Everyday Systems

So, I was ready to start the Dukan diet and then, I said, "really??" with five kids- different meals? meat, no nothing for well, that plan 2 years??

Am I CRAZY or what?

So, I dusted off the No S book....
barely tried it last year, ran out of steam pretty quick...

HELLPPPP! I am almost 100# overweight...
tell me...convince me...
why No S with slower weight loss results? I am busting out of clothes...I need some fat off... NOW...but don't seem to have the craziness to only eat meat and veg for ten months or whatever
Why No S?

NoS teaches us to have a healthier attitude towards food. It breaks that love-hate relationship. It teaches us to eat like a naturally skinny person. # meals a day of good, healthy food. Just like Grandma. NoS allows us to blow off steam with S days. Normally skinny people DO eat candy, cake, chips, pizza, cookies or whatever. Just not every day and not in excess. NoS teaches a healthy balanced lifestyle that we can live with the rest of our lives. It really isn't a diet, it's a way of eating forever!

Of course we would all like to wake up tomorrow morning and look like Barbie or Ken, but it ain't gonna happen! If you lose (note lose) a lot of weight fast, you will find it again. I gaurantee it! If you reduce your weight very fast, you WILL have loose skin flapping around everywhere! I don't care how young you are, you will have way too much skin hanging and flapping. Slow and steady weight reduction gives your skin time to shrink with you.

Another thing, if you lose 50 pounds in 5 months, you WILL experience panic attacks. You will not recognize yourself in the mirror. Trust me, it's bitter experience talking here.

Be careful excersizing. Of course you should move, but in small spurts. You will risk injuring your joints and tendons. Each pound of fat that you shrink will make moving so much easier.

A good motivator is to read some of the testimonials. Please re-read the book. Read it every day. Join us and post some more. There is a wealth of experience and help here. You are not alone!

Don't lose weight. Reduce your weight. You lose your wallet. Not pounds!

I just wanted to give you a hug. No S much more doable with a big family than some separate diet plan that involves making separate meals.

I had 70 lbs to lose a a year ago. I now have 25 to lose. The best thing is that I know I have gained the habits to keep it off, and I know I will reach my goal.

I am in my 50s and have been continuously overweight for 20 years and struggled off and on before that. If I can change my habits after that amount of time, anyone can. I do plain vanilla No S with no modifications. I do not log my food. I take one meal at a time.

At my age and weight, I was worried about the skin sag that mrsj mentioned. I have slowly built up my exercise, and this helps with the sag. However, it will happen and you need to go slow and exercise if you want to conquer it.

I am now content with 1-2 lbs a month and with slowly building more good habits.

As mrsj says read the boards and figure out what works for you, but just do it. Do not quit. Do not start over. Make mistakes, learn from the mistakes, and move on.

One of the incorrect assumptions that many of us make when approaching No S as a possible eating plan is that we must reject good ideas from other diet plans if we are to follow this one. But this is untrue.

Reinhard makes the case in his book that No S is adaptable to other eating plans. In the case of Dukan (a 'lean meat and veggies' proponent), some of that plan's ideas are decent: I mean, you will lose weight eating mostly lean meats and veggies for an extended period of time (duh!)... But you may also lose your mind (I say this from experience)!

Rather than risk a 'post-Dukan relapse' (even if it works for a while, there is no way you will eat Dukan-style for life, and, thus, you will come off of it at some point, and, likely, lapse back into advanced versions of your old eating behaviors in response to Dukan's extreme nature), you could simply eat a Dukan meal for one or two of your three meals each N day... and that would likely produce far better long-term results than eating nothing but Dukan meals for the next 10 months. That way, you can take some of the good from Dukan (i.e. introducing more lean meats and veggies into your diet is nearly universally recognized as a solid, healthy idea), and eliminate much of the extremism that makes the long-term prospects of sticking to the Dukan plan bleak.

Best of luck!
Simmstone

I think the same way sometimes, one thing about this is there is diet freedom! No more obsessing and calculating! And I agree no more separate meals!!!!

Great advice, Simmstone!

Do you really need fat off NOW? Or do you need to find a way to get weight off slowly and sustainably?

My experience has been the two are somewhat incompatible.

simmstone wrote:One of the incorrect assumptions that many of us make when approaching No S as a possible eating plan is that we must reject good ideas from other diet plans if we are to follow this one. But this is untrue.

This is a brilliant point! Just because NoS doesn't prescribe what you eat doesn't necessarily mean that you can eat ANYTHING forever on your 3 plates a day and binge all weekend and expect to see changes. Following general healthy living advice (increasing fruit and veg intake, decreasing fat intake particularly for 'bad' fats, sensible portion sizes, avoiding processed foods) is compatible with NoS.

