Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween all of you NOSers!

Bwahahhahahhahahhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

This can definitely be a HAPPY Halloween for all of us. Myself, I am taking Halloween as an official NWS day. A couple of weeks ago I stacked up on my stash for the trick or treaters who will come by tonight, but because of my "time" on NO S they have been "safely" stashed in the closet untouched.

TRICK OR TREAT?

It is your choice.

Call it an NWS day and have a Treat or pass and go for the Trick.

It is your choice!

Me ... my treats today will be fresh donuts from our local donut shop, vegan nachos and a wickedly delicious Caramel Machiatto! Teeheeeheeee!

Photo: Halloween TREATS!

"Glass Ceilings"

"Glass Ceiling" is a concept Reinhard uses for "containing" alcohol consumption. I have been using it for the past two months to contain caffiene/coffee consumption and it has been working really well. I quit drinking coffee over four years ago because I could not stick with reasonable amounts. After nosing for six month I decided to experiment with using the "glass ceiling" concept for caffiene/coffee.

Works like a charm. Now I can enjoy my coffees twice a day, once after breakfast and another, usually after lunch. Then that's it I am done. I have only "broken" the "glass ceiling" once ... and that was an S day.

Reinhard has come up with so many useful ideas for managing our habits and disciplining our appetites. I am so glad I stumbled upon his book The No S Diet in Barnes and Noble this past March. It has changed my life and had an impact that the gazillion diet books that I bought before cannot even touch!

I love being "normal" and I love my "drinky" things. I am so glad that I get to MAXIMIZE my ENJOYment of them by using No S Diet concepts like "S days" and "glass ceilings"

Photos: Two Starbucks Coffees

I Love Veggies

I suppose I am fortunate because I love veggies. No broccoli haters here. ANY vegetable steamed or sauteed with a generous dollop of EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), salt and/or pepper is yummy to me.

I know! I know! We all talk about eating protien and making protien the central part of meals, but for me, my only "rule of thumb" is this:

I try to make sure that not a day goes by without a nice serving of GREEN!

The No S Diet is great for getting in your veggies because they are a GREAT way to fill up your plate. Without the higher natural sugars of fruit and loaded with even MORE MINERALS, veggies are the road to exuberant good health.

Like I said, I suppose I am fortunate, I have loved veggies since I was a kid. The simpler the better. Great tasting, fresh vegetables don't need to be drowned in heavy sauces, cheesy toppings, or fried and breaded. BLEYCH! is what I say to drowning all that natural goodness!

For today, try filling up your plate with nice, fresh veggies.

Photo: Mesquite Grilled Halibut, Steamed Green Beans and Carrots with EVOO and Celtic Sea Salt

Just Looking

I use to LOVE LOVE LOVE Von's Cake. It was my "big deal" for such a long time. Years. Sweet. Secret. Forbidden.




Now sometimes on S days, I think - Von's cake! Wouldn'cha love it? I go to the store and I stand at the case and I look at my favorites ... white birthday cake, carrot cake and ...



chocolate birthday cake. Then after a few minutes I realize that I really don't WANT any Von's cake and that JUST LOOKING is enough!

WOW!

That is CERTAINLY an UNEXPECTED result of the NO S Diet!

Photos: Von's White Birthday Cake, Von's Carrot Cake, Von's Chocolate Birthday Cake

Pre-disapproved

I love this little gem from the No S Diet book ...

"You're pre-disapproved, so forget it and move onto something else." p119

Being pre-disapproved definitely keeps things simple.

Someone stands in front of me with a sweety thing and/or a snacky thing and a big smile on their face.

"Here I brought this specially for you cause I KNOW it's your favorite."

Quick internal reconnoitering - is this an N day? Yes? Hmmm ... that means I am PRE-DISAPPROVED for ANYTHING sweety and anything snacky I can't or don't want to put on my one plate. Do I want to put THAT particular SNACKY THING on my one plate today? Heaven's no.

"Gee, that was so nice of you to think of me. I'll just take it and wrap it up for later."

Person's smile fades as I swipe it from their hands and quickly disappear.

On the way to lunch I make three points free-throwing it into the garabage. Better in the waste can than on my waist band.

Pre-disapproved.

Keeping life simple on the No S Diet.

... when you are not not not

WOW!

What a productive week! This is what I love about No S, all of that healthy structure and effective discipline spilling over into all of the other areas of my life.

