The No S Diet [title edited by MNHQ]

[Asuitablemum]

I've decided that I finally need to commit to losing my baby weight. I have 2 stone (ideally more to lose). But will just take it half a stone at a time. I am not really into crazy diets. So I've gone for the 's' diet which is basically eat sensibly diet! No snacks, seconds or 'sweets' (includes cakes etc ) except on days beginning with s (weekends and special days). So three meals a day basically. Does anyone want to join me or be my supporter? I lost 1.5 lb the first week, but then gained 0.3. Next weigh in is Monday and today I was 2.5lb lighter so I'm hoping I will have lost something. I am piling up a bit on the meals but figure that I need that to stick to it at the moment. Hopefully as I adjust I can make the meals smaller/healthier too. Looking forward to the weekend for a pudding and some wine!

Can I join? Someone on the Offtober thread pointed me here, and it sounds brilliant! A diet where you can eat what you like at weekends, and have sandwiches for lunch and not spend a fortune on meat? Sign me up! Even if it is slow - I need to retrain my brain/body not to snack all the time. On Saturday I had chocolate cake, on Sunday I had a lot of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut and yesterday I had two doughnuts plus 2 very sweet cocktails. If I cut that out for 5 days a week I would easily be saving 500 calories or more a day. I have a good two stone to lose so even if it is slow I'm sure it would all go eventually. I always assumed that just eating 3 meals a day wouldn't work - I thought that would work to maintain but not to lose weight, so it is great to have lots of people saying that actually it does work and you don't need a drastic solution!

I think that it mostly works by encouraging you to make changes very very gradually without binging because you tend not to cheat when you can just save stuff for the weekend.

I had crisps as part of my breakfast today I was craving salt with a pre-menstrual migraine.

But I put the bag of crisps on my plate, and made the decision to eat them. And I enjoyed them, and then I ate pretty healthily for lunch, and didn't want to snack.

Hi Jasper and Cheddar I am feeling positive that this will help me change my habits too, and like you cheddar I am happy to lose it slowly - if my mindset changes along the way then that is a true result. It is weird not snacking, I think that's the hardest for me, I can prepare healthy filling meals no problem and am used to cutting out sweet stuff now (been doing low sugar for a few weeks anyway). Will be interesting to step on the scales next Monday and see if I have lost anything!
Good luck to you.

Right, I am starting tomorrow!

B: Overnight oats with Greek yoghurt and frozen berries, which I have made IN ADVANCE and put in the fridge, go me!
L: Nowt in the house so I will have to buy something from M&S/Pret at lunchtime - but that's alright because on this diet I can do that!
D: Steak and broccoli, and maybe mash.

I have a trampoline class at 7.15 so it's going to be a long time between lunch and dinner. I will try to eat lunch pretty late but have a meeting from 2-3 and I'm not sure I'll last til after 3. So that's challenge 1. Challenge 2 will be watching Bake Off without cracking and finding something to snack on!

It's my birthday on Friday so I'll have Wed & Thurs as N days and Fri, Sat and Sun as S days - ease myself in gently! Friday morning will be healthy because I'm in my first trampoline competition in the afternoon so I shall have to have a healthy smallish breakfast and lunch.

Go cheddar you sound positive! Bake off is a torture...but don't forget you can bake at the weekends! And obviously you'll need cake on your birthday
I have found a glass of milk helps with that long stretch in between lunch and dinner, it is approved of by the writer of the diet, he recommends full fat but we have semi skimmed in our house, even so it helps me feel a bit fuller.

Milk sounds like a great plan! We buy full fat so I shall have a glass before I go out.

Day 1 down! I had steak, chips, peas and bearnaise sauce for dinner and it was delicious! Timing was all a bit off yesterday - lunch at 12.30 (baked potato with cheese and coleslaw) and then I didn't have dinner until 9.15 because I had a class from 7.15 - 8.45. But I stayed strong and didn't snack! I had 3 cups of tea (the last one was in my biggest mug to get me through Bake Off) and I cannot express how nice it is to be on a diet where I'm not worrying about tea being restricted. I don't drink buckets of it (I have a friend who pretty much has tea going continually - makes a pot and drinks it all, then makes another endlessly all day) but I do like to have 3 or 4 cups in a day.

Today we are less organised - I had a cheese scone with butter for breakfast from the work canteen, and DH made me a prawn cocktail salad for lunch, but although there's food in the house it's all still frozen so we'll have to get something for dinner on our way home. But NO SNACKS!

Jasper and Posie, how are you getting on?

This diet is really pointing out to me how often DD begs for a snack. She's only 4 and we've taught her such bad habits already! I try to give her fruit but she whines for biscuits/sweets/whatever she knows is in the cupboard. I'm going to impose a no-buying-snacks-for-the-week rule - I will get the kids apples and bananas and grapes, but when we do the big shop at the weekend I shall impress on DH that we're to buy sugary snacks for the weekend only, not enough to last into the week.

I'm finding the same with children and snacks. What I've started doing is going the children a really big, nutritious snack after school, and basically thinking if it as the children needing 4 balanced meals a day.

