Everyday Systems

Edit: Restarting tracking at day 1, and keeping track here as well as in the thread.

7/25/11 - Day 1 - N - Successful
7/26/11 - Day 2 - N - Successful
7/27/11 - Day 3 - N - Successful
7/28/11 - Day 4 - N - Successful
7/29/11 - Day 5 - N - Successful
7/30/11 - Day 6 - S - N/A
7/31/11 - Day 7 - S - N/A
8/1/11 - Day 8 - N - Successful
8/2/11 - Day 9 - N - Successful
8/3/11 - Day 10 - N - Successful
8/4/11 - Day 11 - N - Successful
8/5/11 - Day 12 - N - Successful
8/6/11 - Day 13 - S - N/A
8/7/11 - Day 14 - S - N/A
8/8/11 - Day 15 - N - Successful
8/9/11 - Day 16 - N - Successful
8/10/11 - Day 17 - N - Successful
8/11/11 - Day 18 - N - Successful
8/12/11 - Day 19 - N - Successful
8/13/11 - Day 20 - S - N/A
8/14/11 - Day 21 - S - N/A
8/15/11 - Day 22 - N - Successful
8/16/11 - Day 23 - N - Successful
8/17/11 - Day 24 - N - Successful
8/18/11 - Day 25 - N - Successful
8/19/11 - Day 26 - N - Successful
8/20/11 - Day 27 - S - N/A
8/21/11 - Day 28 - S - N/A
8/22/11 - Day 29 - N - Successful
8/23/11 - Day 30 - N - Successful
8/24/11 - Day 31 - N - Successful
8/25/11 - Day 32 - N - Successful
8/26/11 - Day 33 - S - N/A
8/27/11 - Day 34 - S - N/A
8/28/11 - Day 35 - S - N/A
8/29/11 - Day 36 - N - Successful
8/30/11 - Day 37 - N - Successful
8/31/11 - Day 38 - N - Successful
9/1/11 - Day 39 - N - Successful
9/2/11 - Day 40 - N - Successful
9/3/11 - Day 41 - S - N/A
9/4/11 - Day 42 - S - N/A
9/5/11 - Day 43 - S - N/A
9/6/11 - Day 44 - N - Successful
9/7/11 - Day 45 - N - Successful
9/8/11 - Day 46 - N - Successful
9/9/11 - Day 47 - N - Successful
9/10/11 - Day 48 - S - N/A
9/11/11 - Day 49 - S - N/A
9/12/11 - Day 50 - N - Successful
9/13/11 - Day 51 - N - Successful
9/14/11 - Day 52 - N - Successful
9/15/11 - Day 53 - N - Successful
9/16/11 - Day 54 - N - Successful
9/17/11 - Day 55 - S - N/A
9/18/11 - Day 56 - S - N/A
9/19/11 - Day 57 - N - Successful
9/20/11 - Day 58 - N - Successful
9/21/11 - Day 59 - N - Successful
9/22/11 - Day 60 - N - Successful
9/23/11 - Day 61 - N - Successful
9/24/11 - Day 62 - S - N/A
9/25/11 - Day 63 - S - N/A
9/26/11 - Day 64 - N - Successful
9/27/11 - Day 65 - N - Successful
9/28/11 - Day 66 - N - Successful
9/29/11 - Day 67 - N - Successful
9/30/11 - Day 68 - N - Successful
10/1/11 - Day 69 - S - N/A
10/2/11 - Day 70 - S - N/A
10/3/11 - Day 71 - N - Successful
10/4/11 - Day 72 - N - Successful
10/5/11 - Day 73 - N - Successful
10/6/11 - Day 74 - N - Successful
10/7/11 - Day 75 - N - Successful
10/8/11 - Day 76 - S - N/A
10/9/11 - Day 77 - S - N/A
10/10/11 - Day 78 - N - Successful
10/11/11 - Day 79 - N - Successful
10/12/11 - Day 80 - N - Successful
10/13/11 - 10/21/11 - Hiatus - N/A
10/22/11 - Day 81 - S - N/A
10/23/11 - Day 82 - S - N/A
10/24/11 - Day 83 - N - Successful
10/25/11 - Day 84 - N - Successful
10/26/11 - Day 85 - N - Successful
10/27/11 - Day 86 - N - Successful
10/28/11 - Day 87 - N - Successful
10/29/11 - Day 88 - S - N/A
10/30/11 - Day 89 - S - N/A
10/31/11 - Day 90






This is technically day two!

