No S "mods" (add yours!)

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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bonnieUK
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No S "mods" (add yours!)

Post by bonnieUK » Wed Jan 02, 2008 11:08 am

Hi everyone!

Just catching up, and I saw that Reinhard had asked "keep the "mods" coming, everybody" in a recent post.

I guess we all have to modify to some degree to suit our lifestyles and food choices etc. I'm curious as to how others have modified the No S rules to suit them?

For me, I follow No S with the following mods:

Friday evening is (usually) an "S evening" for me - a bit naughty I know!

Saturday during the day is normal "N mode" which fits in with what I do during the day, usually working on something in the home or spending the day out with my husband (in which case we'll take a light & healthy lunch with us). The evening is another "S evening" - this starts when I have finished my day's activities, same as Friday.

Sunday is my general day off for all habits and systems (apart from absolute essentials) which is good because it means if I do something on Sunday (e.g. clean and de-clutter a room, work on a project, get some exercise) it's because I want to rather than because I have to.

This works for me, I don't really do snacks and sweets even on S days, so when I'm in "S mode" it basically means I can have seconds if I want to and/or have a healthy dessert if I fancy it.

On N days I also allow myself some fresh fruit as a dessert at meal times but only if I really want something sweet. I will also allow a very small mid-morning snack such as 1-2 wholegrain crackers if I feel light-headed from not having enough breakfast - doesn't happen often but it's good to allow myself this mod so I don't feel like a failure for eating a cracker!

Hopefully I'm not on too much of a slippery slope with my mods. I'm generally sticking to the rules and gradually loosing excess weight (which isn't actually that much) so it must be working :)

Happy new year everyone!

zhenxiao
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My Modifications to the No S Diet

Post by zhenxiao » Wed Jan 02, 2008 1:52 pm

Sounds like you are doing good there with your food lifestyle. I too have modified the "diet" to fit into my own lifestyle. However, it's not necessarily the diet that I've modified so much, it's the foods I eat.

I keep the rules of No S in place, but because I exercise so often, I have to eat a bit more often. I take about 5 meals a day, not too heavy, just enough to get me through till the next meal. So I've changed the "diet" to suit this. I take no snacks in between meal times, and I take no sweets. I've also planned my meals out, so that I take no seconds as well.

As for the foods, I generally have either cereal with milk or some whole grain toast with peanut butter in the . This is mostly for the carbs. I seem to work better when I start out the day with some carbs, but there are other reasons I take carbs in the morning (bad breath from ketosis is another reason..ha ha ha ha!). But from there, it all changes.

For the before-lunch meal, I take foods heavy in protein: Tuna, eggs, lean chicken/beef/, some pork, etc.

For lunch: again, high protein foods, and take some milk.

For before-dinner meal: Generally, it's a hardboiled egg, although there are times my body feels like an apple or an orange. Again, just a few carbs for a balancing sake.

For dinner, it's usually porkshops, lean beef, fish, or chicken. No vegies though..no carbs before bedtime..ha ha!

Weekends are the carb loading days, but I find it easy to stick to the No S. It's working well in my life, and I'm glad I stumbled onto it.

I'll be doing the above eating pattern for about 2 weeks, then evaluate how it's working. If it's working, I will take a week off and eat more balanced meals, and possibly try it again.

So far, in the last month, I've taken an inch and a half off my waist. I don't go by weight. I find that I am much more motivated when it comes to inches and watching the notches in my belt. It's a fantastic feeling to tighten the belt one more notch!!

Anyhoo, not really a lot of changes. No S is easy to work with, and I try to keep it as simple as I can. Isn't that what the No S is all about? ha ha!

Cheers,
Joe

Dorothy
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Two smaller lunches

Post by Dorothy » Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:18 pm

I eat breakfast every day around 7:30AM and dinner every evening around 6PM. (We care for an elderly person, so we're on a pretty fixed schedule!)

I allow two smaller lunches -- usually around 11-11:30ish and 2:30ish. Some days I miss one of those because I'm not hungry - but I always allow for them. And around bedtime, I take my vitamins with half a cup of kefir (yogurt) because I need the probiotics.

Seconds are not a real problem for me, and my sweet tooth is quite manageable. What kills me is snacks - I work at home and it is just way too easy to grab food on my many trips through the kitchen during the day.

I'm using HabitCal. I've made one mod there as well... I leave the "S" days blank, and use Red for failure, Green for success - and Yellow for near misses. For example - last week we ordered out for Chinese. I completely forgot about the "no seconds" rule when I prepared my plate. So I did have seconds -- technically a "failure" day - but it was a reasonable size meal, and I felt fine about it. So that day would have been yellow. Same if I was *really* hungry and had a piece of fruit or some raw veggies.... technically a failure, but I would feel fine about it, and willing to count that as a "near miss." On the other hand, if I were to grab a handful of nuts between meals... nope, that's red. Or have a third piece of pizza - - nope, red. I would love a way to add a note on *why* the day was a failure or a near miss -- but those notes will be in my daily reports, and the handy HabitCal will remain delightfully simple. 'm also using the HabitCal to track exercise - I think that will help the most.

Dorothy
Last edited by Dorothy on Thu Jan 03, 2008 1:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

kccc
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Post by kccc » Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:08 pm

I generally modify with the "plate quadrants" rule or the "at least 2 fruits/veg" rule. That's just for nutrition, and because it works for me. Those are not "hard" rules as much as routines (which I consider softer-edged - more like guidelines or suggestions than laws).

I'm also thinking about "NoS@home" and "NoS@work" right now. NoS@work I've about got down - that's my normal routine. NoS@home is dicier. I'm currently working on that, by trying to transfer work habits. The big ones that seem to make a difference are (1) planned meals and (2) lots to drink.

Also, my S-days (which always fall at home) have been full of perma-snacking, which I'm currently addressing. But very gently - I think the freedom of S-days is important, and don't want to lose that feeling of flexibility and choice.

My weight has been stable for some time, and I'm within healthy BMI. However, I would really like to lose about 5 more to be at the weight I used to be. I think dropping the perma-snacking on weekends would do it.

wosnes
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Post by wosnes » Wed Jan 02, 2008 4:24 pm

Work was always harder for me than home -- more temptation. Home has always been easy

I start my "S" days on Friday evening and it ends about the same time Sunday evening. It fits my life better.
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

WinstonWolf
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Post by WinstonWolf » Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:58 pm

I generally don't snack, although we have Fiber One bars, I usually have at least one a day at a meal or otherwise.

I often have a "mini-meal" mid-afternoon at work, though, say an apple or banana and 7-10 almonds.

Seconds aren't generally a problem for me either - although the portions at my workplace are ginormous, and I probably need to do more half-portion requests. At home, I'm getting pretty good at gauging "one plate" and stopping.

Sweets... well... I have one major exception, which is for chocolate. I'll have, generally every day, 1 square of chocolate (good, dark chocolate, reasonable sized square), or 4 chocolate almonds. I don't consider those failures, though, because I'm not in the habit of eating entire chocolate bars. That, I'd consider failure.

I usually consider Friday evening through Sunday S-days. Often I'll treat Sunday as an n-day, but be flexible about it.

Really, the major eating change I've made is no desserts at work, Monday through Friday, and that's stuck with only a few exceptions since August. Also, I usually don't have cake or such at work, and can just ignore any baked goods, etc that people bring in.

Of course, we had relatives over for the past two weeks, and all of it went out the window, but I'll get back in gear for the next month and see what that gets me.

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apple
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Post by apple » Thu Jan 03, 2008 8:30 am

I always have a mini-meal in the afternoon (rye bread with cheese and a small piece of fruit, or something like that), especially if I go from work to the gym and have dinner later than normal.

Also, I have a small breakfast because that takes less time, so I regularly eat an apple mid-morning. But that is neither a meal nor a snack.

And sometimes I eat something small before I go to bed, like a piece of cheese, so that I do not wake up hungry (I have dinner very early).

But those things all fit into the No-S, right? I haven't seen it say that you should eat three meals per day.

kccc
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Post by kccc » Thu Jan 03, 2008 1:45 pm

Apple, I would consider the things you describe as "snacks" - but they would be for me. That's kind of how I ate before No-S, and what it did was undermine my meals (because I wasn't hungry enough for them, and didn't eat enough, so "needed" a snack later). I find I do better with larger meals and NO snacks... but I did have to wean off them gradually. The afternoon snack was the last to go.

I do "virtual plate" when I exercise at lunch. What that means is that I pack my normal lunch, but eat my apple before exercise and everything else after. Not quite a snack, since it's accounted for in my normal intake. But anything beyond that is a "slippery slope" for me.

However, what you describe may well be fine for you - we all have different patterns. I have to be somewhat strict given my age, gender, metabolism and current level of exercise. Other people can be more flexible and still make progress. Life is not always fair that way. So, do what works for you.

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apple
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Post by apple » Thu Jan 03, 2008 3:28 pm

It probably depends on the person and situation, KCCC.

I am not trying to lose weight, just develop healthy eating habits. Snacks for me are things like chips and chocolates, not real food like apples and cheese.

My doctor advised me to eat frequently, to keep my blood sugar up. It never happens that I eat so much during a mini-meal that I am not hungry enough for dinner. And larger meals just make me feel uncomfortably stuffed.

And if I have lunch at 12:00, and exercise at 18:00, that means dinner at 20:00. So I would need something filling to be able to excercise. But maybe I could divide my dinner in two parts to accomplish that.

But I understand what you mean, I must be careful not to expand my mini-meals to normal meals and suddenly have 5 meals a day.

kccc
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Post by kccc » Thu Jan 03, 2008 8:25 pm

Apple, it very much depends on the person!

I didn't mean to suggest "you aren't doing it right," just to sound a general note of caution that "what works for one person might not for another." Your pattern would be a real problem for me.

Alas. ;)

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Hunter Gatherer
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Post by Hunter Gatherer » Fri Jan 04, 2008 2:26 am

I like to take only an S-day and a half (Saturday and the part of Friday that I am not at work). Since I am still not quite past the "go crazy on S-days" phase this helps out a little and gives me Sunday to recover before I have to face the world.
"You've been reading about arctic explorers," I accused him. "If a man's starving he'll eat anything, but when he's just ordinarily hungry he doesn't want to clutter up his stomach with a lot of candy."
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christmas tree
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Keep it simple!!!!!

