Everyday Systems

stevecooper

Hi. I'm in the same boat. I've *technically* done a perfect month -- three plates and nothing else -- and I know I'm putting too much on my plate, so I suspect I'm not losing. I'm not measuring yet.

However, I am gaining something -- this first month has given me a strong momentum. Three meals and ...

stevecooper

I decided to figure out just how complicated it is to spend your weightwatchers points. When I tried WW, I was on 24 points a day.

I wondered, how complicated is this system? How many choices do I have to make? How many different ways are there to divvy up 24 points amongst 3 meals and maybe a ...

stevecooper

Blithe Morning wrote:My super power is loading the dishwasher.

You mean... YOU'RE the cleansenator!?!?

I would never have guessed behind those spectacles.

stevecooper

I'm a chef and need to know about tasting

Well, you can't do your job without tasting, so it's got to be in there. I'd suggest that there is a difference between tasting as a professional, and snacking as a glutton.

In an old thread, I put it like this;

I'm quite a keen cook, and I happily ...

stevecooper

wosnes wrote:Both the Asian and Mediterranean diets have been used as examples of healthy ways to eat.

I went to Rome last year, and in the town we stayed in, all the shops sold mainly booze, cheese, and cured meats. And everyone was skinny.

stevecooper

I did lose on WW. I also about went out of my mind counting, and I'm sure I drove people around me nuts. And even worse was the constant internal bargaining...

I decided to figure out just how complicated it is to spend your weightwatchers points. When I tried WW, I was on 24 points a day.

I ...

stevecooper

janiean1 wrote:My goodness I have felt sinfully guilty eating what I have today! I really don't feel so good, either!!!

I've found that after a while on the diet, eating crap all day just feels unpleasant. I think, long-term, the S-days become more 'standard', with 3 meals and occasional sweets.

stevecooper

I think a profound lack of some things (vitamins, vegetables, exercise) have been proved to be bad for heath, and people have made the incorrect inverse belief that an excess must be good for you;

So while no fruit will give you scurvy, and 5 portions is good for you, ten won't give you super ...

stevecooper

If you want a starting weight go to your doctor and get them to weigh you. Then you can go back in a year and impress your doctor, but you won't have the temptation at home.

This is really good advice. I used to visit my local nurse and get weighed, blood pressure, and a quick chat. There's ...

stevecooper

This is really interesting. You've been kind enough to explain the norms. Could you explain how people reacted when those norms weren't followed?

What were the attitudes to someone who didn't eat the traditional way? Imagine that you'd seen

- an adult walking the streets, eating a snack ...

stevecooper

one thing i'm noticing, i get crabby when hungry ..
any long time no-s-ers figured out how to deal with being hungry and not irritable?

It'll just go away. It's your hunger complaining at you. Once it realises it's not going to get it's way, it'll shut up ;)

And this thread's just started ...

stevecooper

For, me, an absolute no-snacking behaviour really, really helps.

What happens is that your hunger (which I imagine as a kind of stupid, trainable animal) gets used to not eating in the evening. It's like your rational brain trains the slow bit to understand that food isn't an option. If the animal ...

stevecooper

Terez wrote:Thanks, everyone -- and Steve, thanks for the laughs!

No problem

stevecooper

Jesseco wrote:feasting seems more natural if done in social situations

Actually true -- feasts *are* shared holidays (feast days, festivals, fiestas.)

stevecooper

Give it a while. You can't develop habits in a week, so give it a bit more time.

What you're looking for is your default behaviour to be three meals a day -- if the N-days are still conscious, then you've not got the mealing, no-snacking habits down. S-days aren't going to be easy.

I think you'll ...

stevecooper

If plate size were part of the rules I would be one of those who would be forever consulting the Table of Wisdom to see what was Allowable and was Forbidden.

...

I've noticed that square plates are all the rage these days. I'm curious about how they compare in terms of area. Anyone have ...

stevecooper

What is pork cheese? Do I really want to know?

PORK CHEESE (an Excellent Breakfast Dish).

799. INGREDIENTS.â€”2 lbs. of cold roast pork, pepper and salt to taste, 1 dessertspoonful of minced parsley, 4 leaves of sage, a very small bunch of savoury herbs, 2 blades of pounded mace, a little nutmeg ...

stevecooper

I think we all know the people I'm referring to.

