Everyday Systems

My first N day was October 17, and it was a SUCCESS.

I ate a small snack 3 hours after dinner, but I still count it as a success since I was hungry before I went to bed

A little about me: I am 48 year old woman with 30 years of dieting experience I cannot beleive how much of my life I've waisted hating my body, punishing myself by eating, punishing myself by not eating......

I have 40-50 pound to lose, and I am prone to depression ( who woudn't be considering what I wrote above). I want to achieve emotional stability around food, and I know that weight loss will follow.

Day 2 - SUCCESS
I ate the same breakfast as yesterday, and I felt too full. Already?


Day 3 - SUCCESS
It was easier today not to think about food between meals. I had a work function after work, and ate chicken wings and nachos. I called it a dinner. At home I ate 2 pieces of fruit. That's it for today!

I feel great emotionaly, this structure really suits me.

Hi and welcome. I like the way you make this work within the framework of your job and life. Best of luck.

Day 4 - SUCCESS
Day 5 - SUCCESS
Day 6 - S Day

I was trying to be too restrictive today (to keep no snacks and no seconds rule). That backfired - in the evening I ate too much.

Day 7 -S Day
Day 8 - FAILURE

Today was a BIG failure . It seems that I restricted my food intake too much last week, so my mind and body are rebelling now and I am eating everything in sight. I have been abusing my body way too long, so it does not trust me any more. I have to 'trick' it into losing weight veeeery slooowly.....

I think I'll include snacks during the day, too ( I was only eating nightime snack last week). I don't want to include more food into my meals. Last week my meals were big enough for me to feel satisfied -I don't like feeling stuffed.

I found that I have to have good portions at mealtimes because I was used to snacking. Otherwise its too hard to wait till the next meal. I must have been snacking a lot (almost always healthy snacks) because I am losing weight even though some of my meals are bigger.

There's a person who worked up to No S gradually. Here's a quote:

Since I have a significant amount of weight to lose (100lbs) and since my eating was completely out of control, starting straight vanilla No S was a scary prospect. My mod is essentially the gradual integration of the forbidden "esses" one by one, for 21 days each, until total compliance.

The first habit I developed was no eating - none at all - after 8PM. This is sort of a time-limited No Snacking mod for 21 days. Next, I focused on eliminating all snacks throughout the day...I was still eating some seconds/sweets, but just at three discrete meal times. Again, 21 days.

Once I was practicing "no snacks" regularly, I moved on to adding "no sweets". This was relatively painless as I found I could wait for my S days for these sweet treats, but I did this 21 days until I moved on to....

"No Seconds"...by the time I was at this point, I had learned felt much more in control of my cravings, my eating in general. I was generally more mindful about a lot of things. So.... No Seconds has come pretty easily and I am just at 21 days of total No S!

I LOST 34 POUNDS since that first evening with no snacks!!!! Though I've only been doing COMPLETE NO S for 3 weeks, I have been modifying my behavior and developing good habits for just 12 weeks. I haven't tried much in terms of exercise, just walking for a bit after dinner, but that will be next.

Thought you might like to see this since you are not doing vanilla No S yet. I wish you the best!!

Wonderful information from Sweetness. There isn't going to be a test and grades for this journey. It is just finding your way carefully and slowly enough that it works for you. We dieters listen to everyone's ideas but our own. We think we aren't capable of control so we won't know what's best. Most of us have read more about diet and food than any of our skinny friends and yet we don't believe in that knowledge because we have failed to act on it so many times. I believe it is because we have failed to follow someone else's ideas and not our own. Find your own way. Reinhard's idea is awesome. It sums up in 3 rules what we all know to be the truth of healthy eating. But we all eventually discover that knowing the path and following it are 2 different things. So, as Sweetness and so many other successful people here have found out, move slowly, relax, grow new habits a baby step at a time and don't flip out over the backsliding. In creating new habits, it is bound to happen. As long as eventually the good days start to outnumber the bad days, you are making progress. Best of luck.

Freegirl...

I also have at least 30 years of dieting experience...I'm 51...and am prone to depression....and started this with around 55 pounds to loose.

I've been doing NoS on & off for about 3 years. I wish I could say that the first time I did this I stuck with it, but I gave up after a few months. This time around has been wonderful, but it's definitely not easy.

One thing I did that has made a huge difference is that I saw my dr. just before I began this NoS adventure again. She found that my Vitamin D level was just about non-existent, I did a sleep study & found that I have severe sleep apnea and I was put on a mild antidepressant for Seasonal Affective Disorder. If I had known how much of my depression and sleep deprivation was attributed to chemical imbalances and physical problems with sleep, I would have changed things years ago! But I didn't see a dr. because I dreaded being told AGAIN that I need to lose weight. It's not as if I didn't know that, but I was so tired of hearing another person suggest I lose weight. So for the past few years I had been feeling worse & worse and, therefore gaining more weight. When I finally addressed some of these minor issues, I started feeling like a new person. I just couldn't believe how awful I had felt for so long. Staying on NoS is not an easy journey, but I can't tell you how much more successful I've been this time and I truly believe so much of that success is attributed to the fact that I had my dr. on board. She's amazed at my lowered cholesterol & blood pressure. I didn't find out how much weight I've lost because I've always been obsessed at the numbers on the scale - I just avoid those now. I know I've lost around 20 pounds though. Overall, I'm just amazed at how much better I feel physically and emotionally.

I don't mean to share all this to hijack your thread or to make you sad that I'm in a different place in this journey, but to encourage you to think about going to your dr. if you haven't been in awhile. I am where I am because of a dr. who listened and helped me get back to feeling good enough to tackle this.

