Everyday Systems

Nicest of the Damned

It's too early for mods. There's a temptation to start adding mods, to try to fix everything that you don't like about your eating habits all at once. This is the wrong approach. Get to the point where keeping the basic No S habits doesn't require much thought or willpower, then you can start to ...

Nicest of the Damned

Are you likely to consume a lot of peppermints for purposes other than keeping yourself from smoking? Be honest. If the answer is no, then you can treat them as medicine rather than food. That's what I did with ginger candies when I was pregnant and nauseous. It sounds like your peppermint usage is ...

Nicest of the Damned

You are not terrible. I would say you didn't even do a terrible thing. I'd prefer to reserve that word for things that hurt other people. This doesn't mean you will never learn to eat healthy. It means you're doing something you're new at, and you made a mistake. That's part of how we learn to do ...

Nicest of the Damned

It's OK. Breathe.

There are two kinds of people who have never made a mistake on No S. Newbies who haven't made their first mistake yet, and liars.

The sun will rise the next day after you have a red day. You won't get kicked off this forum. I know these things from personal experience.

Nicest of the Damned

Comfort food is a lie. People felt just as good after waiting a while without eating as they did after eating comfort food. You CAN feel better without eating between meals, YES YOU CAN.

Happiness was achieved by the boring practice of waiting. Time, not food, remains the healer of all wounds.

Nicest of the Damned

There is a diet that you can do. There is a diet that doesn't require things you hate like food journaling, weighing your portions, or permanently giving up foods you like. And you don't even have to think much about it, once you get the habits down.

Walking is exercise. And it means you don't have ...

Nicest of the Damned

Still around the same weight at a doctor visit today. Nicest Toddler is still teething, too. She's had the first molars come in (*that* was fun), and is now drooling a lot, so we suspect the canine teeth may be about to make an appearance.

Nicest of the Damned

It's not just Niagara Falls- Hell froze, too:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roadtripp ... 64497.html

Nicest of the Damned

Food journaling CAN help people automatically enlist their willpower more automatically, but it isn't a guarantee.

For some people. If you have to grit your teeth to make yourself keep a food journal, you probably aren't one of them. Or if you're like me and would keep forgetting to do it, you ...

Nicest of the Damned

If you're feeling rebellion rise up in you at the thought of food journaling, definitely don't do it. Save your willpower for actually eating less.

Food journaling is a tool. Some people find it helpful for losing weight. Others find it too difficult or annoying to use. Some people love cast-iron ...

Nicest of the Damned

I don't, and one of the things that attracted me to No S was the fact that I wouldn't have to. I suck at keeping logs of things I do, and I hate doing it. I'm not an organized person. If I have to fight my lack of organization and my food cravings both at the same time, I'm not going to win.

For ...

Nicest of the Damned

I went to the doctor again today. I'm up about 3 pounds, but that's still down more than 60 from where I was, so I'm pretty happy.

There is a certain amount of teeth-gritting involved, though. Most weeks, there is at least one occasion where I tell myself "S days are coming, S days are coming ...

Nicest of the Damned

wosnes wrote:I agree that hunger is NOT an emergency.

There are people who would like you to think it is. A lot of these people are financially involved with companies that make or sell food, especially snack foods (or are repeating what they have heard from someone who is).

Nicest of the Damned

You're going to feel hungry, if you were in the habit of eating at a particular time and stop doing that. But you should know that feeling hungry isn't an emergency that you have to do something about right now. You're not going to go from overweight to starving to death in a few hours, assuming you ...

Nicest of the Damned

If only people with perfect compliance could post testimonials, there wouldn't be many testimonials, and most of the ones there were would be lies.

Nicest of the Damned

welcome I did no s through 4 of my pregnancies and always gained the same 30 then lost the same 30lbs. This is a perfect pregnancy diet if you don't have major morning sickness.

I managed, even with morning sickness. I didn't count the candied ginger I took for nausea as food, since I was taking ...

Nicest of the Damned

I did No S up to my last month of pregnancy and again starting two months after she was born. I didn't do No S for her first two months because I had read that dieting in the first two months of breastfeeding can affect your milk supply. Just something to be aware of, if you are planning to ...

