption of food on S Days, and you don't feel like you are starving all the time as people do who go on diets that have constant food restrictions (Atkins -- constant restriction of certain types of foods; WW - constant restriction of amounts of foods). It is the contant restriction that evenually leads to rebound eating like Oprah has experienced.

I hope this helps. I've been on Atkins and Scarsdale and WW and many others, including several others I developed myself. The results were always the same: weight loss followed by weight gain. With this diet, the rebound eating is scheduled for the weekends, but you can't gain as much on the weekend as you lost during the week. Your body eventually adjusts to less food. It takes a long, long, long time. I've lost 10 pounds since September. I have a lot of weight to lose -- about 75 more pounds -- but I am very confident that I will not regain those 10 pounds and will continue to lose weight slowly.

Kathleen

howfunisthat · Post by **howfunisthat** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:59 pm

Marjolein,

First of all, your English is wonderful. If we had to converse in German, we wouldn't get passed "Es tut mir leid, dass ich viel Deutscher nicht spreche!"

I'm so sorry you're not only struggling with your weight, but struggling with needing to eat often due to the pain you experience. I can't imagine this plan not being able to work for you. It's not a diet, but a return to just plain healthy eating and in the process, it helps take so much of the stress of eating away.

I agree with everything Kathleen wrote and I think I'll send a message to Reinhard and perhaps he can give us his thoughts on what you could try. Don't give up. I'm sure there's a solution for you!

janie

BrightAngel · Post by **BrightAngel** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:35 pm

Kathleen wrote:The basic philosophy is to have two days per week that are set for no rules about eating (Saturday and Sunday),
and then you have some weekdays that have no rules about eating (Special Days)
and then you have rules that you follow (limited number of times for eating so no snacks, and then no sweets, and then no seconds).
It seems as though people do make modifications to this diet to suit their needs.
The guy who just posted his pictures on the success story category said he followed no starches on N Days.

What I see is that following rules on N Days dampens down your consumption of food on S Days,
and you don't feel like you are starving all the time as people do who go on diets that have constant food restrictions (Atkins -- constant restriction of certain types of foods; WW - constant restriction of amounts of foods).

I think this is a good interpetation of No S principals.

Marjolein · Post by **Marjolein** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:22 pm

Thank you for yout kind words and thoughts.
I think I will do the next:

If a plate of food is as much as you can fit in your two hands (when you make a cup out of them). I will eat on non S-Days 6x 0.5 plate a day instead of 3 x 1.

If you guys think this could work, I will order the book at amazon.de and start tomorrow with 1 Non S day. I think I will manage a non S day very well

Marjolein

MrsPartridge · Post by **MrsPartridge** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 8:59 pm

You say you can't go more than 3 hours without eating. Do you go through the night without eating? I wonder if something is different in the body at night that allows us to sleep without needing to eat often.

Marjolein · Post by **Marjolein** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:09 pm

Yes, I get through the night without eating. But because of that I feel real sick in the morning and have stomach aches and start my days most of the times by throwing up.

I think that we aren't designed to eat at night and our bodies don't crave for food then.

Marjolein

Marjolein · Post by **Marjolein** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 9:31 pm

Hurray,

I just found this on the first page of this website:

I love the No S Diet, but my doctor says I need to eat 4/5/6 meals a day because of my medical condition!
The No S Diet has a little known loophole just for you. If you look closely at the site, you'll notice that nowhere does it specify the actual *number* of meals. Now most people will make a certain assumption, and most people had better stick with that assumption. But if you have a medical condition that requires you to eat more often, you can still do so and be a proud No S dieter. Just make sure to figure out what number of meals is right for you, stick with it (no changing the magic number every day), and invest in some really small plates. And talk to your doctor, of course. As for the rest of you, pretend you never read this. It's for people with doctor's notes only.

So, I have decided that tomorrow will be my first official N-Day.

No-S-Diet here I come!!!!!!!!!!

Marjolein

Betty · Post by **Betty** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:57 pm

Marjolein,

Welkom! I have also modified No S to include a snack between breakfast and lunch, with the stipulation that the snack is always the same. 1 boterham en 1 stukje fruit (1/2 sandwitch and a small piece of fruit for the non-dutch speakers!).

You could go with the traditional dutch sandwitch every 3 hours and then have a full plate dinner-- just an idea.

Good Luck,
Betty

Post by **reinhard** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 3:04 pm

Marjolein,

Welcome!

While I certainly do THINK no-s can be adapted to your situation, you should definitely run it by your doctor. I'm not remotely qualified to advise you on the subject of celiac disease (or any other medical condition).

There are two mods/adaptations/interpretations that you might want to consider (and run by your doctor).

The first is the one you've already mentioned: more (but smaller) meals. I think the key to making this work is to add some clear parameters about what those extra meals should look like. For example, perhaps 3 or 4 of your six meals have to fit on a very small plate (quantifying "very small" might be helpful). Or 3 or 4 of your six meals have to come from a more limited repetoire of choices: say fresh fruit and vegetables and or wasa bread or something.

The other mod is to consider some specific, limited kind of food to be a "non-food" for the purposes of no-s. "Too solid flesh" has reported fantastic success doing this with cottage cheese. This might actually turn out to be a simpler, more easily implemented solution, because there's less head scratching about how big each plate should be every meal -- the rules about meals stay the same. The "non-food" should be both reasonably healthful and somewhat monotonous -- you shouldn't hate the stuff, but it should be something you're unlikely to relish so much that you gorge yourself on it, or compensate for by removing a whole class of healthy, bulky foods from an actual meal (for example, if all fresh fruit and vegetables are your "non food," you might soon find them disappearing from your meals).

Best of luck whatever you decide!

Reinhard

Marjolein · Post by **Marjolein** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 7:56 am

Thank you Reinhard.
I started yesterday and I feel fine. So no worries here. I am certainly giving this at least a 21 day change.

Also thank you for the plan. It is something we all know allready, but when someone writes it down, it becomes a plan we can follow.

Marjolein

anwen · Post by **anwen** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:14 am

Hi, hope the modification works for you

I'm afraid I don't speak much Dutch, but I know enough to be able to tell if someone's speaking Dutch rather than German if I overhear a conversation.

Marjolein · Post by **Marjolein** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:29 am

Thank you Anwen. Then your Dutch is much better then that of most people. Where did you learn that?

Are you Dutch Betty?

I want to thank all of you for your thoughts, comments and attention. It means a lot to me.

Marjolein

anwen · Post by **anwen** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:38 am

My Dad learned Dutch at an evening course, and we went to Belgium and Holland a few times on holiday, I've always been interested in languages and learned German, French and Italian at school, so my dad pointed out some differences between German and Dutch, as it's nice to be able to avoid the common mistake of saying to someone "oh, are you German?"

I can read a little as well, though my German's pretty rusty now, so it's probably actually at a similar level to my Dutch!

Everyday Systems

I am new and not yet convinced this is the way

I am new and not yet convinced this is the way

No S Principals

what about sleeping?