Post by christmas tree » Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:27 am

Basically sticking to the 3 no-sss has been enough of a challenge for me. This is my 2nd week. It's easy to remember, doesn't require a calculator, and frees me from guilt when I sit down to eat a meal. If I can follow this plan just as is, I will consider myself successful. I like it because it allows me to satisfy my hunger at meal times without feeling guilty even if it means eating white bread. My mealtime plate is always very full, but it's real food. Today, my chocolate cravings were enormous. And forget about having one piece!! My only salvation was knowing that when I sat down to my main meal, my plate could be full and I could eat without any guilt. "Oh poor me--here I am craving chocolate and now have to feel guilty about whatever is on my plate.(like white bread, for instance)" It's so wonderful to sit down to a meal and just enjoy the food. And I could eat until I am satisfied. Not stuffed but satisfied. Good luck to all of you out there who are sharing this diet venture.

franxious
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Post by franxious » Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:53 pm

My mod is that every morning, I have coffee (with sugar and milk) and a glass of kombucha tea (a fermented, probiotic tea). I don't count these as a meal, snack or failure to adhere to the diet, even though both have calories. I always have the same amount and I don't view my daily consumption of these beverages as a problem. They aren't what made me fat. If I had more free time, possibly I'd include them with breakfast, but things just don't work out that way. So.

However, if I want coffee in the afternoon, my rule is that I either have it with lunch or forego it. That's because the afternoon coffee, being more optional, does have "snack" potential. If I only include it with lunch, it's clearly not a snack.

Spook
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Post by Spook » Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:15 pm

Hello all,

I decided this morning to try No S again after several months of reckless eating :(

Thought I'd bring this old thread back to life with a couple of ideas that have been swimming round in my head over the past year. They're mostly related to snacking as that's been my main problem.

FAT (Fruit Any Time)

This rule could be used as a 'mod' for No S which might work for people who get very hungry between meals - it simply allows fruit to be consumed at any time as needed. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, as it kind of encourages snacking, but it may be a good way to try and kick unhealthy snacking habits without going 'cold turkey'.

Helped me when I tried it, as I tend to snack on unhealthy sweet stuff, so it forced me to at least have healthy snacks. At the time I didn't even have enough willpower to stick to No S so this was better than nothing.

NEK (No Eating in the Kitchen)

This one is unnecessary if you're following the No S rules properly, but might be helpful for some people as a 'safety net' - so even if you fail at No S, you still try and follow NEK - or as an additional restriction for S-days to stop them going wild...

No Eating in the Kitchen means you can't nibble while cooking, and permasnacking gets a lot harder - if you want to eat a snack, you have to carry it out of the room before consuming it!

This assumes that you keep all of your food in the kitchen, and don't eat your meals there (in which case No Eating in the Kitchen would be a bit extreme)! If you have a dining kitchen then maybe NESU (No Eating Standing Up) might be worth a try.


These two ideas also have the advantage that you can combine them and say you're on the FAT NEK diet, which is almost as catchy as No S.

Just my weird ideas, feel free to comment!

Spook

wosnes
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Post by wosnes » Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:28 pm

I think I'd change NEK to "NESU": No Eating Standing Up. I think it's important to taste as you cook, but a taste is a taste -- no more than half a teaspoon -- not a meal. When you want to eat, you sit down at a table and eat.

Another good modification: no eating in the car. If it comes through the window, it's probably not fit to eat anyway (there are a few exceptions to that, but only a few).
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

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Post by tygereyes77 » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:17 pm

My current mod is that, when I have a tossed salad with my dinner, I have it in a separate salad bowl and I do not do virtual plating to allow for it. This is because I have never been much of a salad eater, so increasing my salad intake has been a drastic improvement to my overall nutrition, and at this point if I "punish" myself by taking away from the other things I want to have on my plate for dinner, I might start skipping the salads altogether. It is important to note that my salads are very low in calories. I use very little dressing and do not add things like cheese or bacon--just fresh green veggies and the tiniest sprinkling of croutons.

I have just started my No S Habit, so I am not going to beat myself up about this particular modification at this point. I have already seen drastic changes in my dietary habits (which are already decreasing the size of my waistline!) so I'm going to continue on as I have been until I'm ready to make additional changes. At some point, if the weight is not coming off as I would like, I will likely begin either putting my salad on the same plate as the rest of my meal or do the virtual plating thing.

Thalia
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Post by Thalia » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:57 pm

I like that one. Salad is so physically bulky that if you have a heap o' greens, hardly anything else will fit on the plate! And then you end up famished at bedtime.

The mod I am considering is One Fruit After Dinner. I really like to eat a grapefruit or some grapes or berries in the evening, and I don't think that will sink me. But I'm waiting until I do the 21 days on strict No S before I try it.

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FarmerHal
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Very long answer to a simple questions. Thoughts outloud.

Post by FarmerHal » Wed Jan 07, 2009 12:31 am

I also don't count salad as part of a meal. I use very small amounts of vinegar/oil, feta cheese and sunflower seeds over romaine. Soo good! I don't go overboard with the cheese and seeds though, just enough to influence flavor.

I'm currently struggling with emotional eating at the moment with a lot of stuff going on at the moment but trying to keep to one plate, definitely have no seconds down. Probably a little too lose on my sweets lately. Well not probably, definitely.

I do like the idea of a light afternoon 'meal.' Otherwise I get to supper and I really overdo it on portions. I also tend to lose it and snack like crazy all afternoon if I try to restrict to 3 meals (been trying the last couple of weeks and I've failed every day because of that afternoon 'snack')

So I think I will go with 3 main meals and one afternoon mini meal per day. I need to get/keep myself and the kids on more of a schedule, because they've become the little permasnackers lately too!
thankfully, I've gotten rid of most of the junk around and they snack on dried fruits, nuts, crackers with all-natural peanutbutter, cheese, yogurt. As an aside, they do seem to be behaving much better without the junky gummy fruit snacks and crackers and such.


Anyway, long story short, and thinking outloud at the moment:
NoS for me looks like Breakfast, Lunch, Tea, Dinner. S day starts Friday night and ends Sunday lunch (in case I'd like to fix a nice hearty b'fast with pancakes and the fixins).
{FarmerHal} ...previously Shamrockmommy...
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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Wed Jan 07, 2009 8:00 pm

Thank you, bonnieUK, for starting the first dedicated mods discussion!

I'll comment on individual mods in a bit, for now I'm just going to make this "sticky."

If anyone has previously posted mods on the board, feel free (feel encouraged!) to re-post it and/or link to the post here.

Reinhard

Kathleen
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Post by Kathleen » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:36 pm

I have two mods:

1. Instead of having S Days defined as Saturdays, Sundays, and Special Days, I have S Days and E Days. S Days are Saturdays and Sundays. They reliably occur two times per week. E Days are Exception Days. They are days I am sick, days in which I have surgery so I have to fast before the surgery, and an accumulation of two days per month. Earlier this week, I took an exception day because I had bad breath and wanted to buy some breath mints.

2. I apply absolutely no common sense to how I eat on S Days or E Days. I give myself "unconditional permission to eat", which is a term that came from the book Intuitive Eating. Last Saturday, I had four Haagen Dazs bars in under two hours.

Today is Day 126, and I am down 11.2 pounds from my starting weight. For years, I maintained my high school weight of 132. I gained a lot of weight by having four babies in seven years. In 2002, after the last baby was born, I was determined to get back to that weight. I weighed 155. After many attempts at weight loss, my weight got up to 216. I simply couldn't diet anymore. My diet prior to this one was typical. I spent all summer, 2008, losing 2 pounds, only to gain 6 in 6 days. With this diet, the weight loss is slow, but I'm just happy to be actually losing weight.

My tag line below is "Fidelity to this diet means, "Take care of the N Days, and the other days take care of themselves." I have had no failures on N Days since the first week of my diet because I have taken an Exception when I have wanted to take one. I have also done nothing whatsover to control my eating on non-N Days.
Kathleen

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Wed Jan 21, 2009 3:19 pm

Here's another "mod" that was just posted:

"Use a smaller Plate"

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4592

We don't yet have any yet reports from actual experience, but there's a book out called "The 9 Inch Diet" touting the virtues or smaller plates and a website/movement started by Brian Wansink called "The Small plate movement."

I'm not so sure how effective it would be by itself, but in conjunction with no-s, it might be powerful indeed.

Warning: no reports yet as to whether this actually works. As with any mod, be VERY cautious about piling on extra rules.

Reinhard

donnao
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after noon snack

Post by donnao » Wed Jan 21, 2009 8:28 pm

i love the idea of afternoon mini meal

when i was a young, skinny girl, i always ate
breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner

i will modify the following way :

afternoon mini meal at 4 pm, and therfore only 1
"S" day. my mini meal will be 200 to 250 calories
and these are the ONLY calories that i will apply "accounting" to..

i am 43, and i have 10 @#$!! pounds that i cannot budge..

i will give this a try, and if my weight dose not budge, then i will have to consider losing the afternoon snack

thanks for all the great ideas !

Donna O

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Post by reinhard » Wed Feb 04, 2009 3:37 pm

KCCC has already touched on this with her "plate quadrants," but here's another take on qualifying/modding/extending the "no seconds" rule:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4650

At some point maybe I'll divide the mods into the rule/exception that they affect/build on. We've got at least one now for each of the three rules and a ton for the exception.

Reinhard

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Post by CatholicCajun » Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:15 pm

Hubby and I are trying to follow the No S and the low glycemin index/load system, we need structure and "limitaions", we do allow afternoon fruit and peanut butter, but no seconds and no sweets unless the day starts with s. using salad plates to eat on and we have salad with lunch and supper, helps fill us up. Good luck and God Bless everyone.
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bonnieUK
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Post by bonnieUK » Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:45 am

Hi all,

I'm happy to see a thread I started a while back got revived as a sticky!

I haven't been on here much lately, which I think is a good sign that I've not had many issues (aside from a couple of months of job upheaval & related increase in failure days!).

