Everyday Systems

Sienna

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/opini ... d=fb-share

Sienna

Congrats on the 1 year maintenance! It's incredibly inspiring to see people keeping off the weight with NoS. So often I watch people yo-yo on different diets - so hearing once more that it is possible to avoid that on NoS is very encouraging.

Sienna

Congrats on hitting your goal weight and on a great year 1!

Keep up the sanity!

Sienna

Young recommends sticking with three meals a day and choosing healthy snacks (such as fruits and vegetables) rather than processed foods. "And keep your portions in check," she says.

I'm all about fruits and vegetables being healthy, but has anyone else wondered if this mixed message is part of ...

Sienna

Thank you everyone for your responses! It really has been quite a year and I'm looking forward to the next one. It's great to see others inspired, because reading the testimonials is probably what gave me the push I needed to get started. The plan was so simple, I knew I could eat that way. But ...

Sienna

yes, but Marilyn Monroes size 14 is our size 6. The average has risen so drastically, not to mention vanity sizing.

I've read that before and believed it. I also remember my Mom at the same time and she wore about a size 14. Believe me, it was nothing like a 6 is now. It was bigger.

Here's an ...

Sienna

The First Year of the Rest of My Life

This is going to get long, so I'll try to split it up into sections. That way you can scroll to sections that interest you and skip those that don't.

My Intro To NoS
One year ago today, I stumbled upon the NoS website. It was a Tuesday night after dinner ...

Sienna

If I'm eating 3 squares that are healthy because of how I learned to eat are we saying that might be a downfall? Would this be considered dieting? I really do enjoy healthy eating. I do have high cholesterol that I need to manage with food as I can't take the medication to lower it.

I think it ...

Sienna

I've never eaten at Cheesecake Factory. Are their portions just that big that they end up so calorie inflated or what?

I've only been a few times. Their portions certainly aren't skimpy, but I've never felt that they are considerably larger than other restaurants. I think a lot of their sauces ...

Sienna

Getting 1300+ calories on a plate is actually relatively easy - especially at restaurants. Check out the Top 20 Worst Restaurant Foods in America from Men's Health to see some "single plates" that put the McD's Big Breakfast to shame. At least the Big Breakfast admits to being big.... There's even a ...

Sienna

I don't consider hot chocolate a sweet for me (I'll occasionally have some on an N day), but I do consider juice a sweet (it's S day only).

Backwards? Maybe. But I will not have more than 1 mug of hot chocolate a day. Not because I made a rule about it. Just because I've never (even pre-NoS) felt ...

Sienna

Failures happen. Sometimes they happen all in a row. But you have a great stick to your guns attitude, and that will get you through!

I'm with the others with my skepticism of the Paleo Diet. I know you are planning on just not doing it (which to be honest is probably what I would do...), but is ...

Sienna

Congratulations on your first failure! And I don't mean that sarcastically or meanly at all. But rather, I hope this allows you to move onto the next part of your journey.

Generally there are 3 types of people on NoS: Those who've failed, Those who haven't been on the plan long enough to fail, and ...

Sienna

Plus then you'll only need one more green week for the 21 day club!

Will you be up late watching the movie so that the desert can wait until midnight? (Which is more likely what I would actually do instead of skipping it altogether) Or could you get a desert that you husband can enjoy tonight, but ...

Sienna

Honestly, if you'd been at this for several years I don't think the occasional cheat would be a big deal. But the early days are the toughest and the most essential for habit building. So if it were me, I'd skip the desert. Plus then you'll only need one more green week for the 21 day club!

Will ...

Sienna

Hi Butterfly,

I posted a reply to your question in my check in thread, but I wanted to come by and see how you were doing.

Welcome back!

I'll reiterate the one step at a time advice you've already gotten. What's that old store about the hare losing the race? Be the tortoise :)

If evening ...

Sienna

Hi Butterfly,

Welcome to NoS and good luck on your journey! The diet cycle is the worst. I tried calorie counting and fasting and crazy exercising several times before I stumbled upon this sensible way to eat. To be completely honest though, it wasn't just Reinhard's incredibly easy and sane plan ...