Nicest of the Damned

Make it harder to fail, and limit the damage if you do fail.

If at all possible, don't spend time in places where you can easily get food. Don't hang out in the kitchen. The kitchen should be a place for preparing meals, eating meals, and cleaning up after meals. Spend your non-meal time elsewhere ...

Nicest of the Damned

Has being mad at yourself ever actually motivated you to keep to the program?

Being shamed by others is correlated to later weight gain. Why shouldn't it work that way with ourselves?

There is a lot of fat shaming in American culture now. To paraphrase Dr Phil, how's that working out for us? A ...

Nicest of the Damned

Hi! It'll be good to have another No S baby. Nicest Baby will be a year on the 5th.

I did No S up to my last month of pregnancy and again starting two months after she was born. I didn't do No S for her first two months because I had read that dieting in the first two months of breastfeeding can ...

Nicest of the Damned

I didn't really start losing weight until I had been on No S for a year. I lost some weight at first, but it didn't really start coming off until later. Which makes sense- my habits were more solid after a year. This is NOT a quick weight loss diet. That doesn't mean it isn't effective- I've lost ...

Nicest of the Damned

You're better off now than you were before you started No S and lost those 58 pounds. Being 50 pounds overweight is better than being 100 pounds overweight. You do know that, on other diets, not only is it incredibly common to hit a plateau like this, it's also common to gain back the weight you ...

Nicest of the Damned

Thanks Annie! While I really believe and work to not judge people, I do employ it humorously as a defense against bad habits. So instead of being jealous of someone for having a big ice cream cone on Wednesday, I quietly and without malice, mock it to myself. (lookie here, people on planet chub ...

Nicest of the Damned

Remember that your feelings and thoughts, whatever they may be, do not constitute failure. The only thing that can be a failure is if you put food in your mouth. Thinking about how much you'd like to eat something isn't a failure. Being unhappy that it's not an S day any more is not a failure. Those ...

Nicest of the Damned

Hi all my wife and I have just started (4 days in) the no s diet.

Just a quick question on meals or rather duration. we don't eat very fast. is there a time limit on a meal or, like i suspect, its basically 1 plate till you are done?

Kind of a newbie question i know.

Thanks Everyone

Slow ...

Nicest of the Damned

Don't have food around, if you can help it. Don't spend time in the kitchen, unless you are preparing a meal, eating a meal, or cleaning up after a meal. Don't keep food around outside the kitchen. If you want to snack, then, you have to stop what you are doing and go to the kitchen to get food ...

Nicest of the Damned

I just got back from a doctors appointment (that's the only time I weigh). I'm now down 65 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. I've been doing No S since 2010, but my doctor could only look up my weight from 2011. I'm sure I've lost even more weight than that, just don't know how much.

Nicest of the Damned

One thing that was different about our food culture until quite recently is that food was more expensive. In the US, our level of food spending as a percentage of income is at historic lows. The cost of food used to limit consumption much more than it does now.

Another effect of this is on ...

Nicest of the Damned

You manage to see food that belongs to someone else and not eat it, right? You don't eat off other people's plates when you eat with them, do you? You don't steal other people's lunches from the fridge at work, do you? Try telling yourself that workplace snacks are not for you, they are for other ...

Nicest of the Damned

wosnes wrote:Don't forget -- your dizziness can be caused by any number of things other than the change in the way you're eating.

Yes. A couple of things that can cause dizziness that might be relevant at this time of year are dehydration and heat exhaustion.

Nicest of the Damned

Peanut butter is not a sweet. I have it almost everyday.

Especially not natural peanut butter. The only ingredients are peanuts and salt- not even any sugar there. I wouldn't consider even regular peanut butter a sweet, though. Fun fact: in Australia they think of peanut butter as savory, so much ...

Nicest of the Damned

Not eating what you're craving isn't going to harm you in some way. It also isn't true that the craving wont go away until you satisfy it. Cravings are thoughts and, like all thoughts, will eventually go away even if you don't do anything about them.

What do you think about the typical diet ...

Nicest of the Damned

I bet craving is used much more in the modern day to elevate the idea of wanting whatever I want right now to something more important. I'm guessing it was borrowed and expanded from the realm of pregnancy cravings. I hear people all the time talk about their cravings as if they meant their bodies ...