My mods haven't changed much, but I have made a mid-morning snack (e.g. half a sandwich, some nuts or a banana) official, purely because I can't seem to eat enough breakfast to keep me going until lunch.

So my pattern is now (approx):

7am - Breakfast
11am - Second breakfast (to borrow a hobbit term :))
1pm - Lunch
7pm - Dinner

I allow treats from Friday afternoon onwards, but generally don't go crazy about them, the No S habit is quite well engrained and tends to continue over the weekend.

The second breakfast thing has helped reduce failures, because I've already planned to eat something at 11am rather than reach for a cookie.
I think planning is key!

I've enjoyed reading everyone's mods, best wishes to everyone :)

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Post by caroleann » Thu Mar 26, 2009 12:29 pm

My modifications are few and I have to keep it that way.......the fence must remain securely around rules or I will fail, hands down.

I always have a salad with my dinner in a separate bowl..no dressing mixing with my other foods....yuck!

Not really a mod but a tip. I no longer set the additional food serving plates on the table. If you want more you have to go to kitchen and get more.

Technically Friday and Saturday are my S days. However, I keep to the no seconds rule for breakfast and lunch on these days. If I haven't gone overboard on Friday or Saturday, I may allow myself a treat on Sunday but never, never Monday through Thursday.

I am trying to eat more veggies with my meals. Since I am the cook and I do cook for my family (5 of us) I usually have salad, meat, potatoes (or a starch) and a veggie. Since the starch is my fav. I force myself to eat less of it and more meat and veggie. I always have a salad and try to drink water before I eat.

No snacks for me! No extra meals! I eat meals at the same time or as close as I can get. If I get hungry in between meals, I have a Kellogs or Herbal Life protein drink mix in water.

When I think about snacking in the evening, I get on my stationary bike and ride, ride, ride!!!
Nothing tastes as good as thin feels!!!

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Post by ~reneew » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:50 pm

I've tried my own mods off and on, like Fridays and Saturdays being my S days... or not counting beer or wine. They don't help, so I now do No S with one tweak...I ususlly don't eat breakfast. It makes me feel yucky. I wait until I actually get hungry, then eat brunch or lunch. It seems to work, and since whenever I try a new mod, I start to slip in a big way. So, I keep to that 1 rule of mine. The original No S rules seem to cover it all otherwise. It even has a built in maintainance plan that I can follow forever... whenever I get "there" :wink:
Last edited by ~reneew on Thu May 14, 2009 2:15 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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gratefuldeb67
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Post by gratefuldeb67 » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:01 pm

Yeah I usually start S days on Friday evening too.
I then have one of the weekend days be a "S day lite" day, where I only let myself have one or two small S's.
8) Debs
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toonces66
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I see a Mod coming

Post by toonces66 » Fri Apr 10, 2009 2:33 am

and I don't mean an alternative Brit rocker from the late 70's (bah dum bum). :lol:

I have already lost the majority of my weight (through calorie restriction/ calorie tracking/ and walking). However, tracking my calories has become tedious in the extreme. So, I figured I would give No-S a try. Hah...well I am 4 days in and only the first two were great. Yesterday was good until around 9pm and then today started badly when someone brought HOT DONUTS to my house!!!

Anyway, what I learned in the last 2 days is that initially, for me, I may only be doing No 2 S's. I may have to allow myself a square of dark chocolate to suck on (in lieu of wine with a meal...and hey...they both are loaded in antioxidants) at night. I have learned 3 key things about myself in the last 4 days. 1) I get hungry at night, about 3 hours after dinner 2) I can be satisfied with a 50 calorie square of dark chocolate 3) if I do not have said chocolate for over 48 hours I will cave and eat all the chocolate I can find!

I am not a food binge type of person. However, I will binge when I am forbidden to have something. If I know I can have just a little of it, I am fine. My mod may have to be 3 meals per day and a square of dark chocolate each night. Because that would be a hellauva better way to go than the last 24 hours!

~Rachel

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Post by vmelo » Fri Apr 17, 2009 1:56 am

I just restarted No-S after an unsuccessful try at it about a year ago. (I was an idiot and didn't use my common sense on N or S days).

I'm not one for modifications, so the only little guideline I use is that I try to make my meals somewhat healthy, i.e., I include vegetables or fruit with each meal. This is not something that is a struggle for me at all since I like most fruits and veggies, and I feel better when I eat them. When I was previously on No-S, I was sort of on diet rebound, and every meal I ate was something I wasn't allowed on traditional diets.

Even with my "mod" I'm not manic about it. If I'm in a rush or am tired and the only option for a meal is something really, really fattening, I eat it.

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Post by tasogare » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:57 am

I am just starting the No S diet. I am having to let myself have one soda during one meal, either lunch or dinner. Then I'm okay. But this is comign from someone who is used to drinking a large Sonic dr. pepper at least 3 times a week, during work, then an orange fanta or two a couple times a week during work, and 3 or more canned dr. peppers a day at home. When we go out to eat, I get at least one refill, sometimes two.

So limiting to one a day is a huge thing for me. I've been under severe stress for the past two years , going through a divorce and starting school again and working and raising my two pre-teens. I'm 36 and feel like it is going to be so hard for me to lose the 60 pounds I want to lose. I put on most of it in the past five years when my marriage was so bad.

I have found that I can chew sugerfree gum and it will stave off my hunger and cravings, and I even discovered a substitute for the sweet and spicy Thai foods that we get sometimes at lunch at work. I was going to make a roast beef sandwich (from homemade roast the other day) and take to work today for lunch but was invited to the Thai restaurant and figured out that if I have a soda, I can eat the veggie fried rice with no soy sauce, no hot sauce and no meat. I was very full and satisfied and didn't even drink the entire soda. I guess that's a start.

Been pretty down about my weight and on top of that, my hairstylist messed my hair up the other day! I need something to go right! lol

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Post by Thalia » Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:10 am

Hi tasogare! Welcome to No S. I'm wondering why you just don't eat a plate of Thai food? Soy sauce, hot sauce, and meat are all totally allowed on No S, as long as you keep it to one plateful. Pretty much anything you can get at a Thai restaurant except soda, dessert, or Thai iced tea is fine!

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Here's mine

Post by tangotime » Thu May 07, 2009 10:54 pm

I am a nursing mom. I'm also have a history of being addicted to sweets and binge on them at times, so this mod really is working for me. This is every day:

- no sweets except for in front of others on special occasions ( don't eat them alone) I do allow myself dark chocolate and diet soda.

-one snack a day. Again, as a nursing mom, I just get too hungry without a snack in the afternoon

- no seconds except for special occasions

I hope this helps someone. It really works well for me :D
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Re: Here's mine

Post by butterfly1000 » Fri May 08, 2009 2:47 pm

tangotime wrote:- no sweets except for in front of others on special occasions ( don't eat them alone)
MaryAnn
I really like this one -- I tend to binge on sweets when I have no witnesses. I think I'll add it to my HabitCal. :idea:
Butterfly

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Post by jessdr » Fri May 08, 2009 9:07 pm

reinhard wrote:We don't yet have any yet reports from actual experience, but there's a book out called "The 9 Inch Diet" touting the virtues or smaller plates and a website/movement started by Brian Wansink called "The Small plate movement."

I'm not so sure how effective it would be by itself, but in conjunction with no-s, it might be powerful indeed.

Warning: no reports yet as to whether this actually works. As with any mod, be VERY cautious about piling on extra rules.
I use my 8x8 square salad plates almost exclusively, including on S days. They looked small at first, but they actually fit plenty of food. If I fill up the plate (not even pile it high, just cover most of the surface), it's enough food to stuff me; sometimes I can't finish it.

This makes a big difference for me. When I serve myself, I tend to go for food density, rather than an actual amount, so I do serve myself MUCH more on the dinner plates than on the salad plates.

Which brings me to my own mod: I'm allowed to have a multi-course dinner, as long as I use the small plates.

It feels special, it encourages me to take my time, and I tend to make tastier food (rather than just throwing something together). Since I'm not seeing all the food at once, small plates are required to keep the portions reasonable.

Under my mod, I can have:
- a dainty appetizer or soup
- a main course (served on the salad plate)
- fruit salad (served in my little dessert dishes), optional

Usually I have two of the three.

My rule of thumb for "dainty" is that it should fit on my little 3" soy sauce dishes. I don't usually serve it there, but it has to fit. That usually translates to about four good-sized bites.
Diet refugee, trying to get my head back on straight.

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Post by reinhard » Sat May 09, 2009 3:20 am

- no sweets except for in front of others on special occasions ( don't eat them alone)
MaryAnn
This is a good rule, even just to think about. It shows how disordered our eating has become. People who drink alone are called alcoholics. I don't think eating alone is much better.
I use my 8x8 square salad plates almost exclusively, including on S days.
Thanks for the field research!

Thanks ALL who've posted here -- I'm reading this thread very cafefully in preparation for part 2 of my mods and tweaks "trilogy" podcast.

Part 1 is here if you haven't heard it already:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=35

Reinhard

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Post by jessdr » Tue May 12, 2009 6:13 pm

reinhard wrote:
I use my 8x8 square salad plates almost exclusively, including on S days.
Thanks for the field research!

One thing I forgot to mention: I wouldn't recommend switching to smaller plates until you're really comfortable with vanilla NoS. This is something to do once you no longer have to overfill your big plate to reassure yourself that you will make it to the next meal. If you're still not 100% convinced that you can make it to the next meal on one plateful, you may panic when you see the small plates and undermine the habit-building process.

I was using small plates before I starting NoSing, and I switched back to big plates for the first two weeks, just to be safe. Then once I found my equilibrium, I switched back to the small ones, piled those high for a few days, and then found my small plate equilibrium.
Diet refugee, trying to get my head back on straight.

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Post by winnie96 » Wed May 13, 2009 2:34 pm

jessdr wrote:I wouldn't recommend switching to smaller plates until you're really comfortable with vanilla NoS.
Jessdr, I totally agree with you. For me, the first few weeks of No-S were all about figuring out how much I needed to eat at each meal so that I arrived at the next one hungry, but not ravenous. After so many years of overeating, I found the process of discovery to be fascinating, but I'm sure my fascination would have turned to frustration if I was experimenting with a smaller plate. Now that I have a fairly good handle on how much I need to eat, I can use smaller dishes, but until you get to that point, I would definitely recommend sticking with your current plate size!