So far, so good, although I'm realizing that I need to plan meals much more carefully. I tend to be a grazer, so I've paid less attention to planning full, balanced meals than to keeping healthy snacks on hand--obviously not an approach that's going to work here.

I'm also not sure what to do about breakfasts. I find eating large meals first thing in the morning kind of nauseating; my default at the moment is oatmeal with fruit and a small dollop of yogurt, but I'm still hungry by 10:30 or 11:00. Any advice?

Welcome to NoS

I rarely eat breakfast as I'm generally not hungry first thing, often don't have time before work, and then I'm too busy at work most mornings. I have found that I don't get very hungry til lunchtime (about 12pm for me) if I don't have breakfast. Mind you I am getting my lunch out at midday on the dot most days!

An option would be to 'virtual plate' a plate full of breakfast and then eat it slowly over an hour or two to combat not wanting to eat loads first thing. Or eat some early and some an hour later. Hard to keep that from becoming a 'grazing' habit though....

Or you could try having a glass of milk or juice at around 11am to stave off the hunger til lunchtime?

Hah! Somehow I'd gotten it stuck in my head that the meals *had* to be breakfast-lunch-dinner. I have no idea why.

I think what I'm going to do is pack one lunch worth of food and divide it into two meals--one late morning, one mid-afternoon. I tend to eat dinner pretty late in the evening, so that'll spread things more evenly anyway.

Through two days successfully!

Found that brushing or at least flossing after meals does a lot to kill my urge to fidget-snack--I don't want to mess up what I've just cleaned.

Congrats on your first two days!

The 'usual' NoS way is 3 square meals a day. But it has to fit in with your routine and lifestyle, otherwise it just won't work. There's no restrictions on the exact timings of your meals (or actually, how many meals you have per day - although if you decided that you needed 7 meals a day it might be slightly questionable! )

Got through yesterday, including baking a cake with only minimal, necessary tasting.

Today, planned lapse for a slice of said cake (I'm sticking with things I had planned before deciding to do No S; this is one of them). That said, this is a weird week, between the cake and a three-day parent visit from out of town; while I'm going to stick with NoS, I think I'm going to start my official counting-of-days next Monday so my first week is standard rather than the peculiar mishmash this one has been.

Yesterday was a success, (minus the planned S-moment). Yay!

Today will be a mostly-N, partly-S day; my parents are in town visiting for three days. But I'm going to focus on moderation, so.

Restarted yesterday, since last week was such a weird one. So far, so good!

Day 2 (counted) was successful. Larger lunches and smaller dinners seem to work best for me. Still working on timing, and how to break up mid-day meals.

One thing I'm noticing is that NoS is forcing me to pay a lot more attention to balancing my meals. Before, I'd do a lot of catch-as-catch-can--eat something, and assume I'd make up nutritional deficits over the course of the evening. With one plate, I'm noticing not only what I *am* eating, but what I'm *not.*

Almost through my first full week! Plans for next week: smaller meals (I'm still feeling that out--three full meals rather than amorphous snacking is a pretty new thing for me!), more exercise, and better advance planning. Looking forward to upcoming S-Days, but not particularly rabidly.

b - veggie sausage patties, sauteed mushrooms, dried mango (unsulfured and unsweetend)

l - spicy veggie patty, salsa, corn chips, cherry tomatoes, banana, dried mango, and a couple raw almonds (Sounds like a ton, no? Actually less than a plate's worth--one of those eclectic end-of-the-week finishing-off-the-single-remaining-bites-of-leftovers lunches.)

Marcie....You're doing great!!

Determined

Personally I am a strictly vanilla No S person. If you cannot give up all of the S's at once then one idea is to start slow give up first one S, such as sweets then the next, such as snacks, etc.

