Everyday Systems

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,...

Hi Goops. Sorry I missed this post till now. From my understanding, when it comes down to what you should actually do, the no s and leptin diets are very similar. The difference is the no s diet doesn't obscure the simplicity and obviousness of this course of behavior with weird references to midich...

Bounce back, emptydog. Remember the 12 tries pseudostatistic. Try to learn from the failure. What did it?

Welcome gwendo and spiralstares. So what's next, the Four Seasons? That's so far off, would be nice to have something in between.

Hi Ariel, sorry for my delay getting here. Sibyl's virtual plate advice is good. I mean in the best of all possible worlds, one wouldn't resort to this, but who lives there? I think the trick to successful virtual plating is leaving an exaggerated space on the plate. That way you don' t have the nag...

Jan, you are phenomenal. I'm happy no-s is useful even for someone in as great shape as you obviously are! Though I guess I'm pretty thin now too and one might wonder why I continue to be on a "diet." (answer: I enjoy food more this way, it's easy and natural, and I have a nasty tendency not to stay...

Freakwitch, I can't believe I haven't popped in here yet. You are awesome. It's hard to find the right balance between futzing and simple regularity. I try to give myself boundaries, but room to futz within those boundaries. Example: 14 minutes every N day is sacred but no micromanagement within tho...

Congratulations, Gwendo.

Actual work is infinitely preferable to contrived exercises -- the trick is how to keep it regular. One idea is have a fallback routine, for days where you don't have the chance to do real work. Keep us posted.

I love it. I'd never heard of Persian Meels. Did you see the picture of the guy juggling them? (towards the bottom) Try that with sledgehammers!

And sheesh, you're right, I've gotta work on my moustache.

Whether it's actually bad for you or not, I don't know, but to me the larger issue is this: thin people don't cram themselves with diet products. If you want to be thin, eat (and drink) like a thin person. Eat real food, even real sugar, just less of it. I don't think there's any other long term alt...

Ginjer, I'm sorry to hear you haven't seen better numbers, despite your strict discipline. No-s isn't billed as a quick fix, but obviously it would be nice to see *something* in a month! Do you think you are now eating less? It sounds like you are, and if that's true, and you aren't moving less, you...

I think it's good you're using the lighter sledge on this, Freakwitch. It's a great move, but particularly twisty and dangerous if you overdue it. I had a false start on this one myself and didn't do it for a while, but since I started up again doing fewer reps (14 each side) more slowly and careful...

Congratulations again, Spiralstares. Don't go too fast, I need some time to think of my own oprah routine! You should pop in the 21 club for a bit. http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=173 If nothing else, it's useful for people to have a single place to look for confirmation that yes, this...

You must be a fellow computer programmer, counting from 0. Welcome!

I've been doing some "stirring" now and then as part of my freestyle. It's fun, historical, and gives you a great range of movement. At the moment, it sometimes seems like almost too much range, like I'm doing something slightly different every time, but that may just be the usual new movement start...

Welcome, planner lady. You clearly have enormous reserves of willpower if you could lose that much counting calories, more than enough for this. This just takes a little concentrated push in the beginning and then habit takes over. Big picture, you should be utterly confident that you'll get overthe...

Welcome, Blondie. You sound just anal enough to stick with the rules but not so anal that you'll drive yourself crazy with borderline issues. Very promising! Keep us posted.

Welcome, Tracyj. I would skip the chocolate milk. It seems like a pretty clear "sweet" to me. If it were regular milk (even whole milk, the only kind I drink) I wouldn't blink, except it seems like a funny thing to do to your digestive system right before bed. Naturally, do what you think best, but ...

It's "diet" in the sense of "the great eastern marmoset has an omnivorious diet" not "some wierd temporary thing you do to shuck pounds." Whereas most diets have you eat in ways that no naturally skinny person every has, the no s diet is really just about restoring deeply normal eating habits. And w...

I don't know if this actually works but it claims to:

http://www.resize2mail.com/

If you email the image to me I can do it using adobe photoshop.

beautiful_idiot@yahoo.com

It seems silly and almost wrong to worry about diet on a day like this. I lived and worked briefly in London, and my heart truly goes out to you. Violence and death is horrible anywhere, but when conducted with such deliberate cruelty, in such a magnificent city, it seems an affront against the soul...