(I also found vmsurbat's thoughts on the size of glasses to be helpful. See the full post on the "Between Meal Beverages" thread).
vmsurbat wrote:One thing that I personally have found helpful is to "resurrect" the old-fashioned serving sizes. I now regularly have a juice size (4-5 oz) glass of orange juice and a normal 8oz. glass of milk for breakfast.

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Post by Kathleen » Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:25 am

I made two mods and am now calling my diet the Exceptional Diet:

1. Mod 1: One S Day -- Sunday. I still believe in "unconditional permission to eat" which means I can be an absolute idiot on my one S Day. I made this mod due to the fact that I have been stuck just above 200 pounds since January.

2. Mod 2: Unlimited number of Exception Events. There are no other S Days, but I can take Exception Events whenever I want just so long as I record them. This means that I follow the three guidelines of no snacks, no sweets, and no seconds (which I define as having everything before me before I take one bite, even if it doesn't fit on one plate). If I don't follow the 3S guidelines, then I have to record an exception. I made this mod because it started to feel silly to track number of exception days. The days turned into events. I didn't really have the desire for over the top eating except on S Days. Did I really want to take an exception day and track it because I bit into an apple at mealtime, the apple was bad, and I wanted to replace it with another apple? Answer: No.

I had a contest for my kids about what to name this diet, and my husband piped up and called it the "It's not going to work diet". I absolutely detest food diaries. I have an aversion to them. It's one thing to be writing about an experience. It's another thing entirely to be writing down what you eat. I think that recording an exception and what I ate and why will be a good deterrent for me, but we'll see.

So far, so good. I started Saturday night after stuffing myself so much that Sunday wasn't an over the top S Days. It was an over the top failure since I had decided two weeks previously to go down to one S Day. It's now Tuesday night, and there were no exceptions on Monday or Tuesday.

I don't think I need to track the number of exceptions I take because it just seems odd to me to eat outside of mealtime. The guidelines have become habits. It took from September to May for me to develop the habit of eating at mealtimes unless there was an exception. I recognize the danger that too many exceptions can mean the end to a habit, but this is somewhat what I do with exercise. I try to exercise three times per week. If it doesn't work out (I'm out of town or have an early meeting), oh well. I just go the next time.

We'll see. What's great about this approach is I don't feel like I'm on a diet. It just feels like normal eating. There no longer is a sense of restriction. Instead, there is a sense of excess when exceptions are taken or it's Sunday.

But -- I'm only on Day 3 of this approach, so we'll see. It could be a disaster. If it's not, I have lined up some rewards for myself, starting with taking the family to Cold Stone Creamery on a Sunday after I reach below 193.5, which represents a 10% drop in weight. This diet has become -- can you believe it? -- fun!

Kathleen

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Post by guadopt1997 » Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:40 pm

Kathleen,

I find your approach very interesting because it implies that your "exception" will not lead you to chucking the whole day, which is what I have trouble with sometimes.

Thanks for sharing.

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Post by reinhard » Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:09 pm

Good luck, Kathleen!

Those sound sensible -- let us know how they go.

For those who haven't heard/seen it already, here's part II of the mods and tweaks trilogy: How to tweak (in which I discuss a previous mod of Kathleen's, among others).

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=36

Reinhard

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Post by Kathleen » Sat Jun 06, 2009 4:19 pm

Reinhard,

Today, I weighed 197 pounds. The last time I weighed that low was on 1/15/07. Since then, I have tried diets that I named or the kids named:
The Peanut Cluster Diet
The Hunger Satisfaction Diet
The Popcorn Diet
The Novena Diet (that one at least had an on/off philosophy)
The Soft Pretzel Diet
The SET Diet
The Monday Morning Diet
The SAVORing Diet
The Weigh Down Diet
The Claddaugh Ring Diet
The Am I Hungry? Diet
The Duh Diet (this one was named by my son)

Many of these diets were modified multiple times.

The result? I got up to 215 pounds.

When I got on The No S Diet, I did make modifications, and I have made more modifications now. It seems like I had to adjust to normal eating in stages because my eating was so disordered.

We are extending the S Day concept to making Sunday more of a day of rest, relaxation, and play. With normal eating as a habit, Sundays will be special. This is great! I have been very frustrated in trying to lose weight, and now all I need is patience to allow the weight to come off.

Thanks for the encouragement! It was really hard to find a diet that was easy and fun.

Kathleen

PS. My son reminded me of The Posture Diet -- the idea being that, if you stood so your stomach stuck out you would feel fatter and eat less.

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Post by reinhard » Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:25 pm

Well, they may not have worked, but those are some great names!

Sounds like with no-s you've found the right medium for your inspired modding -- great names and great results.

Congratulations! (and thanks for sharing them)

Reinhard

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Post by Sportwirker » Wed Jun 17, 2009 2:07 pm

I just started this 3 S diet last night and it does seem a healthy way to go. I have never been a snacker, and eat three meals a day, but the portions are too large and I never thought about how much seconds could add to one's weight, so this may be just the diet for me. Have been working on losing ten or so pounds of winter weight for the last two months and have done that, but I'd like about seven more off and thought I'd give this a try. Any words of wisdom for a newcomer are welcome

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Post by StrawberryRoan » Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:40 pm

Just read the whole thread. Have added a four oclock "mod" mini-meal to my No S since I reached my goal weight.

I eat about 10, 2 and 6/7 or so.... I'm not hungry before ten so didn't need a mod then. Get a bit hungry about 4 so I am adding something less than 200 calories, today it was a few Sunsweet cherry essence prunes and a few Quaker mini caramel corn rice cakes. Seemed to do the trick.

I exercise on the Gazelle from 3 to 4 while I watch the Discovery Health shows (either XWeighted or I Lost it!) so I suppose a recovery mini meal might be in order.

Should my weight stay down, I will vary the choices (if I feel that I need it) with some fresh fruit or veggies like sliced tomatoes and cukes once they get ripe off the vine - or a cheese stick and a couple crackers.

If I start to gain more than a pound or so, the mod will go....

8)

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No PB

Post by spleener » Wed Jun 24, 2009 4:13 pm

I'm only on day two, and I don't plan on doing a lot of mods. I'm the poster child for everything Reinhard wrote about, and I've pretty much careened between the calorie accountant and good food/bad food extremes.

My one accomodation is that peanut butter is an "S" food for me. I already know it's a weakness, and I think it's possible to fit three (or even four) PBJ sandwiches on a plate. I know I'd look ridiculous if I tried this around my family, but I'm thinking of what I might possibly do on my own. Other things I would consider trigger foods--chocolate, ice cream, etc.--are already Ses, other bad stuff like pizza & fried foods tend to be kind of self-limiting, because of how I'll feel after I've had them. Even this early in the game, I find healthier foods to be more appealing, because I want something satisfying and filling to get me to my next meal.

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Re: No PB

Post by bonnieUK » Fri Jun 26, 2009 12:56 pm

spleener wrote: My one accomodation is that peanut butter is an "S" food for me.
I used to have peanut butter as an "S" food too, because having it in the house meant I'd often have a failure day due to giving into the temptation of an unscheduled PB sandwich :roll:

However I've recently re-introduced it and have found that if I serve myself a generous amount as part of a meal (e.g. on oatmeal at breakfast or sandwich at lunch) I don't feel tempted to have it at other times. Before I was always trying to skimp on it for fear of the high fat content, but now I don't worry about it :)

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Post by Kathleen » Wed Jul 01, 2009 2:03 am

Here was a mod I tried from last month:

Unlimited number of Exception Events. There are no other S Days (except Sunday), but I can take Exception Events whenever I want just so long as I record them.

Result: I started off well, went down a slippery slope, and fell right off a cliff. Six exception days in 12 days.

Recommendation: Don't use!

Kathleen

PS. My kids told me that right away!

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Post by reinhard » Wed Jul 01, 2009 6:11 pm

(belated) welcome, spleener!
My one accomodation is that peanut butter is an "S" food for me
I'd barely even call that a mod. We all draw our borders for borderliine foods in slightly different places.

Kathleen: thanks for the field work! Failed mods are instructive, too. I keep reading about how scientists are being encouraged to publish the results of failed experiments to keep them from being unnecessarily repeated -- the same applies here. We can't all be as prescient as your kids!

Reinhard

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Post by Mistress Manners » Tue Jul 07, 2009 3:35 pm

Here's a positive mod: I say a blessing before my meals. Because I'm Jewish, the particular blessing depends on what is on my plate (fruit gets one blessing, bread another, etc.) This forces me to: (a) acknowledge the beginning of MEAL TIME; (b) be grateful for what's on my plate; and (c) consciously focus on what's there and where it came from.

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No Sweets

Post by Barb221 » Thu Jul 09, 2009 12:25 am

How can anyone go 5 days without sweets. I have chocolate everyday and cannot and do not want to ge without it. I would rather eat less calories for dinner so I could have my sweets. I do agree with the snacks. My mother always said that snacking would ruin my appetite. It will be difficult not eating before bedtime but I could do that but not give up the sweets. I will try this but with something sweet with my dinner.

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Post by Mistress Manners » Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:25 am

If you really want to make that work, I'd define a particular quantity of a particular sweet. (Say, 2 squares of high-quality chocolate). Otherwise, it opens the door too wide, I think. I'm a chocoholic as well, but really, drawing a bright line rule works much better for me than planning to eat "just a little." Plus, when it's the weekend I really do enjoy it more.