Yeah, I think I do ;) I think the fact that No-s is based on something as simple as a plate insulates it from this worry, though.

What a great review of "basic math facts"! I'm particularly struck by the fact that a 12-inch plate holds almost ...

stevecooper

I really admire and appreciate what you did, but those calculations feel, to me, like an attempt to add some "numerology" to a diet that has purposely taken the numerology out.

Not really what I was aiming for ;) Someone on another thread mentioned that she has very long days and was wondering ...

stevecooper

Thanks for taking the time to calculate that!

I'm a computer programmer, so it only took a few minutes to create a program to do it.

Now, can you add a conversion for the teeny plates generally used for "heavy hors d'oeuvre" parties? Then I'll really be set.

How big are these plates? I'll ...

stevecooper

Well, I lied. There are no diagrams. But there is a table!

So, I was wondering about plate sizes. How much food can you fit on three dinner plates? Is it more than four tea plates? Intrigued, I set out to enumerate every combination of plates known to man. And here are the results. A dinner plate ...

stevecooper

If it helps, one ten-inch dinner plate has the same area as two 7-inch tea plates -- about 310 square inches. That means you could substitute one dinner-sized meal for two teaplate-sized meals and eat the same amount of food.

Intrigued, I figured out the combinations of dinner plates and tea plates ...

stevecooper

It is indeed available to pre-order on amazon.co.uk, but I got mine from amazon.com, and it arrived a few weeks ago.

Oh yeah. And it's CHEAPER to buy it from the US. Woot for a strong pound!

stevecooper

I'm thinking now that the set of words *almost* form a couplet. There's a lot of poetic potential, with all the alliteration. I can't come up with anything metrical with the original, but did manage this in the attempt...

A single plate
Three times a day,
And have a cake
On saturday.

stevecooper

Best of luck, and keep talking about it here. Send a quick note saying something like "I ate three meals and one candy bar. I'm on track" or something like it.

will you keep us posted?

stevecooper

I'm with KCCC -- don't drop all the S-days. It's a pleasing, empowering thing to have restraint throughout the week, but going 7 N-days sounds like an endless grind on a very dull treadmill. At least keep the window open a crack at the weekend.

stevecooper

I'm becoming very wary of 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' foods. I've always liked No-S' justification-by-history, of returning to old patterns of eating. I got searching for the recipes used by our slim ancestors...

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=29230#29230

I had a hankering to go ...

stevecooper

Hey, Reinhard.

I think the best reason for 13 words is probably typographical -- try to fit the word 'sometimes' onto the cover, and you'd have to shrink the font right down, and some of the visual impact would be lost. That's fewer sales and fewer people nosing. :)

Me, I like the sometimes ...

stevecooper

I'm with fkwan -- eating after dinner was where I got most of my unnecessary calories. Also, if you eat late you go to bed full. I think the max is to go to bed juuust before you get hungry.

stevecooper

I repent! I renounce the ways of always, and embrace the new faith (sometimes).

Which leads me to wonder... has the Grand Poobah lost his way? Do we need to burn Reinhart in the cleansing flame for his deviation from the True Way?

I think there's gonna be a burnin'.

stevecooper

very, very good posts, 3aday. That level of detail gives a really clear picture of where it all leads. Thanks

stevecooper

It strikes me that, since you know exactly how long you're gonna be working out, there could be a follow-along workout video!

Reinhard, it's about time to get that celebrity fitness video done.

stevecooper

Filthy Sometimesian, with your irresolute 'creed,' never able to make up your mind!

Brothers! Sisters! Plant feet firmly on the ground and say "Lo it is Saturday, the day of Saturn, which is round and yellow and red, like unto a pizza, that I may feast upon it. And on sunday also, which is named ...

stevecooper

Hi, All.

I just wanted to riff on something in the back of my brain that I think may be a bit of a common theme.

