Everyday Systems

That's great news Ladybird well done being consistent and moderate.

Jx

Quick hello from me! Just popped by to do a quick update. It’s so nice to keep in touch with everyone here. Hope all’s good with you. Sounds like you are still doing well on your journey! I related to what you said about getting a meal size wrong. It’s something I do - make my meals too small then struggle to avoid stodgy snacks! I hate getting all hungry and weak.The challenge of moderation continues! Take care.

Thx Soprano and Octavia

Well done! Keep up the great work!

Thanks Amy. It's taken a lot of persistence and practice to get to this stage.

Mon 8 , Tues 9, Wed 10 success
Thurs 11 failure - after a 9km (5 mile) walk in the rain with a walking group, I came home rather cold and damp. In spite of seconds for lunch, I was hungry again by mid afternoon, and had a snack which I think I needed. No overeating involved.

I will add that I don't usually eat morning tea when we stop for a break on these walks . I hardly needed it on Thursday with a decent breakfast only a couple of hours before and not being hungry.
Fri 12 success
Sat 13 , Sun 14 3 meals

Mon 15, Tues 16 success, although I don't think I had quite enough to eat.
Wed 17 technically success, but felt like I'd eaten too much dinner. One of those times allowing myself seconds lead to too much. Judging by what I was thinking, a direct consequence of a bit of undereating Tuesday.
Thurs 18 - not hungry when woke up, so really enjoyed my pot of home made soup when I got home from a mornings exercise. Success
Fri 19 success
Sat 20 , Sun 21 3 meals

Mon 22, Tues 23 success
Wed 24 failure- was feeling rather tired and lethargic, and in the late afternoon suddenly cracked and had afternoon tea.

To keep the 3 meal structure going, I turned it into an early dinner, but it wasn't planned, so hence a failure.

Thurs 25 - decided to declare this an S day to accommodate afternoon tea. After a light breakfast I went out with a walking group and belted around the local forest for several hours. While I had as much lunch as was comfortable on a 13 or 14km (8 or 9miles) walk, I was pretty hungry when I got home and didn't feel like waiting for dinner.

The wildflowers were pretty good.

Fri 26 success

Well done on navigating the boundaries of your No-S to accommodate your walking - sometimes a challenge to work around things that affect appetite in a different way.

Thanks Amy

Thats cool that you have a walking group! I like hiking but feel unsafe doing it on my own.

Mon 29 Tues 30 success
Wed 31 success sort of- had dinner in 2 parts, 2 hours apart.This was planned, including what I was going to eat, as at dinner time I was feeling too tired to eat a full meal, but I knew 1/2 a meal wouldn't be enough.
If it hadn't been planned, I would have called it supper and marked the day a failure.

August summary - weight 134 - 136, much the same as last month. Call it maintenance.
Eating was a bit erratic at times, but only one real moment of concern when I had an unplanned afternoon snack.

Thurs 1 SEP another long walk today, 15km with ups and downs. I was rather hungry when I got home mid afternoon. Decided to wait and have an early dinner rather than afternoon tea. I don't want to get into the habit of eating between meals again.
Success.

Congratulations on maintaining!

It's really interesting to me how important the habit of not snacking is, and how quickly it seems that it can become a habit to snack again. Good job waiting until early dinner! Especially after your walk!

Thanks Pink. The change in my eating habits is very important to me, and I am willing to go to some lengths to keep the new ones.

Fri 2 SEP, success
Sat 3, Sun 4 3 meals

Mon 5, Tues 6, Wed 7, Thurs, Fri success
Sat, Sun 3 meals

Mon 12, Tues - Thurs- Fri success
Sat 13 3 meals. I woke up feeling a bit tired and unrefreshed. The weather was also a bit blah, wet and uninviting outdoors. Just the sort of situation that would once have had me heading to the kitchen for some unneeded food to give me a boost . I could feel the pull, but put it aside to do some more work on an article I am writing for a club magazine.

