Busy but still No S-ing

The last few weeks have been a blur. We moved at the end of August and then the kids started school a few days later. I am also in school (part-time) doing a two year course in applied holistic nutrition. I'm just going in to my 2nd year. So while life has been happening and I've not had much time to document my eating here... No S has been a lifesaver! I am loving the organized structure but the ability to eat with people and go out.  What has usually been my downfall is snacking after school and then still eating a big dinner. Now.. I come home and make a cup of tea with a splash of milk and that's all I get til dinner time. And the world doesn't end because I didn't have a snack! I'm good and ready for dinner when it's time. When I first started (almost a month ago already) I tended to overdue it on bready carbs (a rebellion from my strict low carb days) but now I'm really just trying to listen to what my body wants and it usually isn't bread and pasta. Last night I went out for dinner with friends and the salmon, brown rice and roasted beets is really what sounded good. It wasn't a sacrifice not to have yam fries and a burger! Normally I'd have had a drink, and although it isn't forbidden.. I knew I didn't need it and it really was fine to have club soda!
I did get on the scale yesterday morning and was happy to see that I'm down about 4 pounds since I started (an average of 1 pound a week) and down 7 from my highest weight this summer. Hard to believe when on the weekends I do indulge (I made brownies this past weekend and ate more than I should have).
I did add one tweak to the plane this past weekend and it works well for me. I'm going to keep trying it and see how it goes. I'm starting my S window at 6pm on Friday night and then ending it by dinnertime on Sunday.  Friday is typically the night that I want to  ease up and have a drink or dessert but by Sunday night I'm very ready to get back to the rules. So my weekend basically start at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Sunday. 
Other rules that I try to stick to is having produce at every meal (might be a piece of fruit) and something green at two of the three meals.  
I love this plan!

Another Monday...

I love Mondays. To me, they are like mini- January 1st. A chance to look back, re-group, and start fresh. This past week had a failure and this week I hope not to replicate that.  The days ahead will be very stressful though. We are moving in 3 days, the house looks like a bomb went off and I am STRESSED. Food is my usual go-to to deal with that, so I'm going to have to be very conscious of what I put in my mouth (and when). I often wander into the pantry in a semi-daze and then realize I am standing there, peering at the shelves... just looking for something to pop in my mouth. Well... I need to break that habit. I also need to keep produce front and center on the plate and that will be tough right now with our kitchen mostly packed up... but it is a good goal to strive for.
I may be quiet here this week with all that is going on but I won't use the move as an excuse to not follow No S.

Old Habits Die Hard

So yesterday was my first "FAILURE" as according to the No-S plan. I had dessert after my meal and I really didn't need to. We went out with friends who were treating us to a dinner at their "club".  The meal I chose came with dessert and I didn't say no. Why? Because it was free and came with my meal. I know that sounds ridiculous but it's true. It was ice-cream.. spumoni flavor, which is nothing that I'd ever order off a menu. Yeah... it was cool that they made it table-side using nitrogen. But my fellow table-mates were having the same thing so I would have seen the whole production regardless or not if I'd just said... "no thank you, I'm full." I don't know why that was so difficult and really not worth messing up my perfect track record. So.. instead of giving up, I'm using it as a teachable moment so that next time I'm in that same situation, I will choose differently. I know it wasn't worth it. Maybe if it had been a be all/end all dessert then it would have been. This wasn't even close. So today... it's back to the game plan. 3 meals, 3 plates,  aim for produce on all of them (that's my rule). I also think I need to cut back on wheat. I feel like it makes me bloated and foggy-headed. It may not be breaking a rule to eat it... but it doesn't agree with me in excess.  Need to remember that to be successful, this plan must be personalized for me.

I'm hungry!

So, it's Monday, late afternoon and I feel like time is slowing down while I wait for the dinner hour. I think after a weekend of indulgence and eating whenever I want... it's that much harder to get back on the bus. But truthfully I was looking forward to today. I didn't really love the weekend freedom and I'm already thinking about what I can do to make next weekend a more positive experience. I know we are supposed to lose the "diet mentality" on S-Days but I really missed the structure. I think I may still try to stick to most of the rules on the weekend and allow myself less leeway. Perhaps I can still do just three meals a day and allow myself a daily dessert on each S-Day (since sweets are really what I miss the most).  Having snacks, AND seconds AND a few treats on each day is probably way too much and why I didn't feel great by the end of the weekend. Live and learn.

