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.

Eight Month Results

These are my eighth months results:

Pounds lost: 11.8 (from 134.6 to 122.8 - I am 5'3.5") (And remember, my original maintenance goal was 124.5 pounds)

Percent: 9%

BMI: 21.1 (was 23.7)

Current bodyfat: 19% (was 27.7% in December 2007) It looks like I am maintaining about 99 pounds of LBM (lean body mass.) That has been pretty consistent for several months. What I have been trying to do is peel off a little bit more fat ... which, honestly, for me has been quite challenging and slow. I have found "undereating" REALLY DOES pull off the muscle and overeating ... well, let's face it folks ... makes you "fluffy."

"Overtraining", especially long steady-state cardio sessions also don't seem to do much for me other than "costing" a lot of time AND then increasing appetite. Think I'll stay away from that.

What works best for me are weights and high intensity cardio sessions of about 20 minutes.

It has been really fun to use my own body as my own "laboratory" and test some of these conflicting "theories". I used to be a big walker. I walked almost everyday for about ten years. There are definitely "health benefits" especially as opposed to a completley sedentary lifestyle, but it appears that for me, short, intense cardio sessions are much more "mentally" and "physically" stimulating. That being said, we all have to start somewhere and walking is a great place to start.

As far as my eating goes, doing weights and HIT (high intensity cardio) seems to give me the best balance between hunger and activity. I eat less and do not feel "starved".

The No S Diet has been critical in achieving my current and what I consider "very mainatainable" success. By letting go of external guidelines stipulating what or how much to eat I have found a new found freedom and connection to my own body.

In the long run (and let's not forget "the long run" IS what we are talking about here) with all the stresses and strains of modern life, being able to simplify a weight maintenance program pays huge dividends in time and energy. I love having the excess time and energy that I used to spend meddling with my weight and eating issues to focus on other things.

All and all I have to continue my "rah rah" for the No S Diet. Its simple approach to moderation is sheer genius!

"the Moderation Revolution"

On the back cover of the NO S Diet is a blurb: Join the Moderation Revolution!

The question for most of us "what in the heck is moderation" and "how in the heck do we apply it in our daily lives"?

According to the dictionary moderate means things like: kept or keeping within reasonable or proper limits, not extreme, excessive or intense ... even :mediocre or fair. That being said why in the heck is it just so impossible for so many of us to practice "moderation" before we come to the No S Diet?

Interesting question.

Interestingly enough, the inability to eat moderately seems to "birth" the inablity to keep our "approach" to eating in moderation either. Ridiculous amounts of time, money and energy are spent TRYING to "CONTROL" a "perfect" food intake, whether its reaching that "perfect number of calories each day" or "perfectly avoiding offending food substances" our approach to eating is anything BUT moderate.

And this is where the No S Diet excels. No fancy calorie counting PDA required, no pre-packaged boil in the pouch meals, no points, nothing really at all required other than the plate that you put your food on.

Completely unobtrusive to the untrained eye, the NO S Diet is all about moderation.

I am starting to deeply suspect that "moderation" and the learning of it on just about all fronts of life is the only key to lasting, permanant weight loss and a peaceful and enjoyable relationship with food. VIVA LA REVOLUCION!