Counting carbs/calories is a drag. Obsessive scale stepping is a recipe for despair. If you want to count something, "days on habit" is a much better metric. Checking off days on a calendar would do just fine, but if you do it here you get accountability and support. Here's how. Start a new topic in this forum called (say) "Your Name Daily Check In." Then every N day post a "reply" to that topic as to whether you stayed on habit. A simple "<font color="green">SUCCESS</font>" or "<font color="red">FAILURE</font>" (or your preferred euphemism if that's too harsh) is sufficient, but obviously you're welcome to write more if you want. On S-days just register that you're taking an S-day. You don't have to do this forever, just until you're confident you've built the habit. Feel free to check in weekly or monthly or sporadically instead of daily. Feel free also to track other habits besides No-s (I'm keeping this forum under No-s because that's what the vast majority are using it for). See also my <a href="/habitcal/">HabitCal</a> tool for another more formal (and perhaps complementary) way to track habits.
"You've been reading about arctic explorers," I accused him. "If a man's starving he'll eat anything, but when he's just ordinarily hungry he doesn't want to clutter up his stomach with a lot of candy."
Dashiell Hammett
I will try not to snack, eat sweets or seconds today (even though it is an S day) as I have found on the other days I just haven't needed the extra bits. However if I do, I wont let it stress me.
Will try to drink loads of water.
Start weight before No S was 163 lbs
Weight this morning - 161 lbs
Best wishes to all from a very happy smiling Daisy
Hi and welcome. This is a good place to come and talk.
What is a quorn burger and vegetable Dhansak? I thought I was kind of food literate but those are new terms to me. Sound interesting.
Hi Pangelsue - a Quorn Burger is a vegetarian burger made from Quorn which I believe is a kind of fungus (like mushroom) - but they are really tasty, high protein and low fat - over here in England we can get all sorts of Quorn products - sausages, meatballs, roasts etc. A vegetable dhansak is an Indian dish - made obviously with lots of veggies and lentils in a hot, but slightly sweet sauce - its completely wonderful and my very favourite indian meal.
I will go and google Quorn for you and then post the link.
Ok so I am on day number 6 - this was more or less a success -
Breakfast - All Bran and banana with a few nuts, and seeds sprinkled over the top, served with skimmed milk.
Lunch - small bowl of cold pasta salad (with tuna and sweetcorn) and a little fat free cottage cheese stirred in.
Dinner - went out for a meal - did not have a starter or a sweet, for my main course I had chicken curry, mushrooms, small amount of rice and a little piece of indian break.
Coffee and a chocolate mint afterwards .
I know I shouldn't have had the chocolate, but it is a holiday over here in the UK today - and I did say no to a hot dog this afternoon - rest of the family all had one, but I decided to wait until I got home and have the pasta (thought it was probably a healthier choice).
Ooooh I bet quorn is great! I'm a big fungus fan! LOL..
I'm going to see if Whole foods market might carry stuff with that!
And Indian food is my favorite, so I'm going to have to try and avoid being hungry when I read your checkin!
Well today is day 7 and I can't believe that I am a third of the way through the 21 days - so far it has been easy - hope it stays that way. Todays menu consisted of:
Breakfast - Bran Flakes with few nuts and seeds
Lunch - small amount of pasta salad with tuna and sweetcorn mixed in and a small piece of crusty bread - large satsuma
Dinner - chilli with brown rice - quite a small portion really - i feel like I should have something else - low fat yogurt or banana - but really don't feel hungry.
My problem is that I work evenings (6pm-9pm) so I have to have an early dinner (I don't like eating a lot late in the day). However I do tend to feel hungry when I get home at about 9:30 - does anyone have any suggestions about how I can manage this. Any advice would be appreciated.
Lunch - Half tub of lowfat cottage cheese with small amount of tuna and sweetcorn mixed in - some carrot and celery sticks and a large pickle. One large satsuma
Dinner - going out to dinner this evening with my husband - will probably have steak, salad and small Jacket Potato.
Will not have any sweets, snacks or seconds - because I dont do that anymore.
Breakfast - Branflakes with raisins, nuts and seeds
Lunch - Granary Roll with salad and turkey ham slices and a spoonful of cottage cheese, fat free yogurt
Dinner - Wholemeal Pasta with tuna, sweetcorn and green beans.
Now heres where it went slightly wrong - I was going to eat a banana with my dinner - but was so hungry that I ate it while I was waiting for the pasta to cook - would this be classed as a failure. I'm not sure.
Thanks for the lesson in Britishisms...