Hi Peetie, Here are some ideas: 1) If you don't feel securely habituated after 21 days, by all means, continue posting daily. 21 days isn't some magic boundary that will ensure success. It's approximately how long it takes for most people to form a habit. I give this absurdly specific number because...

Welcome, CaroleJo. It is funny that, as you point out, the nos diet encourages you to eat more food on the micro level of the first (and only) course. Most other diets obsess over this micro level. Every little thing you put in your mouth is scrupulously examined. This is foolish. The micro level do...

Jan, I would probably stick it out fortified with a big lunch, but if that doesn't seem possible, take sibyl's "virtual plating" suggestion: have a pear or something in between but leave an exaggerated space for it on your dinner plate. Not something I'd recommend doing every day, but I wouldn't thi...

Welcome, Vanillagorilla. Sorry I didn't see your post till now.

You don't even have to pretend the shovelglove is a sword to get martial, the war hammer was a legitimate weapon in its own right.

Thanks for clarifying BLS. I thought it was Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Samurai, it sounds like for you the daily weigh ins might be better than sporadic since you're less likely to be thrown by a single number. And the regular, merciless discipline goes better with the Samurai ethic. Regarding skipped breakfast, I think of that Einstein quote, "everything should be as ...

Happy belated Canada day. Nice to see that uninterrupted stream of red successes continuing. Regarding the parents, here' s another idea: reminding them of the diet may just antagonize them at this point. If you've informed them what you're doing and they haven't come on board, they may not for a lo...

Sorry about the tooth, Gwendo. Traumatic physical suffering definitely counts as an S. Hope the inevitable excesses of the 4th haven't knocked you off track.

Funny stuff report: this is probably funny on the side of virtue, but I'll report it nonetheless. When S days come, they come not single spies, but in batalions. The week after father's day, my wife's birthday, and my mother's birthday, it was my father in law's birthday. I was in no mood for anothe...

Peetie, I think there are two keys to making S days successful: 1) Get something your really want so that you aren't just eating wildly. I would advise not to let S days just be days because I think that will translate into frenzied, opportunistic eating of pure junk, without even any gastronomic va...

I'm not sure whether it's the stomach or the mind that gets trained to be content with less. I suspect it's both. When I started, I'd get to an empty plate and think "that's it??!!!!???" Now, whether switch or mere sign of fullness, when I see an empty plate I'm placidly, contentedly, fully done.

Deb, Great photo! If you ever put up no-s before and after photos, you're going to have to find something less attractive than that as your before :wink: I second the 175 goal (or mini goal). You can always go farther once you're there, but a closer goal is more inspiring than a distant one, especia...

Margaret, I'm sorry to hear it. Good form jumping right back to attempt D. Remember how many tries it takes on average to reform a dietary habit (12), remember the Churchill quote. You had a good run with attempt C. Give yourself a mini goal of breaking 8 days with D. Learn from what messed you up t...

Spiralstares, this is fantastic. Double digit losses already (assuming the long weekend didn't set you back too much!) and you haven't even hit 21 days yet. Good luck on making it to that first, big temporal milestone this week.

Sorry for taking so long to weigh in here, but you all figured it out just fine. Yes, S days count, and Samurai's reasoning is right on. See, it's even easier than it sounds to join this club.

Type the image url

highlight it

click the Img button

Glad to hear it, Beth. Any time. Welcome back.

Sahd, welcome! No Name (aka, Flip the Level) is probably the toughest move. I still only do 14 of each hand, and there is more swinging than might be desired. I'd advise either: 1) just skip it for now. The other moves do exercise these muscles, just not as directly. You'll gradually build up just b...

I have to confess, I don't worry about plate size at all. I find that "one plate" however big, is a good enough approximation for the big picture. We don't have to be perfect, we just have to be good enough, and not every time, just most of the time. We don't want to put too much system in our syste...

I think the new bulletin board is a better legacy builder than the old mailing list because it's so much easier to keep up with, and we can structure it better for continued, long term check-ins. The disadvantage is that it's a little more intimidating to sign up for, initially. But better get fewer...

Hi Rumba, thanks for posting this and sorry it took me so long to get around to responding. Good meal habits, not pills, not miracle foods, are the best way to control "cravings." I'm not sure what is more astonishing, that this is true or that it is, despite our willfull ignorance, so obvious. The ...

Congratulations, doulachic! Relax and digest your husband's birthday cake in peace. It sounds like you handled the day with minimal excess. Habit-wise, you're doing brilliantly. You can legitimately take your husbands birthday as a straight up S-day, you don' t have to trade a weekend day for it. I'...