Reading my blog or daily check-ins on the No S boards this week you know I was SAD! But you also know I kept my N days green. The results ... I felt the sadness AND kept on moving forward. And now I turn around and look behind me and what an AMAZING week.

Not only did I feel, dip into, absorb, integrate, accept all of that sadness, but I also KICKED BUTT in getting organized and facing down some fears so I could COMPLETE some very significant and necessary tasks in my life. Hmmmmm....

Now it is Saturday and I feel good!

Don't let anyone tell you that getting the stuff done that you need to get done does NOT feel great. GETTING the stuff done that you need to get done FEEL'S GREAT!!!!!!!!!

So does being genuine and not PRETENDING to be happy happy happy when you are just not not not.

Photo: Grilled Salmon Salad with Avocado, Tomato, Shredded Carrot, Arugula, Romaine and EVOO

Implicit Memories

It is uncanny, but getting well into October I have had up to four episodes where I pretty much JUST WANT TO EAT.

Thank goodness that my No S Habit is holding me in good stead and I have lots of practice in ... "how can I handle this without food?"

I was listening to an interesting audio recording the other day called the Neurobiology of We. The guy was talking about implicit v. explicit memories. Implicit memories, as I understand it being memories that are encoded into our bodies but because we have not integrated them through our hippocampus we may not have verbal or "conscious" recall of them.

This can happen when either we are too young and the hippocampus has not developed or under the stress of trauma, the hippocampus shuts down.

I had a particularly traumatic experience in October in my early years. Inevitably, inexplicable waves of sadness wash over me in October. Usually, I find a way to eat them away.

This year I am allowing myself to be sad. This is not brain numbing tear spilling sadness, it is just something deep within that at this time of the year simmers beneath the surface.

The relief and "safety" of the NO S Diet is that as far as my food goes, all I have to do is just have three one plate/bowl meals today. Nothing less and nothing more.

Then I get the opportunity to accept whatever washes up as just something I need to deal with in ways other than eating.

I think this is going to work.

Photo: Homemade Tuna Salad Sandwich on Ezekiel Bread, White Peach

Sushi

A new sushi restaurant opened up in our neighborhood recently, Wonderful Sushi, and we decided to walk over to dinner last night and try it.

IT WAS TRULY WONDERFUL!

We started with tuna ...

Then we moved on to salmon ...

Next up was shrimp tempura hand rolls ...

A spanish roll, this one was a new one for me, and absolutely delicious ...

The sushi chef gave us this fancy shrimp complimentary ... tasty ...

We ended the meal with a Wonderful High Crab Roll, yum! yum! it's been years since I had sushi, it was truly wonderful, fresh and as you can see very beautiful!

Another way to spend your S day meals when you ARE NOT limited by just one plate!

Photos: SUSHI!

Bad Ass

If you have been following my blog for any length of time, then you might remember that I took some of the $aving$ from following the No S Diet and hired a personal trainer at my gym in May.

Let's see that was four-and-a-half months ago.

IN the beginning the training manager gave me five complimentary sessions and trained me himself. VERY GOOD. And very nice. Then I was assigned another trainer. Pretty tuff on me, but that is what I asked for.

Yesterday I went in for my session and that trainer was no longer with the gym. Sigh. So they assigned me to another trainer. Young. Nordic. Uh huh.

I decided to take it in stride. We discussed my goals for the day and settled on some circuit training. He wanted to assess my fitness level.

So he had me start with 25 pushups, 25 deadlifts and 25 pull-ups. Now let me remind you that I used to not be able to do even one full body push-up. KNEES PLEASE!

Well, I dropped down and pumped out 25 perfect form full-body pushups and he was ... wide-eyed (probably not more so than myself) and said I was "bad ass". We continued through the circuit and he was apparently sufficiently impressed.

He took me to the other side of the gym and had be do another circuit of squat press things (not sure what they were exactly) and then these squat jumps and chin pull up things, in circuits of 21, 18, 15, 12 and 9.

He basically told me that most of the other people coming in for training weren't up to doing this ... COOL! When I was dying at the end, he said with a smile on his face, "That is what you get for being a bad ass."

As a forty-six year old female, who has in the past year-and-a-half been on a passionate journey to claim her inner IRON WOMAN - big smile - I felt like being able to pump out those 25 full body pushups and have this twenty-something jock call me a "bad ass" was pretty much a testament to not only the body reshaping that I have accomplished, but the development of FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH as well.