Nicest of the Damned

To use the language of parenting, a craving is a want, not a need. Like any other want, you have to decide if it is a good idea to fulfill it, and, if so, when and how to fulfill it. Wanting stuff is a normal part of being human. Not always getting what you want when you want it is, too, as all ...

Nicest of the Damned

The fact that you're having cravings does not mean you're doing something wrong. It just means you're a human trying to adjust to a new routine.

You don't need something sweet. Sugar is not an essential nutrient. You want it, probably because you are used to ending meals with dessert. Or maybe it's ...

Nicest of the Damned

Good job! Getting over the idea that cravings and urges have to be obeyed is a big part of retraining your appetite. They are not to be believed or rewarded.

Cravings are thoughts. That's all they are. They are not (at least in most cases) a sign of some sort of nutritional deficiency. In the ...

Nicest of the Damned

This is normal. You were used to eating in the evenings, so now you feel hungry then. But it is something you can get over. People who move from the East Coast to California feel hungry at their old meal times at first. But eventually they adjust to the time difference. They don't always eat their ...

Nicest of the Damned

Oh yes. It's especially bad if you are in a house where your mom feels the need to have candy dishes out in the living room. I can polish off a candy dish while watching a one hour TV show- just guess how I know that. I don't have candy dishes in my house, because I know what will happen if there is ...

Nicest of the Damned

If you eat wholesome, unprocessed foods in the kind of large portions that you've become accustomed to from fast food, you shouldn't be surprised if you don't lose any weight. Unprocessed foods aren't magic, they won't somehow prevent you from eating too much.

Nicest of the Damned

There are quite a few pitfalls you can get into when you start allowing certain kinds of snacks and not others.

One is that the change from "no snacks" to "only healthy snacks" is a bigger jump than "only healthy snacks" to "any snacks". What happens if you're allowing yourself healthy snacks ...

Nicest of the Damned

Yes, it does. The problem is not the calories in the raw vegetables themselves, but the reinforcement of the habit of snacking. The idea is that you will get used to not eating at all between meals. That won't happen in you're eating raw vegetables between meals.

Nicest of the Damned

wosnes wrote:Based on my own experience, I'd have to say that what you eat is important no matter what your weight.

I would agree, but I would also add that how much you eat is important no matter what you are eating. Diets that encourage people to eliminate some type of food too often ignore that.

Nicest of the Damned

I'm wary of the "unprocessed" phase. Snacking all day is bad even if it's unprocessed.

Yes. I think "processed" food may be the new "bad" food, where it's supposedly OK to eat as much as you want as long as you avoid the "bad" food. You know, kind of like fat in the '80s or carbs in the '00s.

Nicest of the Damned

Christine wrote:But you're right, and I do have the tendency to fix everything all at once and I'm hardly ever successful (who is?)

Lots of people tend to do that. That's why New Year's resolutions exist, and why almost nobody is still keeping theirs in March.

Nicest of the Damned

(well, I did actually... 3 1/2 glasses of wine) Come to think of it, I'm guessing that if I cut out the wine on N days I'll be doing a lot better.

Careful. There's a temptation to try to fix everything you don't like about your eating habits at once. Don't do that. You'll spread your willpower ...

Nicest of the Damned

Atlantic article on why avoiding processed food may not be the solution to the obesity epidemic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-junk-food-can-end-obesity/309396/?single_page=true

Turns out, unprocessed food can be as dense in calories as manufactured junk. Things like ...

Nicest of the Damned

I've heard that slogan, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants"; unfortunately the "not too much" part has eluded me most of the time!

No S is here to help you with that. Its specialty is tackling issues of eating too much food.

And, I used to be a vegetarian. I'm here to tell you that you can ...

Nicest of the Damned

Let me clarify: I'm not necessarily speaking about breakfast foods being promoted, but the meal as the most important meal of the day. If the meal is being promoted, then it follows that the foods people would eat at that meal would be promoted.

I suspect that the people who make the processed ...

Nicest of the Damned

I want to emphasize just how bad it is to think of "healthy eating" as an all-or-nothing thing. When I was in eighth grade, back in the 80's, we had a home economics unit on healthy living. I tried keeping a food journal. I failed miserably and ended up writing it the night before it was due, as ...

