Everyday Systems

Swapping is usually more dangerous than it's worth. I wrote "not officially" instead of "No" because I understand that there are times when it makes sense. What might such times be? 1) when there are a whole lot of legitimate and mandatory non-weekend S-days all at once. Example: fathers day, my mot...

Bienvenu, monseigneur le vicomte. That's quite a promotion, from "boy s!" It sounds like your situation is definitely tweakable. Getting the 3 meal structure down as a habit is worth a few extra calories up front. For me the best thing about no-s is that I actually enjoy my food more than before. It...

Thank you. Deserving a medal is more praiseworthy than merely awarding one.

Thanks for pointing out the broken link... fixed it.

My fault for the confusion, Jürgen. The image I had in mind was the furnace of a steam engine, but because I've never done anything of the kind, I think the phrase I chose was slightly off. I'm going to add mention of your combined move to the stoke oven movement page: http://www.shovelglove.com/sto...

If I ever get together a testimonials page, I need to have a section on people whose pants fell down. This seems to be a recurring motif! Congratulations.

Tricia, I'm sorry it's been so long since I've popped in here. I sounds like you're doing great, despite a nasty bout of sickness. Status quo, in terms of weight, is progress with all that going on. Congratulatons on the cookie prize! I can understand how that might be an irresistable temptation... ...

Congratulations, Blondie. It's a little setback in the context of a broad victory. Social pressure is my weakness, too. Let it roll off and get right back on your feet. Perfectionism is useful as a motivating, clarifying goal, but we're not perfect. Accept the imperfection, seal it up like an oyster...

Prodigal, sorry about your first slip up. They'll happen once in a while, even to me. Don't let it get to you. You're doing so well big picture that the greatest danger of this slip up isn't an extra plate of calories but the chance that it could discourage you. For what it's worth, you have my bles...

Carolejo, the first things I'd suggest for "Boy S" are bigger meals and better timing. If that won't cut it, have him consider what Kevin does. If there's going to be an extra bowl of granola every now and then, better incorporate it into the system than risk the entire system in a vain attempt to p...

Last week I took three vacation days to travel visit family for my daughter's first birthday. Her birthday, friday, was clearly an S day, and I took it. So I had two murky vacation days to decide how to handle. The first went brilliantly, I managed to pull off a perfect N day. But the second I had t...

Justin, just knock on my door if you need some one on one reining in. :wink: Welcome back, Bonnie. We missed you. Note to all you long lost lurkers out there: don't be shy about coming back, even if you haven't quite stuck with it and are a little embarrassed. It takes most people a few tries, there...

Congratulations on your doubles, Freakwitch and Blondie. Kevin, you've set a great precedent with this. Looking forward to triples from you both (blondie, I ditto Kevin on your slip up).

I was too stunned by the number 500 (and too distracted by my daughter's birthday shenanigans) to press for (or at least remember) details. Will post them to this thread when I get them next time.

Curtis, you are very welcome. That's great news. Thanks for taking the time to let us know, and pop in now and then to let us know how it's going. Book proposal almost done, but don't hold your breath, from what I've read, even if a publisher bites right away (which is pretty much unheard of) it'll ...

My wife's uncle doesn't do shovelglove, alas, but he doesn't go to the gym, either. All he does is pushups -- 500 of them, 4 days a week, with simple dumbell curls while he "rests" in between sets. He's professional dog walker, so he urban rangers all day long. He's in his 50s, but has arms like tre...

Fits perfectly with my original inspiration for "stoke the oven" (and for "shoveling," come to think of it). Looks like you've got a nice little scenario going.

I'm not aware that I can configure anything about the ads. Before the pages are crawled or if there's not enough text there are just generic public service announcements. Yeah, it's a little stupid that most of the ads here are for direct competitors. I think I can remove ads for specific sites... m...

This is amazing.

My walk to work is 1.1277587970130747 miles.

So 2.25 miles round trip, plus lunch walks. Wow, same as yours, Justin (but in the opposite direction).

Uh, I'm not allowed to answer your first question according to the terms of the agreement.... except to point out that if some generous but misguided soul routinely clicks on random ads in the hope of enriching me, omniscient google will surely eject me from the program. So by all means click, but o...

Blondie -- plateaus happen. If results were exactly commensurate with our efforts diet wouldn't be a problem at all. Also I don't know if 2 pounds are significant enough to get excited or discouraged about... I go up and down 2 pounds just about every day. But it can't hurt to start counting days ag...

