Common Sense and the No S Diet

One thing that I have learned for certain while doing the NO S Diet is that you cannot throw COMMON SENSE out the window and expect the NO S Diet to work. As much as I truly love love yes love the NO S Diet it is not an alchemical miracle that defies the laws of physics.

Topics that come up fairly frequently on the NO S Diet boards are:

whats filling your plate
the size of your plate
the size of your portions
S days gone wild
and
why am I not losing weight?
or even more discouraging,
why am I gaining weight?

To me the answers are obvious. But I am living in my own little world with my twenty plus years of searching and researching information on eating disorders, eating for health, etc. I have to step back and think, maybe these other folks have been doing other things with their time and have not yet figured out that ANY diet consisting of junk will not make you healthy, slim or functional.

SO to me, it is common sense that I think tells me, that I need to put some whole grains, veggies, fruit and/or healthy source of protein on my plate. Now I don't make sure every plate has an equi-portion of these items ... that would be irritating for me, I have already done and fallen off the Zone Diet (grin)! But I do make it a goal to have a whole grain, a fruit, something green and some healthy protien at least once a day. THIS is sustainable. FOR ME, it's also common sense. My body needs nutrients so I can think and move ... cheesy, white floury, fried THINGS may taste good but they are NOT feeding my body. AND BTW if you stop eating so much of that crud your palette will actually change and you will find it not tasting so good. What I am saying is this: Doesn't COMMON SENSE tell us that we need to put some actual, real food on our plates each day?

As far as the size of the plates and portions go, I honestly don't worry my pretty little head too much about that. I am pretty comfortable with a lot of blank space on my plate if I am not too hungry or very little blank space on my plate if I am eating a bunch of fruit and veggies and/or very hungry. Sometimes people get on and say things like smaller people need to eat less food than larger people. Like Reinhard is trying to put something over on us by telling us we can eat three plates of food a day. I find this confusing, but maybe its just an indication that COMMON SENSE is not fully functional. I don't read eating three plates a day as ... YOU MUST PUT AS MUCH CRAPPY, JUNKY FOOD ON YOUR PLATE AS YOU CAN FIT. Maybe this is the problem. Maybe some people read those three plates and the freedom to put whatever you want to them as "instruction" while I read them as "maximum" boundary and then fill in the actual amount I need to eat with COMMON SENSE. I mean ... isn't it common sense that a smaller person will need to eat less than a larger person? Or is there something I am just missing?

As far as S days gone wild there is much hooha about how many restrictions, what kinds of restrictions and what does "sometimes" mean? and "sometimes" I read this stuff and I am like, is it just me, or has COMMON SENSE completely fleed, bolted the premises for fear that we might discover that the No S Diet is really a straight forward and simple proposition once we apply a little COMMON SENSE?

DIETING is restricting what you eat. THERE are SOOOOOOOOOOO many ways we can RESTRICT our natural appetite. Interestingly enough our natural appetite can be rather strong. Funny thing. It finds away to rebel, get even, punish us for our restrictions ... binging, overeating ... then we gain weight. THE S Days on the No S Diet, IMHO, are for taking off the choke leash. Maybe your little puppy of an appetite pees on the floor, digs up your favorite flowers and runs away with you chasing it down the street. But if you don't give it those moments of freedom, how are you going to know what you are really dealing with?

What I love about the NO S Diet is the freedom I have attained. I take my appetite off the choke leash every weekend and NWS day. Somtimes I am embarrassed by my appetites behavior, sometimes I am appalled, but sometimes I am pleased, proud, exuberant and exultant. I know, I know, you need those restrictions. I know, I know they keep your puppy manageable.

But I wonder, when your N days start going bad, is it because you have insisted on some sort of dietary restriction EVERY DAY, i.e. not letting up on the S days, or is it because the NO S Diet doens't work and you need to resort to even more and greater restrictions to lose weight?

Metaphysically the S/NWS Days are a great way to get to know the real you, in the meantime Common Sense and Keeping Those N Days Green really does go a long way in acheiving success and weight loss on the NO S Diet.