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Re: No Sweets

Post by Bushranger » Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:49 am

Barb221 wrote:How can anyone go 5 days without sweets. I have chocolate everyday and cannot and do not want to ge without it. I would rather eat less calories for dinner so I could have my sweets. I do agree with the snacks. My mother always said that snacking would ruin my appetite. It will be difficult not eating before bedtime but I could do that but not give up the sweets. I will try this but with something sweet with my dinner.
It's not that hard really. For well over a decade I ate a huge bowl of ice-cream after dinner without fail, every single night. My dessert is now a part of dinner and is a small bowl of fruit and Greek yoghurt, and even then it's only one or two nights a week when we have lighter dinners. I guess technically you could call it a sweet but I don't eat candy or chocolate or nearly any other sweet except for the odd occasion on the weekend or special dinner with friends.
Last edited by Bushranger on Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Trust the system :)

Post by la_loser » Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:05 am

Barb,

Welcome to No S. It's a little hard to know exactly how to respond to your comments. Actually there are many people who actually do survive without having sweets everyday of the week. The most successful No Sers do just exactly that. . . and we find that by limiting sweets to S days and making sure that the sweets we do have are quality ones worth waiting for, we appreciate them even more.

I do know that any modifications to the simple 13/14 word plan are discouraged until you have given the "vanilla No S" rules a significant time to kick in. I would urge you to listen to Reinhard's podcasts on Tweaks and Mods; he has released two new ones in the last couple of months. He makes some really good points about when and how one should tweak the system. As a matter, try to listen to as many of the podcast that you can, particularly those relating directly to NO S. In addition to the website and the book being quite helpful, hearing Reinhard state the concepts clarifies everything a great deal.

Of course, I don't know what your reasons for doing No S are--to lose a little weight, a lot of weight, to build healthier eating habits, etc. ? There are some members who did begin with limiting only one S, then gradually working into all S's. . . those really aren't mods--just a form on "induction" I suppose. Perhaps that's what you're thinking.

In any event. . . good luck.
LA Loser. . . well on my way to becoming an LA Winner. :lol:

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Post by Mistress Manners » Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:30 pm

The fact that you can't imagine going without it might be an extra-good reason to try it. It's freeing to realize that you do in fact have free will. Why not commit to doing pure vanilla No-S for one week, and seeing how you feel at the end.

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Post by reinhard » Thu Jul 09, 2009 8:24 pm

Barb, welcome and good luck -- with or without your mod.

No-s is a structure for controlling excess. If you think you can control excess with a slightly different structure, that's just as good.

But I would like to suggest a couple of things to keep in mind:

1) habit really is amazingly powerful. I don't think most of the no-essers here who save their sweets for S-days feel deprived -- on the contrary. I think they enjoy them more than they ever did before. And I think many of them were probably quite surprised to discover this. You might not be able to imagine going without daily sweets now, but give yourself a few weeks of training and you might be amazed. You'll be a different person.

2) if you don't quite buy that, at least for you, mistress manners' advice about having some rule to unambiguously define and contain your daily sweet is a good idea. It can be very hard to stop with just one little square of chocolate or whatever, especially if you haven't firmly decided what the definition of that whatever is.

Reinhard

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Post by reinhard » Mon Aug 03, 2009 10:33 am

At way too long last, part 3 of the mods and tweaks trilogy, "When a mere mod isn't enough: how to roll your own everyday system from scratch."

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=37

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Post by chentegt » Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:28 pm

My mod is this:

"N" also means Normal food, so: no junk/fast food on N days. If, however, I'm at a very special situation (for example, an office meeting with no other option but eating some junk), I make an exception.
It's worked fine so far for me...

For my glass ceiling, I have a mod also: on Special days (not saturdays, not sundays, ONLY birthdays, holidays, etc.), if I'm not driving (or if someone can drive me home), I have permission to have more than 2 drinks.

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Post by reinhard » Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:19 pm

"N" also means Normal food
I like it! I could see it possibly getting fuzzy or feeling excessively restrictive, but if it works for you, that's great. Keep us posted.

Reinhard

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Thanks for the Mods

Post by burnnotice » Thu Aug 20, 2009 3:50 pm

Hi-

I'm really fighting at 'bedtime snack' period. I wanted to thank everyone for this section. I saw the FAT, fruit any time, and decided to allow myself a piece of fruit if needed during my trouble time. Knowing I had this option took some of the anxiety from plating my evening meal and anxiety away from 8-10 pm glutton period.

Thanks so much.

Colleen
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Post by ksbrowne » Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:40 pm

My 1 mod is this, when I sit down to eat, I tell myself I can have 1 average/moderate helping of everything. I love the No S Diet, and follow it strictly, but I think portion sizes might be a loophole that could get people in trouble.

No snacks, no sweets, no seconds - those are the rules that come first, of course, but if people are following these rules and still feel like they want to lose a few more pounds, I'd suggest checking their portion sizes.

Kathy

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Post by Thalia » Tue Aug 25, 2009 4:02 pm

I agree that portion sizes matter. For me, the "one plate" rule seems to keep them reasonable without further tinkering, providing that I make sure that most of my plates include a solid amount of real estate devoted to fruits and vegetables.

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Some mods

Post by Bfrilkins » Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:04 am

Hi all. I am new to the no-S, and already have some mods. Actually decided on them before I embarked up on it. So far so good.

1) Weekends are NOT special days. I really need structure on weekends or they become permasnack way too quickly.

However...

2) Everyday I am allowed a single "S", either snack or sweet. By single, I mean a single measured portion size. Primarily this is a bit of chocolate after dinner. That is a great motivator to keep on track during the day. When I'm thinking of a snack, I remember that if I have a snack now I am depriving myself of the chocolate later. I'm happiest if I save that for later!

3) Fresh plain fruits/vegs are allowed as a snack if I'm really hungry (or just out in the garden nibbling). But I try to walk/get outside & drink some water even before having that kind of snack when I feel "hungry", to make sure it's not stress or thirst that's making me want to eat (and usually that is the case).

4) I've added some additional no-S phrases to help me remember NO SNEAKING and NO SAMPLES. "Sneaking" is when I, barely thinking about it, take a few choc. chips or a couple or nuts or something from the kitchen canisters, or a bite of this or that while I'm cooking. Gotta catch those and stop it, because they do count and do add up and I don't even enjoy them really because I'm not paying attention. "Samples" refers to samples at the grocery store (so far, I haven't quit on those, but it's only one sample per visit).

5) Some calorie counting added to the NO-S system. Not counting per day, but often for lunch. My lunches are usually based on some pre-packaged meal, salad, or sandwich. Those can vary wildly in calories and quickly be more than a meal even though they don't look like much.

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Re: Some mods

Post by BrightAngel » Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:04 pm

Bfrilkins wrote: 1) Weekends are NOT special days. I really need structure on weekends or they become permasnack.
2) Everyday I am allowed a single "S", either snack or sweet. By single, I mean a (small) single measured portion size.
3) Fresh plain fruits/vegs are allowed as a snack if I'm really hungry .
4) I've added some additional no-S phrases to help me remember NO SNEAKING and NO SAMPLES. (grocery store samples).
5) Some calorie counting added to the NO-S system.
I think that even I could live with those modifications.
Except...I've never yet been able to eliminate taking those Samples.
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Post by guadopt1997 » Tue Sep 29, 2009 5:37 pm

That's why I only go to Harris Teater on weekends!

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Dandelion
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Post by Dandelion » Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:51 am

I realised the other day I have a couple of mods that I decided to just accept because they aren't excesses but normal everydayness for me.

For quite some time, hot chocolate has been my 'normal' breakfast drink. I heat whole milk on the stove and mix it with good cocoa powder, whole milk and about half teaspoon of sugar. For most people that would be too bitter, but for me it's plenty sweet, and I figure that a lot of people use more sugar than that in their coffee and though I often have tea (milk, no sugar), this time of year I start leaning a bit toward the hot chocolate for breakfast.

The other is a square of dark chocolate after dinner. Usually Lindt 70% or failing that, maybe Ghiardelli 60% (which is what I use for baking). For me it just finishes the meal without being sweet (which I don't enjoy in my chocolates in general, but now I really don't want on an N day) and does not make me feel 'overfull'.

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SavvyV
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Post by SavvyV » Sat Oct 10, 2009 2:41 pm

I like this idea and was trying to figure out how to succeed with a chocolate mod on N days. This idea would work for me because I don't really have to have it sweet. . .just chocolatlelly
If hunger is not the problem, then eating is not the solution. ~Author Unknown

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Re: Some mods

Post by wosnes » Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:37 pm

BrightAngel wrote:
Bfrilkins wrote: 1) Weekends are NOT special days. I really need structure on weekends or they become permasnack.
2) Everyday I am allowed a single "S", either snack or sweet. By single, I mean a (small) single measured portion size.
3) Fresh plain fruits/vegs are allowed as a snack if I'm really hungry .
4) I've added some additional no-S phrases to help me remember NO SNEAKING and NO SAMPLES. (grocery store samples).
5) Some calorie counting added to the NO-S system.
I think that even I could live with those modifications.
Except...I've never yet been able to eliminate taking those Samples.
Me, too. I think I've been eating more (and enjoying it less) by having S days every weekend. I'll still have the special events in addition to the daily S's, though.
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

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Just starting...

Post by Katieb » Wed Oct 28, 2009 4:52 pm

I am so excited to try this woe. I tried intuitive eating, but was not disciplined enough. I guess my mod will be to drink skim milk. I love milk, and have at least 4 glasses per day. (Ususally between meals and at bedtime.) I hope that will not hold me back too much!
KatieBinNC

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Post by Walkingman » Thu Oct 29, 2009 3:22 am

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post. I've been using No S for about three months.

My main modification is that I don't use S days. My release valve is that I allow myself to snack on fruit. I have a hard time going five hours between meals. But I can get by fine with one piece of fruit between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner. I rarely need it after dinner. Sometime I am hungrier than usual, so I leave open the option to have more fruit. I wish I could build the habit of skipping snacks altogether, but it just does not seem feasible for me. I figure there's no point torturing myself when two pieces of healthy fruit takes away all the pain.

My other modification was in response to my slow pace of weight loss. As a longtime calorie counter, I decided to target about 500 calories per meal. This is a very loose goal, and I routinely go over. But it seems to help me keep my portions a little smaller. Otherwise, I find I can easily load over 1000 calories on a plate without it looking the least bit shameful. I feel obliged to add that it really doesn't make me feel like a food accountant. It's just a quick rule of thumb that takes me just a few seconds, and I don't keep any kind of daily running total.