One of the reasons I have eaten too much in the past is a kind of unjustified fear of hunger. It goes something like this;

It's 3pm. Lunch is starting to subside in my belly. I have a ...

stevecooper

The original diet, and the one Reinhard speaks about in the podcasts and such, looks like this;

No Snacks, No Sweets, No Seconds, Except (sometimes) on days that start with 'S'

Whereas the book reads;

No Snacks, No Sweets, No Seconds, Except on days that start with 'S'

So what happened to the ...

stevecooper

paulrone's German Piano Teacher wrote:"Das iss not ass hard ass you are trying-g to make it. Relahx. Enjoy yourself."

I wonder if you might consider posting only in Deutchlish from now on. Oh, please!

stevecooper

I think two things should help you keep on track;

1) if you're eating enough to get to 170lb, then you'll be able to see it on the plate. Just leave off that seventh bratwurst. You probably don't need it.

2) With only three opportunities to stuff yourself, you'll feel bloated by that amount of ...

stevecooper

Another web-first here.

There's a whole body of stuff building up -- the nos website, the forum, the podcasts, habitcal, the book... it's good to have different ways in.

The forum deserves a special mention, though -- being able to chat about the diet is invaluable. Particularly, people coming ...

stevecooper

This is my second Saturday S day. [...] I had a LARGE piece of cake sitting around that I knew no one else would finish, so I looked forward to it for today. So much so that I inhaled the thing before I ate breakfast!

Don't worry about it. This is like learning the violin and getting a few bum ...

stevecooper

So you are doing this out of thrift, rather than nutrition or weight-loss strategy? You've got tubs of it lying round the house and it'd be a shame to throw it out? If so, I'd consider just biting the bullet, buying yourself some oats, and making yourself porridge instead of protein shakes. Oats won ...

stevecooper

That was very hard for me, as for some years I have had a 3:00 and an 8:00 snack. My snacks were usually healthful, but tended to get too calorie-dense.

Anyway, maybe for S days, I will simply reinstitute those snacks!

Sounds good to me. Moves you from 'three meals a day' to 'three meals and ...

stevecooper

nicely done, that noser!

(can we please, please make 'noser' the official word for a practitioner of the no-s diet?

)

stevecooper

stevecooper, those are really cute ways (though you might not mean for it to be "cute") but I mean that in only the most complimentary way... :wink: but really cute ways and quite creative ways, to handle this issue. Now if I can just remember them... ha! I'll be having to come back and read them ...

stevecooper

I think I actually ordered the book from amazon.com... can't remember, though.

Great to see you again here, Steve. Sorry Mungo got the better of you for a bit (though amusing to see him here again, too).

I noticed a quote from my Mungo post in the book, on page 72. The "don't think like a ...

stevecooper

Are you substituting one of your meals for a shake? can I ask why?

stevecooper

Sounds to me like S-days need their own mini everyday system.

The thing that makes the everyday systems work is that they are formulated with such precision and clarity; the twelve words of no-s are really really clear, except for S days.

What I think may be needed is a new image paired with a new ...

stevecooper

I've got my copy here in the UK, via amazon.co.uk.

I'm a third of the way through. I'd fallen so far off the wagon it'd disappeared over the horizon, but I'm inspired to start again from tomorrow morning. I shall partake of my first no-s meal at breakfast tomorrow. I'm aiming for 08:28, 28th march ...

stevecooper

Interesting! I think you're right that in a developed country, you could work up a nice case of scurvy by religiously avoiding fruit and veg, which isn't that hard to do if you are a lazy cook.

One thing I've noticed is that if I'm on a diet, I am significantly more likely to get colds. I suspect ...

stevecooper

I have this theory that people eat [...] food that contains very little of the nutrients which are necessary to be really healthy (vitamins, minerals, etc.).

there is evidence to suggest that modern food production methods give rise to foodstuffs extremely low in nutrients.

You're suggesting ...

stevecooper

I'd be very hesitant to view this as license to chunk up, however. The causality is still up in the air. So many other studies seem to indicate the opposite (on a smaller scale, it's true). Methodological quirks could yet be exposed.

Quite right. It could be that the normal-weight category has a ...

stevecooper

From the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/health/07fat.html

About two years ago, a group of federal researchers reported that overweight people have a lower death rate than people who are normal weight, underweight or obese. Now, investigating further, they found out which diseases are ...

stevecooper

Hi, KCCC.