Sienna

Congratulations on getting everything to stick! I think sometimes it's harder to re-try something that didn't work the first time than it is to try something new, so I really admire your ability to keep coming back.

Sienna

Congrats on the 10%! The great thing I found about tracking 10% goals, is that the number of pounds you have to lose each time gets smaller

Good luck on the continuation of your journey. Keep up the sanity!

Sienna

Awww, thanks everyone! I promise a real testimonial in that part of the forum when I officially hit the one year (hopefully I haven't spoiled the suspense too much!) But I wanted to make sure erialicia could get easy access to one in this thread.

Testimonial Spoiler Alert: It's been a great journey ...

Sienna

I think some of us *need* the black and white of succeed versus fail. I know I sort of do. That said, something I don't really discuss much here (for simplicities sake) is that in terms of personal evaluation and reflection I don't track failures by day, but by event.

I have a bowl of ice cream on ...

Sienna

There's no rule that says only 3 meals daily. I agree with KCCC -- and I also always warn against perfectionism. Strive to do your best, not to be perfect.

Remember: Perfect is the enemy of good.

If you feel NoS isn't right for you, then it isn't necessarily right for you. But it sounds like you ...

Sienna

Definitely check out the testimonials TooSolidFlesh linked.

But as someone who started with a lot to lose, I wanted to personally offer you some encouragement. I started with 75+ lbs to lose. I'm not there yet, but since the end of June 2010, I've lost 60 lbs. My rate of weight loss has slowed in ...

Sienna

@mamamia Congrats on limiting yourself to one plate! It's a tricky habit to get into, especially when other people are getting multiple plates and you feel like you are getting ripped off if you don't get enough food. But really getting more food for your money at a buffet just means having to cut ...

Sienna

You know, sand or no sand, there is a correlation between poor dental health and poor cardiovascular health....

Sienna

I think the critical question is not "what do you call it this time."

It's "What will you do if this happens again"

Figuring out optimal strategies for YOUR life is what gives No-S it's power.

I agree with this. All in all, 3 plates and an extra piece of fruit in a day isn't so bad. So maybe it ...

Sienna

I didn't think weight requirements for employment was legal. May I ask what you do? Fashion model? Crash test dummy? Ladder tester?

Not to derail the thread, but weight discrimination is actually completely legal. The only real exceptions are if you are obese enough for it to be considered a ...

Sienna

Here at NoS, we don't count calories. But that doesn't mean that calorie logic doesn't come into play. While there is debate over whether or not certain calories "count" more than others, on some level it still comes down to creating a calorie deficit.

The heavier you are, the more calories you ...

Sienna

I really need to get back in the habit of updating more frequently. I've been so busy lately I've been just skimming the occasional thread in the main forum and not even making it over here.

But it's really good for me to stay on top of myself.

Since last week, I've really gotten my act together ...

Sienna

I agree. I've recently been in a bit of a plateau. Why? Well, it probably doesn't help that I'm at the weight I was in highschool - when I was an in-shape varsity athlete.

But honestly? Those bright line rules? Since April, I've let them get a little blurry. Net result? No real weight loss. The ...

Sienna

I agree with the previous posters who have said to go see a dentist. I am not a dentist, but I used to do periodontal (gum) research - and while I don't think you need to be in full panic mode, it does sound serious enough that you should book an appointment as soon as possible. Gum health is ...

Sienna

Thanks, guys. It's always a fine line between being hard enough on myself, and not being too hard. A week later, I think I recovered well from last Monday's Rein of Nonsense and I'm back in the swing of things. The rest of the week was all green, and I had a pretty sane weekend without even trying ...

Sienna

I think that it's the idea of chocolate or strawberry milk as an everyday experience is why I'm not thrilled with it. The recommendation from the No Sugary Milk campaign is that those milks be saved for occasional treats which is right in line with the No S philosophy.

I don't know... I tend to ...

Sienna

What about incorporating sweet or fruity type things into your savory meals to help satisfy your sweet cravings without having true super sugary sweets? It usually works for me if I'm having really bad cravings.

Here's one of my favorite sweet savory recipes:

Maple-Chili Glazed Pork Medallions ...

