Everyday Systems

silverfish

Sometimes, but it seems to be a need for more energy. I try to eat more red meat and that seems to help. Also, I drink a lot of black tea (and I mean, a *lot* - it is my cure-all) so that takes the edge of cravings.

silverfish

Through www.43folders.com - organisation, GTD and "productivity pr0n"

K.

silverfish

Not sure if it's 'disgust'

- one of the best things about NoS is that there is no guilt or disgust. Physical illness, on the other hand, is a great teacher. A few all-out weekends and you start to appreciate the advantages of consequences-based learning!

silverfish

Hey - planning's half the fun

silverfish

I'd view them the same as sugar in coffee. Not an S unless you take it to extremes (e.g. - a breath mint is fine. A whole packet of breathmints and you might want to look at whether you are actually eating them for the breath-freshening benefits

silverfish

And really, once you fill a plate up with bacon once, you tend not to do it again in a hurry.

NoS is kind of self-regulating that way

silverfish

Yes, there will be photos - at least, some were taken :)

It is one of my policies this year to Not Be Embarrassed (much), so that was put to the test while I was having photos taken in front of the lounge room cabinet and all my housemates, who had been watching the tv inside it, were still ...

silverfish

Toasted under the grill with butter, a slice of havarti cheese on the side and some fruit - a great breakfast!

silverfish

I wandered over to Amazon to have a look at the book and noticed that the "customers who ordered this book also bought..." list was, um, remarkable. No diet books, all cookbooks!

A nice healthy balance, I think

silverfish

You can do interesting things with vegetables that don't involve sauce: Steamed broccoli rocks with slivered almonds on it. Brussels sprouts can be cooked with onion and bacon, or green beans be bundled together with a strip of prosciutto and cooked on a pan. You can put almost any cooked vegetables ...

silverfish

Mental aberration! That was the word I was looking for.

silverfish

Heheh :) When I lived at a residential college a friend and I used to occasionally go, "Enough! No more chocolate for a month!" (we got through a lot) and it would take me about a week to consistently remember that chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate had - who would have ...

silverfish

At a Mary Ryans (a Queensland bookstore) I went into, they had two pitchers of cold water: one with sliced lemon and the other with strawberries. Very good

silverfish

A big day today - our new Prime Minister (who has done nothing if not jumped into the job boots first - Kyoto protocol to begin with, now this) has finally formally apologised in parliament to the indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generation.

It's a pretty big deal, and there's still a lot of ...

silverfish

I don't take an S day, but I do tend to have larger meals with a lot more protein, red meat etc. I also drink a lot of black (or green) tea (I don't have milk in mine) which helps with discomfort, pains etc.

silverfish

Triple-shot caramel mochalattes - definitely an S!

Regular coffee - not a problem. And like tea it's a really good way to get through if your breakfast or lunch has fallen a little short of the next meal but don't need something as filling as a glass of milk or juice.

silverfish

Are there any interests or hobbies you have which you would like to take further?

At the start of last year I looked at what I was doing, and what I didn't want to give up, and what I was willing and able and likely to do everyday, because I figured I should be working towards those things everyday ...

silverfish

I learned I can't starve to death in four hours.

This is a very important lesson, and it is good to know that in the event of an apocalypse there will be a window of time for me to scavenge for supplies

silverfish

Laura99, I've always hated that quote. It seemed to discount all the little, cheerful, happy things (not the point, I know, but that's the problem with quotes), and I preferred to turn it round: "Anything that's worth time takes a while" :)

But thankyou for your take on it, because that's a really ...

silverfish

My friends who know offer me chocolate, and then apologise, and then apologise for eating it in front of me and I'm like, "Seriously, guys, it's okay. I don't even want it. I do not feel deprived."

Its funny how I can learn to switch off my wants during the week.

silverfish

I just said over here http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2579 in answer to Laura99's question:

Seriously - I found the trick was (if it was an S Day) to eat the cupcakes and not feel guilty. Eat 2. Eat 7. Eat the whole batch. You can let yourself not feel guilty. However, you have less ...

silverfish

Seriously - I found the trick was (if it was an S Day) to eat the cupcakes and not feel guilty. Eat 2. Eat 7. Eat the whole batch. You can let yourself not feel guilty. However, you have less control over whether you feel physically ill :)
A couple bouts of misery and the junkfood addiction will ...

silverfish

So - hey all! I'm back from the USA!