Don't drive yourself crazy about the 21 days, Deb. It's a motivational tool for some, it should not be a torture instrument for anyone. Your free spirit is a little too free to submit to such rigidity, but your persistance makes up for it. If you weren't making such slow, steady progress I might be ...

Of all non-shovelglove exercises, squats appeal to me most. I don't do them in a regular way as exercise, but my daughter finds them disproportionately amusing (both to watch and to tag along for the ride), so they come up as entertainment a fair amount. I haven't quite grasped the distinction betwe...

Sibyl, I don't know what day you're on, but it looks like you're on quite a roll. Don't worry about the cherries. These things happen now and then, it's borderline. It's not ideal, but you are right not to consider it a failure, you showed good restraint. Failure is a morale building tool, not a tra...

I love the huge font on your huge successes. Keep it up. I shall refrain from commenting on whether "spurs" starts with S

Keep it up margaret. Very nice comeback! Round C is looking great. I had a social drinking problem, too. Giving my self a daily "glass ceiling" of at most 2 drinks in a day worked astonishingly well.

Welcome, Peetie. Sorry for the delay. And don't worry about mad cow. You are much, much likelier to die from a lightening strike than from the human form of mad cow.

Thank you, Mike. This is very helpful. It looks like my "find a publlisher" resolution is going to have to spill over into July. It was a little insane to think I'd be able to get it done in a couple of weeks (it's still insane, but less so). I'm not sure why I though the biggest monthly resolution ...

Looking forward to seeing you in the 21 club this week. Hang in there, just a few more days.

It occurs to me that the extreme programming tenet is just the imperativisation of occam's razor: In its simplest form, Occam's Razor states that one should make no more assumptions than needed. Put into everyday language, it says The simplest explanation is the best. When multiple explanations are ...

fawnmarie, welcome and thanks for posting the link. Sorry for the delay in responding, I've been churning through a mountain of emails and posts since our little trip last long weekend. I have one remaining question regarding "Leptin:" what on earth is it? Is it some fictional(?) nutrient? Is it the...

But think of all the extra calories the heat is burning! Congratulations on sticking with it and your big loss. Wow. We'll be on Oprah in no time at all at this rate! :wink: Of course, as you point out and must be careful to remember, this rate isn't going to continue. Still, enjoy it while it lasts...

Margaret, my wife does think I'm a nut, and I took the video/stills myself. I balanced the camera on this funny hatbox/table we have. It was a bit tricky and involved some serious furniture rearrangement which is why it may be a while before I get footage for "chop the tree." oldfox, 20 pullups, wow...

Welcome, Judy. I find a drink while I'm cooking keeps necessary tasting from turning into a meal it itself. In fact, whenever you feel unbearable temptation creeping up on you, a drink is worth a shot. A good percentage of the time, that'll do it. And if it doesn't, you're no worse off than you were...

oldfox, your polebell (sounds like a medieval weapon) is very impressive! I'd be careful about just snapping on extra weight to a regular sledge, though. Here's why: 1) The weights can fly off. 2) One has to assume that the handle is not designed to carry more weight than it does. It could snap. The...

I really have no idea, but I can qualify this ignorance in a couple of ways: 1) I'm pretty sure most people who signed up to the yahoo group didn't stick with it. It would be a miracle if they did. If year after retention rates were even low double digits, it would put me way ahead of any other exer...

Congratulations on making it to 21, and on outgrowing the expensive jeans so quickly-- that's money well wasted, if there is such a thing! Do join us at the 21 club, as Maitre-d Kevin suggests.

Great idea for a thread, Kevin. I love the gourmet associations of the name. For what other diet would they be appropriate? The only difference is I'm hoping this thread will be less exclusive than the restaurant, that we'll soon have far to many members to even dream of making a reservation. I thin...

What astonishes me most is how many of them are in Japanese. Maybe everydaysystems will be the next TQM! Anyone here read Japanese? Samurai? Google translate is amusing but not very informative: From: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.100shiki.com/archives/2005/06/_the_n...

Sibyl, thanks for posting this. I think it's a great idea, both as an interesting thread, and as a motivating factor for walking: the experiential scavenger hunt. One does see some strange things when one puts in the time and the distance. I work in a city in this industrial/bioinformatics complex i...