Nicest of the Damned

Incidentally, a lot of the people who try to tell you that being hungry is a bad thing and something that Must Be Dealt With Right Now sell snack foods for a living (or have a business relationship with someone who does). I wonder why someone who makes money when you buy snack foods might want you ...

Nicest of the Damned

Incidentally, a lot of the people who try to tell you that being hungry is a bad thing and something that Must Be Dealt With Right Now sell snack foods for a living (or have a business relationship with someone who does). I wonder why someone who makes money when you buy snack foods might want you ...

Nicest of the Damned

The last time I weighed was in March, but at that point I was down 50 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. I have been nursing Nicest Baby since she was born, which does help with weight loss.

Nicest of the Damned

Nicest, that is a great way to view this issue. I never thought to just sit down and think about all the bad habits that I have in regards to eating and exercise. It is probably something I should do. Hopefully No S tackles most of them.

Just don't try to change them all at once if No S doesn't ...

Nicest of the Damned

It's just plain No S, with no modifications. No extra restrictions, no extra leniencies.

Nicest of the Damned

Yes, I am actually physically hungry in between. So the coffee & milk is probably a safe way to stave it off for a while. But at this point, I don't want to make "allowances" that might turn into no-kiddin' red days.

Being "actually physically hungry" is not a problem or some kind of abnormal ...

Nicest of the Damned

https://picasaweb.google.com/107136652705424422382/BeforeAndAfter?authkey=Gv1sRgCJTK0ZWF9c7U4gE&feat=email

Two photos of me (with Nicest Husband and Nicest Baby- I think you can guess which one is me). The one on the right was taken in September when Nicest Baby was about a month old. I was on ...

Nicest of the Damned

If the best health possible had to be goals for all of us, we would have to be even tougher on ourselves than No S, in my opinion. I think this is a reasonable compromise for all but those who have already developed a health condition.

Even then, No S might still be a good bet, because a stricter ...

Nicest of the Damned

You can certainly do No S without weighing yourself, or having a goal weight in mind. Just try to get to habits you can live with long-term (this isn't the kind of diet you go on until you reach a goal weight and then go off), and let the numbers on the scale fall where they may. I've been doing ...

Nicest of the Damned

If you do manage to lose weight- you'll still be you, only thinner. Any problems you had that weren't due to your weight, you'll still have. Being overweight is probably not the cause of all of your problems- other things do cause problems, too.

Nicest of the Damned

Until you said you were 52 I wondered if you were me. I had just about given up on losing weight and accepted being overweight all my life before I came upon No S, too.

Nicest of the Damned

@leafy greens - "exercise gets you away from the kitchen." That hits the nail on the head! The best exercise is moving in any direction away from the kitchen between meals.

Of course, so can many other activities. Any of which is beneficial, even if they're something you think of as a total waste ...

Nicest of the Damned

lilguysmama wrote:Can a person lose weight on this if they dont do much exercising?

In a word, yes. I have lost at least 40 lbs off my pre-pregnancy weight with No S, with my only exercise being taking Nicest Baby for walks and doing a Mommy and Me yoga class once a week.

Nicest of the Damned

I have heartburn, but Prilosec or Prevacid keeps it under control.

Being overweight does increase your risk for heartburn, so losing weight might help (though I got heartburn even when I was thinner).

The "no seconds" rule will probably help, if you've been eating seconds at meals until now ...

Nicest of the Damned

I only weigh at the doctor's office. I'm afraid I would obsess if I had a scale, so I don't have one.

Nicest of the Damned

What happens if, when your afternoon slump comes around, there are no chips or soda in the house?

You sleep through the night without eating, right? If you can do that, you can get from lunch to dinner without eating.

Nicest of the Damned

There are two kinds of No S'ers who don't have any red days:
1. Newbies who haven't had their first red day yet
2. Liars
Everybody has red days. Everybody.

Nicest of the Damned

One problem I always had with grazing, maybe because I am fairly disorganized (ok, "fairly disorganized" in the sense that the Pacific Ocean is "fairly wet"). It's hard enough for me to plan three good meals for a day. A lot of days, I don't manage to do it. If I were to graze, I'd have to plan 5 or ...