Had a great time and ate lots of wonderful food (elderberry pie! pumpkin pie! crispy bacon! cinnamon buns!). Actually, for the first two weeks I basically ate and talked. It was wonderful. We spent the third walking around New York City (I have learned that I ...

silverfish

I don't have/make time to pack lunch (breakfast is enough of a challenge) so I usually keep some tins of soup at work, a half-loaf of bread in the kitchenette freezer and some butter in the fridge. I also keep some muesli in my office. That way the option is always there to have something fairly ...

silverfish

Thanks so much for these suggestions! My travelling companion is compiling detailed lists of museums, tours and stores to visit. My list is short and made up of items like:
- Buy art magazines
- Talk a relative into letting me drive on the right side of the road (in Buffalo, not New York)
- Go to ...

silverfish

I am going to New York (state and city) in October and am amusing myself compiling a list of everything I want to eat while I am there. I am definitely going to McDonalds once because, hey, it's America. Bagels, of course. Cinnamon scrolls because they don't make them (like that or pretty much at ...

silverfish

Not entirely unique, though - I think a few of us came across from 43folders

NoS appeals to people who like self-maintaining systems!

silverfish

In 2005 I was 111kg (244.2pounds - BMI of 35.03). I am now about 84kg (184.8pounds - BMI of 26.51). That is without any consistent meaningful formal exercise, but a bit of incidental walking and wandering.

silverfish

I found NoS fairly self-regulating. You can have McDonalds for every meal (no soft drink), but it won't be long before you don't want it for every meal.

On the other hand, I try to keep some variety in my life, so if I start eating at Maccas (or having muffins for breakfast, or kyudon for lunch ...

silverfish

I'd tend to go with, "What makes you think I'm trying to lose weight?" In my case, this was true - I wasn't actually trying to lose weight, NoS just seemed like a sensible approach to food :)

Mind you, the other day someone told me, "You probably don't need to lose any more weight." (To which the ...

silverfish

I've heard (here?) that a good way to painlessly make sure you have some degree of hydration is to sit down to a meal, have a glass of water before you start eating, one during and one after you finish.

I always have water at my desk at work, and it can help with random hunger pains, but I notice ...

silverfish

I've pretty much gone with the flow. I worked out roughly what I thought a reasonable meal size was, kJ wise, but only for use at fast-food restaurants, I don't worry about it anywhere else. And I had enormous meals to start with, until I worked out I couldn't starve to death in five hours!

Now I ...

silverfish

I hadn't posted for a while, so thought I would announce I am still here, and have been doing No-S for a little over two years now and still going fine.

It does get easier, early, and even two years on I still enjoy the calmness of No-S, how I don't need to think about it but enjoy it when I do. It ...

silverfish

I plan to eat whatever doesn't make me panic about being hungry.

So, at the start, if I said, "I'll have a sandwich for lunch" and that made me panic, I would pack two sandwiches, some fruit and a drink of some description. When I stopped panicking, I packed less. If I didn't make it through to ...

silverfish

Yes.

No-S is self regulating. Sure you can have fast food for every meal (no softdrinks), but it won't be long before you don't want to :) I found that the longer I've been on No-S, the more I am aware of what I want and need - some days I really want vegetables. Others I know that it's about time ...

silverfish

I noticed this in Germany, as well, although I was in a fair-sized town. Breakfast and dinner were often bread, cold-cuts, cheese, yoghurt etc. Lunch was the main meal, with a hot dish and vegetables (and the salad usually drenched in tangy white dressing). And it all tasted very good!

silverfish

Congratulations! That's great

silverfish

1 cup or less - can't hurt to try!

silverfish

For some, peanut butter is an S, so here is a recipe for next weekend

1 cup peanut butter (crunchy is always better)
1 cup sugar (I prefer 3/4 cup)
1 egg

Mix together. Roll into balls. Put on greased tray and flatten slightly with a fork. Bake at about 180C for 12-15 minutes, or until done.

silverfish

It depends how long the vacation is! If it's only a few days, I could make the decision to make them S-days. For a really long vacation, I'd stick to the schedule. For a vacation which involved family visits, I'd eat sweets if they were served as part of a meal, but not otherwise.