The big difference between C and D is about how much attention you're paying to the taste. What I wanted to distinguish between was the idea that you could (C) knock back some kind of bland, nutritious mush which kept your body going, but which had no real taste pleasure, and (D) use ...

stevecooper

it could be easier to discuss methods; I see (1) and (3) in your list as probably pursuing much the same methods, with the difference in how you feel about it. It seems that the methods on the table so far are;

A. Mountains to molehills. Slowly reduce the amount of food you take in, acclimatising ...

stevecooper

Sounds like we're on the same page, largely. That's a relief.

I think, for the purposes of discussing eating, there are two primary goods. The first is biological health, and moderation is one important way to that. Especially in our culture, where there's absolutely no external limit to the ...

stevecooper

The idea of human nature is a tricky one. I suppose we have fixed elements and flexible elements. In a rough split, the fixed elements are physical and the flexible elements are cultural.

For example, in a calorie-scarce past, there is an evolutionary pressure which favours eaters who like high ...

stevecooper

You wrote "I'm not sure if an ideal of healthy human nature should guide social customs, or whether healthy social customs should guide individual conduct and the shaping of human nature."

If you could describe this healthy human nature, what could you do to turn it into social custom? Or is this ...

stevecooper

Aristotle said;

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

I think we necessarily devise arts of eating, but a great part of that is social. Eating and drinking forms the basis for all manner of social ...

stevecooper

presumably you could make one of these from a white plate and some kind of marker?

stevecooper

I like Reinhart's analogy here, but I think I have a more direct example than poets, and that would be chefs.

I'm quite a keen cook, and I happily watch cookery programs. What interests me is that chefs often seem to have a great passion for food, but are not gluttons. Thier passion manifests in ...

stevecooper

So, adding the oil adds up to 400 calories -- that's basically a small meal. How do you drop those extra calories from meals?

(that is, how is this different from the miracle-hunger-cure of eating more food?)

stevecooper

When I first moved abroad, I met someone who said that American bread was way too sweet.

That's quite odd; I don't know if that applies in the UK, but I suspect it does; a lot of bread is almost like sponge cake; very light and soft. Certainly, there are other foreign breads I think of as much ...

stevecooper

I've noticed something similar, but I wonder if there's another explanation, at least a partial one.

Bread is just about the easiest thing in the world to prepare. You can't absent-mindedly nibble on dried pasta, but you can on bread. Sandwiches and toast are instant food.

Maybe, by limiting ...

stevecooper

That's my experience of WW. It could have been dubbed 'the crazy tomato diet' for me. Stuck with it for three months, twanged right off it.

On the other hand -- for lots of people, the public weighing is a good way to stay honest with yourself.

stevecooper

It's strange, but some people assume that if a moderate behaviour is virtuous, then extreme behaviour must be saintly. So it goes with diets. No-sers practice a moderate form of control. Weight watchers is an extreme form; ergo, it must be more virtuous.

So accountancy or abolotionist dieters will ...

stevecooper

Sweet! I'll try to read it soon.

stevecooper

reinhard wrote:I feel like the habitcal was the one thing missing from no-s.

Certainly was for me. Showed me the number of failures I was getting (high) and now with a run of greens behind me, I don't want to break the winning streak.

There's a gaming element here; 'how many can you get in a row?'

stevecooper

Morning, P.

How far are you from your target weight, and how did you come to that figure?

I'm thinking there's a significant difference between, say, being six pounds over what you'd like and being six stone over.

stevecooper

Downloading it now.

It's surprisingly effective, actually. Dammit, I'm showing a lot of red.

stevecooper

The more you know, the fatter you get.

Well, not quite, but close; the more brainwork goes into your diet, the more likely you are to get brain overload, give up, and get yourself an IV drip of warm sausage lard.

The fun of no-S is that it doesn't allow you to build an over-complicated system ...

stevecooper

When I get sweets in Europe (mostly baked goods as opposed to candy), my sense is that it's not as sweet, but much richer. Real cream, butter, eggs, and you can taste the richness. Far less sugar.

From my very limited experience, American chocolate (Hershey's) is even worse than British chocolate ...

stevecooper

They did not like it. And why? They said it was "way too sweet".