Later in the morning when I was properly hungry, I had breakfast after which I went for a mood boosting walk in a break in the weather.

Sun 3 meals

.

Mon 19, Tues , Wed success
Thurs S day as I was walking with a group which breaks up my usual routine. 2 meals and 2 snacks
Fri success
Sat 3 meals

This post will be about my progress from bingeing to not currently bingeing.

Anything I write will be about me personally, and I don't want to suggest that mine is the best or only way of approaching this problem.

I am more of an abstainer than a moderator. I am not really interested in learning to eat highly processed foods moderately, because I prefer to eat a nutritious diet of foods that make me feel good.

I started bingeing as a teen, partly due to enormous stress, and partly due to not eating enough during the day while I was at school. Once my brain had got used to me doing this, especially when I started eating large quantities of energy dense highly processed food products, the problem was compounded by physical withdrawal symptoms.

My first step some decades ago was to start to reduce the negative emotions associated with bingeing. I recognised that the more upset I got with myself, the worse things were. If I took a more relaxed and detached view, episodes tended to run the their course.

After self medicating with food after a bereavement 20 years ago I took the next step. I stopped eating my main binge food by finding a substitute which was similar, but didn't have quite the same pull to eat such large quantities. I also promised myself when I was in the supermarket that I could have anything I wanted, as long as it wasn't this particular food. This worked well.

No doubt getting over my loss helped as well.

It may be important that my substitute, while still high in fat and sugar was homemade and had only two ingredients. Unlike the food I was trying to eliminate, which had many highly processed ingredients and was no doubt formulated to make me eat as much of it as possible.

About a year after I stopped eating this food, I had some at a function. My reaction was so what, and I haven't eaten any since. I eventually stopped eating the substitute too mostly.

This post is long enough, so I will continue later.

Mon 26 success, although I may have eaten a bit too much lunch thanks to unnecessary seconds.
Tues, Wed success
Thurs S day as out walking with a group. 3 meals and a snack, supper as still hungry.
Fri woke up hungry second day in a row, also tired
must make sure I eat more today, another part of my anti binge strategy. Success
Sat woke up hungry again, so need another day of bigger meals. 3 meal
Sun 3 meals

Thanks for sharing what you have been through in your journey out of bingeing. It sounds like you found an approach that really works for you and you have had the patience and determination to stick with it over the years and are in a good place right now. At what point did you add No-S to what you were doing?

Hi Amy, I came across NoS in 2016. Tried it on my own, but it turned out that I needed the support and accountability which I have found here. I joined the forum May 2017.

After the initial honeymoon period was over I have had some relapses, although my eating was never as bad as it used to be. Even when I went silent for a while, I still thought of myself as doing NoS. And I have kept off some of my initial weight loss for several years now.

The thing that used to defeat me were the physical withdrawal symptoms and associated cravings. Somehow reporting here has allowed me to learn to wait the discomfort out. Once I got used to being able to do that, the rest has mostly been fine tuning in as far as weight loss goes.

I have had some blips, in 2020 when I think I was feeling more anxious than usual and was lacking the physical therapy I had come to rely on. Well, I wasn't the only one with covid kilos. And after losing weight in 2021, I regained some over the holiday season. So I still have some more to learn about how to live without excess food.

This year I have been more much more strict about not eating between meals. This has become easier in part because I also have been more strict about not bringing tempting food into the house.

I don't enjoy the losing struggle against temptation, so I also have a rule that I can eat as much as I like of any food that is in the house as long as it is at meal times.

I have also been more consistent about exercise, and am now enjoying walks of several hours at a good pace with a local group again. This is a great mood booster, and reduces the impulse to eat just to make myself feel better.

That's enough for now.

Thanks for sharing, Ladybird. It is so helpful to hear about the process you went through to get to where you are. We all come to this with a desire to change our relationship to food, and No-S is a tool to do that, but we have to figure out our own way of using that tool. It is so great that you have figured out what works for you!