I'm going to New ...

silverfish

I suppose I could reverse the phrase, to avoid miscommunication: "Eat nothing that you do not believe to be beautiful or know to be useful"

Priorities.

silverfish

By "useful" I meant, "needed to live" - basically, I try to eat either because I need to eat to live (useful) OR because I really like the taste (beautiful), and not just because it is there, and I am there :)

Just my way of approaching food "mindfully".

I try not to talke about good/bad, health ...

silverfish

I agree. Lately - but on S-days especially - I've been trying to use the principal, "Eat nothing but what you know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" (with apologies to William Morris

K.

silverfish

For me, the beauty of "vanilla no-s" is that it took the focus off despair and guilt and being fat and worrying things won't change and put it squarely onto those 14 words. Keep your focus on that, make those 14 words and that habit your goal, and everything else will fall out of consideration or ...

silverfish

It's much better, in the long run, to feel sick after S-days than to feel guilty!

Consequences-based learning

silverfish

Ohhh - sample S Day. That depends whether I am in town or at my parent's place.

If I am visiting my parents... Waffles, maple syrup and bacon with brewed coffee and orange-and-mango juice for breakfast. Usually a late breakfast, so we don't have lunch but we do snack - whether on nuts, biscuits or ...

silverfish

The only bad foods are the ones that are "off" or almost entirely synthetic. I frequently tell my friends off for saying something is "so bad". It isn't, food can't do anything wrong, it can't disobey any laws! It is only a bad food if it has "gone bad" or never was a food to start with.

I'm ...

silverfish

Amen.

silverfish

An alternative to oatmeal is a good, relatively low in sugar muesli (they are out there!). I add milk to mine and put it in the microwave for 1 minute. It doesn't make it hot or porridge-y, but it does warm it a little and make the muesli softer (and reconstitute the fruit).

I keep cereal and ...

silverfish

Milczar, it's more a question of what don't I eat :) Do a search of my posts (if you can) and you'll see most of them are about having splendid S-days.

Now, I don't think No-S will necessarily help you lose weight if there isn't any weight to be lost. I had quite a bit. But I ate very large meals ...

silverfish

I started in mid-2005. Over 18 months, I've lost 27kg (59.4 pounds) - from 111 down to 84 (244.2 down to 184.

. My BMI, for what that's worth, has dropped from 35 to 26.5). I haven't been doing much exercise beyond walking to the train station.

Kathleen.

silverfish

My main problem with fruit is that it is stone fruit season here, there is a lot of beautiful fruit available and only so much one person can do about it

Kathleen.

silverfish

<whisper> sometimes i have a sausage and egg mcmuffin </whisper>

silverfish

Has anyone else lost a shoe size?

Over the last eighteen months (can you believe I've been on No-S that long?!) I seem to have gone from a ladies' size 12.5/13 down to an 11/11.5. Shoe shopping is still unlikely to ever be convenient, but this is definitely an unexpected but welcome side-effect ...

silverfish

In situations like this, I just revert to medieval time-keeping and say Saturday begins at sundown on Friday (and Sunday ends at dark!).

silverfish

Yesterday was probably not a typical day (but when are they?) :

Breakfast: bacon egg and cheese toasted sandwich
Lunch: Campbells Pea & Ham soup and a large bread roll (white but would usually be wholemeal) and a small latte.
Dinner: Carrot, small tin of flavoured tuna, two rice thins (one with ...

silverfish

I don't like resolutions. I make new years aspirations, e.g. this year I would like to:
Go to at least three concerts
Go to the theatre twice
Buy at least two pairs of shoes (I have issues, okay?)
Go to an SFF convention
Get a really pretty winter coat
Run 5km
Cook one Roman, one Medieval and one ...

silverfish

I think Australians get one more Christmas S-Day than Americans - you don't have Boxing Day on the 26th, do you?

silverfish

I go all out and be an idiot. For me, that was always the point, rather than trying to get N-day habits to carry over. I'd often feel ill at the end of the weekend, but never guilty.

Physical discomfort can be a much more effective teacher than guilt!