Nicest of the Damned

For me, I remind myself that I do this so that I don't have to do things that I really don't want to do, things like weighing and measuring my food, counting calories (or carbs or fat grams), keeping a food journal, or never eating foods I like again. I know I would hate doing any of those things ...

Nicest of the Damned

Animals that graze do it because the stuff they eat isn't calorie-dense. They eat all day because they need to do that to get enough calories.

Nicest of the Damned

What does it say about me that my first response to this thread title was puzzlement about why Mark Bittman should be interested in Visual Basic 6?

Nicest of the Damned

I think WW appeals (and works) for a special sect of the population. You may have to have a little zeal for micromanagement, because the tools they use are no easier (and certainly less transparent) than counting calories..

Definitely not for people like me, for whom the ideal is to not have to ...

Nicest of the Damned

I haven't done WW, but I don't think it's magic. It won't work if you don't stick to it. No diet will.

Nicest of the Damned

WHY do I do this!! Frustrated in Michigan!

Well, why aren't you sticking to No S? Which of the S's is causing the problem? What you want to do is find out what the problem is, and take steps to make it harder to fail in the way you're normally failing. Whatever problem you're having, someone else ...

Nicest of the Damned

I don't have to think, weigh, or measure the benefit of eating three sticks of celery with one tablespoon of peanut butter in the afternoon.. or justify two bits of candy before dinner by not having a glass of wine or something.

One problem with diets that do allow this kind of thing is that ...

Nicest of the Damned

They aren't a sign that your metabolism is screeching to a halt, the way some other diets might claim. It is normal and OK to have cravings, and it is not going to harm you to not fulfill the cravings.

I wish the fitness magazines would admit this, rather than saying you should have a yogurt, a ...

Nicest of the Damned

Cravings are like thoughts, because cravings are thoughts. That's all they are. They aren't a sign that you've got some sort of nutritional deficiency (if they were, First Worlders wouldn't crave sweet and salty snacks with almost no other nutritional value). They aren't a sign that you're doing ...

Nicest of the Damned

It happens.

Nicest of the Damned

I've done something like this, saving sweets for S days.

Nicest of the Damned

Try to make it hard to get a snack in the afternoon. Some ways you might do that:

Don't hang out in the kitchen or at a place that sells food.

Don't keep food with you. Don't have change for the vending machine.

Find something to do in the afternoons that doesn't work with snacking. This could ...

Nicest of the Damned

I saw this article and found it interesting (Warning, it's Cracked.com, huge time sink):

http://www.cracked.com/article_20028_5-ways-your-brain-tricks-you-into-sticking-with-bad-habits.html

The study they quote seems to show it takes 10 weeks to build a habit.

Interesting quotes:

it's because ...

Nicest of the Damned

I just saw a blip on Yahoo! For the next diet craze and super food. Hang onto your butts...The Aztec Diet. I didn't follow the link, but what could that new super food be? I'm so excited.

At least it's not human flesh, worms, or insects, all of which the Aztecs did eat:

http://en.wikipedia.org ...

Nicest of the Damned

I have read on this forum, from time to time, people saying it's almost a relief to them when Monday comes around. Not for me. I often feel upset and even mad sometimes when my S days end and I can't eat whatever I want. I know this is just my tummy toddler throwing a tantrum, and you can't give in ...

Nicest of the Damned

I'm doing this now. I went off No S for the first eight weeks after Nicest Baby was born, because that's supposedly when your milk supply is being set. Since then, I've been doing vanilla, with the additional Sitting mod (no eating in any position other than sitting). I'm having no problems with ...

Nicest of the Damned

When you're eating with other people, or in restaurants, do you take food off of other people's plates? In the grocery store, do you eat the food you see? If you don't do those things, you are capable of being around food but exercising self-control. You learned not to do those things- a baby will ...

Nicest of the Damned

I honestly don't believe that any food will help anyone to conceive (except maybe aphrodisiac food!)
Absolutely agree. The only thing I would add is that folate is important in early pregnancy (often even before you know you're pregnant). The doctor at Family Planning got me to take a folate ...

Nicest of the Damned

I can tell you from personal experience that being on No S will not prevent you from getting pregnant.