Well, it's a work in progress, and I don't want to pretend I have all the answers.

SEP report
Weight 133 - 135, down a little from August.
Have started calling days when I go for long walks with a group S days as it is harder to fit my usual meals around this activity and I want the flexibility. So far so good.

Mon 3 Oct, Tues , Wed, Thurs, Fri success
Sat , Sun 3 meals

We are all a work in progress, aren't we?

Nice you are able to give yourself flexibility around your walking group!

Mon 10, Tues , Wed, Thurs , Fri success
Sat, Sun 3 meals

Mon 17 failure - supper after not enough dinner
Tues, Wed success
Thurs S day, out walking in the bush with a group - had a mental break and didn't think about number of meals or snacks
Fri success
Sat 3 meals, supper
Sun 3 meals

Perhaps not met your goal but I wouldn't class it as a failure in the strictest sense if you were genuinely hungry due to not enough at dinner

No, there was no failure involving overeating there But undereating at a meal, mainly because I hadn't got my food organised properly is not good either.

I am actually starting to feel the need to have a break from my current rather plain and boring diet and do some more maintenance for a few weeks. Perhaps including a few more treat foods without going off the deep end. I will see how I go.

Mon 24, Tues, Wed, Thurs , Fri success
Sat 3, Sun 3 meals
Mon 31 success

I had many inadvertent plateaus along the way. Adding extras after a period of limitation can go both ways in my experience. It can feel rather seamless or the overeating urge can surge. Have you been through such phases? I have been out of the loop for so long.

Hi Oolala, actually recently I have been just getting really bored with what I was eating. Partly Covid is to blame, as I have been avoiding my crowded local greengrocer where I was buying good quality fruit and veg. The local supermarket just doesn't cut it in that department. I may have to reconsider.

Today my energy is down and I unexpectedly found myself hit with a surge of desire to eat more than I needed. Have decided to have an afternoon off in bed instead, although I wouldn't call the amount of fruit I ate for lunch moderate.

Perhaps I will go for a short walk later if I really feel like it.

October report- another month of weight maintenance, 133 - 135 lbs.
Eating - had been feeling rather hungrier than I cared for, as well as getting bored with my meals. Have had a few more energy dense meals as a consequence, and feel like I have caught up with how much I should be eating. Doing this leads to maintenance, which is good. Denial of hunger and excessive calorie restriction leads to overeating which leads to putting back on the weight.

I do believe that while this works to help me regulate my weight while eating a diet of nearly all home cooked meals without ultra processed foods, I have no idea if this works on the typical western diet of highly processed and commercially prepared foods.

It might indeed be possible, as weight maintenance can occur at various body sizes. But the weight maintained might be higher than desired. Anyway, not an experiment I wish to try.

Tues Nov I, Wed success
Thurs walking with group S day
Fri success
Sat 3 meals, Sun 3 meals, supper

Mon,Tues,Wed , Thurs, Fri success
Sat 3 meals,a couple of nibbles out of the garden
Sun S day - ate meals and snacks when I felt like it. No overeating, but good to loosen the reins occasionally.

Mon - Fri success
Sat 3 meals, supper
Sun 3 meals

mon, Tues, wed success
Thurs, Fri S for sick day
Sat, sun 3 meals, supper

Mon, Tues , wed S for sick day

sounds like you’re doing great w maintenance. i want to be there.

sorry about the sick days though. feeling better?

So, your weight has been stable recently? How much weight did you lose since starting no-s?

Hi Linda - to tell the truth, I would still like to lose a bit more of the weight that has settled around my middle, but maintenance is greatly to be preferred to regain.
I've been on antibiotics, which upset my tummy enough that smaller meals more often felt better.

Hi Ellis, I've gone from 151 to about 134 lbs.

November report

Eating Ok, NoS still chugging along, weight holding between 133 and 135 lbs. I am hopeful that this year I have managed to reduce my set point from around 142 to 135 lbs. Pants which used to be too tight are now too loose and I have had to resort to a belt. Time for some new pants.