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Post by Anoulie » Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:29 pm

Walkingman wrote:My main modification is that I don't use S days. My release valve is that I allow myself to snack on fruit.
You mean you NEVER eat sweets? Ever? :shock: :shock: :shock:

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Post by Walkingman » Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:25 pm

Anoulie wrote:
Walkingman wrote:My main modification is that I don't use S days. My release valve is that I allow myself to snack on fruit.
You mean you NEVER eat sweets? Ever? :shock: :shock: :shock:
OK, I agree that's unreasonable! Like I said, I've only been doing this for 3 months. And I don't think I've had any sweets in that period. But I shouldn't have suggested I consider sweets always off limits. Frankly, I'm afraid to eat sweets because they trigger bingeing for me--particularly during the holiday season. But rather than having S-Days, I just say I can have sweets on special occasions--and I plan to follow the general S-guidelines for defining those occasions. That way I can partake in an important birthday cake without removing the rules for the whole day. Like someone else wrote, I need the rules MORE on weekends and holidays because my usual daily habits that revolve around work are not present.

So I've modified the rules to this:

Three meals per day (approximately 500 calories at 8, 1, 6)
No sweets (except special occasions)
No snacks (except fruit)
No seconds (for any given course)

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Post by Kevin » Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:04 am

It's interesting. Sweets don't do jack for me. But crackers and crab dip...
Walkingman wrote:
Anoulie wrote:
Walkingman wrote:My main modification is that I don't use S days. My release valve is that I allow myself to snack on fruit.
You mean you NEVER eat sweets? Ever? :shock: :shock: :shock:
OK, I agree that's unreasonable! Like I said, I've only been doing this for 3 months. And I don't think I've had any sweets in that period. But I shouldn't have suggested I consider sweets always off limits. Frankly, I'm afraid to eat sweets because they trigger bingeing for me--particularly during the holiday season. But rather than having S-Days, I just say I can have sweets on special occasions--and I plan to follow the general S-guidelines for defining those occasions. That way I can partake in an important birthday cake without removing the rules for the whole day. Like someone else wrote, I need the rules MORE on weekends and holidays because my usual daily habits that revolve around work are not present.

So I've modified the rules to this:

Three meals per day (approximately 500 calories at 8, 1, 6)
No sweets (except special occasions)
No snacks (except fruit)
No seconds (for any given course)
Kevin
1/13/2011-189# :: 4/21/2011-177# :: Goal-165#
"Respecting the 4th S: sometimes."

Cantab
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Flavorless calories on the No S diet to reduce appetite

Post by Cantab » Tue Dec 15, 2009 2:53 pm

In order to reduce my appetite so that I am less interested in the S's, I am having a few hundred flavorless calories with a no-flavor window around it, an idea invented by Berkeley psychology professor Seth Roberts. In practice, first thing in the morning, I put on swimmer's noseplugs and drink a mixture of 2 T flax oil and 1 c unsweetened soymilk shaken in an empty peanut butter jar (310 calories), and more than an hour later I eat breakfast.

I found that Flavorless Calories by itself were not helpful because I found it disorienting not to have a strong appetite, so I had no idea what or when or how much to eat. No S answers that question for me.

On No S by itself, I found that I was eating more fat in order to reduce my appetite between meals, and I gained a few pounds. That may have been a temporary gain, but it was a reminder to be careful. I decided that additional fat may as well be healthy fat with maximal potential to reduce my appetite. I am not otherwise doing anything other than trying to have intelligent defaults.

See Seth Roberts's <a href="http://sethroberts.net/">website</a> for more information about flavorless calories. There is a Shovelglove person on the forum there. Seth calls it the Shangrila Diet, but I think that makes it sound gimmicky, so I don't call it that. They are doing lots of self-experimentation over there, as people here do. And Seth normally lives in Berkeley, Cambridge's sister city, though he's been teaching in China lately.
Last edited by Cantab on Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Dandelion
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Post by Dandelion » Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:20 pm

A few weeks ago I added what might be another 'mod'. I have been at this long enough (five months) to have settled in enough that I just don't care to do anything else, and I can't see myself ever doing anything else. I've been living with this mod for a month and it's working well enough I feel confident adding it to the list.

My weekend esses have always included an extravagant sweet of some kind: Chocolate souffles, creme brulee, chocolate chip pie, that kind of thing and something to eat at tea time (weekdays I just have tea by itself). Nothing noteworthy there.

My mod has evolved to fit my family and our lifestyle. I had designated Wednesdays as 'whatever' night due to our busy mid-week schedule and the desire to reduce food waste. Some days it's a feast of favourites - and other days it feels like common leftovers.

I decided to tip the balance toward the pleasant side by planning a 'non-sweet' dessert. I started out with simple things like fruit and cream and baked apples (and cream :) ), but as those were successful, I've branched out a bit more into panna cotta, crepes with dark chocolate, gelatin (not a box - just gelled juice) with fruit and cream.

I know these would sound like sweets, but I make them all myself, so I know exactly how much sweet isn't in them :), (not to mention additives and other junk), and good cream is a nutritious food (I got over the belief years ago that natural fats are unhealthy or make one fat)

I enjoy the extra opportunity to be creative and 'spoil' my family with healthy, nutritious desserts that do not encourage a 'sweet tooth' and helps keep 'Whatever Wednesday' from feeling like 'leftover night' :)

And yes - it would all still fit on one plate :)

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Re: Flavorless calories on the No S diet to reduce appetite

Post by Ragdoll » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:10 am

Cantab wrote:In order to reduce my appetite so that I am less interested in the S's, I am having a few hundred flavorless calories with a no-flavor window around it, an idea invented by Berkeley psychology professor Seth Roberts. In practice, first thing in the morning, I put on swimmer's noseplugs and drink a mixture of 2 T flax oil and 1 c unsweetened soymilk shaken in an empty peanut butter jar (310 calories), and more than an hour later I eat breakfast.

I found that Flavorless Calories by itself were not helpful because I found it disorienting not to have a strong appetite, so I had no idea what or when or how much to eat. No S answers that question for me.

On No S by itself, I found that I was eating more fat in order to reduce my appetite between meals, and I gained a few pounds. That may have been a temporary gain, but it was a reminder to be careful. I decided that additional fat may as well be healthy fat with maximal potential to reduce my appetite. I am not otherwise doing anything other than trying to have intelligent defaults.

See Seth Roberts's <a href="http://sethroberts.net/">website</a> for more information about flavorless calories. There is a Shovelglove person on the forum there. Seth calls it the Shangrila Diet, but I think that makes it sound gimmicky, so I don't call it that. They are doing lots of self-experimentation over there, as people here do. And Seth normally lives in Berkeley, Cambridge's sister city, though he's been teaching in China lately.
Shangri-La Diet. Oh dear. I really, really, REALLY didn't enjoy that. I think, as do many dieticians and doctors, that the reason people lose weight is that they have about 4-6 hours in the day where they are not eating at all, which will signifigantly reduce calorie intake.

Glad it's working for you though!
Last edited by Ragdoll on Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
Height: 5'6"
Starting Weight 01/08/10: 12 stone/168 pounds
Goal Weight: 10 stone/140 pounds

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.â€

-C.S. Lewis

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Post by Ragdoll » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:18 am

I've decided to add mods to the diet (I'm impatient, and gaining weight -- that'll never do). I started the No S Diet in December, taking awhile to add each of the principles until I was fully on the diet.

I reached a month on the diet this past Friday. Unfortunately, I am gaining weight with it. I don't need to continue eating whatever I want (don't think I was that unhealthy, but who knows) for the next two months to know that it is not helping me lose weight.

I agree with everyone in here who is urging Barb to not feel tied to sweets. As someone with an intense sweet tooth, and a constant grazer (seconds have never been a problem), diets worked for me for a month before, shaking with hunger, I devoured entire packets of cookies. I've never been obese, but I am about 30 lbs over weight, with this principle of lose, gain, lose, gain even more, etc.

Though No S hasn't worked as a diet (for weight loss), it HAS worked as an eating plan. What I mean by that is, I now know that I have ZERO problems only eating three meals per day. I don't snack, I don't cheat with sweets, and I never have seconds. My S days have never been idiotic, just N Days with sweets or healthy snacks.

So, now that No S has giving me the foundation of 3-per-day meal structure, AND the ability to tame that beast, appetite, and force it to do my will -- I can tweak and modify the diet until it results in long-term, steady weight loss. I've never been religious, but I do feel like saying Hallelujah.

Even despite the weight gain, taming my habits and appetite is something that, in 28 years, I've never managed in my life for longer than a month.

So, here are my mods:

I'm sticking to No Snacks, Seconds or Sweets during the week, but with the following added mods:

1)One tea plate full of food (roughly around 400 cals -- don't want to count obsessively, but don't mind keeping an eye out for egregious offenders) for breakfast and lunch

2) One normal sized plate for dinnner, half of which must be filled with veg (sweetcorn and peas don't count towards veg portions)

3) On weekend, no Seconds, only healthy Snacks, and Sweets as long as they're either eaten as a meal replacement (i.e., if I want a chocolate croissant, that's breakfast, with a little fruit), or as a very small treat after lunch or dinner. This has worked well the past month to stop me being an "idiot".

Here's a sample menu, from yesterday:

Breakfast: Poached Egg, half a Cinnamon Raisin bagel with spread, two cups of coffee with 2% milk and sweeteners

Lunch: Cup of Sweet Potato and Celery Soup, piece of String Cheese, 6 Snack Crackers (Ryvita)

Dinner: Half a plate filled with Spinach, Carrots & Swede, Turkey Breast Pieces sauteed in Sunflower Spread with Paprika, Salt & Cracked Pepper. I virtually plated for (and calorically budgeted for) a pot of non-fat Yoghurt.
Height: 5'6"
Starting Weight 01/08/10: 12 stone/168 pounds
Goal Weight: 10 stone/140 pounds

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.â€

-C.S. Lewis

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Post by vmelo » Sat Feb 20, 2010 6:09 pm

I know I'm late responding to this, but I had to comment that your plan sounds almost just like a plan I was on for TWO YEARS in my 20's (about 15 years ago). The only difference is that I would allow myself a sweet as breakfast (e.g., a muffin or danish, etc.) if I wanted it. I got down to the thinnest I have ever been in my adult life---too thin, in fact. Also, it was the easiest plan I have ever been on because I didn't have to do any meal planning.