VERY COOL! I LOVE THIS STUFF! AND I LOVE BEING A "BAD ASS"!

Photo: One Bowl of Watermelon, definitely think this fits into the "maximize your real estate" category

'Tis the Season

It's October 9th today and I realize that for me, 'tis the season.

My personal "binging season" is the beginning of October through the end of February.

NOTE: This does not mean I do not binge throughout the year, I do. It simply escalates significantly during this time of the year.

For me, my personal "binging season" has more to do with a series of events that happened during this time of the year in my early childhood, than the season per say, but the coupling of my own personal "anniversary season" with the culture's "food free for all" time of year can have pretty nasty consequences.

I think there has only been one year in my adult life I have not gone through a fairly significant weight gain in this time period, for example, last year I managed to put on about eleven pounds.

I remember ten years ago when my weight had dropped to 107 pounds and I beleive it was the first of October, walking through the grocery store and spying a pumpkin pie, I could FEEL the tidal wave coming. I didn't buy the pie that night but by November 30, I had eaten many pies, and pieces of cornbread with lots of honey butter on them, if I remember correctly.

So I have successfully passed my six month No S Diet anniversary and am settling into maintenance and here comes "the season".

I know that the last six-and-a-half months of building HABIT will probably hold me in good stead. Besides, I do not have to "forego" pie altogether now, I can have as much as I want on my S days and NWS days. That knowledge and trust within myself is a bulwark against binging in itself.

So even though I am AWARE that 'tis the season, my personal "binging season" as it were, I am feeling pretty comfortable with the No S Diet. There have already been two nights I basically just wanted to keep on eating, clean out the fridge, just not stop.

But I did. Stop. When I was done with my one plate/bowl meal.

Last night, it was get to bed early.

Another green N day.

A little bit deeper groove in my habit structure.

One meal at a time, one day at a time, I really BELEIVE this is going to be a DIFFERENT season.

Photo: Hickory Smoked Turkey Burger, Steamed Green Beans with EVOO, Peach

Fast Food

Friday afternoon I was in a hurry and did not have much time for lunch. I had two doctor's appointments (just routine), a session with my personal trainer at the gym and just my "basic work" to do.

I stopped by Jimbo's our local health food store and picked up some fresh wild salmon and a bag of pre-washed organic baby spinach.

I got home and put our metal grill on the oven and let it start heating up. A few minutes later I came back and washed the fish, doused it with EVOO from my Misto and rubbed it down with some Celtic Sea Salt and Black Pepper on both sides, oh and I cut off almost all of the nasty fatty stuff I don't like. I threw it on the grill and set the timer for 5 minutes. I went off and did another couple of things then came back and put our saute pan on the flame. I opened the bag of spinach and flipped the fish when that timer went off. I set the timer again for five minutes. I put 2 teaspoons of EVOO in the saute pan and let that heat a minute are two. Then I threw in the whole bag of spinach and a little bit of Celtic Sea Salt. By the time the fish was done so was the spinach.

WHAT A LOVELY FAST FOOD LUNCH!

I would have sat longer in the drive-thru!

I did take a few minutes afterwards to trot over to Starbucks for my tall Cafe Misto.

Afterwards I was feeling really good and satisfied and got back to work. I had a great afternoon!

Who says "fast food" has to be "bad food" or even "sad food" for that matter!

Photo: Grilled Wild Salmon, Baby Spinach sauteed with EVOO

Happy Friday

I love Fridays!

I know, I am not the only one, most of us do.

What I love about Friday's on No S are this. Almost each and every Friday I get to look back over the week and see how much more productive I am and how much more of an even keel I am on as I get things done in my life. It feels wonderful week after week to be living insteaf of binging.

Sure! Now I have to deal with stuff more straight up, but the point is I deal with it. And then it's done. When I used to binge I would procrastinate and hesitate and make things worse.

I also am able to appreciate my weekends even more on NO S. Why? Because on the weekends my eating is not ever restrictive ... at all. I can eat whateever I want, whenever I want, and as much of it I want as long as I am ENJOYING it.

Funny how that last qualification, ENJOYING it, changes everything.

Ladeedah Ladeedah Ladeedah

Photo: Ingredients for my "MV Pudding", Plain Organic Yogurt, Peaceful Planet Soy Protien Powder and Mona Vie Active Functional Beverage