Getting to the point where your set point is reset to a lower range is huge! Well done. And smaller pants as well!

Thanks Amy.

Thurs 1dec, Fri success
Sat , sun 3 meals

Mon, Tues , wed success
Thurs technical success, but didn't eat enough (misjudged) which lead to Fri failure- supper.
Sat 2 large meals and a snack
Sun 3 meals. Went for 1st walk for several weeks after having time off due to an infection.

Mon success
Tuesday failure- supper
Wed S day, had sweets for lunch with friends. Tried 4 different sweet things, 2 of which weren't worth finishing, one of which was ok, and one I enjoyed. A hit rate of one in four is not particularly good. If I am going to eat sweets, which I rarely do, I am going to go for maximum enjoyment, otherwise I see no point to eating them. I certainly don't need the extra calories.
Thurs ,Fri success
Sat, 3 meals, sun 3 meals

Mon , Tues, Wed success
Thurs failure - not sure why, but lunch left me hungry again two hours later, so ended up having an afternoon snack
Fri S for severe heartburn. A few minutes that were so unpleasant that I'm not in a hurry to repeat them. I will be having smaller meals for a while, so won't be trying for the three meal structure.

Fortunately after so much practice I am much better at saying no to unneeded food, not to mention the heartburn incentive. So not really worried about letting go of my 3 meals safety net.

Sat S day
Sun S day lunch with a friend

Oh no, severe heartburn, that sucks! I hope it clears up soon with your adjustments.

thanks Amy, so far so good

Mon, Tues 3 meals, supper
Wed , Thurs, Fri 3 meals
Sat 3 meals, supper

Happy New Year to everyone.

Dec report- went pretty well on the whole. My weight is still sitting between 133 and 135 lbs, mostly closer to 135. Had a few weeks off from exercise due to an infection, but now gradually working my way into it again. Did an 8km (5 mile) walk last week, but still a bit more tired than usual after. Cautiously restarting the strength exercises at a lower level, but now I am in my late 60s have to be really careful to not get injured. Everyday life is bad enough for that.

Sun 1 Jan, Mon , Tues, Wed 3 meals
Thurs 3 meals, ate a bit more today as I woke up uncomfortably hungry and then didn't have time for breakfast before walking group. Didn't set the alarm as sleep is more important to me.
Fri 3 meals, didn't eat enough, hungry in night
Sat 3 meals & 3 snacks. Was wondering why I was so much hungrier than usual, but undereating (not intentionally) 2 or 3 days in a row is enough to explain it. Had to read what I had written here tho before light dawned.
Sun 3 meals,snack. Have averaged over 10,000 steps a day this week. Spent the rest of the day lolling around after a walk in the countryside this morning before it got too hot.

I spend a fair amount of time still thinking about this whole dieting and overeating business. The longer I practice moderate eating, the more important I think it is for me to practice ordered eating first and put weight loss second.

Of course I might feel differently if I had a pressing medical issue, but even then I couldn't see myself starving the weight off and then keeping it off. Not without learning to live without excess food along the way.

I think about this an awful lot, too. But if I am not thinking about it, and staying aware of what I am doing, then it is too easy to slip back into old disordered eating habits. It's the learning along the way, staying aware of what we are doing, and making permanent habit changes that is going to enable us to keep it off long term.

Yes indeed

Mion, Tues , wed , Thurs , Fri 3 meals
Sat 3 meals, supper, Sun 3 meals, snack

As you know, I believe making weight loss the focus without a real belief that that is essential for a pressing health concern is often counterproductive. I have said before when I started, I suspected I would lose eventually, but it mattered way less than taming the compulsive overeating. I just kept refining, and loss has happened. With some loopy squiggles in the line down, even a little bit recently. It does help to have blood glucose issues now; my transgressions are so much less about jonesing! But from my older lady perspective now, I probably would have benefited from speeding up improving the quality of my food, and definitely adding muscling up, but I guess I just wasn’t ready to listen. The insights come when they come.

