Starting the no 'S' eating regime today to lose weight, anyone want to join in?

[standclear]

Hi, have got decidedly porky over the past few years.
I feel tired and lethargic, and none of my clothes look good anymore.
I also need to lose weight for health reasons and increase my (currently woeful) level of exercise.

I want to follow a simple and 'do-able' eating plan that is fairly simple and that I will be able to sustain ie hoping to lose 0.5 kg each week.

I'm planning to follow the no 'S' "diet":

book here

A summary of the basic rules is:

no snacks
no sweets (it's an American book so that covers puddings as well as biscuits and confectionary)
no seconds

except on days that start with 's' ie the weekend, and 'special' days ie birthdays and big holidays such as Christmas.

I've got the book so can answer further questions but that is basically it!

I'm going to be using MFP to log calories and I have also found the free NHS weight loss plan (includes exercise) helpful too

see here

I am planning to post my weight here every Sunday too (but that is not obligatory of course).

The other reason for posting on here is that I don't want to bore my family and friends to death about it in rl!! But it would be nice to have some companions along the way .

Anyone want to join in?

I have a stomach bug, so absolutely no interest in eating today. By happy coincidence there is no house call on my rota this morning, so can foritfy myself for this afternoon. Feel very iffy though.

Sympathies Rivier that sounds rough; I hope you feel better soon! (At least you will be losing weight I suppose!!) Are you allowed to see patients when you have a stomach bug or can you go home and recuperate? I suppose catching bugs must be one of the downsides of your profession. Ultimately and on the upside though, you must end up with a rock solid immune system !

Ellen^ at 7am whisky! Now you're talking girl!! (But congrats for knocking it on the head too!]

I'm ashamed to admit, we haven't even got the spiralizer out of the box yet. Have it in mind to try courgette spaghetti and pesto recipe when I do though and will let you know!

eltsihT it is difficult to diet when baking with dc isn't it? I've done loads of baking with dd over the holidays (in addition to usual Christmas baking) and one always ends up eating it (well I do anyway!). The thing I am trying to do is to reduce sugar in recipes for dd and myself. And I keep baking because hopefully, home baked food marginally better than putting bought/processed biscuits/cakes in lunch box!

Julie well done for not piling on the pounds over the holidays. How is your back now?

Still chomping our way through Christmas goodies - so shouldn't be posting on here at all really - not even pretending to diet atm - just trying not to put on any more weight! It's not so much that we bought too much; just that I have huge extended family who are turning up for post-Christmas/NY visits and ditto with fellow expat friends and godparents of dd who were travelling over holiday period - so lots of catching up to do involving slightly fancier than normal suppers and teas - although Christmas cheese mountain finally conquered thankfully!

Weather is absolutely dire here. Dark and gloomy with stair-rods of rain. Even dog doesn't want to go out in it. Which doesn't make healthy eating any easier I find!! Making very healthy winter veg soups on a regular basis though which is the only mildly redeeming thing I have to report atm!

That and the fact that dh bought me a punch bag for Christmas (on request!) The theory is that it will help to diffuse GMR ie generalised menopausal rage and improve my upper arm strength which is currently woeful!!

Even though (despite my nn!) I am not quite fully on board with the yet I really and truly wish you all huge success with it!! Keep going everybody!!

Forgot to send big waves to Grumpy Monty Julie Boozena Jolly Uphill and anyone else I may have missed!

Hope you feel better soon rivier!

SC - trying not to put on weight while celebrating and seeing family is definitely a worth while goal. And the punch bag sounds great fun! The spirazer is actually not much more faff than chopping veg so don't be put off.

I had a decent night (food wise) last night. Second dinner was lamb shish with lots of salad & no bread, not much time to snack.
Big breakfast of muesli, nuts, yogurt & 2 apples, no whisky .

On my last set of nights I caved on the 3rd shift so need to keep it up tonight!

SC yesterday I was really good I just had 1/4 of a muffin un iced, just to check they were ok before I gave them to someone. I find giving them away helpful and feeding them to dh an dc important. Dh though hasn't ha any as he is behaving well at no s'ing

Today not so much
B. Coffee and 2 muffins (with melted chocolate and foam banana on top)
L. Sausage sandwich and pickled onions
D. Home made beef and broccoli with noodles.

