Small sweet treat every day?

[freegirl]

Has anyone here tried following No Snacks and No Second rules, with a small sweet treat every day, on N days as well as on S days? For example, a small piece a chocolate after a meal.

[automatedeating]

Yes, there are a number of people that use that mod.

[noni]

On my intermittent fast days I'll take a bit of dark chocolate with hot tea after dinner 2X weekly (I always have dinner). I do look forward to this treat and savor it slowly.

[leafy_greens]

I have such a problem with sweets that this mod doesn't work for me, unfortunately.

[herbsgirl]

I do eat small sweet treats daily. I only allow myself a certain amount of bites so I like a bite or two of sweet with each meal.

Notice I didnt say a piece of cake or a whole cookie. A bite or two ect!!!!

[oolala53]

Vanilla is much more common among long-term users. Most people who use the mod successfully go through a period of several months NOT eating them on N days.

[freegirl]

Thank you all for responding.

I'll try eating a small piece of dark chocolate after lunch and after dinner every day. I am not planning to add much more sweets on S days - maybe occasionally a few bites of something, but only after a meal.

I am hoping to tame 'the sugar beast' this way. I don't do well with large quantities of sweets, even only on S days. In the past 8 years several times I've been off sugar for several months, and I felt great. But eventually I started eating sugar ( a lot of it) and ruined all my efforts. I want to try a different approach this time.

[Xtal]

I was wondering this same thing. Today is only my third day of No-S and I've already had a failure. (My first two days were successes).

I'm used to having a small sweet treat to "finish off" a meal. This was a habit I picked up in France. At my host family's house, we would always finish off lunch with a small bit of something sweet. Either yogurt, pudding, sour cream with sugar (sounds weird but it's tasty), or a small square of dark chocolate. Nothing over-the-top; just a little something to finish off the meal and signal that it was over.

I've found it really hard to do without my small piece of chocolate after a meal. Today after lunch I gave in and had a small macadamia-nut chocolate cluster. Just one piece, and I savored every bit. That little jolt of delicious sweetness felt so satisfying and really signaled an end to the meal.

In my normal life, sweets are not the problem; snacking and seconds are. I don't even care for sweets that much, but I've gotten really used to my post-meal ritual of one piece of chocolate.

For now I'm going to Mark It And Move On, especially because tomorrow is an S-day (My weekend is Mondays and Tuesdays).

I'm still going to adhere to No Sweets in that I'm going to eschew sugary coffee drinks, and find the strength to say "no" to all those treats offered up by my co-workers which I mostly eat out of politeness. But I'm going to have to really think about whether having one piece of chocolate on N-days is truly a "failure."

[oolala53]

It's up to you. Some people phase in skipping the S's. You may find two S's are enough for the results you want. The whole thing is about finding a routine that encourages moderation.

The author William Clower, who wrote "The French Don't Diet," recommends exactly what you say, having what he calls an "ender." He says it is often a small piece of chocolate, although he says it could be nuts. He says it could also be tea or coffee.

[Xtal]

The author William Clower, who wrote "The French Don't Diet," recommends exactly what you say, having what he calls an "ender." He says it is often a small piece of chocolate, although he says it could be nuts. He says it could also be tea or coffee.

It could be cheese! Like some really good brie on a cracker. Mmmm. I will have to think about this.

[la_loser]

Xtal,
I completely understand your thought process about a "punctuation mark" to "end" your meal. Some of the thoughts here rang a bell with me. There was a thread way back in 2008 calling for a "pink" button for those times it just doesn't seem like one little slip should be a big ole red day so maybe it could be pink! So I looked it up and found my response. . . . a rather long one (much like my tendency to be long-winded in real life but it might provide you some food for thought. Pun intended, I guess! These copied posts seem to be from several different threads but they all tie together.

Laguna,

This concept has been debated throughout these threads. Reinhard is pretty clear that although we sometimes think we just can't survive to the next meal, that it may very well be habit not hunger calling our name.
And lots of people of done various tweaks on the Vanilla No-S (pure strict version) of the diet. However, the concern is always that when you start messing with a good thing, you can rationalize yourself right back into the old habits. That being said, you may find that for your body or schedule you may have to do something a little differently.