18 months on I am more dignified on weekends ...

silverfish

I enjoyed all available Christmas treats for the full four days (though I can't eat quite as much sugar now as once). I hold no expectations, scale-wise, and particularly not for this week, but they actually went down a little. ?? Puzzled, but not complaining! I'm sure it will catch up.

silverfish

I flew to Sydney for work yesterday. On the way back, our inflight meals came with little chocolate bars ("Boost", which is a much nicer bar than it sounds). I gave mine to the associate partner I was traveling with. He will eat anything chocolate coated and didn't quite understand.

So, possible ...

silverfish

Yay! Congratulations!

We all have extra motivation now... those updated testimonials...

(PS - can we update them?)

silverfish

"Common sense isn't"
:)

I also wait until people ask - they then take it upon themselves to tell everyone else! (Sometimes they misinterpret - one of my colleagues told my boss I was on the "no-sex" diet).

It is a lifestyle change, but both dramatic and subtle, so often people don't notice that ...

silverfish

My little sister told me last night that I could probably stop losing weight about now. She said I would start making her look bad :)

But when we looked in the reflective wall of the lift on the way up to the restaurant, it was true: we aren't the same size, but we are both on the same scale now ...

silverfish

Hey Zoolina,

I think most of my posts are about going overboard on S-days. For me, that was sort of the point. Think: consequences based learning. I thinking feeling sick was a much better teacher than feeling guilty :)

I still go overboard now, after more than a year (and 49/50 pounds... eek ...

silverfish

I find these difficult to list. I was never happy with my body (the heaviest of three girls, and also not the prettiest), and the few times I attended a physical school I was teased (but always had friends who stood up for me and hit the teasers over the head with their textbooks). But I wasn't ...

silverfish

As far as overeating on weekends, I really wouldn't beat myself up about it. That's what they're for: think "feast days" as much as "treat days". I've been on No-S for over a year, and for most of that year my S days were full of chocolate, cakes, cookie-dough, soft-drink, baked goods, seconds ...

silverfish

Yesterday I was admitted as a "Legal Practitioner of the Supreme Court of Queensland" (for Australians = solicitor; for Americans = lawyer?). I was not the only applicant for admission not wearing black, I didn't fall over standing up from the very low benches in the appeals court and I had a lovely ...

silverfish

Welcome, Benjumanji!

I also found the realisation "I can't actually starve to death in four hours" the biggest epiphany of No-S :)

Great to hear about your knees! Mine just started hurting again (a very little) but I think it is because I've started jogging and they aren't used to it. I try to ...

silverfish

But we in Australia will have to find an adequate banana substitute - that smoothie is probably worth its weight in gold here

silverfish

On the other hand, I used to go all out on S-days, and usually felt so awful on Sunday night that I was more than ready to go back to N-days.

It may slow weight loss down at the start, but one of the beauties of No-S is that it is by-and-large self-regulating, and eventually I didn't want to feel ...

silverfish

Congratulations! Very impressive, and love the pose.

silverfish

Congratulations, Phil!

I look forward to seeing your photographs

Kathleen

silverfish

Thanks for the kind comments!

I'm 1.78m (5'11") so that might account for 'looking smaller'

silverfish

As promised, my before and during photos. The picture on the left is me at my graduation (I will see if I can find a photo of me in something less concealing!) in December 2004. I weighed 111kg (244.2 pounds - BMI 35). I started NoS in June/July 2005.

The photo on the right is me in July 2006 at ...

silverfish

Oh, I have pictures now. I just don't have many from then. I think the best I have is my graduation photo, in which I am wearing a voluminous black gown and doing my best nazgul impression.

Thanks all!

Kathleen.

silverfish

I've been on No-S for just over a year now, and I will post pictures as soon as I can track down a 'before' (I was camera shy for a while there).

Last week I bought a size 14 skirt, though, so I am very excited, especially as the kgs have been moving slowly! (16 on slacks, 18 on tops, so I'll say I ...

silverfish

Me too, stuck for a little while. And I've been losing more slowly this year. But I have to factor an extended birthday, two SF conventions and two weeks of holidays into all that

Kathleen.

silverfish

And think of the icecream you can eat on the weekend!

Kathleen.

silverfish

Eeek!

Scary on many levels.