Mike, I need to come up with a smaller site "whitelist," too. As a trained librarian, I'm a natural browser, and while this is great in a physical library where some activation energy is required and serves as a filter, it leads to utter paralysis on the web. It's a little disturbing to think that w...

Jan, congratulations. Sorry I was offline for your big day. Your relentless discipline is impressive and inspiring. Good luck on your next habituation goal. (The 21 days is a good general purpose structure, isn't it?)

Day B21: S-DAY The wedding I warned you about. So what to do here now that I've hit the magic 21 days of habituation? I'll stop posting here daily, since success is assumed. I'll just post funny stuff such as: Day B22: SUCCESS : Saturday, but switched with yesterday because I've already taken one no...

Freakwitch: Regarding the Meno, I feel perplexed, as if I'd been stung by the flat sting ray :wink: I've been reading it with 2 different book groups, and I think the virtue of it is less in its ultimate conclusion (which I'm still not quite sure about), than in getting you riled up about the proble...

Day B20: SUCCESS. Yes, Deb, that's exactly what I meant. The old ways are gone, not lurking around the corner. This isn't just me pep talking myself, and I did have old ways and they did used to lurk. It's wonderful.

snazzybabe, as far as I'm concerned you're welcome to add other esses if you like, or combine no-s with other stuff. I would beware of mission creep, however. Straight No-s is hard enough, and effective enough for long term weight control. There's a risk in piling on extra rules. The hardest part ab...

Congratulations, doulachic. Just brace yourself that it's not going to continue quite that quickly, and there will be some bumps on the way, even if your behavior is perfect. I know you know this, but knowing and bracing aren't quite the same. This is a slow braise, not a saute. It's just one tiny d...

Welcome back, Freakwitch (and family!). I'm afraid the everydaysystems server has been fscking itself a bit the last few days... may have to replace it soon. How funny and sad about the gym/insurance company. But don't worry -- I'm not insured, nor do I have any money. So go crazy :wink: I'm curious...

Margaret, don't despair. It takes most people a few tries. More than a few, actually: the pseudo statistic I read somewhere on changing dietary habits is "12 times". Remember the Winston Churchill quote: "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." So let's see som...

Welcome, Sibyl. Sorry about the site being down yesterday when you were trying to join up. Here's hoping we never find out what your least favorite color is.

Day B19: SUCCESS Thanks, Kevin. You're doing the right thing. I wouldn't be as utterly confident as I am without a few successful years under my belt. It is nice, though. I never could have imagined that it would be like this. Guiltless eating is nice, but fearless eating is unbeatable.

"fertilize the crops"

Snazzy babe, one last reminder: take it real slow to start out. You won't feel just how hard it is till the next day.

Sounds like things have been going great till last check-in. Hope that things are still going strong and that you've just been too busy to check in this week.

Lyn, hello, welcome. Sorry I missed your first post till now. Hope you're still with us.

Jan, you're fantastic. You should hit the magic "21" this week. You'll take the silver medal, after Kevin. I better be good and make sure I get the bronze at least! Oh, and I meant meditative hyphen exercise above, not slash (though, I have to admit, I'm a little (>0) mushier on that issue than you).

cvmom, congratulations! I'm a bit oatmeal fan too, except usually for lunch and I'm too lazy to cook the steel cuts (they tend to explode when I try the microwave shortcut). Don't worry about recording everything you've eaten if it's a pain. I don't, for one. It's a useful exercise for a bit, but th...

Day B18: S-DAY My wife's and my mother's birthday (I know, very oedipal). But I was good (I had to be, after yesterday's excESSES): only one small (ok, medium) piece of cake for each, other meals as N-days and nothing in between. Advance warning: we have a wedding to go to Friday. I don't actually k...

Welcome back, Samurai. You had the daimyo worried! Don't feel pressure to post daily if that's annoying. I should probably remove that qualifier from this forum, since even I, strictly speaking, don't do it.

Here is the solution for those of you who need the encouragement of good numbers and the looming discipline of potentially bad ones: weigh Saturday Morning *and* Monday morning. There's balance for you! Disclaimer: I don't weigh myself regularly and don't have any particular issues with this, though...

Welcome, Gwendo. Be careful with the hyplglycemia. Grazing all day will likely turn you into a waterbuffalo, but you may want to consider an additonal official meal. Take a look at Kevin's checkin to see how he manages. Best of luck and looking forward to hearing more from you.