I couldn't really say which I disliked more, the extra pounds or the overeating, but it was the overeating that was having the bigger negative effect on my life.

I thought I would just put in a note about how many calories I need in a day to stop me getting excessively hungry. It's less than when I was younger, but it's still somewhere around 1800 to 1900 Kcals per day. That works out as at least 600 Kcals per meal. I have worked this out by food logging where I count everything I eat or drink as accurately as I can.

Eating smaller meals than this is a recipe for snacks, low energy, disturbed sleep and desires for the sort of energy dense food I am better off keeping for S occasions. It took me a long time to realise that I wasnt eating enough calories for lunch, even though my stomach felt full. Still get caught in that trap sometimes.

Regarding putting orderly eating before weight loss: hear, hear! As Reinhard has said, if you do something that ends up not being sustainable, you might as well not even start. Losing the weight just for its own sake just isn't natural. I think it's more natural to feel that there is something off about our eating that isn't just that "it makes me fat." We are so conditioned by so many influences that have nothing to do with actually nourishing ourselves and something makes us start questioning it.I just couldn't stand the compulsive nature of my eating. I didn't eat huge meals or junky ones; mine was outside of meals, but I recognized that concentrating on meals was the best antidote. The rest has followed.

Imposing order can be a little bit unnatural, but it's just a reasonable way to deal with access to excess. The problem is that the baseline for what is thought of as excess has been rising generation by generation and with so many unsatiating ultra refined foods in our faces and exhortations to eat them. Then if we choose to eat less of them and less in general, we look like freaks or paragons of discipline. But it actually adds to pleasure overall to have meals be contained- most of the time.

Ok, I've ranted on, probably repeating myself. But it's still all true and easily forgotten.

With all the exhortations to consume, consume, consume, we are a long way from our traditions of fast days, gluttony as a sin, don't eat now you will spoil your appetite for dinner.

I see self imposed rules of moderation as a necessary substitute.,

Eating smaller meals than this is a recipe for snacks, low energy, disturbed sleep and desires for the sort of energy dense food I am better off keeping for S occasions. It took me a long time to realise that I wasnt eating enough calories for lunch, even though my stomach felt full. Still get caught in that trap sometimes.

----- I definitely agree!

I see self imposed rules of moderation as a necessary substitute.-

YES!

Mon 3 meals
Tues failure supper, Wed failure late (very) supper
Thurs, Fri success
Sat 3 meals
Sun 3 meals, snack
Mon , Tues , Wed , Thurs, Fri Success
Sat 3 meals Sun 3 meals, supper
Mon success sort of - breakfast was in 2 parts
Tues success

Jan report- quite a bit hungrier than usual, uncomfortably so. May be due to increasing my average step count to 10,000 per day, or disturbed sleep or both. So more failures and snacks than usual. Weight still sitting between 133 and 135 lbs

Wed Feb 1- 3 meals
Thurs - after an early and inadequate breakfast (needed to shop for food) walked with a group for a couple of hours, 9 km (a bit over 5 miles). Was so hungry I bought 4 sausages on the way home from a good butcher who makes their own and ate most of them for lunch. After which I felt a lot better.
Dinner lamb chops. 3 meals, no overeating, so a success
Fri success
Sat , Sun 3 meals

If your weight is stable and you are eating out of hunger I wouldn't judge it as a fail.

Sometimes it is good to listen to what our bodies needs.

Jx

Thanks Soprano. I'd cut way back on the fatty meat because it was hindering my weight loss efforts, but apparently a diet of lean meat, beans and grains & olive oil (and a few other things) just wasn't cutting it in the hunger department.
As you say, as long I'm eating out of hunger and taking notice of what my body needs, it's a success.
I'm still not as relaxed as I could be about the whole eating/ weight thing. On the plus side, I can't help noticing how much easier walking up hills is nowadays, and I can talk at the same time.

Have you tried cutting the grains to help with weightloss?