Deb, besides being the greatest nosdiet cheerleader than the next two of us combined (including myself), you set an incredibly inspiring example. Not because of your perfection, but because of your imperfection. Despite the very tough time "the old ways" have been giving you, you get right back up a...

As someone who comes from a culture that eats Schmaltz sandwiches (schmaltz = lard), peanut butter with bacon sounds delicious. I'll have to give it a try... maybe with a glass of champage.

Please don't sweat the extra meals. Hypoglycemics get the three stooges exemption, no question.

Deb -- Using the shovelglove to do something real (and amusing) certainly counts for something! Itf -- regarding the 5 days a week: Deb and Kevin are right, if it's too much, please find another schedule rather than kill yourself. Another thing to keep in mind is keeping the 14 minutes a weekday str...

Jan,

I think your generalized dual smiley system will see you through Annual Madness pretty well.... no-s is portable, and you have a number of ways to get an exercise smiley.

Still pretty amazed, "weird day" and all,

Reinhard

James, I was "sort of on vacation" last week, too (confessional check-in post pending). But overall, you sound like you're doing great. Your confidence in your new "eating algorithm" (love that phrase) is very convincing... I hate to say it, but I'm really not too worried about you. I've been loving...

It shall last forever! Thank you, justin. I should put a similar "what is this group?" announcement on the other groups.

I feel like I'm prefixing all my posts with "sorry for the delay..." these days, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to do it again here. 21 pounds! Wow. Forget the 21 day club, we'll need a separate pounds club for you. :wink: Please do continute to check in now and then, even if your news isn't alway...

Silverfish, congratulations. Sorry for the long delay... it's so distracting being a real person. Deb is right, slow loss is fine. There's no rush. Enjoy it, make it a habit, you'll get there. Snazzy is right that what you eat does matter, obviously, but I don't find it helpful to get systematic abo...

Thanks all for you kind wishes (and kind behavior!) What a great group... I think we got 20 "let's be nice posts" for a couple dubious phrases. Just for the record: it's officially ok to here to disagree with me or anyone else here, just be 1) civil and 2) slow to take offense (the hard part). If yo...

Prodigal -- welcome, congratulations, and happy birthday. Beautiful timing, and wow, 17 pounds, you're really living up to your namesake.

Welcome, Jürgen, Mandy, Ariel. Mandy, 21 days is a simplification, but simplifications are necessary. We forget sometimes today because we think we're so smart how insufficient our understanding is to fully grasp reality. Simplifications (humbly recognized as such) give us a foothold to crawl forwar...

Guys, I'm on vacation and travelling till Sunday. So please at least wait to kill each other till then! OK? Also it's my little girl's first birthday today, so if you want to give us both a present, be nice.

Hi Snazzy, I don't disagree that it's probably better to minimize the amount of highly processed food we eat, but I don't think that's the chief issue from a weight management perspective -- I think it obscures the chief issue. All of the ideal thin cultures pointed out in the diet literature get mo...

Belated welcome back, Carlejo. No seconds is pretty clear when you're at home, but restaurants (especially Chinese and such where you're expected to share) can be tricky. My most recent screw up was in just that kind of situation. I don't worry too much about it myself, because I don't eat out all t...

Thanks Justin for showing me how to make topics sticky. I think I'm going to unstick this one for now just because (Deb's marketing advice notwithstanding) I feel a little funny about being so in your face about asking for money. Navin, that's a good idea, I will make the daily check in and 21 day c...

I think technically these daily check-ins could be considered blogs. They are we b logs of a kind, after all. They're just very narrow in subject and made without specialized blogging software. That being said, it's probably safer not to refer to them as blogs just because people assume the speciali...

Good timing for me... hoping to have my book proposal out this month! I don't think the biggest problems with Atkins were the crass commercialism or the extremism (though these were problems). I think the biggest problem with Atkins and just about every other diet out there is that they treat diet a...

Welcome, Lola. The first few weeks are the hardest. It's the opposite from most other diets. But it's better this way (as long as you brace yourself and don't get discouraged): setbacks are quick and up front. Once you get past them habit makes it natural and easy and fun.

16 pounds -- that's an entire (big!) shovelglove. Congratulations! Sorry to hear about the joint soreness. I can't say I particularly noticed that in myself. Hope the resistance stuff you're doing on the side helps (or that it just mysteriously goes away). Keep paying careful attention to this issue...