Hang in there...this is not easy, but this way of eating is truly freeing. I'll never diet again. I hope you'll post again....we're here to support & encourage you...

janie

Sweetnes, Pangelsue2, Determined, thanks so much for your support

Well done on your NoS journey so far, you're doing really well!

If you decide to go into it slowly then that's cool, but maybe one failure isn't enough to mean you have to rethink the entire thing? One of the best things I've learned from NoS is to draw a line under any failures, snacking today doesn't mean you have to snack tomorrow

I had a lot of failures since the last time I posted. My eating went completely out of control. I hate that 'out of control' feeling, when I am eating not to satisfy my real hunger, but I have to eat anyways, and I don't feel any satisfaction after eating.......

I have to stop this, so I decided to go on a body cleansing program. I am taking some herbal supplemets, and following a diet that is very close to noS; the only modifications are:
* limit fruit, do not eat sweet fruit
* eat one snack in the afternoon: fruit and nuts
* every day is N day

Today is my fourth day on this program, and I am feeling so much better already. Yesterday I ate my dinner around 5:30. Later in the evening we visited our friends, and I did not eat or drink anything, even tough there was a lot of food on the table. Maybe it helped that I wrote in my food journal in advance that I did not eat anything.

I feel that I need to strictly follow this structure every day for a while, before I become more relaxed on S days. I also need to watch not only my sweets, but also limit my carb intake ( grains,starches, fruit - not so much vegetables).

So, in short - I started over from November 17, and have 3 SUCCESS days under my belt!

freegirl wrote: Today is my fourth day on this program, and I am feeling so much better already. Yesterday I ate my dinner around 5:30. Later in the evening we visited our friends, and I did not eat or drink anything, even tough there was a lot of food on the table. Maybe it helped that I wrote in my food journal in advance that I did not eat anything.

I feel that I need to strictly follow this structure every day for a while, before I become more relaxed on S days. I also need to watch not only my sweets, but also limit my carb intake ( grains,starches, fruit - not so much vegetables).

So, in short - I started over from November 17, and have 3 SUCCESS days under my belt!

Sounds like you are finding your way to what works for you. Reinhard says if you are going to have something extra that's planned (your nuts and fruit in the afternoon) you might be better to call it a Mini meal, because there is actually nothing in the rules about the meals being 3. That way you are actually following no S rules.

Good for you!!

Thanks for your great post on my thread. I am browsing here and getting lots of good ideas. I am glad you are finding your way too. Best of luck with your modified low carb eating.

Today was 17th succesfull day on my cleansing diet, and 5th day on vanilla no S! There was one special day - my birthday on Novemeber 29, when I ate some cake.

I feel great, so calm and in control! Hunger that I feel between the next meal is 'normal' hunger, ans I can tolerate it for quite a while. I don't think about food 50 times a day.

This feeling is the result I want, it's much more important than weight loss. And I am also losing weight - my pants are looser. I am planning to weigh myself only once a month.

I started vanilla no S when I realized that when I eat fruit between meals, it's harder for me to tolerate my hunger before the next meal. I also realized that I was eating too much fruit before.

freegirl...

You're doing so well! I think when we figure out that this way of eating goes WELL beyond just weight, it's amazing.

Yeah for you!!!!

janie

Way to go!!! I'm proud of you!

Today is Day 24 of my cleansing diet, and Day 13 of vanilla No S. Another succesful week

I feel great, so full of energy, I am in love with life again!
I don't even think about snacking now! And if you'v read my post from the beginning, no snacking was my biggest challenge. But slowly I realized that it was my biggest challenge in my thoughts only.

It gets so much easier when we don't let our thoughts define us permanently (I have to eat sweets, I can't live without snacks, I can't tolerate hunger).

My lesson learned from this week: Do not eat 'in advance' of your hunger.

Yesterday I ate dinner early even though I wasn't really hungry. I did that because I was going somewhere without an opportunity to eat untill late in the evening. It did not feel right. Next time I will not eat to prevent the future hunger - I will pack a bag of almongs and eat when I get hungry. Who knows, maybe that will be enough as my dinner ( or lunch) - our bodies need much less food than we think we do.

freegirl wrote: It gets so much easier when we don't let our thoughts define us permanently (I have to eat sweets, I can't live without snacks, I can't tolerate hunger).

I love this...it's so very true! I definitely know I'm my own worst enemy!

You're doing so well....good for you!!!

janie

Today is my 22nd day on Vanilla No S. I feel great, and I lost 20 pounds in a month! . More details in The 21 Day Club.[/url]

Congratulations on 21 days, and your weight loss. Merry Christmas!

My goodness, that is an impressive weight loss. Great job!

Happy New Year to everybody!

In the past two weeks I wasn't very consistent with my NO S rules. That's OK, I am not beating myself up over it. I am restarting my commitment today, and counting it as day 1.

I am planning to do four 21-day blocks ( for now), and also work on other healthy habits - relaxation, yoga, meditation.

Sounds like a great plan! I am also committing to doing a short meditation (10 - 15 min) daily and exercise 5 times a week. I am so happy with the Habitcal -- it really does help.

Lisa

Twenty pounds! Wowie!

I noticed something interesting: when I start breaking the rules after being on vanilla NO S for a while ( especially when I am eating a lot of sweets), I become very emotional and sensitive. Then some issue that needs resolving comes to the surface - an issue that causes my emotional eating. Then, in order to resolve it, I ask myself how can I love myself more, and what beliefs I need to give up.

Today is Day 7 since I restarted No S. Now I allow myself more freedom on S days.

Lesson learned: I have to find balance on S days: If I eat too much sugar, I lose my emotional stability.

YOU are doing great! Congrats on 7 days. It's good that you are learning what works for you.