The origins of the no s diet are shrouded in mystery. Seriously, I came up with it before I started logging everything into my microcassette recorder so I don't quite remember. I'm pretty sure my wife (who's not on the diet) came up with the critical "S day part," but neither of us is 100% sure anym...

Congratulations on making it to the first milestone weekend, spiralstares. Here's another inspiriring (and diet related!) Hamlet quote to get you through the next week: "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and ...

Welcome, snazzybabe. I've heard that too about it being better to give muscles a day off in between but here's why I do five in a row anyway: 1) Pre-agribusiness farmers worked much harder than this and didn't take every other day off. If anything, they took less time off. 2) These aren't the contri...

Welcome, doulachic! Thanks for officially signing up. Lurking is fine, but it warms my heart to see the registered member count go up, and it's a good way to "officialize" your decision (decisions are so much easier to back out of when you're not 100% sure you've really made them). The check-ins are...

Day B14: SUCCESS
Day B15: SUCCESS I'm wracking my brains, but no funny stuff whatsoever. How dull... No S Diet version of the ancient Chinese curse: "May you have an interesting diet blog."

Oldfox, Thanks for posting this. No, I hadn't seen it. A few things strike me: 1) this really is similar to shovelglove. I'm continually amazed by how much precedent there is for this crazy idea. I thought when I first posted the site I'd have chiropracters sending me desperate emails "stop! this is...

Jan, thanks for the tips. I'll check these out and compare with cafepress.

Margaret, I wish I were in a position to have to worry about selling out and preserving my "underground" image -- alas, no offers yet! Thanks for the vote of confidence and offer of help.

Great to have you back, jools. Congratulations on your good news all around. It's good with this fresh crop of newbies to have some successful old timers checking in now and then.

Welcome, Margaret. You will make up for in savings on the no s diet what you spent on the "metabolic diet" and others pretty quickly. Buying less food means thinner you and fatter wallet. What a novel concept! As for the weekends, two pieces of advice: 1) Don't worry so much about them. Enjoy them. ...

Kevin, you're a champ. You're the first one here on the check-in to hit the magic 21 days. You even beat me, the founder! People are getting a lot out of your posts. If daily is too much of a pain, maybe consider going weekly or monthly (or whenever the urge strikes)? You get a little gentle pressur...

Day B12: SUCCESS
Day B13: SUCCESS (more baby avocado, but this time I budgeted for it)

Spiral, I would love to have an everydaysystems "Jared." Sometimes I wish I could have started out fatter -- I'd be rich now! :wink: Seriously, what Jared did wasn't all that different from nos plus urban ranger: 3 (very limited and monotonous, admittedly) meals a day and walking everywhere. It's go...

It's cool with me, blog away. Sorry I didn't see this post until now. Hope my silence didn't disuade you and that you'll take it up again when you get better soon (read you were sick on your nosdiet checkin).

Keep it up, Jan, this is great. You're more than half way there (and being such an efffective cheerleader for others in the process). I'm fascinated by all these eastern meditative/exercise practices you and Deb are talking about. Maybe that's what shovelglove will be like in a thousand years. :wink...

Great quotes, ClickBeetle. The next breakthough in technology is going to be how to reduce the obtrusiveness of technology. In the meantime, we'll just have to rely on simple non-technological tricks like these. And technology better hurry up, or we'll see that we don't really need anything else!

Driving fenceposts is a fun move, but like the fireman and chop the tree, it's twisty with the back, which is what makes it more fun and more effective, but also (as you suspect) more dangerous -- so do be careful. There's a simple way to reduce the danger and you know it but it's good to hear and r...

Welcome, Jetii. Eating out or eating at home, the most important thing is to follow the literal rules strictly. Will that be enough if you're ordering restaurant "platters" three times a day? Probably not, but it's a foundation. Keep the focus on adhering to the strict, literal rules at first, even ...

Welcome, Spiralstares. Weekdays I walk a rough minimum of an hour (15-20 minutes to work, 30 minutes at lunch, 15-20 minutes back home). Weekends I don't make any systematic effort, but if the weather's nice, it's usually at least as much. Does that seem like a lot? Start with half an hour a day. St...

Welcome, oldfox. Sorry for the delay in getting to your post. You make some excellent points about the leverage. Storm posted a while ago about a turn of the century strong man who buffed himself up to ridiculous levels with a home made device that was (essentially) just a 10 pound sledgehammer . Bu...

Everyday Systems

Search found 5927 matches

Study shows one third of all studies are nonsense

Post image test