Newbie Questions

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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Buttercup
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Newbie Questions

Post by Buttercup » Fri May 05, 2017 3:10 pm

Hey all - I have been reading around the forum a bit, and have some questions... I haven't read everything so apologies if this info is in here somewhere...

1. No Seconds - I don't habitually have seconds anyway, so this isn't a problem, but the 'all on one plate' thing is bothering me... this is because I don't always want all my food on one plate! Maybe I want a salad, and a roll, and an apple... is the principle that it should just fit on one plate, or is it that it has to be on one plate? I feel that no seconds is just the opposite of; you went and got your meal, and it was lovely and now you're greedily fantasising about having another bit even though you're full...

2. No sweets - I have seen that obvious desserts are out, and also out and out sweets (candies). This makes sense. But is it about the sugariness of these, or is it about the psychology of having a dessert? So after a meal, I might sometimes have a raw chocolate/fruit bar (just fruit, nuts and raw cocoa squidged together) - I eat it at the same time as my lunch - is this dessert?? Is this different to eating a piece of fruit after a meal - eg the same lunch with fruit salad to finish is ok but this isn't? The net calories would be the same, because the rest of the lunch might be less if I was having that...

3. Coffee - is a latte between meals considered a snack? I mean, it may have 150 cals or something, so it isn't nothing... if a couple of glasses of wine are ok, is this the same thing in terms of drinks with calories? (I don't drink so this isn't an issue for me).

The last thing I want is to try and game the system here...

I read that if you have to think about it too hard (if the answer isn't an immediate, resounding no?) it's probably ok - but I am a veteran of all kinds of restrictive diets, am a mistress of self-deception and I am a bit of an obsessive, anxiety prone over-analyser (can you tell?!) so I am not always able to trust my instinct!

I see that 3 weeks of vanilla is a good way to start - but I am terrified of making it too restrictive and not being able to stick to it... Any other advice in sticking to it in the first weeks would be appreciated too :)

thank you so much!!

Silk001
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Post by Silk001 » Fri May 05, 2017 7:40 pm

Well, I'm new too, so this is just my 2 cents. :D

1. I think you can virtual plate for items that you don't actually want on one plate. I've already had to do this even though it is my first week. Went out to eat last night and the salad came first. So I did the best i could visualizing the size that would take up on my plate. So just visualize the salad, roll, apple, etc... all on the plate and make sure it fits.

2. The fruit bar seems ok to me as long as you are eating it as part of your meal and it fits on one plate.

3. I think the latte would be considered a snack. But he does say in the book that you can have "milk" or "milky" drinks between meals if you get hungry. I'm not sure I would have a latte just to have a latte, but if you are really hungry and it's awhile until your next meal, I don't see a problem with it?
Silk001

Age 42
Mom to 3 kids -- ages 12, 10, 4
BMI 24.9
Current weight 164
Started No S on 5.1.17
Would like to lose 10-15 pounds

Skycat
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Post by Skycat » Sat May 06, 2017 5:32 am

1. Silk001 answered this pretty well but I would add that for me it is about deciding beforehand what I will have for that meal, and then not having extra. Soup is an excellent example of not everything being on the same plate/in the same bowl.

2. I wouldn't have the raw fruit/chocolate bar. I think to me the addition of cocoa would make it a dessert. I only have fruit after meals in that dessert 'position.'

3. The latte I would go with. I wouldn't have a hot chocolate but a latte seems OK. I think to me it's that the whole point of a hot chocolate is to be sweet, but that's not the same with a latte. Although I don't like coffee so have never had a latte, but it doesn't seem like a snack or a sweet.
I CAN do this.

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Merry
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Re: Newbie Questions

Post by Merry » Sat May 06, 2017 6:48 am

My thoughts--

#1, it should be able to fit all on one plate if you don't literally have it on one plate. But just beware of virtual plating too often because it can be easy to start over-estimating how much really fits on a plate, you know? I do find the psychology of fitting it on one plate is really helpful to me though--I might think something doesn't sound like a lot of food, but I'm so used to the habit now that I can look at a plate and know right away if it's enough or too much--and that's harder to tell with separate plates or virtual plating. (Do you have the No-S book? It's so helpful! Anyway, virtual plating is discussed in there.)

#2, there is no "something after the meal" strictly speaking. If you want to end your meal with fruit or nuts or a bar that you have decided is not a sweet, it needs to fit on your plate as part of the meal.

#3, The latte may be kind of borderline. If you have one a day and it's really only 150 calories, I wouldn't worry about it. If it's 2-3 a day, or if it's really one of those dessert drinks more than a coffee drink, well, that adds up pretty fast and would sabotage your efforts.