Nothing funny since last post. I did take a "Special" S day last week for our anniversary, but it was textbook perfect: I only essed for the "special" observance itself. We went out for dinner to one of our favorite restaurants and I had an appetizer and dessert. No esses till then (and way too full...

Hi Jan, My associate id is encoded in the above url, so they'll tag you with a cookie as having been referred by me. Anything you put in your shopping cart or 1 click from there should give me my cut then, I think. I've edited out the bottom link you mentioned only seems to work for associates. Than...

Betsy, nice timing on the day off. You got a complete successful 21 day B round in. Very happy to hear about your new low.

Welcome, jgoddessoffire!

I'm very curious to see how this diet works for immortals... if daily check-in is too much, do be sure to pop in now and again to let us know.

Congratulations, Juergen. You've jumped in the middle of a throng of enemies and are slashing away at all sides. Very impressive! "Obese" -> "Overweight" might just be labels, but human beings are inordinately attached to such things, however silly they might seem to their purely rational part. Labe...

Welcome back, Samurai. We missed you, too. As excuses go, Hurricanes are pretty good. Glad you weathered it ok, and sounds like diet-wise it may have been a wash anyway. Looking forward to your check-ins again on Monday. "Last samurai" has finally made it to my netflix queue, over many wifely object...

Thank you, Jan! Just click the amazon link at the top of any of the sites and shop. You don't pay anything extra and I get a little cut. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/everydaysyste-20 I'm not sure if there's a statute of limitations regarding how long stuff sits in...

Ariel, the routines I list on the shovelgove home page are what I did at various points, not what I'd necessarily recommend. It's historically descriptive, not prescriptive. I don' t think the precise movements and rep counts you do are that important, these are just examples to get your juices flow...

Thanks all for giving me the lay of the land here. Judging by search volume, "3 hour diet" has sucked up all the oxygen in dietspace, so I've got to at least be prepared to respond to it. Much as I'd rather not, I'll probably head to a bookstore and flip through a copy some time this weekend. I'll p...

Thanks, Deb. I like that one, too. I've reduced home page mentions of "It's all about timing" from 2 to 1, so I don't have to keep explaining how "I thought of it first, really!" -- well, only half as often. Ariel, I stuck an Einstein quote on simplicity on the home page (right under the rules at th...

I wasn't fishing -- please do Richard a favor and leave me out of your will! I just think it's amazing how much more eating less costs according to most diet gurus, and how many people seem to fall for this.

This S has been mentioned before, but I thought it deserved home page billing:

http://nosdiet.com/#nodollarsign

It sounds like we have a lot in common, Juergen. I too had trouble with excessive drinking and smoking. Each is a huge problem in its own right, but for what it's worth, I got over them all (including diet and exercise) more or less at once (same year). I hesitate to recommend the precise measures I...

Welcome freakwitch, betsy, gwendo and x3 kevin. Thanks again Kevin for establishing a valuable precedent. Everyone feel free (and encouraged) to post here at any multiple of 21. Actually, I imagine some of you will want to stop keeping such precise count after a while, so after 21 just choose your m...

We in the business refer to it as a Deweyian slip. And it's no laughing matter, they can really add up.

Congratulations! It's here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=173

It floats around in the daily checkin forum based on whichever discussion had the most recent reply. Maybe I should do something to anchor it to the top.

Hi BB, The habits you build during the week do start to carry over on the weekends. Snacking is no longer automatic, you're full sooner because you've been eating less so seconds are less of an issue, and sweets tastes sweeter so you require less to get your fix. Sort of miraculously obvious, isn't ...

Prodigal -- don't worry about "only" being able to do one full set of that routine. That's plently. It's much more important not to rush. Remember that there is no set or repition requirement, just the 14 minute temporal requirement. It's ok if the alarm goes off in mid set somewhere. Just stop. Wha...

Hi Deb, Sorry it's been a while since I checked in here... I think I need to come up with a system for efficiently checking all the daily checkins! Thank you (on behalf of everyone) for being so much better than I've been about this. I hope Richard's feeling better. So sickness doesn't qualify as a ...

I'm happy to hear the shovelglove is going so well. No excessive soreness? Could it be that someone is actually following my bold red all caps warnings to go easy? Wow.

Anyone know anything about this? I'm getting a lot of hits from that search string. From what I can gather from the amazon review , it has a bunch of things in common with the no s diet (including the line "it's all about timing" -- rats, should have trademarked that!), while other aspects are drast...