So they've been having things like pitta bread with hummus, cucumber and tomato, or oatcakes with cream cheese and vegetable sticks, or even a vegetable omelette after school, and that has kept us all sane. They get a cake from the school stall on Fridays, and they get sweets on Saturday, and we might have a pudding at the weekend.

I am doing very well, considering I have PMS at the moment. I was in Waitrose yesterday, and they had 25% off my very favourite chocolates, so I bought a box and stashed it in a cupboard for the weekend, when I will have a planned luxury chocolate eating session. Possibly combined with a bath.

I'm finding that I'm making my three meals more indulgent and luxurious, and that is enough to make me want "treats" less. So I bought some sourdough bread and President butter and had that with a mug of hot chocolate for breakfast. It's not great nutritionally, but it means I start the day feeling that I've already had my luxury for the day.

I had vegetable soup from the freezer with some cheese and a slice of Parma ham and a handful of olives.

And I had stir fry with lots of veg, some leftover chicken and noodles for dinner.

I think today's lunch will be pitta bread with sardines, olives, tomato cucumber and avocado.

And dinner will be a spinach and rice bake with a green salad.

I will have a cup of Higher Living camomile tea before bed. DP gave me some for Christmas last year, and it is lovely. It has a liquorice in to make it sweet, and vanilla, which takes away all slight bitterness of the camomile, and makes it all comforting, like a sort of hot ice-cream. You can get it in Holland & Barrett.

That tea sounds lush, Jasper!

Six days in I'm going great guns, can't quite believe it. I've had a few sulks late evening when I've wanted to mindlessly snack/binge but I've got over it, made the choice to leave my next meal til breakfast and that's that. What is this witchcraft?!

I supplemented my lunch with a Nakd bar because it said it was composed of just fruit, but it tasted really sweet, so I may have inadvertently broken the No Sweets rule. Still, I'll never have one of those again because it was horrible and my tongue is stinging. Never mind!

Hi, sounds like you're both doing well. I am managing Ok, I am worried that I'm making my meals a bit more calorific and therefore I won't lose weight, I have a very bad habit of totting up each day's calories. I know this needs to stop, its my old diet mindset which has actually been no help whatsoever in keeping off the weight long-term. I am thinking of these next few weeks as retraining my brain, and if there's no significant weightloss then I will need to accept it for now. Hopefully if I can stick to this I will eventually regulate my eating better.
Going to at least see it through October then take it from there.
The hunger between meals is OK, better than I'd thought, maybe I do have some willpower after all!

Sorry* I meant all* doing well not both!

Just did my first shovelglove workout!
Albeit with DH's baseball bat so not weighty but I found it worthwhile in learning the movements and getting the hang of it. 14 minutes is nothing, going to keep going with that and invest in my first sledgehammer at some point in the next week. lol.

What is the shovelglove workout? Do I have to buy a sledgehammer??

S day for me today but I'm trying not to snack - there'll be cake and pudding later!

www.shovelglove.com/ he mentions and links it on the nosdiet page. 14 minutes every N day. You don't have to do it, but it's what he does and recommends that and walking to people wanting to work out.

Should probably add: I used this video and followed what he did.

That shovelglove routine looks do-able! Thanks for the links frestelli. I like the way you can do it in your living room. I am often on my own with my two DS of an evening as DH works abroad a lot, so it would be a realistic exercise routme for me. And not too long either!
I am feeling rather grumpy today, I think 5 days of strict No S is beginning to get to me, thank goodness for the weekend tomorrow! I am tired and usually turn to sugary snacks to cheer myself up. We have a family birthday celebration tomorrow evening so I am pleased its an S day. I wonder if I will be able to show some restraint or if I'll stuff my face! I'll be back to let you know!
Hope everyone has a good S weekend.

I am so looking forward to chocolate tomorrow. Although I've kind of lost the taste for it after a week without. I will have an espresso cup full of truffles in bed on Saturday evening, possibly with a glass of wine, or maybe just a cup of tea.

I had the thought earlier, I can eat whatever my fat little tummy desires tomorrow, and then I was like 'but do I want to?'

WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?

Frestelli ** I can't imagine saying that to myself but maybe with a bit more time....
Jasper your espresso cup full of truffles sounds wonderful! I love the way you have an indulgent treat all planned out.
My brain on the other hand will most likely scream 'snacks woman! Give me snacks now! More snacks, with sugar in, quick!' Early days .....

Ps apologies sometimes my post decides to put a star instead of bold text, I have no idea why!

Hi ladies - just been reading through this thread with great interest! I've been half heartedly attempting to reduce my sugar intake but not doing too well so far. Maybe this would be a good starting point for me, as at the moment my eating has become very haphazard and unstructured as I basically just lurch from one snack to another, resulting in skipped meals as I'm then not hungry by the time the next meal time rolls around

Going to check out the website link now...

Hi BreakingBod I was similar to you before I started this, I was on the cutting down sugar thread but was replacing the sugary snacks with nuts, cheese etc so not actually losing any weight!
This is not a quick fix by any means but I'm giving it my best shot.
Post back for support/progress reports if you feel like it!