Sienna

I wouldn't consider it a sweet - but its probably wise to not treat it as a beverage to be enjoyed between meals either.

Sienna

So Monday night was about as red as can be. I just sort of said screw it and had seconds AND thirds! I'm not even entirely sure why, it was really weird and almost out of body - I knew what I was doing, didn't really want to do it, and did it anyhow :roll:

Yesterday I was back on track. And today ...

Sienna

Good luck, Noel! I think little mods like these are the good kind. They are small enough and independent enough that its not too hard to separate "this particular mod doesn't work" from "OMG this diet is the worst, I quit!"

Sienna

So I had to go out of town for a bit, but I'm back now....

Traveling is always tricky for me. The stress, the greater availability of bad foods (yes, I know that no food is banned on NoS, but not being banned doesn't make a giant plate of fried food *good* for you!), the lack of my standard ...

Sienna

So, I'm not very familiar with sparkpeople, what exactly is a team and team goals?

Sienna

Kids are kind of a full time job on top of everything, though, aren't they? :)

Leftovers last night, and we have more available for tonight, but I'm at lunch now thinking to myself that it might be nice to do something different. So I may stop by the grocery store and pick up stuff for turkey ...

Sienna

Yay for 6 weeks! And congrats on getting right back on track the next day - I think that is the measure of true success!

Sienna

I think the point was is being in the overweight category necessarily unhealthy. I thought the categories were determined by correlated health risks. They do go up in general for higher weights, but there are always exceptions.

While the categories were sort of determined by correlated health ...

Sienna

I know back when I lived in Iran, the women in my neighborhood cooked two full meals a day, lunch and dinner. But they didn't have jobs.

Yeah, I wish I had time for that! I'd make all sorts of crazy things if my full time job was to cook and keep house. But alas between work and class and home ...

Sienna

I'm wondering about the scales used. I weigh daily using electronic scales. I sometimes wonder if the batteries, as they age, produce quirky scale behaviour, including somewhat wilder weight fluctuations.

I use the Wii Fit for a scale, so its electronic. But I have the rechargeable battery pack ...

Sienna

I always find it funny/interesting/ironic that some people weigh less frequently for the same reason I weight frequently - just goes to show how different our mindsets can be even when we have the same goal!

Water fluctuations make sense, except that I haven't had any change in water consumption ...

Sienna

So while I know there are many ways to handle weigh-ins, I choose to weight daily (first thing in the morning, without clothes for as much consistency as possible). I do this in part so that I can see the short term fluctuations in my weight as well as the long term trend. And its not necessarily ...

Sienna

Re: Vitamin K and Vitamin K2

I'm not a nutritionist or a vitamin expert. But, I thought that Vitamin K2 was actually produced by the body's intestinal bacteria from Vitamin K1, which I think is what is typically found in supplements and probably the herbs vmsurbat mentioned. I'm sure there may be ...

Sienna

Thanks for the tips and the support all!

I do love leftovers, so I usually plan to make extra of whatever I'm making. I am thinking I should get more in the habit of freezing than refrigerating them though, because DH often gets tired of things right away. Which usually means I keep eating the ...

Sienna

Hi Bright Angel:

Actually, I just tried out your cheeseburger pie recipe this week. It was really good and it was a hit with my husband, so I'll certainly be making it again. Thanks for the recipe!

But I didn't plan it in advance. I just stopped by the grocery store on my way home for work to pick ...

Sienna

Pretty good week. Baked a cake Wednesday night and decorated it on Thursday morning. It was for an S even I had Thursday night (friend's B-Day party), so I did have a little treat last night. BUT I only had one small taste of cake batter to verify I hadn't done anything stupid and I resisted all of ...

Sienna

Enjoy the red wine. Wine is completely allowed on the NoS diet.

Congrats on a good first week!

Sienna

And, I'm back. Took some time off posting to get my life back in order.

April's goal (meal planning) was a bust this week (mostly because I started off sick and that just through my life out of whack). I have done a decent amount of "cooking" though, because I had a bunch of leftovers in the ...