Hopefully next year or so, I'll have enough money to come visit England with my son!
And who knows,,,, I might have to take a train and a ferry up to merry old Amsterdam and visit with CJ!
I wonder how many nationalities actually post on this board, maybe have to start a "Where in the world are you" thread, might be interesting.
Yesterday was day 11 and an S day - was very good and didn't really have any thing more than usual - I did have a really small bar of chocolate - just to see if I still enjoyed it - but to be honest the thought of it was actually better than the taste. Strange thing was though that as soon as I had eaten it, I could quite easily have gone on and eaten lots of other things - I think it will be safer for me to keep off it completely for the time being.
Today is day 12 and also an S day - I am now over halfway through my first 21 days and can't quite believe how easily I have managed to stick to this - I think this is probably the longest time I have ever completely stuck to a diet without wandering off course - amazing.
Only managed one meal today. As I was going out to lunch with the family, I didn't have breakfast (so disorganised that by the time I was in a position to eat, it was too close to lunch and I didn't want to spoil my appetite for that (it was Chinese, which I love). Didn't feel hungry the rest of the day so though it would be a bit silly to eat just for the sake of it.
Day 14 - Success
Breakfast - just had branflakes with mixed nuts and seeds.
Lunch - Cottage cheese and salad
Dinner - Homemade chickpea and vegetable curry with brown rice
I haven't actually had lunch and dinner yet but this is what I'm planning and I wont snack or have seconds - I am already losing the urge to do that now - it really is amazing how quickly this has started to work for me (I just hope I can keep it up) .
Breakfast - well this morning I really fancied a slimfast shake (I still had plenty left in the cupboard from when i gave this a go - could only do slimfast for about 5 days - it gave me terrible stomach pains) but it was lovely this morning, did it in the smoothie maker with lots of ice, just the thing on a hot sunny morning.
Only two more days to go and then I have completed my first 21 days. This plan is brilliant - I know I have lost some weight but I have decided to weigh in every 21 days.
Reinhard ought to write a book and make him and his family some money out of this, of all the different diets I have tried this is the only one that I can see myself following for ever. It is so easy and sensible, I just don't know why I didn't think of it myself, I suppose because it so simple, and all the other diets I have been on have been so complicated, that we have been led to believe that losing weight is difficult and we have to eat certain amounts of certain foods every day to succeed.
Go Daisy!!!!
That's great!
I feel the same, especially the book thing...
Reinhard is taking forever about this!!!!
Come on Reinhard!
I may have to come up to Cambridge and threaten you with an army of Shovelgloving Yoga practioners if you don't hurry up and get rich!
Really hot in GB at the moment , which makes no Sing easy - too hot to eat.
Reinhard really ought to do something with his plan - when you think of all those C*** diet books out there, that don't work but promise the earth. Reinhard has come up with a nice, simple, easy to follow plan that does work and he has shared it with everyone - he really should be recognised for the good he is doing - all in his own time and with no real reward - apart from our thanks.
Hope he doesn't go and get all big headed now, after reading this !!!!!
Congratulations on your success with No S! You are doing extremely well, and you are extremely inspiring!
I thought it was very interesting that you were weighing in every 21 days, but I like that: sticking with the fact that it takes about 21 days to make new habits. You obviously have the No S habit down!
Went to friends for the day, so had to eat what they were preparing, but I had a little of everything (even dessert) as it would have been rude not to.
It was so great that I could do this without thinking that I had failed, I think this was the first time that I had really taken advantage of an S day and even though it was nice to indulge without guilt, I prefer to eat the way I do on NS days.
I always feel that if I eat C*** then I usually end up feeling C*** - not that my friends were giving me rubbish food to eat, it was just a lot richer and more calorific than I am used to.
It was so great that I could do this without thinking that I had failed, I think this was the first time that I had really taken advantage of an S day and even though it was nice to indulge without guilt, I prefer to eat the way I do on NS days.
It is so fun to have the choice!
We always treat S days like parties!
A reward which then also serves to quell the S beast to then be good during the week..
If you are good during the week, your S days shouldn't really impact your overall progress, so just enjoy them, as you did yesterday, guilt free!
Wow! You are awesome, girl. You are an inspiration to us all. I can't say I ever skipped a meal because I wasn't hungry so I am sooo jealous of that. You have found your stride. Congratulations.
Thanks pangelsue - goodness never been called awesome or inspiring before but its the No S Diet and Reinhard that deserves the praise - i'm just following the rules.
This is such a great plan that I just feel that I can't fail on it - its the first diet that I have ever done that I feel I can stick to for life.