I've read a lot recently about the impact of carbs on insulin and fat storage?

As long as you have sufficient fat and protein with some above ground veggies or salad the meals are quite satisfying.

Jx

I have considered lowering the grains a little as an experiment. My previous goes at low carb haven't been encouraging because they left me feeling weepy. So I need to be cautious about how much I reduce carbs.
Although that was in the days when most of my carbs came from wheat bread. As I have been gluten free for over 10 years now, things might be different. I will just have to see what happens.

Be interesting to hear how you go on.

Jx

Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs , Fri success
Sat 3 meals, supper
Sun 2 meals, 2 snacks

Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri success
Sat, Sun 3 meals

Sorry I don't know this: are you a tad uncomfortable with your weight or with not feeling like things are happening naturally enough?

Hi Oolala, I would like to lose a few more lbs of weight around my middle for health reasons, family history of high blood pressure, diabetes, also my knees would last longer.

At the moment, I've increased the amount of walking I am doing, and I am hungrier than I used to be. I am not really interested in eating less, but I seem to have mislaid my sense of how much is enough.

Now that I don't usually overeat, I am finding that too often I am not eating enough to last.

Today I totted up the calories for lunch. My stomach was full, but 570 kcal or so is not enough. I will be doing a bit more counting so as to make some adjustments seeing as how just eating to appetite is not quite working at the moment. Not if I want to stay away from snacks.

If necessary, I could introduce a planned snack, but I am not there yet.

If you have any thoughts, I would welcome them.

Mon success
Tues failure, 3 meals, 2 snacks
Wed success
Thurs S day - had a day off where I just ate small meals or snacks when I was hungry. Woke up tired and hungry, so had a small breakfast at 7 am before going out for a 9 to 10 km brisk walk with my walking group. Then food shopping, and home again. Too tired for a big meal, so had enough to keep me going before going back to bed.
Small meals for the rest of the day.
Didn't feel like I ate too much, but l wasn't really hungry again til after midday on Friday.
Friday- walked for an hour am, first meal early afternoon. Delicious flounder cooked in lemon juice, with a lemon rind cut up as a relish, and ground cumin added. Then some mussels. Both cooked yesterday afternoon after having a rest. Also some home grown fresh tomatoes and plums and a few almonds. I go to one particular shop which has almonds in the shell which taste better than most shelled almonds. The region I live in grows almonds in abundance.

I do really like good quality fresh food, and go to some trouble to get and cook it. Fortunately, my time is my own and I can please myself as to what I eat.
Success
Sat 3 meals, snack, Sun 3 meals
.

Mon , Tues success

Just read your post with the flounder and fresh tomatoes. Sounds amazing. I never got around to planting tomatoes this year and now I have regret and jealousy!

Well done on the long term success/stickability with the system.

Thanks Kate. Backyard tomatoes are a bit of a thing where I live.

Feb report- 1 failure day, 1S day, snacks some weekends and 3 visits to the butcher to buy sausages so definitely hungrier than usual. After the 3rd lot the craving for salty fatty meat seems to have worn off.
Weight still 133 - 135, finished month at lower end of range, probably due to averaging 10k steps a day. The last couple of years my average step count had fallen from around 9300 to 8300 per day, so it's good to be able to do more.

Wed Mar 1, Thurs Success
Fri failure, afternoon snack because too hungry. If I'd declared Thurs an S day (10 km walk) and eaten more when I needed to, I wouldn't have had an unplanned snack Friday.
Sat 3 meals,1 snack

Great to hear how well things are going for you!

Thanks Amy.

You have quite an impressive average daily step count!

Thanks Pink.

Mon to Wed, technically failures as I had snacks, but I was just too tired and hungry. Any day I don't binge, graze or nibble is a success as far as l am concerned.

Thurs S day - 9 mile walk in morning, then had a lovely surprise when an old friend who I hadn't seen in many years contacted me. 3 meals and a snack.
Fri success
Sat 3 meals, Sun 3 meals 2 snacks

You really have got this now. I love your take on success.