After two years, I went off the wagon big-time, though. I think it was because I was too stringent about not eating sweets or snacks (other than fruit) for so long that all that will-power just exploded one day. In theory, No-S should address that problem. I haven't been successful with it, though, even though I've tried it at least five times. Believe me, I'm not knocking the plan. I think it's great. It's me.
Walkingman wrote:Hi Everyone,

This is my first post. I've been using No S for about three months.

My main modification is that I don't use S days. My release valve is that I allow myself to snack on fruit. I have a hard time going five hours between meals. But I can get by fine with one piece of fruit between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner. I rarely need it after dinner. Sometime I am hungrier than usual, so I leave open the option to have more fruit. I wish I could build the habit of skipping snacks altogether, but it just does not seem feasible for me. I figure there's no point torturing myself when two pieces of healthy fruit takes away all the pain.

My other modification was in response to my slow pace of weight loss. As a longtime calorie counter, I decided to target about 500 calories per meal. This is a very loose goal, and I routinely go over. But it seems to help me keep my portions a little smaller. Otherwise, I find I can easily load over 1000 calories on a plate without it looking the least bit shameful. I feel obliged to add that it really doesn't make me feel like a food accountant. It's just a quick rule of thumb that takes me just a few seconds, and I don't keep any kind of daily running total.

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Post by Kathleen » Wed Feb 24, 2010 8:24 pm

Reinhard,

I've ended up withs several mods:

1. A mod of "perfect compliance": Failure is not to be excused. There are some habits which are ones of "perfect compliance" -- I brush my teeth every day. Some other habits are not so perfect. This is a habit of perfect compliance. The reason why this is so important to me is that I don't want to be constantly thinking about eating and food. I want a lifestyle in which my eating habits are about as exciting and worthy of my thought and time as thinking about brushing my teeth.

2. A mod for definition of S Days: All Sundays are S Days as are two additional days per month which are "floaters" and which I can use for any reason whatsoever and carry over to the next month if not used. In one year, I have 52 Sunday S Days and 24 "floater" S Days.

3. A mod of "no portion control": This idea is from the book Intuitive Eating and the concept of "unconditional permission to eat". I can eat as much as I want at every meal and all day on S Days. I refrain from eating sweets except on S Days, but I eat as much as I want of what I do eat. On N Days, the amount I eat (and I only eat at mealtimes on N Days) has to be before me (at my place) before I take one bite.

I've had a long, long detour. Today I weighed 196.6, which is exactly what was my low for last summer. I have lost no weight since June of last year. I'm happy, though, because I think I'm back on track after trying several mods that turned out to be at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive. These three mods are what have stuck.

Kathleen

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Post by pinkhippie » Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:30 am

I haven't been no s'ing for very long but one mod I quickly realized I have to make is in the morning. I am not hungry for food in the morning and I generally don't get hungry til around 11 am. At which point I have "brunch".

But I am a nursing mom and I actually get lightheaded even though I don't feel hungry if I don't eat in the am. To me, its so important to only eat if Im hungry so what I have started doing and its taking away the floaty head thing is putting a scoop of protein powder in my hot tea... yes tea. :) I sip on that all morning and it keeps the lighthead at bay. Gross/ yes but it works for me.
Obviously there are calories involved but thats probably good with the whole breastfeeding thing. :)

Then I either have lunch around two or I wait til dinner to have my next meal. If I eat at two dinner will be later around 6 or 7. If I don't eat my next meal until dinner, then I usually eat dinner around 5 and give myself permission to have my third meal in the evening sometime after 8 usually. This works really well because its hectic with a baby and I get some peace to eat in after she goes to bed.

So far this is really working for me.

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Post by donnao » Sun Mar 28, 2010 4:07 pm

here is my current mod- i feel that i need to post this b/cause it may help
another person on this journey

i have posted several times that i am a recovering bulimic.
i no longer purge, but i do binge and restrict

when i first stopped purging, i made the commitment that i would keep WHATEVER i ate, not matter what ( whole gallons of ice cream, a dozen cookies- whatever)

it wasn't long before i no longer wanted to suffer that discomfort , and my pathological binges subsided more to overeating... and then restricting the next day, or two

better, but not optimal

so now, after some research, and talking with others with ED, i am making the commitment to .. guess what >> 3 meals a day, no matter what ever else i might have eaten

this means breakfast , lunch and dinner every single day, no matter what i have or have not eaten the day before, or what i have or have not eaten that day

i will probably gain some weight temporarily, but if it will get me to "normal" behaviour, then it is worth the pain of being frumpy for a while

i love this board, and all of the "normal" people on it
i would have never considered this plan of action, had i not been reading these posts for several years now and seen success with the people here

love you all, wish me luck

xo
Donna O

AmieW
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Post by AmieW » Fri Apr 09, 2010 6:35 am

So far I totally dig this eating system and haven't really had problems with it. My "mods" if you can call them that:

1) Drinking a small glass of fruit juice between meals is allowed if I am really craving a soda. I would rather have the small "cheat" of fruit juice than go back to drinking sodas.

2) No alcohol except on "S" days. I am not a big drinker, but would regularly knock back several beers or several glasses of wine with friends after work once or twice a week. I am making this an S day food mainly so that I really think about the extra empty calories before I indulge.

3) Sometimes I eat breakfast at 7:30 or 8:00am and don't get a break for lunch at work until 4:00 or 4:30pm. If that happens, I usually allow myself to eat a part of the lunch I've packed early to keep my energy up (usually raisins or yogurt) even though I don't have time to sit down and eat the whole meal yet.


Other than that, I sometimes make Friday night an "S" night if it is a date night with the boyfriend, but that's about it for my mods.

It's been really interesting reading what works and doesn't work for everyone else!
"It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time." -Winston Churchill

mmarchin
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Post by mmarchin » Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:37 pm

Instead of no sweets, I do "sweet ceiling" of 1 per day. Usually that means no sweets, but if I get a free cookie at work, I eat it. I did this because I like free cookies at work and they're rare enough that I thought it was okay.

Friday night after work is an S night for me too.

Lost 10 pounds since December doing it this way, so I guess it's fine. If I decide I need to lose more weight, I'll re-examine my mods.

Kathleen
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Post by Kathleen » Wed May 05, 2010 2:23 pm

Reinhard,

My mod of "no portion control" was what my kids would call an "epic fail." I modified it to having two Fast Days, on Wednesdays and Fridays, when I deliberately eat a lot less but not so little as to be noticeable to others. These are the only two days when I have portion control. On all other days, I can eat as much as I want.

In addition, I'm tracking walking 2 miles per day and banking miles like I bank Exception Days.

I'm now 2.2 pounds below my low of 196.6 from last summer, but at least I'm moving lower. I expect to acheive a 10% weight loss (215.0 starting weight - 21.5 pounds = 193.5 pounds) by the end of this week or next.

I just listened to a very interesting podcast from Yale University's Rudd Center on how those who lose a lot of weight need to maintain a high level of vigilence and put a great deal of effort into losing weight. Well, I've put a lot of effort into figuring out how to lose weight, but following this diet is downright easy. I've followed diets where I've literally could not sleep because I felt like I was starving.

Kathleen

OT
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Post by OT » Thu May 06, 2010 9:13 pm

I guess my mod is that I don't eat sweets/anything with added sugar/artificial sweeteners.At all.I gave it up for lent last year,before No S,lost a few pounds and all my sweet cravings as a result, and haven't had anything with added sugar/sweeteners since. It was only hard for a few weeks but after that all my cravings disappeared and I started to appreciate the natural subtle flavours of different foods a lot more.Fruit tea actually tastes sweet!I know it may sound extreme to some people,but I don't even miss sugar.I just see sweets and chocolate as empty calories and I prefer fruit anyway. My S Day dessert of choice is cheese and red wine!mmmmmmm

Graham
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Post by Graham » Wed Jul 07, 2010 5:26 pm

My mods - so far, just one - 2 days a week I fast for @24 hours. After my first month of No S, seeing my weight was not coming down, despite near 100% compliance, I looked to IF to provide the weight-loss I needed to see. On average I now lose about 1lb a week, so that works OK.

My proposed mod, that I'm mulling over: I won't count the size of a salad when I'm fitting my meal onto one plate - I'll treat salad as so benign and desirable that I don't have to do without anything else in order to have it.

My reason for this mod: I noticed I was eating less fruit and salad since starting No S, because I wanted my 3 meals to be really satisfying, so I wouldn't start snacking, and I knew salad was too light to achieve that. Now I'm thinking No S isn't meant to push me away from salads, and this mod of mine would be a solution to my dilemma.

sheepish
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Post by sheepish » Wed Jul 14, 2010 2:45 pm

Mine aren't technically "mods" because there's no rule on number of meals but, after six months or so of eating three meals a day and not seeing any weight loss, I've switched to two meals a day most days and a 24 hour fast once a week. I don't weigh - just measure by clothing - and I certainly feel a bit lighter now.

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Post by Nicest of the Damned » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:29 pm

Half Plate Mod: If you're having a separate vegetable dish (as opposed to something like a stir-fry or pasta, where the vegetables are mixed in with the meat and/or starch), half the plate should be taken up by vegetables. Corn and potatoes are starches, not vegetables. Sweet potatoes are vegetables.

Only non-caloric beverages, except at meals. A non-caloric beverage is a beverage with 10 or fewer calories in a standard serving (6 oz for hot beverages, 8 oz for cold). I wish I had a catchier name for this one, though.

Nicest of the Damned
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Post by Nicest of the Damned » Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:50 pm

I'm not sure if these are really mods, or just extra food rules:

If you are at home, you must be sitting to eat (or reclining, if it's Passover Seder). This applies to snacks on S days as well. It's just not civilized to eat in any other position, and you're more likely to make a mess. I have named this one the Sitting mod.

No eating from the package unless it is a single-serving package (and no, the last serving left in the package is not the same as a single-serve package). Even then, it's better to put the food on a plate or in a bowl before eating it. This rule applies at all times, not just on N days.