HTH!

3. Coffee - is a latte between meals considered a snack? I mean, it may have 150 cals or something, so it isn't nothing... if a couple of glasses of wine are ok, is this the same thing in terms of drinks with calories? (I don't drink so this isn't an issue for me).

The last thing I want is to try and game the system here...

I read that if you have to think about it too hard (if the answer isn't an immediate, resounding no?) it's probably ok - but I am a veteran of all kinds of restrictive diets, am a mistress of self-deception and I am a bit of an obsessive, anxiety prone over-analyser (can you tell?!) so I am not always able to trust my instinct!

I see that 3 weeks of vanilla is a good way to start - but I am terrified of making it too restrictive and not being able to stick to it... Any other advice in sticking to it in the first weeks would be appreciated too :)

thank you so much!![/quote]
Homeschool Mom and No S returnee as of 11-30-15.
2 years and counting on No-S.
29 lbs. down, 34 to go. Slow and steady wins the race.
Respect Moderation

ironchef
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Post by ironchef » Sat May 06, 2017 12:42 pm

1. The key for me is to plan and SEE my entire meal before I start. Part of the psychology of No S for me I that visual moment "here I sit down to my meal - whoa nelly, that's a lot of food!". If I don't plate it up, or at least lay it all out next to each other, it's easy to forget or underestimate what I ate.

2. Habit wins for me on this one. It's just "no dessert on N days". Not "maybe this dessert that I have deemed sufficiently healthy". Because as soon as I'm judging the quality of the dessert, I'm back to having to use my brain and that's a slippery slope for me. If you think of the bar as savoury enough to be part of the meal, go ahead, but plate it up. Over time you can decide if it serves you best to save them for S days.

3. Coffee - totally No S. Milk and a spoon of sugar, still no S. Cream, whip, hazelnut, mocha, etc = fancy dessert drink, S day only.

Anyway, welcome. I hope No S can help you learn to trust yourself again. Five years ago I came here from a background of counting / restriction, and I can sympathise with how weird it is to hear "just put ordinary savoury food on your plate 3 times a day". Wait, what? Yep, that's it :-)

Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup » Sat May 06, 2017 2:36 pm

Hi all and thank you so much for your words of wisdom... there are a few different takes here, so even on vanilla no s, I can see there may be differences in what people deem ok. So yes, I will have to start learning to trust my judgement right away! I suppose part of the fear around that is the 'one mistake = disaster' - ie if my judgement is off, I'll overreact and be off the wagon and out of control...

Anyway - I will proceed with...

No seconds = plan what I am going to have - a plate's worth, even if it's not on one plate - and don't go for more, even if I underestimated. The next meal is never more than a few hours away, right, so no need to panic! :wink:

No sweets = nothing with sugar in it, no baked goods with sugar replacers etc. I will think again about the bars - they are cocoa yes, but it's the sugar in the dates in them that I am worried about... if I said no to these, I would say no also to dried fruit.

No snacks = nothing calorific between meals. I occasionally have a soya latte - there's no doubt sugar in the soya if I buy out (rather than make at home), but they're not as calorific as normal milk. I don't do the syrup/cream etc thing. It's the work 'Friday afternoon starbucks' tradition that I will miss!

Really my biggest problem by far is snacking. It starts as healthy snacking, but pretty soon it's a free for all and I am never satisfied (because crisps and chocolate and endless toast are not real food). So that is going to be the thing I am 100% 'nothing even slightly questionable' on. The other two, I don't do so much anyway - they don't feel dangerous in the same way...

I can see it's a simple concept but wow there is still a lot in the interpretation, and a learning process :)

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Sat May 06, 2017 4:55 pm

I don't want to undermine your resolve, but I used between meal lattes and mochas for a long time. I did morph them into lighter versions, so they were probably closer to 50 cals. I never found that they led to more and more, the way chewing did. One was usually enough. Eventually, I realized I was using them even though I wasn't really hungry, so I have mostly phased them out. It's much easier to have an aha! from experience and change with accordance than to impose it. It's not as if you have to or even can figure out exactly how you're going to be able to eat forever in a few weeks. Some people fall into routines that work and never change them. I've continued to tweak all along the way although I started with some influences already in place. You will go at a pace that will be influenced by all kinds of things both inner and outer. There is no guarantee that your experience will be like anyone else's. When people say "it works," what is really more accurate is to say it can work, but it will have to match your conditions.