Anyway checkin for Day 7a (Tuesday 20 June)
Breakfast - Banana
Lunch - Cheese, salad and Bean Wrap and a fat free yogurt
Dinner - Chilli with Brown Rice and fresh apricots (afterwards)
Lunch - granary roll with some salad and a little cheese, Fat Free Yogurt
Dinner - Chilli and Brown Rice (again) fresh apricots
Today was a success but I made a mistake, I didn't have enough to eat at breakfast (at about 8am, then I was really late eating lunch (2:30pm) so I got really hungry and I had to eat the apricots before dinner - otherwise I might have picked something which wasn't so healthy.
I did take a biscuit (cookie) out the cupboard and took one bite, but after tasting it, I realised that I didn't want it, so I threw it away and spat the bit in my mouth out (I know that was gross, but I decided I didn't want to swallow it). The biscuit tasted awful - just sugar and fat - it just shows that by weaning yourself off that type of food, you just lose your taste for it. Before No S I could easily have eaten 2 or 3 without even tasting them.
Breakfast - Banana cut in half with a little peanut butter spread on it
Lunch - Baked Sweet Potato with Houmous mashed into it and some salad, two small peaches
Dinner - Salad made with a chopped up apple, celery, a tablespoon of mixed nuts and seeds, fat free cottage cheese all mixed together with some salad dressing and chilli flakes - very tasty. Fat free yogurt
You are such a success story. You just keep moving on. Your meals sound so interesting too. I am always amazed when I browse, at the unusual things people eat. I plan all my meals and they are certainly boring or at least normal. I ought to shop here for meal ideas. LOL. Have and good Friday and great weekend.
Breakfast - banana smoothie with a spoonful of peanut butter added to it - really yummy.
Lunch - half can of tuna mixed with some low fat mayo and half can of mixed salad beans - added a spoonful of mixed nuts and seeds and black pepper. Yogurt
Well I have now been doing No S for 42 days (so far no failures) I think I am going to follow Pangelsue and Debs ideas of just counting the days consecutively now.
Here's my progress for anyone that may be interested
Start weight on 24 May 162.5lbs
Todays weight 5 July 157lbs
Total lost so far 5.5lbs
Not a great deal I know but working out at almost 1 pound a week - so I'm happy with that - slow and steady is usually the best way. I'm not one of those who lose weight quickly.
Today is going to be day 43
Breakfast - slimfast shake
Lunch - going out with Mr Daisy so will probably go to local Chinese Restaurant for their lunchtime buffet.
Dinner - will be something light - yogurt or fruit - never hungry when I have had a good lunch.
Hi Deb, thanks for the kind words - hope you are well. We are all fine and Amy is keeping me busy as usual - she never sits still and has so many sports that she is into the latest is Archery which she started 3 weeks ago, but she also does judo, diving and horseriding. Wish I knew where she gets all her energy from.
Hope you and your lovely boy are both well and happy.
Lunch - wholemeal pitta bread stuffed with houmus and salad
Dinner - homemade lasagne and salad
Have been trying to drink loads of water lately - I can just about manage to drink between 60-90 ozs every day. Just lately I have completely gone off coffee, tea, diet coke and so am now just drinking water - don't know what thats about, but it can only be doing me good so I wont complain1
Thanks Reinhard - I'm only doing so well though, because your plan is so brilliant - this is the longest time ever that I have been able to stick at any sort of healthy eating plan. It has now really become a way of life, and I intend to stick with it for ever.
Thanks Pangelsue, but I've got to be honest and the last week hasn't been quite as good, I have been so busy that I haven't had time to post and I have been snacking a bit. I think the reason was that it has been so hot here that I haven't wanted proper meals, so instead of having three proper meals a day, I have been having small snack like meals, and then nibbling things inbetween, nothing naughty, just fruit or raw veggies, and the odd spoonful of cottage cheese (I think I've got a bit of a cottage cheese addiction going on) but even so I haven't been sticking to the rules. I haven't put on any weight still 157lbs so no damage done there, but I think I need to start again from today.
I shall start counting 21 days from today and will start posting my food diary daily again - it helps me stay on the straight and narrow.
Well I had my two S days and then added a 3rd yesterday - so big failure for me. Think I'm going to start over and make today Day 1 again. I had started to get a bit lapse at posting and that really isn't doing me any favours and even though it is a bit tedious I am going to record what I'm eating, I believe that helps me stay on the straight and narrow. So here goes.
Day 1 - Tuesday 8 Aug - will post the days menu later.