For me it is about having made those permanent habit changes that deliver better health at a weight I am comfortable at.

Life will always throw a curved ball and some days our bodies just need something different. Learning to roll with it without feeling a failure and throwing in the towel is a big part of this system.

Jx

Yeah, that has been the prime measure of success for me, not what the scale has been doing. Although I am pleased about the weight loss as well.

On another thread I posted that I only (well, at least for the past couple of years) eat sweets during Xmas socialising. Sweet fruit is an exception.

This would probably seem excessively strict to most people, I thought that I would explain some of the reasons I do this.

I like to eat. I like to eat substantial, satisfying meals. Not as substantial as they used to be, it feels like my stomach has shrunk.

I have always been a slow loser, a higher calorie deficit just makes me too hungry. So if I want to lose weight at the rate of 1 lb a month, 1 decent slice of cake and a desert a week will wipe out any deficit I've accumulated during the week, assuming 3500 Kcals per pound lost.

I could have the sweets on S days, but then I would have to forgo some of my nice satisfying meals. And eat far fewer nuts probably.

Also now I am in my 60s, I just don't need the
extra calories and I can't see myself exercising them off.

Sweets don't make me happy. Being light and fit enough to go for long walks in the bush does.

Mon, Tues , Wed success
Thurs S day, 3 meals supper
Fri success
Sat 3 meals, snack
Sun 3 meals

I love this: "Sweets don't make me happy. Being light and fit enough to go for long walks in the bush does."

I think over the long term, gaining the ability to recognize that a certain food or drink may be enjoyable in the moment, but that it has a negative effect on other aspects of life (like being able to be fit enough to enjoy long walks, or getting a good night's sleep) is so key to making permanent lifestyle changes. And this is a continuous work in progress!

It does sound strict, but it's funny how we change over time. I mean, I started with vanilla no-s, being an idiot on S-days, changed that to one S-day, and now I plan to just stick to 3 meals where I can trade my breakfast for dessert on S-days. Compared to where I started, it's really strict haha.

It's nice to read that you have found your way!

I could have the sweets on S days, but then I would have to forgo some of my nice satisfying meals. And eat far fewer nuts probably.

This reminds me of what my mother always told me. It's or/or not and/and when it comes to eating.

Mon - Fri success.
Haven't had much trouble sticking to no snacks this week as had a few days off from exercising.
Exercise makes my appetite go up, but still helps me keep my weight down
Sat 3 meals, 2 snacks
Sun 3 meals

Mon success
Tues failure 3 meals, supper
Wed, Thurs success
Fri failure 3 meals, snack

Mar weight range 133-134lbs

April Sat 1, Sun 3 meals
Mon success, Tues failure supper,
Wed, Thurs, Fri success
Sat, Sun 3 meals
Mon 10th extra hungry, so had an early dinner and then a second course a couple of hours later. Spent morning walking and on the e-bike. Nothing too strenuous, just relaxing and enjoyable exercise in the fresh air. Technical failure, but not overeating
Tues, wed success
Thurs S day, 3 meals, afternoon snack, 9km walk around local forest
Fri Failure 3 meals, delayed second course dinner as I went for a sunset walk in the middle. Failure because I ended dinner feeling like I had overloaded my stomach a little. Reinhard talks about comical strictness. I think of it as not stepping out on to the top of the slippery slope.
I never want to go back to my old ways of eating, and the easiest way is not to take that first bite of excess food. And if I do, not to compound the error.
Sat, Sun 3 meals
Mon 24, Tues, Wed success
Thurs S day, walked 14-15km
Fri success
Sat, Sun 3 meals
Mon success
Tues failure, supper
Wed success
Thurs S day, hiking
Fri success
Sat 3 meals
Sun 3 meals, 2 snacks

April weight range 132 - 134, a new low since joining the forum. My weight loss has slowed to a crawl now that I am 10 lbs away from the minimum I have set myself. As ever, I am eating now about the same way I expect to eat to maintain my weight once I stop losing. And being mindful of cutting out excess when it tries to creep in. Yes, one jar of peanut butter does contain a days worth of calories, and no I can't make the jar last more than a few days once I open it. So only a very occasional treat.