Sienna

How about clothing? Workout clothing is good, but also just regular clothing. I know amazon sells a lot of the major brands, and needing new clothes is often one of the side effects of the NoS diet. I'm not sure quite how the amazon advertising works (if you have to pick a specific item or if you ...

Sienna

Ugh. Just Ugh.

It's been a rough couple of days. Thursday and Friday were somewhere between fails and pseudo-compliant (technically, I was sick and the rule breaks made me feel better at least temporarily, but they feel like fails). And I'm still feeling sick so the weekend has been a bit ...

Sienna

My 29th day was a failure . Those darn emotions got to me again! Sad I need to find something other than sweets that will make me feel better... music doesn't do anything for me, and I can't always take a walk whenever I feel the need... I just don't know.

I just wanted to wish you luck finding ...

Sienna

I've kind of become this crazed No-S supporter now. I have TWO friends joining me on this journey. So.much.fun! This truly is what I've been searching for for YEARS.

Yay for being a NoS cheerleader! Keep up the great work

Sienna

Hope you had a great Day 3! You are doing awesome, keep it up!

Sienna

Awwww, thanks guys! Glad I can inspire some of you :) And thanks for reading my long rambling posts. I've never been much for journaling, but I'm finding the occasional (or frequent depending on my mood!) long post here very therapeutic.

Twenty-five pounds less ago and twenty years ago, I aligned ...

Sienna

My general rule for NWS days is to celebrate the day as I normally would. That means if I wouldn't normally celebrate with food in any way, then its an N day. If I would celebrate it with food, but am celebrating it on a weekend instead? N day. If I would normally celebrate it with a single food ...

Sienna

I would recommend just having the book around somewhere where she'll see it, but where it won't be obvious that you want her to look at this. Someplace like the coffee table, or the magazine rack in the bathroom.

And/or buy a magnet you can put up. Seriously, I pretty much stumbled on NoS from ...

Sienna

Welcome and good luck! Oh if only I'd found this plan in college... :-)

To this:

1. I have a meal plan, how can I pick foods to eat at my school when I have no idea how they are made because it is hard to cook for myself.

As others have mentioned, with the exception of not eating sweets, NoS ...

Sienna

Welcome, ellgee! I really do think the first days are the toughest. That's when you are most fighting all of your old habits. But stay tough and it will get easier!

On to Day 2!

Sienna

Split today's post because I've just been doing a lot of thinking/reflecting, and that makes for a long post! But I figure it will be interesting for me to look back on these thoughts in a few months...

On a related note, I've been feeling really down about my body image lately. Which is stupid ...

Sienna

Hahaha, thanks for stalking oolala - keeps me honest :D

Today starts a new week - and the last week in March. So far March has been all green, including for exercise. And yet I don't at all feel like I've established an exercise "habit". Perhaps because my requirements were too vague? I settled on ...

Sienna

Here's to Day 7/Week 2!

I hope its a wonderful one!

Sienna

Welcome back, Gina!

Good luck as you start the journey. Remember that the first few weeks are the hardest while you are cementing the habits.

Also, good luck resisting the doughnuts. I know how tough it is to have to resist something that is right in front of your face (its like its taunting you ...

Sienna

I guess I have one last question for you lovely folks; do you drink juices (I only drink 100% if any) but if you do, should it be limited to meal time? I guess what I am a little fuzzy on is, through the No S diet are you trying to refrain from any calorie intake outside of mealtime? or is it just ...

Sienna

So since I exercised yesterday (lots of walking!), last week was all green, despite only getting 10 minutes in on Wednesday! (M-F diet green + 5 days of 15+ minutes of exercise)

So one more week to go for March! And then its on to April goals.

My goal for April is to cook/meal plan more. Because ...

Sienna

You've already gotten good advice, but I wanted to add that I think that timing is key.

Virtual plating is great. But barring being at an event that makes it impossible, I think its best to take out and assemble everything you plan to eat *before* you eat it - at least when you are first starting ...

Sienna

I have no idea who the "P90x guys" are, but I assume this is a complement?