NoS is moderate, and moderation is key to long term, sustainable weight loss. If you can hack counting calories, cooking 5 different meals, eating close to zero carbs, or some other annoying diet rule long term then by all means go for it! For most of us it's just not realistic though.

OK, 2012 is gonna pass just like 2011 did. If we're on the NO S diet we'll lose some weight. It may be 1/2 what we want to lose but at the end of the year we'll be thinner than we were. We will have made progress in the right direction.

If we don't do NO S, 2012 is gonna pass by anyway. If we tried unworkable complicated diets studded with rules and regulations we couldn't stick to, then we'll probably be at the best a few lbs heavier at the end of 2012.

Chose No S for 2012. Take the path of least resistance,

Excellent posts, guys! I particularly liked 3-0-7's post re. the No S Plan.

As I have learned the hard way, before you can lose weight you first need to stop gaining! And as I have also learned, the false lure of the Lose Weight Fast! diets inevitably leads to weight gain, after some amount of time has gone by and I just can't stand another second of deprivation and eating foods I don't like.

There is no Lose Weight Now diet that works. Slow and steady works. No S is slow, yes. But it works, as opposed to other diets that don't work.

The good news is that after just a few days of No S, you can start to imagine a different life, one in which YOU
are in control, not the food. It's even better than Lose Weight Fast!

Lisa

At lunchtime today I was comparing lunches with a colleague. She is following a '7lbs in 7 days' diet and was drinking a 'power juice'. All her meals for the next week will be these juices, with drinks of hot water and lemon in between.
I was eating a goats cheese salad sandwich in sun dried tomato bread. I'm not a brilliant No-Ser - I have struggled over the last few months, but comparing my lunch with hers made me realise why I keep coming back and why I can't follow restrictive diets any more. I know I won't lose 7lbs in 7 days, but I enjoy my food and I am building good habits which will last.

She's actually not going to lose 7 lbs in 7 days, either. At least, not 7 lbs of fat.

We shouldn't assume that you won't lose a good amount of weight, either. it will depend on how quickly you make friends with hunger and the zippy feeling you have when you're eating about the right amounts of light, dense, and luscious foods for you. But don't be in a hurry. Look forward to enjoying yourself even more than losing weight.

oolala53 wrote:We shouldn't assume that you won't lose a good amount of weight, either. it will depend on how quickly you make friends with hunger and the zippy feeling you have when you're eating about the right amounts of light, dense, and luscious foods for you. But don't be in a hurry. Look forward to enjoying yourself even more than losing weight.

True, if you are eating 3 regular sized plates of healthy home-cooked food with plenty of fruit and vegetables there's no reason why you can't lose weight reasonably fast! If you are eating 3 platter sized plates of food dripping in fats, salt, oils and other calorie-dense things, then you might not lose that much

I think one of the things to get your head around with NoS is that just because you CAN eat anything, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Something I still struggle with!

I am doing it- started on saturday- pretty clever an "s" day....
I looked at that awful scale this AM and decided I can do this- even if is 4 pounds a month in a year, I will be lower than I have been in 7 years....
I know my hardest part will be the "no snacks", esp at night- I might just get more sleep-


Thank you so much for all of your encouragement

I have tried the Atkins Diet, and was successful with it. However, trying to cook for six other people in the house just didn't work. No S is adaptable, and although the weight loss may be slower in some cases it is a very good approach to weight loss and portion control.

jmjprayforus wrote: I know my hardest part will be the "no snacks", esp at night- I might just get more sleep-

This is my continual stumbling block. What I can tell you (from reading and personal experience), is that being tired is a great way to wake up the hungry monster. It can actually mess up your body chemistry over time, promoting hunger and weight gain. And crankiness.

And I don't know about you, but there is only one miracle cure for crankiness. Chocolate (preferably ice cream)!

Sleep is actually effective. Dancing, too. At least in my experience.

I can't believe I'm saying it -- or really, I can't believe I'm believing it -- but I've been finding exercise a miraculous cure for crankiness. Who woulda thought?

I LOVE exercise, get very tense, feel nervous until I get to it.

As far as weight loss, I have a dear friend who has been very heavy since I met her decades ago. She always said that she couldn't do any of the "lose a pound a week" diets because they wouldn't show any dramatic weight loss.

Had she started one two years ago and stayed with it, she would be 104 pounds thinner today.

That would be dramatic,