But even though it looks like everyone's different, we're really different in what are actually rather small ways. The slim cultures of the world may eat quite different foods and in different ratios but they have some core things in common. Eating most of their food at meals, really savoring and taking pleasure in what they do eat having rather cultural expectations of the size of servings and the size of the meals, a much smaller use of sweets even though sweets are appreciated, a general unspoken sense that it ruins the eating experience to get too full, and maybe a few others allow for a fair amount of variation in what and to a small degree when people eat. But once again, you don't have to practice all of this on day one or even ever. No S is such a great structure to support all of this.

Adding chocolate or even a little stevia fits into my program, and I've been at it over seven years. It's possible that slowed down something along the way, but I'll never know now.

I like using the term "adjusting" to account for any of the difficulties that may or may not crop up.

I think of it a bit like a marriage that is happy and lasts. The possibility is there from very early on, but there is no way to know if it actually will last until it does. Conflict along the way is not a sign that it can't be either resolved or even lived with, if necessary. And there can be legitimate bad matches. But No S provides so much leeway that most people can probably make it work if they are patient enough to reflect on what is really just temporary discomfort and what is a truly good reason to modify.

Diethead says that all that matters is what will get you to a certain weight but history has shown us that that alone is fantastically unsuccessful. Your ability to eventually be able to eat in a way that gets you enough pleasure from less so that you can do it for a long time is the real measure of success. If you can't be happy with less, it won't matter how thin any system gets you.

Use No S to help you get to the "less" that will support your life as it unfolds.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

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

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Merry
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Post by Merry » Sun May 07, 2017 3:53 am

Buttercup wrote:
No sweets = nothing with sugar in it, no baked goods with sugar replacers etc. I will think again about the bars - they are cocoa yes, but it's the sugar in the dates in them that I am worried about... if I said no to these, I would say no also to dried fruit.
If they're only sweetened with dried fruit, I wouldn't worry about them. Just plate them. If after a couple of months or so, you find you aren't seeing any weight come off, then you can look at being pickier about your definitions in some of these areas.

If you read the book, things like peanut butter and yogurt that have some sugar in them are most likely fine. You're more thinking "would I call this a dessert or a sweet?" (cakes, cookies, pies, candy....)
Buttercup wrote: No snacks = nothing calorific between meals. I occasionally have a soya latte - there's no doubt sugar in the soya if I buy out (rather than make at home), but they're not as calorific as normal milk. I don't do the syrup/cream etc thing. It's the work 'Friday afternoon starbucks' tradition that I will miss!
That sounds fine, and again, some of these more minor things can be examined more closely later on, if you really need to. Personally, I'd find a way to make a Friday afternoon Starbucks tradition work if it's a fun time with coworkers. Just choose things that are more like "getting a coffee" than "drinking dessert in a cup." I think one of the great things about No-S is that you don't have to give up those fun social outings (and most of the time, people around you won't even notice you're doing something different.)
Buttercup wrote: I can see it's a simple concept but wow there is still a lot in the interpretation, and a learning process :)
Start as simply as possible, and learn as you go--you don't have to decide everything up front (and some people may need to be more strict than others). In the beginning, the most important thing to focus on is just getting down those habits of 3 meals a day.
Homeschool Mom and No S returnee as of 11-30-15.
2 years and counting on No-S.
29 lbs. down, 34 to go. Slow and steady wins the race.
Respect Moderation

osoniye
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Post by osoniye » Sun May 07, 2017 6:08 am

It sounds like you've thought through this and there's a lot of good advice above.
I'll just give you my 2 cents.
The coffee drinks are fine and even a good thing if you need them. Just avoid the sweetened extras and stick with a teasp or 2 of sugar, which you add yourself. I find a cafe au lait is fine unsweetened and there is nothing in NoS about "no calories between meals", just no solid snacks or sweet things. So a milky coffee is a good thing, and a fine strategy for avoiding a real snack or sweet thing when you are hungry or just want something that has a taste.
Virtual plating a salad or soup is fine, in my opinion and practice. Just be honest with yourself.
I'd keep the fruit bar for S days. I like to have "special" things on S days that might even be allowed on N days, to make the day feel special without going on an all out binge or sweets-fest. If you are looking forward to and satisfied by those fruit bars as an extra on weekends, think how much other stuff you can avoid and still get that same special/satisfied feeling!
I'm sure you'll figure out what works for you and adjust as you go along. Welcome here!
-Sonya
No Sweets, No Snacks and No Seconds, Except (Sometimes) on days that start with "S".

Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup » Mon May 08, 2017 12:12 pm

Thanks everyone - this is all really helpful stuff!

I think I begin to see even more that it's not the 'what' as much as the 'when' on this diet/way of living... just because there are no hard and fast rules really. But I also begin to see that maybe there are the differences of opinion on the 'what' because it's based on how we feel about certain things?