I know in my heart that the pure No S is the ideal commitment, yet like you, I hated marking that big red square if I just made one little slip. So I solved it by creating some additional Habitcals. . . which allow me to track whether I was able to do the real deal--or if I didn't, to track if I made, as you say, a tiny little slip as opposed to going off the deep end. It's really working for me. I've included below the posts I made elsewhere to explain these. I think some others have done similar things. You just have to be careful not to settle all the time only do it "kinda sorta!" I STILL keep the original No S Habitcal.

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:17 pm Post subject: SOMETIMES. . .
This of course goes right back to the reason the official wording of the plan includes that word "sometimes!"--even if it didn't make it to the book cover!

Except (sometimes) on days that start with "S"

Re-reading this old thread refreshes the explanation of that and how not being an idiot is so important:
http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=759

That's why I started a Habitcal reserved just for S days to keep myself thoughtful of not being an idiot!

It's called Not_an_Idiot_S_Day I give myself a Green even on an S day just to keep track if I've avoided being an idiot!

Also added a habitcal called GREEN_Equals_two_r_Less_S_Slips I even mark regular S days green then too

As I noted in a previous post, I still keep my "real" Strictly S day Habitcal called Strictly_Speaking_No_S but I'm doing the extra Habitcals to give myself permission to go crazy--it's just a way to track where my issues are if I do blow it.

When I remember that prior to No S--I was not only having S's on every day--but I was often "an idiot" every day!

Now -- to plan my S day so I won't be an idiot TODAY!

And other post on the same subject. . .

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:23 pm Post subject: Not_an_Idiot_S_Day --- Habitcal to keep myself honest
I'm happy to report that my Habitcal for not being an idiot on S days is all green so far. For my own reporting purposes, I consider myself not an idiot if at the end of an S day. . . if I've had Seconds only once; one sweet and one snack.

The Habitcal is called Not_an_Idiot_S_Day and I only mark it if it's a day I marked as S on my Strictly_Speaking_No_S Habitcal.

Now that I've written this long post--I see Wosnes has posted a much more concise reply--and just as appropriate! One of the beauties of this whole plan is to make it as simple as possible to follow and to keep up with. . . another advantage over all those SAD diets (substance accounting diets--see other old threads for those!)

Good luck.

Since that time I've dropped marking the HabitCal officially on a regular basis but have definitely tried to stick to the principles of Strictly Speaking No S AND the others as well.

Hope this helps.

[oolala53]

Oh, yes, cheese! I forgot the French obvious.

[la_loser]

Oh my goodness-I know I can stop if I have one bite of something sweet. . . but thinking about delicious creamy cheese on a cracker and I'm pretty sure I'd be eating handfuls of it! So it's a good thing I stick to one tiny sweet treat on occasion!

This just proves how different our weak links are! Sweets for some; savory for others.

[vmsurbat]

I completely understand the desire and satisfaction in a "this is the end of the meal" finisher. In our family, I've slowly morphed to a fruit and nut tray 90% of the time. The fruit portion is usually a mix of fresh fruit and dried (ie. an orange or two peeled and pulled into little segments plus dates and figs--More dried fruit in winter, virtually none in summer). I put the fruit on a plate and then scatter whole nuts over it (almonds, walnuts, or cashews). This takes no more than five minutes to prep.

I like to make spiced nuts (walnuts, eggwhite, some sugar, spices--baked) or maple nuts (walnuts, bit of maple syrup, sesame seeds-baked) when I have time and will scatter a few of those, too, if I have them. (I also put those nuts in salads for a bit of crunch.) For a special N-day treat, I'll put out one or two dark-chocolate covered almonds/person on the fruit tray.

I've found that this combo of fruit and nuts, with a little bit of sweetened nuts on occasion, just the ticket for finishing the meal. In fact, this is the best way for our famiy to get a healthy serving of nuts and fruits within the NoS framework; so many diet plans suggest fruit and nuts as snacks and we don't do snacks. Plus, the fruit-nut tray is wonderfully adaptable to the seasons--right now grapefruits and oranges are terrific, but pears, bananas, apples, peaches, berries, cherries, berries--mmmm. It all works.

HTH,