S-Day Disapppointment

So.. a strange thing happened yesterday. I didn't enjoy my first S day as much as I thought I would. The food didn't taste as delicious as I'd anticipated and my head spent way too much time thinking about what, when and how much to eat. Dinner was enjoyable.. we went with two other couples to a top restaurant in the city that we'd been waiting for years to go and I loved not mentally trying to tally up all the calories while I ate, so that I'd have to go home and enter them into a tracking program on the computer. I had a few alcoholic beverages without being wracked with pangs of guilt. But overall.. the rest of the day wasn't filled with food-joy. I realized I missed the structure of the "N-Day". Without it.. I was left spending too much time wasting energy pondering if I was truly hungry or if I was, what I was actually hungry for.  I'm  looking forward to tomorrow and getting back to the routine and structure. I love that it isn't overly complicated or restrictive. Like a young toddler who needs some boundaries while being free to explore the world... that's how I feel with my "N-Day". Limited perhaps, but not stifled.

"There's no place like home, There's no place like home, There's no place like home...."

It's interesting. Compared to my past diet experiences, I don't even feel like I need to look particularly forward to this weekend because the last couple of days have felt like paradise. I'm not fantasizing about what I can pack in to my "S" days. Having spent years worrying about every last morsel I've put in my mouth (and then countering that with binge periods where I just shoved every last morsel in without even tasting it) I feel positively euphoric. I've mentally given myself permission to not judge the food on my plate and I didn't realize how freeing and amazing that feels. Also, makes me realize how much energy and mental anguish I've spent pondering what to eat to the point that I stopped enjoying food. All of it. Guilt would take over so that even if I ate something delicious like chocolate mousse.. I didn't really have a positive experience. Guilt and shame overshadowed EVERYTHING. Only now, do I realize how much they have played a part in my everyday life. How much mental space they have taken up. How I've envied people who seemed to just eat for enjoyment and nourishment and it was a part of their daily life.. no more, no less. Maybe I can actually be one of those people!!! I know it's too early to tell but honestly.. it's like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, realizing she had the power to go back to Kansas all along. Could it really be that the power was within me the whole time?

Background: getting to "No S"

This is my third time starting a blog that has to do with food and diet. I wish I could say that the others had been successful but it's all a journey and here I am. To sum up.. I'm a 41 year old mother of two teenagers that has struggled with weight and body image her entire life. I'm currently enrolled in a two-year program for holistic nutrition and feel like a fraud in class because I can't get a handle on my own relationship with food. I've probably tried 50 different eating programs and have had the most success with a strict low carb/low cal program which saw me lose 40lbs in less than 6 months but I could not maintain the loss (and I lost a fair bit of hair along with the pounds). Over the last 6 years I've gradually gained back the weight that I lost, going from a size 6 (which I probably stayed at for a month) back up to a tight 12.  At 5'3 I'm currently sitting in the mid 170's, way (weigh) too much for my height and frame. I do workout with a trainer twice a week and participated in a few races (mostly half marathons) in the last 5 years. Over the last two years I've let the running (and intensity) slide and that could also play a part in the weight gain.
Instead of doing what I usually do.. which is start something extreme (my latest was doing a version of the 5/2 Fasting diet) I stumbled across the "No S Diet" on the internet http://www.nosdiet.com (created by Reinhard Engels), downloaded the book onto my Kindle and thought I'd document how this non-dieting diet process goes.
Typically I start a diet on Monday.. so this being a non-diet, I started yesterday (Wednesday) instead of having the typical "last hurrah" weekend of crazy binge eating where I justify everything because it's the "very last time" I"m going to eat that way.  I also typically weigh myself on morning #1 (and most mornings after) so that I can base my mood and success or failure on the number it shows me that particular day. This time I just started. No weigh-in. No mapping out a calendar of where my weight will be on any given day if I follow the plan perfectly. I just started. I'm not going to do daily weighing. Or even weekly. Maybe I'll do monthly. I just want to stop the racket in my head that says I'm a  loser and a failure. I want the self-loathing to quiet down.
So yesterday I just followed the "No S Rules":No seconds, no snacks and no sweets. That's it in a nutshell. And I was successful. And it felt really good. I had pasta last night for dinner. And then again for breakfast. And it wasn't cheating. After years of low-carbing it felt down-right naughty. But now I'm craving steak and vegetables for dinner.  Maybe with strawberries and blueberries.