For example, some days a coffee is just a nice thing I enjoy (the Friday social coffee), and sometimes it's being used to change how I feel/to procrastinate/because I am bored. It's always just a soy latte, btw, I don't really like the sweet 'dessert coffees'.

Perhaps it's more that the Friday coffee is ok, because it's planned in advance, and not an impulsive, emotional thing.

The aim, more than losing weight, is to become less impulsive/compulsive around food, so I think this is what I have to watch for. But I think I have to do it gently. I felt so much better during the week than i did at the weekend when I could eat what/when I wanted - just healthier and so on, and less obsessed. But it was good to be able to see that difference in mental state!

The fruit bar thingy - I can feel some resistance around in myself, so ultimately it is probably not a good thing for me to be having. But I am going to reserve judgment on it for now, as I don't want to push myself too far too fast and rebel against it. No snacks and seconds and no sugar is quite a big change for me already!

Slow and steady...

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Mon May 08, 2017 11:31 pm

People can choose their own "what" on their plates, but it doesn't mean in the long run it isn't important. It just isn't the focus in the beginning. Plus, humans can do well on a lot of variation of what, but the slim healthy cultures of the world tend to eat similar overall amounts of food, and it's less than in our culture and probably less than even what is recommended here.

You'll work it out.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

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

ironchef
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Post by ironchef » Tue May 09, 2017 10:53 am

I should have added the caveat to my response that compared to some I am comically strict on N days (eg don't eat jam or honey on toast) and others draw those lines very differently. I think it is partly that my habit brain is particularly dumb, so things that are fine for others are a slippery slope for me. Neither is the right (or wrong) way.
To me the strength of No S is that it gives you the framework, but doesn't micromanage, so people with different tastes and routines can shape it to suit them.

TunaFishKid
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Post by TunaFishKid » Tue May 09, 2017 1:32 pm

Reinhard on between meal coffee -
I drink my coffee black (and
strong), usually, but that's mostly because I like it
that way. I don't pretend there's a huge health/weight
loss benefit in doing this, and when I do put
something in, it's something real. The amount of time
people obsess about the tiny little splash of milk or
the couple sugar cubes in their coffee seems totally
disproportionate to me. Especially when they wolf down
half an Entenmann's cake at midnight to make up for
this little virtue. You'd have to pour a *lot* of
cream and sugar in your coffee to get anywhere near
the caloric content of a coke. Keep the focus on the
egregious offenders. If you feel the need to knock out
coffee calories and are capable of making this
sacrifice, great. But that's bonus at best. You
shouldn't be worrying about bonus unless you've got
the basics down.

I don't want to undercut the resolve of successful
dieters, no-s or otherwise, who have knocked out cream
and sugar in their coffee. If this is you, great,
you're a champ. But I do want to warn those who are
having trouble sticking to the basics that stuff like
this can be a dangerous distraction. If you're wolfing
down coffee cake as a midnight snack, it doesn't
really matter what you put in your coffee.

Note: by coffee I don't mean the candy drinks they
serve at starbucks and dunkin donuts ("frappe
mochachino," "coolata," etc). These are essentially
coffee flavored milkshakes. If this is what you mean
by cream and sugar, then yes, it's a problem.
http://www.nosdiet.com/group/2771.html

Edited to add: Upon re-reading this, I realize it's just about coffee, not necessarily between meals. But Reinhard does say that coffee is okay between meals. It must be in the book.
~ Laura ~

Buttercup
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Post by Buttercup » Wed May 10, 2017 1:03 pm

Thanks again all - OK so I think I should caveat my last response also with *for me* it's not so much the 'what' as the 'when'. For other people, it may be very different and I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression from what I may post.

I am the person who, when talking to the Dr about healthy eating, gets the disbelieving look. When they ask me what I have for dinner, it's chicken/fish and salad or rice and veggies or whatever. I eat very minimal processed sauces and premade foods - I love to cook and eat fresh healthy food... so why am I overweight I almost hear them think, surely this woman is kidding herself and me?? Nope - I really do eat healthy meals, and I hate being over-full... but I could be on the UK Olympic snacking team. That is definitely my culprit right there. Which is a relief to find out, because I can do something about it! (Although I may have to start even slower - more on this elsewhere if I can find an appropriate thread)

(sorry this thread/post is becoming an epic!)

The coffee - well, a 150 cal soy decaf once in a while isn't going to hurt by the looks of it: it's not a dessert coffee, but it's not a coffee +milk + sugar either. I will monitor it! I guess I will allow pre-planned social type lattes, but avoid emotional lattes - I need to learn to deal with those uncomfortable feelings :)

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