Kathleen.

silverfish

I don't know how much BMI can be relied on, but every few months I check to see how I'm going against that. I am now just under 30, which means I am technically no longer 'obese', just 'overweight'. (Just :)
That's down from 35 in June last year, and halfway to 'healthy'. That's exciting for me, and ...

silverfish

I've had it too - we used to get sugar-burn in college after stocking up on candy and eating it while watching tv - mouth sore/numb/dry. But I only know the sugar caused it, not how.

silverfish

No-S, for those who want to lose weight, can seem slow at times, but looking back it is startling how quickly all that weight went. It's like watching grass growing - you don't see anything if you keep looking, but turn your back for a couple of days and it's over your waist and the landlord is ...

silverfish

Congratulations, MJ - that's good news (must be a relief

Kathleen.

silverfish

Mind you, I started at a BMI of 35 (down to 30 now! Hey - I just realised that's halfway to the top* of the "normal" range :D ) - if you're not as overweight it may take a little more to start losing weight. I'm not sure what other people have found.

*I don't aim to go below 25 (well, I don't at ...

silverfish

Hi Lou,

My meals used to be larger, but I was losing weight then too - my appetite has adjusted with time. If you get the No-S down strictly, everything else will follow in time. No-S led to realising I couldn't starve in five hours, which led to more sensible food choices, which led to healthier ...

silverfish

Sort of. I had my housemate cut it to my shoulders on the back steps one morning before leaving for church. With sewing scissors.

silverfish

Since this thread is back at the top - an update:

I've now lost about 14 kg (28 pounds). That is with a plateau over Christmas

silverfish

Perhaps you could keep lunch as the largest meal of the day - but I had the same problem initially. We often eat late and would sometimes go for a walk in the evening first, so I kept a bottle of apple juice in the fridge and would have a glass when I got home or before we went for the walk, just to ...

silverfish

I just found out some family friends from church have started No-S

So sometimes people listen.

silverfish

There are a few threads answering similar questions - for me, I'm 25 and have been doing No-S since late June 2005, with no particular exercise, and I've lost about 13 or 14 kilos (26/28 pounds?). That's from 111kg down to about 97kg at the moment, and down from a large-size-20 to a large-size-16 ...

silverfish

I find it helps not to say "I can't eat xyz". Instead, say "I will eat at 1pm". Or, "I will eat XYZ on Saturday" - for the first month or two I kept a list of things I was going to eat on the weekend :) Now, I've been wanting to try a cherry-ripe sundae at MacDonalds for about two months and still ...

silverfish

I found that it was best to concentrate on one thing at a time, as far as no-s went.

(1) Just getting the habit. In this phase (about a month) I concentrated on "obeying the letter of the law rather than than the spirit." During this time the meals were sometimes disgustingly large but I learned ...

silverfish

At some point in my life, I was told to put the knife and fork down between every mouthful. I don't do this regularly, but when I notice my eating speeding up I will go back to that discipline. It has the advantage of (a) making you aware of what you're eating and how long it takes (b) letting you ...

silverfish

The biggest hurdle for me was accepting that it is not possible to starve to death in four or five hours. That happened at about week three. After that, it was all much easier and my meal sizes started decreasing. I think "obeying the letter and not the spirit" in those first three week is very ...

silverfish

And sometimes you can work around it - when I know we are going to have a big morning tea at work, I call it a late breakfast and just eat savouries.

silverfish

24 pounds (or thereabouts) since mid-2005 and managed not to put anything on over Christmas (despite a week or two on half-observance

That's without extra exercise (beyond what it takes to get to work).

Kathleen.

silverfish

Wow, Spiral - that's impressive! I take it you're exercising as well :)

I've been on NoS for 5 months and have lost 20 pounds - that's with little exercise (beyond the incidental, everyday sort of walking to the train station), free-for-all weekends and sometimes having a Maccas quarter-pounder on ...

silverfish

Congratulations - that's great!

silverfish

I hadn't binged for five months, except for going a little overboard on weekends, and I lost 10kg (20 pounds).

Then this week happened. On Tuesday we drove to Yatala and had "famous pies" (all well and good) but then I had ginger beer, followed at the drive-in by popcorn and minties. And on ...

Everyday Systems

Search found 115 matches

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"S" day?

Returning to the country, maintaining No-S

S in NY - suggestions & advice

Status Report

Peanut Butter

Made for Walking

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Before and During

One year-ish

BMI

Update and encouragement