Still averaging 10k steps a day.

Mon May 1 , Tues success
Wed failure, 3 meals,1 snack. I knew I hadn't eaten enough lunch to keep me going, but was distracted by other things I wanted to do, hence an afternoon snack .
Thurs S day, hiking 14 - 15 km. No breakfast as not hungry, left lunch in car by mistake so was lucky to be gifted some fruit and nuts from friends, a nibble before driving and finally a proper meal when I got home. Irregular eating, but still no excess.
Fri success
Sat 3 meals, snack
Sun 3 meals
Mon 8th success
Tue failure, 3 meals and snack
Wed success
Thurs S day, hiking, 14km
Fri success
Sat 3 meals
Sun 3 meals, snack

Well done! I think the habit of eating the way you expect to have to eat to maintain your weight in your desired range is really key. As well as knowing what foods can trip you up, and learning to be very moderate with them.

Thanks Amy. Some foods I can include as an occasional treat, but others will probably be off the menu permanently.

Same here...also because (I find) after you stop eating certain foods very frequently, your body doesn't seem to tolerate them as well as when you were eating them regularly. Which seems unfair in a way, but is also a good deterrent!

If I ate the way I used to I would be physically ill.

Mon 15th, S day 3 meals, 2 snacks. Took S for sanity day as on the Sun I came much closer than I like to eating to make myself feel better rather than because my body needed food. Hasn't happened for a long time, and as I have recently lost a little more weight, I decided to have a day where I ate enough not to feel more than mildly hungry.
Tues, wed success
Thurs success, hiked 16km/10 miles with ups and downs. Hardest walk I've done for a couple of years or more.
Fri S day - as expected, hungrier than usual. Four meals/snacks
Sat, Sun 3 meals

Checking in. I browsed a bit. I saw that you said you never want to go back to your old way of eating. I can't claim that I never eat more bites than I need, but I don't worry about returning to my binge days, unless I get dementia and my caregivers are clueless. Not ever going back to the dependence on the "high" from low-nutrient food is something that is in the back of my mind as well. Although It's often said that having positive goals to aim for, I"m pretty sure in my coaching course, we were told that the company research showed that people in their program were even more motivated by what they wanted to avoid.

As far as bingeing goes, I still don't feel completely secure. But I am pretty happy how I eat nowadays, especially as I can keep my weight down by eating plain, simple home cooked food to appetite. Much like I suppose you do. And walking. Learning to wait out the cravings was the key.

Mon success
Tues supper after a light dinner, so failure, but of course better than not sleeping. Had an evening meeting, where nibbles (sweets) were served to make us feel welcome. A nice thought, but part of our weight increasing food culture. No, I wasn't even tempted. As it happened, the only person to eat any sweets is very fit and normal weight.
Wed success
Thurs S day 3 meals, supper. Only 91/2km 1/2 day walk as our planned trip out of town would have meant walking in cold and wet. Where I live, winter
is the season for all day trips with walks of up to 15km or so. I really enjoy the weekly outings to different patches of forest in our region. And so glad the weight loss means I can continue to do so.
Fri S for socialising with friends outdoors day. My friendship group enjoys outdoor walks & meals.
Sat 3 meals, snack.
Sun 3 meals
Mon - wed success

Hi ladybird30,

Congratulations on Monday's success and also for avoiding the sweets provided on Tuesday during your meeting. Serving tasty treats is a time-honored way to communicate welcome and be a gracious host or hostess. It's nice that you were able to appreciate the gesture without derailing your goals.

Thanks WINhappy

Hi Ladybird!

I just wanted to pop in and say Hi and congratulations on continuing your No S journey so consistently! You are an inspiration to all of us!