The package must be closed up and put away before you can eat. This is another rule that applies at all times. I call this and the rule about not eating from packages the NEP mod, for No Eating from Packages.

The Sitting and NEP mods together make it difficult to "graze" on snack food all day. NEP makes it less likely that, when you do eat snack food, you'll end up eating a whole bag of chips.

If you must buy snack foods or sweets, always buy the smallest possible package (a single serving, or one for each person in the house, is best), with the smallest possible individual serving. Bite-size candy bars are preferable to fun-size or full-size ones, for example. There's research that shows that people eat more from larger packages.

Never buy more than one package of sweets or snack foods at a time, even if they're on a two-for-one sale. This is related to the large-packages issue.

Only buy non-food items, fresh fruits and vegetables, canned foods, and things that get cooked (or used as ingredients in recipes) at Costco. Don't even go to the parts of Costco where the other stuff is. This has to do with eating more from large packages.

Unless you're having a party, one kind of sweets or snack foods, or one favorite for each person in the house, is enough. Don't have more than one kind per person in the house at any one time. Finish or throw out what you've got before buying any other sweets or snacks (in our house, this was the Dad Rule). There's research showing that people eat more when there is a wider variety of foods to eat.

If it's not meal time or time to prepare a meal, no hanging around the kitchen. Seeing food makes you hungry, and it's easier to eat if it's convenient. Don't have a TV or chairs in the kitchen, to make it a less inviting place to hang out. There is one chair in our kitchen, and it's a cheap folding chair by the table where the cats get fed. If food is too conveniently accessible, you'll eat too much.

No food or caloric beverages can be kept anywhere other than the kitchen. You can take food to places outside the kitchen to eat it, but you can't keep any caches of food anywhere but the kitchen. No candy dishes or bowls of chips in the living room unless guests are here in the house, right now. My mom always had candy dishes around when I was growing up, and I learned some terrible habits from it. I learned that I could clear out a candy dish during a 1-hour TV show, even if it was filled with candy I didn't particularly like. Now that I'm grown up, my home is a candy-dish-free zone. If questioned, I tell people this is because the cats can't be trusted not to eat from or knock over a candy dish, but the truth is that their humans can't be trusted not to eat too much from it.

It's OK to taste food while cooking, with a teaspoon. The teaspoon goes in the sink with the dirty dishes immediately afterward, because it is now a dirty dish. Doing anything else with it is just nasty, as is sticking your fingers into the pot (ewww). If you need another taste, get another teaspoon. If you already know what something tastes like, it's snacking, not tasting.

All meals, with the exception of a few holiday meals with guests, are served buffet-style. You take your plate into the kitchen, put food on it, then bring it to the table. There are no serving platters of food on the table (we generally serve the food right out of the pots it was cooked in, except on really special occasions). You may not nibble on the food on the way to the table (it's ten feet, for God's sake), and no eating directly from the pots in the kitchen is allowed. People eat less when food is served this way, it's easier to serve yourself from a kitchen counter or island than to pass dishes around the table, and there are fewer dishes to wash. Win-win-win. I don't track these, since we've always served meals buffet style, and I never got into the habit of eating directly from pots.

It's OK to not clean your plate. Really. Eating food you don't want is more, not less, wasteful than throwing the food in the garbage. It really doesn't help the starving kids in Africa (or China, or wherever they were when you were growing up) if you eat more. They won't know how much you eat, and if they did, they wouldn't care.

"To use it up" or "It will go bad if I don't eat it now" is never a valid reason to snack or eat sweets, even on S days. It could be a valid reason to eat something as part of a single-plate meal, but it's not a good enough reason to eat between meals, or to eat a dessert.

Make an effort to cook things you really like and look forward to for meals on S days. S days aren't the time to use up leftovers, unless they are something you really enjoy and look forward to (Thanksgiving leftovers would fit in this category for many people). S days are for enjoying food, not simply for consuming more of it. You are not a garbage disposal. You are not the family pig who gets fed leftovers to get rid of them.

If you're ordering something in a restaurant that comes in more than one size, never order the largest size. The only exception is non-caloric beverages. If it's an S day and you're ordering a snack or dessert, always order a small. I know it costs more per ounce this way, but getting the most food for the least money is NOT the goal here. Eating a reasonable amount is. You enjoy the first few bites of any food the most, anyway.

You "get your money's worth" at buffets by enjoying the food and leaving without feeling unpleasantly stuffed. You do not get your money's worth by eating more than you should. Nonetheless, buffets should be a "less than once a week" thing, because it is so easy to overeat at them.

If you're eating pizza, don't eat more than one slice for breakfast or lunch, or two slices for dinner. Personal pizzas are not allowed, except for frozen french bread pizzas (and only one of those at a time). This is the Pizza rule, and applies on N days. I used to eat a whole pizza at CPK for dinner. Pizza is a food I can easily eat too much of, so I instated a special pizza rule.
Last edited by Nicest of the Damned on Wed Nov 10, 2010 4:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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BrightAngel
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Post by BrightAngel » Thu Oct 21, 2010 4:33 pm

Healthy lifestyles are not just one of a kind;
they have to fit the individual.


I just posted a lengthy comment on my Daily Thread about Modifications.
Here's the link, if you are interested in reading it.
Go to Oct 21, 2010 which is...at this instant...the bottom of the page.

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic ... &start=300
BrightAngel - (Dr. Collins)
See: DietHobby. com

Nicest of the Damned
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Post by Nicest of the Damned » Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:03 pm

A new mod I'll be starting soon: the Nine Inch Mod (credit for this idea should go to Alex Bogusky, author of The Nine Inch "Diet"). I ordered some new 9" luncheon plates, and those will be my N-day plates, once they get here. At least for now, I'll keep using the old 10.5" plates for S days.

I started a salt mod in October, but just started tracking it. It means I use Mrs. Dash at the table instead of table salt, and use reduced-sodium soy sauce instead of regular (in cooking and at the table). This one applies whenever I'm eating at home.

Frejya
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Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 7:39 pm

Post by Frejya » Mon Dec 06, 2010 7:45 pm

Hi there,

I'm just starting out with this system (which just makes so much sense!), but I do know of two mods I'm deciding on right from the get-go (though I don't know that I'd even count the first as a mod).

1) When cooking, tasting food as I go along is okay, so long as I'm not just mindlessly nibbling. Because honestly, tasting is an important element of cooking - otherwise, it's nearly impossible to properly adjust seasoning and spices and so on.

2) During outdoor biking season, I will allow myself snacks while bike riding - most of which will kind of be "sweets" too, by the nature of the beast - when I'm going more than an hour or so, or racing regardless of time. With the kind of riding I do (50, 60, 70, 80 miles at a time for just training sessions, and then 100 or more in a day for some events), this is pretty much essential. Convieniently, however, my longest training rides and events almost always fall on Saturdays and Sundays!

Other than that, I plan to pretty much just stick right with the basics. The fewer modifications I have, the more likely I am to really stick with it!

Thanks!

poetgirl
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Location: Colorado

Two meals instead of three

Post by poetgirl » Thu Dec 09, 2010 3:22 pm

I have a question for all of you:
Would it still be No S if I decided to only eat two meals instead of three? I was considering cutting out lunch, and eating my dinner around 7pm. This would be my mod for No S. Would this hurt my metabolism, if I eat a big enough breakfast? Any replies would help!

April

Spudd
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Post by Spudd » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:22 pm

I don't think anyone can tell you if it would hurt your metabolism. But it might hurt your mental health. Wouldn't you get really hungry between breakfast and 7pm? I know I would. I'd spend the whole day wanting to chew off my own arm. I certainly couldn't keep that up as a regular habit.

poetgirl
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Post by poetgirl » Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:24 pm

I tried it yesterday and it didn't work that well. I might try it again just to make sure, or just stick to plain Vanilla S. You're actually right, the hunger was a big problem for me, but I'd like to work around that. :)

Nicest of the Damned
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Post by Nicest of the Damned » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:06 pm

poetgirl wrote:I tried it yesterday and it didn't work that well. I might try it again just to make sure, or just stick to plain Vanilla S. You're actually right, the hunger was a big problem for me, but I'd like to work around that. :)
I wouldn't try to load up on mods right away. You have a limited amount of attention and willpower. It's probably best to focus on getting vanilla No S right first, then, when those habits feel pretty well established, add some mods.

The exception here would be if there's some part of No S that you find you just can't do. If you can't get through the day on three meals, add a fourth. Maybe even take seconds sometimes. Nicest Husband is trying to move toward No S, but the "no seconds" is a struggle for him. But it seems he's taking them less often, and he's losing weight.

When you do add mods, go slow. I wouldn't add more than 3 at once, and I'd give any new mods at least a month to get established. That's how long researchers on human behavior say a habit needs to get established.

poetgirl
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You guys are right

Post by poetgirl » Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:16 pm

I think you're probably right. I haven't been doing No S for that long, and I wouldn't even know what to moderate. Besides, I've discovered that I really appreciate the structure of three meals a day, as opposed to the screwed up way I was dancing around meal times before. That's what caused me to yo-yo my eating to begin with!!

Anyways, thank you guys. Your comments are always very helpful. :)

April

Shimmer86
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Post by Shimmer86 » Thu Dec 16, 2010 12:17 am

I modify the diet by having lunch split up into 2 "mini meals". And I allow myself one "dessert" a day (ie. cookies, ice cream, etc)...but i also allow myself to have sweet foods such as sugary cereal for breakfast, craisins, or hot chocolate (the lower calorie kind).

Nicest of the Damned
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Post by Nicest of the Damned » Thu Dec 16, 2010 4:08 pm

Shimmer86 wrote:i also allow myself to have sweet foods such as sugary cereal for breakfast, craisins, or hot chocolate (the lower calorie kind).
What kind of sugary cereal are we talking about here? ISTR the No S book saying that adult breakfast cereals are not sweets, even if they do contain sugar. It's no sweets, not no sugar.

Shimmer86
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Post by Shimmer86 » Thu Dec 16, 2010 7:09 pm

It's not adult breakfast cereal, it's lucky charms. lol. And in the book it said that if anything tastes really sweet then it is a sweet.

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