Obsessing over your eating habits or nutrition is not required to get pregnant.

Nicest of the Damned

leafy_greens wrote:Aren't chips allowed during a meal?

They are.

But do you eat chips as part of a meal every day? Lots of people do eat chips for a snack every day.

Also, if you're eating chips as part of a meal, they're probably not the whole meal. Eating just a bag of chips for a snack is common, though.

Nicest of the Damned

leafy_greens wrote:Maybe they just leave the browser open?

I do that with this forum.

Nicest of the Damned

Welcome back! I found that restarting No S after a hiatus (in my case, a three month hiatus before and after Nicest Baby was born) was a lot easier than starting for the first time. Hopefully you will have a similar experience.

Nicest of the Damned

So if I give in to a craving so easily, perhaps my motivation isn't where it should be?

If you give in to a craving and ate something you shouldn't have, or ate too much of something, that means you made a mistake. That doesn't mean you're unmotivated or that No S isn't going to work for you, it ...

Nicest of the Damned

Well, this might sound weird, but cravings aren't a problem. The only bad thing about cravings is giving in to them.

This. Cravings, in and of themselves, are not a problem. And cravings don't make you do anything- you have them, and you choose whether or not to act on them.

Cravings are not a ...

Nicest of the Damned

I personally draw a distinction between "sweets" and "large quantities of sweets". A few sweets is OK. Large quantities of them is another story.

Can you give more information about the distinction?

I might buy a couple of peanut butter cups for an S day, but I don't buy a big economy pack of ...

Nicest of the Damned

Your paramount objective here is to develop good eating habits. If you can do that without having any sweets in your house, you should do it. If you can do that by having sweets in your house, you should do it. If you can do it by banishing some sweets from your house and leaving others alone, do ...

Nicest of the Damned

"Add lots of fruits and vegetables to your diet to lose weight or not gain as much."

As an idea "not yet proven" I find this one most interesting on the list in that piece. I know its good to eat fruits and veggies, but my personal experience with trying to "add" more of them in is that is all ...

Nicest of the Damned

Does anyone really know what makes someone finally accept that he/she has to make some sacrifices to make necessary changes? Do people do it because of talks like this? Do the obese and morbidly obese really not know that what they are doing is unhealthy?

I know that in my case it was because I ...

Nicest of the Damned

I think in addition to unrealistic expectations of how fast I can lose weight,
I also have unrealistic expectations about how much food I need,
so what feels like restriction is actually plenty enough! :D
This is the case with MOST of us. :lol:

This is true. We've all gotten a totally ...

Nicest of the Damned

Before No S, would you have maintained your weight through the holidays? Be honest. If the answer is no, then staying the same weight is progress.

This is a hard time of year to lose weight, at least in majority-Christian countries in the northern hemisphere. There are lots of parties and holiday ...

Nicest of the Damned

Healthy is good, but there are immense amounts of "Healthy" foods that one can choose from

Conversely, if you eat basically healthy food, but eat too much of it, you will be overweight. You can eat mostly healthy Mediterranean and Asian type foods and be overweight, if you eat too much of them. I ...

Nicest of the Damned

Yes ... there are many people who are like me,
who don't enjoy strong tasting combinations of foods traditionally unusual to them.
Alhough I rarely eat at fast food places, I like most of the foods offered there.
When I dine out, I choose traditional "American" cuisine...

I cannot see how ANYONE ...

Nicest of the Damned

We buy Arm & Hammer litter for the cats, and it comes in 20 lb and 28 lb boxes. I buy the 20 lb because the 28 lb are a little big for me to handle (though that is changing, with the upper body workout Nicest Baby is giving me). I'm down 2 small boxes of litter. I once pulled some muscles lifting ...

Everyday Systems

Search found 719 matches

Comfort food is a lie

Weighed again, still down 60

Re: Meal times or rather duration

Down 65 pounds

"Avoid processed food" may not be a diet panacea

A photo testimonial (including bonus cute baby)

Re: Gonna give it another go at it

Re: Feeling Desperate!

Re: Delighting in strictness

5 ways your brain tricks you into sticking with bad habits

Re: Get ready for the new diet craze...

Anyone else get the Monday blues?