For your reference, this is Tony Horton, the P90x guy

http://muscleconfusionplyometrics.com/images/en_US/products/programs/p90x/p90x_03.jpg
http://www.durrettcheese.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Tony-Horton.jpg

But I ...

Sienna

Big hugs Roxy! I know how frustrating over indulgent S days can be. Between the feeling physically crappy from eating to much and feeling frustrated at myself for allowing myself to eat to much, its just not fun all around.

To be honest, I found (and find - I still have the occasional over the top ...

Sienna

thanks.. yeah it is a pain.. I don tmid walking in a little snow, but wow we have been gettign blizzards here that dump like blinding snow. I dont trust peopl enough to be out walking around in it

I hear you about the snow. This winter has been pretty brutal!

When I'm not up for other exercise ...

Sienna

I don't know if it's so much a lack of emphasis on "Sometimes" as a different interpretation of what Sometimes means.

To me, the sometimes clause just means that I shouldn't feel compelled to eat something just because its an S day. It's basically a way to express that "No snacks, no Sweets, no ...

Sienna

Overall a good week.

Diet green Monday - Friday, yesterday was a pretty reasonable S day and I got in exercise Tuesday-Saturday, so its officially a green week.

That said, my exercise wasn't exactly super vigorous and I pretty much did the bare minimum (15 minutes) to count. But I'm going to look ...

Sienna

3 weeks down, 2 more to go!

We can do it!

Sienna

I got my current blender for $5 on Black Friday, but it probably only retails in the $15-$25 range (WalMart). It's a Hamilton Beach brand. One nice feature is that it has "solid" and "liquid" lines on the front for making smoothies. Basically if you put in solids (anything frozen) to the solid line ...

Sienna

How about smoothies instead of shakes? Lots of fruits and even some vegetables can be made into delicious liquid meals without a lot of sugar. I mean, they would still be sweet in the sense that a bowl of fruit is sweet, but it probably wouldn't seem as S-ey as a shake. This months FoodNetwork ...

Sienna

I might be having a brain fart here, but what sweets are associated with St. Patrick's Day? I can't think of any.

Shamrock shakes, grasshoppers, anything made with midori sour....

So mostly beverages come to mind. I may have St. Patrick's Day party/night out tomorrow (it's been and on and off ...

Sienna

Hi Graham,

If you are looking for details on how to organize and/or analyze epidemiological studies, try The Encyclopedia of Epidemiologic Methods. It's online at google books here: http://books.google.com/books?id=8qIMMbsO784C&lpg=PP1&dq=encyclopedia%20of%20epidemiologic%20methods&pg=PP1#v ...

Sienna

Hi Graham,

Incident in this context basically means new cases of kidney disease. The relationship between prevalence and incidence is often stated as:

prevalence = incidence x duration

So if disease A struck everyone in the world, but only for 1 day and disease B only struck 10% of the world but ...

Sienna

Had time for a quick walk on Friday, so had a solid week of exercise last week!

Also had a great weekend - pretty sane PLUS I got in a nice walk on Sunday. I'm so glad that the weather isn't so horrible anymore.

Today was a green diet day, but I skipped exercising. Developed a stress headache ...

Sienna

Hi montanajack, thanks for the references! I've paged through the abstracts and a few of the articles, although admittedly I haven't finished reading all of the articles yet.

But based on what I've seen thus far I think I've found a source of miscommunication, so I wanted to address that.

Your ...

Sienna

I'm overweight (and not just a little bit - up until about a month ago I was obese). My blood sugar levels have never been even a tiny bit problematic. I routinely have just oatmeal for breakfast and find that (for me) it fills me up just fine. And I've never had a problem with a high carb breakfast ...

Sienna

Can you eat breakfast at work at a better time for you? Oatmeal rewarms fairly well in a microwave or would stay warm in a thermos. Also, you might try adding some protein to your breakfast. Eggs can be hardboiled in advanced and grabbed on the go from the fridge. If time at work is an issue ...

Sienna

Although it may seem like they controlled and compensated for everything, BA is right: correctional or association is not the same as causation.

Because I think examining scientific studies is interesting, I'm going to spend a little time talking about that, but since that may be long and boring ...