I stuck to the 3 meals from day one and handled hunger by making sure I had enough protein and ate big enough meals. If I could not stand the hunger, I drank a glass of milk. I no longer need the milk, and I am realizing that some hunger is normal and makes the meals more enjoyable. I do adjust the time of my meals sometimes when I know the next meal is going to run late.

Also, there is no need to start over when you cannot exactly comply with the program. No one expects perfection. You either take a special day, such as for your parent's visit or acknowledge a fail and move on. You will have fails.

Good luck!

r.jean wrote: Also, there is no need to start over when you cannot exactly comply with the program. No one expects perfection. You either take a special day, such as for your parent's visit or acknowledge a fail and move on. You will have fails.

Yeah, I know, but I decided to restart officially so that I could start with a fairly standard week, rather than one full of unavoidable exceptions, and establish more of a rhythm before my first S-day. I'm not counting last week as failure--more like a dry run.

First day of week two (observed).

One of the good things about S days was that, after a week of N days, they really gave me a chance to take a critical look at my default / non-curated eating habits. Some insights:

-I am a sensory snacker. I snack less because of hunger than as a fidget. I get about the same satisfaction from, say, chewing gum and knitting as I do from snacking (or would, if I could find gum that I liked--ideally, something that was spicy rather than sweet).

-As a corollary to the above, while I enjoy sugary stuff, the snacks I gravitate to are ones with multi-sensory points of interest: small, fiddly things like grapes or berries or cherry tomatoes; interesting mixtures of textures and tastes, &c.

-I go for what's convenient. I'll generally go for healthy snacks over sugar--IF they're in an easy-to-eat form, i.e. cherry tomatoes, chopped vegetables, pre-washed berries.

-Likewise, I don't really--or at least, didn't really this weekend--much crave sugary stuff; if I eat it, it tends mostly to be because *it's there.*

Feeling good going into week 2. I think this week, I'm going to try to focus on portion size on N Days, since I'm still feeling that out.

8/1 - N Day - Successful

Breakfast: Oatmeal w/ berries and yogurt

Lunch: Pasta with pineapple and portobellos, cherry tomatoes, dried mango

Dinner: Out with the in-laws; Cheese curds, seared tuna, green salad

8/2 - N Day

Breakfast: Almond blueberry pancakes

Lunch: Leftovers - pancakes, pineapple portobello pasta, lemon cucumber, dried mango

Dinner: Fast food. But no sweets, and a reasonable amount!

8/3 N-Day

Breakfast - Leftover pizza

Lunch - Red beans and rice, lemon cucumber, dried mango

Dinner - Fresh pasta with sauteed zucchini

Proud of myself--I've had a couple things come up that I rationalized taking as exceptions, but then didn't. I may get laxer eventually, but for at least those critical first three weeks, I'm gonna do this vanilla, and I'm gonna do it right.

I'm also realizing how much food allergies affect the way I think of food, particularly in terms of creating a sense of perpetual scarcity, i.e. "I have to have this now, because I don't know when I'll find [a safe version of food x, or a specific hard-to-find brand] again." With No S, I've started trying to talk myself past that--if I miss something, I miss something, and that's okay.

I think it's interesting what you say about sensory food.


Warning: the following might be just too weird to read. Reading it might make you think that I'm insane, or that I've ruined cherry tomatoes for you.

Warning, Warning, Warning.

I remember working with seriously creepy guys who agreed that cherry tomatoes were too upsetting to eat, because of the way they gushed in their mouths. They thought that this sensation wasn't suitable for a male mouth.

Of course, they had NO PROBLEM with discussing really nitty gritty details of their personal lives in mixed company -- AT WORK. When I met their wives, all I could say was, "It's so very nice to meet you.....I've heard SO MUCH about you."

Creeps.

O.o

That's. Wow. That's weird to the point of self-parody.

Speaking of which, on a whim, I oven-roasted a mix of grape tomatoes and actual grapes tonight, and it was delicious.