Thanks.
Luckily I only have one more jar of mince meat and one chocolate bar left now from christmas because I ate all the rest already.

I went in to work at lunchtime, but they very kindly took on my appointments and sent me home, well actually drove me home because the weather was absolutely awful.
I managed some soup in the evening and I'm going in today. Doctors are self employed here, so mostly work through their illnesses. And it's true you get exposed to all the germs, but, knock on wood, I've only had one cold and this stomach bug so far. During my first year of rotations I constantly had a cold for the entire year! Plus stomach bugs, sore throats, horrible coughs etc.

I managed to put on lots of weight over Christmas, so back on the bandwagon now. I've plans to do a backpacking holiday and a half marathon and one of those obstacle course runs this year, so need to get training. I noticed last year when I lost quite a lot of weight that running is a lot easier when not carrying extra weight
I like long walks, so getting out and doing that on days off will be nice. Also doing my queen's guide award (hence the backpacking) which I think will help with the weight loss as I have so much to do for it including training for the expedition (away from food), learning knitting and going to knitting groups (keeping hands busy in the evenings), volunteering with a nature conservency charity (clearing areas, gardening etc) and generally running around planning things for Guides!

Do any of you have resolutions/plans/goals which will help indirectely with the no s-ing?

Good luck with that Julie! Sounds fab.

I have a class timetabled to do the John Muir award this year so will be outside for 2 hrs every Tuesday with 10 14/15year olds.

Resolution wise I want to do more ironing and reintroduce board game Wednesday, so don't think they will help much with loosing weight!

What's the John Muir award?

Ironing is basically light exercise, right?

I'm hoping that the anti inflammatory diet I'm trying with dp might help with weight loss - We're cutting out wheat, cutting down on sugar and prossesed food, increasing omega 3 and trying to eat 9 fruit & veg per day so it can't be bad.

I slept really badly today, feeling tired and grumpy and already just want to eat crap. Going to try to hold out till midnight at least as then it is technically an s day

It's 24 hours of exploring and helping to improve your local environment. I am more into it than the pupils.

I started 'No S' on Monday (10st 10) and lost a pound this week.

Can I ask, does 'no sweets' mean no desserts or no candy? I am presuming no candy, so I have resisted the haribo and celebrations all week. Hope I'm right, as I've had yoghurt or banana in custard after some meals.

I have been taking it to mean no puddings, as haribo etc would count as snacks.

But if you are losing weight I would take it how you like and reaccess what you are eating if you stop loosing weight.

Welcome breward!

I have been taking it to mean no candy and no "sweet" puddings (so banana and natural yogurt for pudding, but no sweetened yogurt or custard etc). That said, eltsihT has been losing weight whereas I haven't . Maybe something to think about!

If you're still losing weight while eating healthy puds though I think that's fine.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/05/diet-detox-art-healthy-eating

Meant to post this here a while ago. It's (far too) long, and a bit waffely, but makes some very salient points imo.

64kg last week 63.5kg this week! Not been particularly well behaved this weekend so quite pleased.

Hope you are all enjoying you s' days

I have been wanting to post this for a while, it's a graph of my weight since I started no s'ing

Well done eltsihT. I would love to be 10lb lighter in 4 months! At least this is sensible weight loss.

I heard Alan Carr say 'After 40, you have to choose between your face or your figure.' I lost weight quickly a few years back and blimey did the wrinkles show!!

I just need to get motivated to get out on an evening and walk now. It is hard at this time of year.

Morning all. EltsihT thanks for sharing. Inspired by you, here is mine. I started at the tail end of September and this graph runs up until Christmas. I am currently about 70kg, so have a bit of Christmas weight to lose before carrying on (but lost 2lb this week). The top of the Y axis is my starting weight of 75kg; the bottom of the Y axis is 65kg, which is my longer term goal.......still a way to go!

Welcome breward, nice to 'meet' you.

Waves to everyone else :)

Great graphs elish and grumpy! How did you make them?

I did quite well this week, but did put on an awful lot over christmas (and had that stomach bug).
Now to keep it up!

Hope you're feeling better now, rivier
My graph is in Microsoft Excel - literally a list of weights made into a line graph. To be able to post it here, I cut and pasted the graph into Powerpoint, added the title, then saved it as a JPEG.
There's probably a much better way of doing it, I am no computer whizz!