Sienna

Me! I agree with you completely. Monday through Friday it doesn't matter how stressed or bored I get - it's 3 meals per day and no sweets.

And additionally I've found that since starting NoS I've gotten better at distinguishing between emotional hunger and True hunger on S days. I'm sure I still ...

Sienna

It reminds me .. yesterday I saw this program on TV and two 30-40 years old women were trying to lose weight ... but they were hardly doing any exercise and eating fast food twice per week, big fast food meals ... they were saying : "Well, cutting that entirely would be too hard, we used to go 4 ...

Sienna

Oh yea, 5000 calories of watermelon would be stretching it, but hyperbole goes a long way. :wink:

But while 5000 calories of watermelon might be hard to get (a quick online search suggested 37 calories for 10 melon balls, so you'd need to eat over 1300 melon balls!), 5000 calories of something ...

Sienna

This week has been pretty good. All green so far with only a half day left to go.

I've also exercised every day this week so far (Mon-Thurs). More on Monday and Tuesday, but I hit my 15 minute minimum on both Wednesday and Thursday, so there's that.

Tonight might be tricky to fit in exercise - I ...

Sienna

I think it depends on whether or not you consider root beer a sweet and would normally disallow it. If you made the decision when starting NoS to consider soda a sweet, then it's a fail*. If you decided that for you soda was okay, then it's not a fail. But it's not really about the amount. Because ...

Sienna

Well, got through the weekend okay, although I was a slug on Sunday. I did exercise on Saturday though, which means the first week of March was both diet AND exercise green (with 4 days of exercise - most weeks will have 5, but the first week of March was missing a Monday).

I also exercised today ...

Sienna

If you are worried, you can also opt to make only the parties S time, instead of the whole day. For example, tomorrow you eat normal breakfast and lunch with no snacking, and then treat the party as an exempt S dinner. I've found this is a good strategy in general to deal with NWSdays.

Sienna

I think more and more people, especially diet gurus, are realizing how easy it is to jam so much food into the day with a lifestyle of unlimited snacking. Even if that is healthy snacking (healthy food is still food, still has calories, and can still make you fat).

And when you are spreading it ...

Sienna

Congratulations on an amazing first week!

Nine pounds in one week is awesome! But please don't panic if it slows down. Sometimes flushing toxins and dropping water weight can cause drastic immediate results, but this plan will help you maintain a nice and steady (if not sometimes slow) rate of ...

Sienna

Hey, we all have bumps in the road or even bumpy stretches. So now that you're aware of the issues, don't beat yourself up over the first part of the month - just focus on the future.

Liquid calories can be really sneaky. Alcohol can apparently be doubly sneaky because in addition to adding ...

Sienna

Thanks, Kevin. What really gets me is that I made exercise my March goal, and I messed up so early on. Part of my problem with getting exercise is solidifying a habit of actually doing it. The diet habits were (comparatively) easy for me. Once I had a set of easy to follow rules that made sense (NoS ...

Sienna

Hysterical. But perhaps a little too true for myself than I'd like to admit. Well, my old self that is. Thank goodness something somewhere in Reinhard's book clicked and helped boot my butt into gear!

It's amazing how we can be told the same thing 1000 times, and then its not until the 1001 time ...

Sienna

Another variant of that is channeling my "inner snob." Which, I confess, has gotten stronger with respect to sweets the longer I've been on No-S. There's a whole range of stuff that I used to eat that just doesn't appeal anymore. Mental commentary: "No, thanks, I'll wait til the weekend and get ...

Sienna

Sizing can vary but it would still be such an enormous psychological boost! It must have been a lot of fun to go through your old clothes and expand your wardrobe without even having to spend money ^ _ ^

Oh, HUGE psychological boost! And since my husband and I just bought a house, it's really ...

Sienna

Thanks guys. I've had some down periods lately, so I'm trying to record positive milestones to look back on when I have future down periods to help keep me going. Life is full of ups and downs, so I don't know why I should expect weight loss to be any different.

I started the March challenge with ...

Everyday Systems

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Interesting Article on Culinary Elitism

Sienna's Annualish Check-In: The First Year

Re: wonderful

Weight Fluctuations