Everyday Systems

à did two more or less successful weeks of NoS before I went on a week long vacation. Despite planning to stick with No S while on vacation, I failed utterly and went back to the perma snacking regime. Now I"m trying to get back on track again.

Any advice for vacations? I'm a schoolteacher and I have a lot of them. I can see that they will constitute a big problem unless I deal with them in a sensible way.

Betty

I think at first you just have to concentrate on getting the normal routine in place and then eventually vacations will take care of themselves. I started No S in November and Christmas set me back quite a bit.

However we just went on holiday for a week to a hotel where the food is *good*. We did the same holiday last year and I put on 8lbs and carried on putting on afterwards. This year I only put on 3lbs and two weeks later they are gone already. I allowed myself three extra S-days, and failed on one of the three planned N-days (scones with jam and cream, yum). But I just think the habits are so ingrained I was eating less than last year without really realising it. I should say on the N-days I still allowed myself more than one course at dinner, etc, and had fruit salad or cheese for desert so not really depriving myself.

I just found it much easier to get back on track. To be honest I can't ever imagine eating another way that No S now, and habit-cal is helping me consolidate the habit. For example we are staying at the in-laws this weekend, and arrived late Friday night. They brought out drinks and potato chips. I was thinking, "oh well, it is the weekend" but then I remembered my run of green squares this month, and stuck to a cup of tea.

Can you tell I am feeling very positive about No-S today!

LM

Thanks Londonmum. I do hope that over time this gets easier. Waiting for habit to kick in...

And here's another question: should I count the vacation days as S days or as failures?

The truth is, I did hope to continue with N days while I was away, but it just seemed impossible in the face of all the tasty cheeses and sausages and regional cakes my husband kept buying. So I failed at what I hoped to do, but think that at this point it would have been nearly impossible to stick with No S... so how should I mark my habitcal???

Betty

Some questions to help you decide....

How many non-weekend S days have you had this month?

Do you FEEL that they were failures? I sometimes think that the decision-point determines it for me. After-the-fact is failure, before is an S-day.

And how much does red discourage you? I have strong perfectionist tendencies, and that's an issue for me.

One option is to leave them blank. I missed an intended exercise day yesterday, but exercised first thing this morning, which was going to be a day off. I don't want to count it as a failure, b/c the red will discourage me. But it's not a success, because I failed to carry out my intention - and I don't want to encourage "I can make it up" thinking. So I will leave yesterday blank, and make today green. I know what that means.

Do whatever will support your habit-development best.

At Christmas there was no habit-cal, but in my head I considered that I had taken more S-days than I had intended (two weeks altogether), so I think I would have marked it yellow.

This time 6 weekdays fell on holiday, I planned that three would be S and of the three remaining two were green and I marked the other as red. But actually I don't actually feel it was a failure as in "I wish I hadn't done that".

If it would help you not to feel discouraged I would mark the holiday days as yellow. For the future, maybe try and work out a more realistic rule. I am considering marking the next holiday as all yellow as I have more faith in my ability to make sensible choices now without going overboard (for proper holidays away anyway, which we do once or twice a year, as opposed to staying at relatives, or non-working days at home, where I plan to stick to No-S).

I had a similar dilemma with my version of glass ceiling which has been a less secure habit, and I found I kept changing the rules, and in the end marked the holiday yellow. But seeing it in three colours has made me realise this system was not working for me, so I am cutting out alcohol all together for a while - at least a calendar month is my plan.

Kate