It is a gorgeous sunny day here, but I have a bathroom to clean and a mountain of ironing :(

My scales talk to my iPhone and I took a screen print of it.

It also records body fat and heart rate. And number of steps but I got annoyed when it told me off as I leave it in my locker at work an therefore in its opinion did less than 100 steps in 2 days.

Hope everyone has a good week! My dh is away for a couple of nights this week (not sure which ones) but it means I eat with the kids and makes snacking more tempting g having had dinner at 4.30.

I was on call last night and it has messed with my head. I only got called twice, quite early on, but I couldn't sleep at all, kept turning over and waking up. So still annoyingly tired today and it's playing havoc with my willpower.

[hands over strong coffee to Rivier] Hope you can catch up on sleep tonight! Tiredness definitely erodes willpower!

Just popped in to say that I am absolutely loving those weight loss charts - so motivating to have a visual record of how you are doing and what you are losing - well done everyone!

Breward have you ever considered getting a dog? [Only half joking Dh and I have upped our exercise levels hugely since adopting ours last Easter. You simply have to go out in all weathers (still hard though I agree).

Big waves to everyone else!

Fantastic charts - I am massively at you weight loss! Other than cutting out even healthy puds is there anything else that you (EltsihT & grumpy and anyone else who has lost a significant amount) think made a real difference?

My week of nights was OK up until Sunday when I grazed all night and then went out for team drinks at 6am (it was the last shift). Got rather tipsy absolutely hammered , stayed up (and grazed) all day then slept badly last night. Now jet lagged and hungover . rivier you have my sympathy!

Trying v hard to get back to healthy eating no s today!

I think my whole diet is very different from yours. Your menus always look so healthy and you definitely eat enough fruit and veg where as I don't

For example for the last few days my diet has been

Saturday
B: bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon and coffee:
4 quality streets
L: home made broccoli and cheddar soup and coffee
D: pasta with onion mushrooms Greek yoghurt cream cheese and Cajun spices
6 thorntons chocolates 1 can of ginger beer, 1 large glass home made baileys.
Sunday:
B: coffee and toast
L: home made burger and chips with pint of grapefruit juice diluted 50/50 with water
D: pasta with tescos tomato and chilli sauce with pint of grapefruit juice diluted 50/50 with water

M:
B:coffee and 2 breakfast biscuits,
L: ham sandwich, yoghurt muller corner, orange with fruit juice
D chips and cheese and a bottle of Coke
1 pint of grapefruit juice diluted with hot water 50/50

T:
b: coffee
L. ham sandwich, yoghurt muller corner, orange with fruit juice
3 tic tacs
D: loud gross man curry sauce with chicken prawns, onion peppers and potatoes added served with basmati rice.
2 pints of grapefruit juice diluted 50/50 with hot water

Wednesday:
B. Coffee and 2 nice biscuits
L.cheese and ham toasty with pint of grapefruit juice diluted 50/50 with water
2 dolly mixtures fed to me by my 2yo who is potty training
D. 2 sainsburies fish cakes with peas and sweetcorn

I have also been reducing portion size (although subconsciously as dh served up dinner on Sunday and gave me way to much) and now eat about 1/3 less than I did before starting no s'ing

I don't do any exercise bar housework, and walking to and from nursery twice a day on wed, thurs, and fri. And a 2 hour walk with the kids at the weekend.

I hope this lets you see how things differ and can give you ideas

That's interesting Elish. I know that last time I lost lots of weight with no s it was mainly down to the habit of only eating three times a day and not having seconds and because of that my portion sizes decreased and I was making the most of the food I did eat. So less random grazing on bread and more actual meals that tasted good.

Eating less made me lose weight, but it was the habits that made it so easy. There was no thinking about it at all. Sadly I moved and my habits changed and here I am again.

Today:
breakfast: porridge with homemade mincemeat
lunch: pumpkin soup
vieruurtje (think elevenses, but at four): quinoa salad and bread roll.

I didn't have quite enough soup and was starving after doing house calls, so stopped by the shop to get something to eat. I was a bit annoyed at myself for not sticking it out, but I'm home now and normally I come in completely starving and ready to eat everything I can lay my hands on. I have no desire to eat at all. I don't think I will this evening.
Maybe this is the way forward? Too bad eating at four is almost never possible and would have to be at my desk. Or it might just be a fluke of course.

Anyway, thanks for the coffee.