Noticed the same with milk? if a person drinks whole milk, they'll hate skimmed for being watery; people who drink skimmed hate whole milk for it's overpowering richness. Similarly for brown and white bread, and fruity and plain ...

stevecooper

If you enjoy reading Xenophon, I suspect you'll enjoy Rome. Nice and dramatic, and fairly historical, I think. Season 1 covers Caesar crossing the Rubicon and becoming dictator; Season 2 covers the conflict between Caesar's killers, Octavian, and Mark Anthony.

Elvish I can't do. And I'm relatively ...

stevecooper

I've been watching the new series of Rome recently. That must be what put it into my head. ;)

Explorator urbium sum
Ambulato; ista res ago.
Urbs locam incultus meum est.

Ovid must be spinning in his grave ;)

Actually, as a play on In vino, veritas -- I like In vias, feritas -- In the streets ...

stevecooper

Some ideas;

Utility;

"I walked somewhere, and it wasn't to or from my car"
"I walked to one place outside my street" (a shop, work, a friend's house)

Time;

"I was on my feet for 14 minutes"

Distance;

"I walked 14 stadia" (1.6 miles)
"I walked 14,000 cubits" (3.9 miles)
"I walked 14,000 ...

stevecooper

As zoolina mentioned we are not scientists and this discussion is limited in that direction.

The question of expertise is a difficult one. Real knowledge can take a while to aquire. That said, I have found it relatively straighforward to get to the actual research, and have found it relatively ...

stevecooper

Yes, I started getting a veg box because it's better for the environment (no agricultural pesticides, and fewer food miles because it is from a local farm)

Good on you. I like the idea of food miles, particularly -- given that most stuff is transported by burning oil, which is quite demonstrably ...

stevecooper

What is left to eat?! And I was feeling so virtuous getting a weekly organic veg box.

All food is poisonous, to some extent. But that's generally OK -- we've got kidneys. ;) Hell, the weekly organic box has got to be good for you; I'm guessing you're eating less crap, generally, right, and ...

stevecooper

Hi. I'll do my best to answer the questions with the best quality references I can, rather than Internet Logic ;)

Are plant toxins specific to one kind of parisite, or to all of them?

This paper suggests that plant toxins come in many forms; herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides, fungicides ...

stevecooper

And sure, H2O is a chemical (or is it, are all
molecules chemicals? Whatever.) and yes vitimins are
chemicals.

Yeah, everything is a chemical. Saying something is full of chemicals
is basically saying 'it is made of "stuff"'. It's also a rhetorical
way of saying 'it's full of evil '

But surely ...

stevecooper

I have a suggestion for the fan club logo.

stevecooper

Reinhard wrote: "Why don't snacks diminish our appetite beyond an immediate few minutes? I suspect that our bodies simply don't really register them because they make no sense"

Gastric Emptying

I had a look for ideas around the net about the way the stomach clears itself. The medical phrase ...

stevecooper

I always thought the No-S diet was over-long, and mostly padding. Now you admit it. Fourteen words indeed!

I liked this one. I've read the start of the paper you recommended -- so far it looks very accessible, and I'd suggest people go off to the source and have a read.

Snack-Meal Independance ...

stevecooper

Thanks for those big posts, guys. Both very interesting and well-argued.

The Good Old Days

One thing that runs through both arguments, and much of the discussion, is contention over the idea that there were 'good old days', in which people ate naturally and thrived on it.

Phil says "we are ...

stevecooper

For those of you looking for a source of audiobooks; http://librivox.org/ is an attempt to take texts from Project Gutenberg, which gathers public-domain literature, and dictate it all onto MP3s, and put them into the public domain.

Or, free quality literature available for immediate download ...

stevecooper

My post also say read the book. If you read it you will find reference to the many scientific documents, books articles, manuscripts…

The reviews put me off the book, big time. The book itself, it seems, recommends injecting yourself with hormones to lose weight -- an approach I'm not going to ...

stevecooper

If you want to get more details how weight gain is related to genetically modified food read “Weight Loss Cure” by Kevin Trudeau.