The funny thing about old diet advice is the older it is, the more credibility it has. After all, people were skinnier then. Then again fewer people consciously followed any diet advice then, so who knows. That sustainable, healthy weight loss takes effort on both the input and output ends seems lik...

Interesting as this discussion has been, I think Kevin officially gets the last word here.

Freakwitch, congratulations on making it to the magic 21. Sorry you've run into a bit of trouble since then. Guilt is a healthy and useful emotion for murderers and rapists, not for stumbling dieters (except as a bogeyman to keep you from stumbling). Learn from what you did wrong, and get right back...

We (my neighbors and I) actually already have the replacement server, but it takes a bit of coordination to swap in... I'm hoping some time this week we'll get it done.

I like the smashing idea. Good combo shovelglove/weekend luddite activity.

I had an interesting email exchange last week that got me thinking. An individual had visited nosdiet.com and emailed me about how excited she was to get started. To paraphrase a bit, she wrote: "When I read these simple, commonsense rules, I was like, DUH, I should have thought of that!" I responde...

Get well soon, gwendo. As Deb said, sick days are S days (and it sounds like you're eating less anyway). Just resume counting where you left off.

Congratulations on making it through week 1, S-days and all, and sorry I haven't posted here sooner. I'm happy that we've gotten such a great community here that I can afford to be lax in my welcomes, but I shouldn't be. Regarding fast food and Morgan Spurlock's double quarterpounder, I used to rout...

Rasuoc, I'm basically just going to reiterate what Jan and Catbert have said: the whole point of urban rangering is that it is a useful, pleasurable movement that is easy to fit in for most people. It shouldn't be an extra burden, but a swapping of something sedentary for something active. If walkin...

What a beautiful, civilized name: bec de corbin. It's like the anti-shovelglove: instead of a buffering sweater, it's got spikes all over it. For those of you who haven't bothered to click the last link oldfox posted, let this title entice you: Le Jeu de la Hache A 15th century Treatise on the Techn...

another post crash test.

Getting tired of these crashes....

I most often have a piece of toasted mestemacher black bread with cheese. French Raclette is very nice. Also good with it are cashews and a little bit of something green. Another common one for me is cereal, whole milk, and a lot of fresh fruit cut in. With a little bit of spin, dinner leftovers (wh...

Welcome, rasuoc.

It's funny how many women seem to be afraid that the tiniest been of strength exercise is going to suddenly turn them into the Hulk. If only it were that easy, even for us testosterone ridden males! Don't worry, 14 minutes a day of *anything* is not going to do that for you.

You know, I wasn't paying close enough attention to what I was doing last time. It turns out I was reversing the arm movements, as Herman the German advises. When I try to do arms and legs in the same direction, it 's awkward, as Freakwitch points out. Still, even done reversed, it is a busy movemen...

Congratulations, Kevin. The body is an odd thing. Sometimes its reactions are delayed. Often this is a source of enormous frustration ("I was good but gained a pound!"), but occasionally it's wonderful. Sounds like a very nice vacation!

Hi Cynthia, If you are 180 pounds and start eating like a 150 pound person, eventually you'll get to 150 pounds, and then you'll stay there (replace 180 and 150 with your current and ideal weights). It may not happen fast, but it will happen . Making a dichotomy between 'maintenance' and 'progress' ...

so far so good

Phil, do keep us posted about the standing desk. I'm very interested in this. I think Rilke, too, composed all his verses at a standing desk. My desk at home is sort of a hybrid -- it's a little too high to sit but should really be a little higher for standing (it's not actually a desk). At work, I ...

Peetie is right. Do not worry about 21 days until you are confident about 1 day. Do not worry about 1 day until you're confident about the next meal. All of these numbers are just tricks to psych yourself into better habits. Peetie (and Deb) are also right about damage control. Next time you slip up...

I'm in awe, Jan. You're going to run out of virtues soon at this rate!

Do remember with the shovelglove that 14 easy minutes are just as good as 14 all out ones, in terms of habit. Do not risk injury for the sake of continuing to knock our socks off here.

Ariel, congratulations on your run of successes. Sorry I haven't popped in sooner. It's pretty amazing how quickly hunger starts to respond to retraining with these new habits, isn't it? If you're like me, it will simply cease to be an issue after a while. The only temptations that ever pierce my de...

Sibyl, I think at this point the exception proves the rule. There's no question you're stronger in habit now than when you started. Jump right back in. One little failure is insignificant, unless you let it impact your habit. Don't take revenge on yourself by skipping meals. That quickly degenerates...