8/4 - N Day

Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried cherries and yogurt

Lunch: Leftover pasta with mango salsa and grapes

Dinner: Leftover pasta with sauteed zucchini and roasted grapes and grape tomatoes.

8/5 - N Day - Successful.

8/6-8/7 - S Days. Still snacking too much on these, but less than I was a few weeks ago.

8/8 - N Day - Successful
Breakfast: Oatmeal w/ dried cherries and yogurt
Lunch: Fast food
Dinner: Veggie burger & grapes

8/9 - N Day - Successful
Breakfast: Oatmeal w/ dried cherries and yogurt
Lunch: Veggie burger & grapes
Dinner: Vegetable pizza

Too small a lunch and too big a dinner today; I got interrupted partway through lunch at my desk and never finished, then ate more than I should've for dinner (but still within the rules, so).

8/10 - N Day - Successful

Breakfast - Oatmeal w/ dried fruit and yogurt
Lunch - N/a. Work crisis after work crisis, and by the time I realized I hadn't eaten, it was almost four, so, simpler to wait 'til dinner.
Dinner - Tortellini with sauteed zucchini and bell peppers

My S Days were much lower-key last weekend. Yay! And 21 days, as of Sunday!

I've not done as much cooking from scratch in the last few weeks as I'd like, and I've eaten too much fast food / pizza (not a ton, but more than once a week is more than I prefer); but all within the rules.

No S has started feeling a lot more intuitive, which is really nice.

The real test, though, will be next week; I'll be traveling for work, and at conventions, where regular meals may not be an option. We'll see...

I've gotten worse about checking in, but I'm staying on track.

8/18/11 - N Day

Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried cranberries and yogurt

Lunch: Black bean burger w/ fruit salsa and corn chips

Got through my first big N-Day challenge yesterday--a day trip three hours away. Road trips have traditionally been the time I let myself eat ridiculous junk food; this time, I drank coffee instead.

Coffee instead of ridiculous junk food? That is quite the improvement! Way to go!

So, I think I'm going to end up taking my first non-weekend S-Day tomorrow. I'll be at a convention, and traveling, and between schedule and food allergies, making any kind of regular meals happen is going to be nigh impossible.

That's okay, right?

Con went okay--actually ended up eating *less* most days because I was so busy; and still relatively little by way of snacking and almost no sweets. Back on proper N-days today!

I've been good about No S; less so about checking in. Going to try to improve that...

50 days this past Monday! It's gotten to the point where No S is just what I do--I don't really think about it anymore, which is good as far as habit, but also seems to open doors for slip-ups.

Next goal: More whole, from-scratch foods, more fresh veggies, better nutritional balance, and more mindfulness in general.

And exercise. Urban Ranger was pretty much what I was doing anyway, before I had a name for it, but now that I'm not dancing (for now), I need to get more regular, more intense exercise...

Congrats on your 51 days and how No S feels so natural..

I'm with ya on that one.

Have a great weekend!

Ugh. I've got some kind of bug, which is messing with both meal time and volume something fierce. Still trying to plan out three finite meals, but fiddling with how I distribute them through the day in hopes of staving off really bad nausea / vertigo. Whee.

On the upside, today is day 60!

Feel better soon!

Sorry that you're not feeling well.

Day 60(!) - N Day

Feeling way better--hooray for short-lived colds.

Current secondary diet goal: More whole foods. More vegetables. More cooked from scratch.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried cranberries, almonds, and brown sugar.

Lunch: Cod with roasted tomatoes and grapes over couscous.

OMG, have I been away for this long? Eek.

Aaaanyway. I've actually been really good about No S, save for a week out of town when I decided to take a deliberate break--with multiple, severe food allergies and convention work and travel schedules, keeping up No S would pretty much have meant three meals of raw almonds.

What I found, though, was that I did a pretty good job of keeping to the basic structure--I didn't snack much, and while I did substitute sweets for real food a few times, I tended to stick to or close to three meals a day. So, hooray for habit!

I'll update the calendar eventually, and try to get back on the ball with checking in daily...

Today:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with almond milk and brown sugar
Lunch: Leftover pizza
Dinner: TBD