I looked it up on amazon. The reviewers almost universally panned it; it scores an average of 2 out of 5. One reviewer revealed the core of the system; "you have to ...

stevecooper

I apologise about not having enough time to answer everyone's points
directly! I'll do what I can. Milczar, I'm concentrating on your point
because it was so short, I think your point sums up a common feeling,
and I wanted to go into a single, small example in some depth.

I think it is common ...

stevecooper

Florafloraflora;

You wrote "I'll play, even though I think the debate is probably
pointless, especially if we're just flinging around assertions without
any special background in farming techniques"

That's part of the point, really. I'm throwing around statements in
direct contradiction to some ...

stevecooper

except for the idea that organic foods make us sick because they spoil faster. I don't buy that and I don't need a scientist to prove it to me.

Yep. That was one of the ones I made up out of the blue. I have heard that food used to be more likely to cause food poisoning, but I can't quote a ...

stevecooper

The most significant components [...] in weight gain and obesity are food additives, chemicals, and food processing techniques. [...] it is not really the calories

Wow. It's not calories. It's aspartame. I'd never have thought that, because, well, no doctor I've ever talked to ever mentioned it ...

stevecooper

Hi, All.

I didn't want to hijack the current quality of food matters thread, but it got me thinking about our attitudes to food safety.

I'm going to make a few statements, and I was wondering if anyone could knock them down with any firm evidence. They swim against the current fashion, but just ...

stevecooper

One of the reasons of today’s obesity is chemicals in food. Organic food is much healthier option.

No, it isn't.

There is a dearth of evidence that organic food is any better for you at all; AFAIK, no large-scale studies have shown any health benefits to eating organic food. I have to take ...

stevecooper

Thanks for the kind words, guys. Freud called it 'the Id', but I prefer Mungo.

I like the idea that, instead of considering yourself to be a single rational entity, there's something more like a mob or council of voices; sometimes, singling them out can help clarify a situation.

I may have more ...

stevecooper

While thinking about diets today, I recalled an old story from an Elizabethan author I'd like to share;

There was a cunning Doctor at his first going to sea, being doubtful that he should be sea sick, an old woman perceiving the same, said unto him: "Sir, I pray, be of good comfort, I will teach ...

stevecooper

I tend to think that No-S is all about training a really, really stupid part of the brain. This is the bit of your brain that talks like this;

"Me like sweeties. Me like LARD. Cake GOOD. Want MOOORE."

The idea, then, is to get this poor reprobate of a brain to accept that for five days out of ...

stevecooper

reinhard wrote:I've gotta bump this quote up a bit [snip] (if you don't mind)

No problem; go ahead.

stevecooper

This post made me think of free-range and battery-farmed hens.

The difference between these hens isn't whether or not they are caged
(they both are) but how tight the cage is. And how happy that makes
them.

Free-range hens live within a definite boundary. But they get freedom
within that boundary ...

stevecooper

milczar wrote:don't eat 3 sticks of butter or 5 pounds of raw meat on a plate.

Damn. I was enjoying my regular 'dairy triple'...

stevecooper

Week three was a bit of a washout, because I overdid it in the earlier two weeks.

From now on, I'll be running monday/tuesday and thursday/friday, and having a break on wednesdays.

I've also photographed my route and put it up on a flickr map;

Map of the Route

stevecooper

My experience so far has been that my appetite is like a child; if I indulge it whenever it shouts loud enough, it learns that it can get what it want by shouting more.

For me, being very strict through the first few weeks has put my appetite in it's place; I think I'm not feeling hungry between ...

Everyday Systems

Search found 124 matches

choices on weightwatchers.

Re: Hi there question is tastings

Re: Feeling Like a Glutton! My First S day!!

Re: Social occasions and Big and Little S-days

Just how big is three plates? With Diagrams!

Unfounded Terrors

What happened to sometimes?

Re: That piece of cake

NYT: "overweight people have a lower death rate"

Re: Talk me back from the ledge!!

Re: Interesting...maybe not pertinent

Explorator urbium sum

Re: Food quality; Devil's Advocate

Re: Food quality; Devil's Advocate

Librivox

Re: genetically modified food

Re: Food quality; Devil's Advocate

Re: genetically modified food

Food quality; Devil's Advocate

Re: Organic food and weight loss

Elizabethan dieting wisdom, and a cure for sea-sickness.

free-range dieting