Confession: I went out to dinner with a friend last Friday and did some rather poor "virtual plating." If I'd been in my 21 day trial period, I would have marked this a failure. It wasn't a particularly enormous amount of food, but poor discipline. It's funny that the only temptations to which I'm n...

I'm sorry you've run into some trouble, doulachic. Hang in there. It does get easy. Habits are hard to change, but once changed, they make everything easy. Two, three, even 10 false starts are nothing if that's what it takes to get it down. Sorry I've been a lousy cheerleader of late (my non-virtual...

Thanks for the compliment, Deb! Alas, I don't seem to have invented the phrase "opportunistic eating." from JOURNAL of ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH http://www.unm.edu/~jar/v56n4.html "Thus, the opportunistic eating of uncooked carrion or even unusually large quantities of fresh-killed meat by nonhuman p...

Welcome, Jürgen. Pizza is tricky... it's so stubbornly horizontal. But maybe that's good. If you wind up stacking vertically, at least it's really clear how much you're eating, you can't deceive yourself. The pressure of that obviousness is a great way to put a brake on consumption without draconian...

Welcome, Richard. Looking forward to a special update.

Welcome, corey. Happy your first N and S days have been going well. You are right to think in terms of "reward" on S-days. Don't begrudge yourself a treat because you want to be extra virtuous. That's diet hubris. Reward is a necessary part of the system, it doesn't just reward virtue, it is a virtu...

Welcome, Cynthia. Don't be afraid of failure. It's probably going to take some failures. The pseudostatic I've been pointed to is that it takes an average of 12 attempts to reform eating habits. Just determine that you're going to jump right back. If no s were some crazy, unpleasant potentially dang...

Catbert, congratulations and thanks for mustering up the courage to post "for the first time anywhere" here. I know that these bulletin boards can be weird and intimidating when you're not in the habit, but it's such a huge help for beginners to see that people have successfully stuck with it that, ...

This is beautiful... no two handed warhammer manuals, though, I guess? You're right, a lot does leap out. A "goliath" sword like that probably weights as much as a sledgehammer, and the two handed grip is similar. I suppose the warhammer was probably the weapon of choice for a less literate set :wink:

Freakwitch, thanks for the offer. I really may take you up on it... Mike, I finished "war of art." There were things I liked: all the references to ancient greece (including my friend Xenophon), the humor, the directness and brevity, the soulfulness. And things I didn't: the denigration of amateuris...

Congratulations, Tricia. I'm so happy to hear it.

You've got the hard part behind you. It's exactly the opposite of how it is with most other diets, that start out easy but become insufferable drags. Keep posting as you hit new milestones so that other people can see that this is true.

Happy 36! Loved Bath... one of the few pleasure trips I had time to take during my stay in London. Cute kid. It sounds like you've got the soreness under control. One thing I'd recommend is sticking to the temporal aspect of your exercise routine, just taking it much easier. That way you keep the fr...

I wish someone would post a truly horrendous "before" picure -- you know, black and white, giant sweat pants, frown. You're all just so good looking to start with...

Nice work, blondie. 1/3 there.

I shovelglove every weekday, so by Friday I'm pretty beat. I've found it's easier to motivate on days like this by jumping into freestyle shovelglove straight away, rather than going with an established routine. Besides the fun of it, I trick the excuse mechanism into thinking that by bypassing the ...

Inspired by the recent posts on hindu squats , I've combined it with the butter churn to get this. I think it's pretty self explanatory: you butter churn while you squat. Arbitrary? Unhistorical? Maybe so, but it feels pretty natural actually... Besides providing a little extra weight to the squat, ...

Nice work, Sibyl. Stuff like this is great grist for the excuse mill, but there's usually a way around these things and you've found it here. You can always blame the world, but if you look, you'll usually find a way in which it can accommodate you.

Beautiful. Congratulations. Complements are the best milestones.

From what I've read, there's a strong statistical correlation between watching TV and being overweight. Causality is hard to establish, one third of scientifc studies are bogus, blah blah blah, but tv is such a waste of time that I'm happy to have an extra excuse to ditch it, studies or no. And it d...

Let's hope this isn't one more of them. http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/07/13/contradictory.studies.ap/index.html and http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/2/218 I'm not trying to bash science, but science isn't about blindly trusting scientists. With so many contradictory studies around,...

Everyday Systems

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