Can I improve on the "No S" diet?
Monday, December 4, 2006 at 15:53 After nearly two months of the “No S” Diet I find myself only a pound under the weight I started at. At the start of the diet, I experienced a rapid weight loss of 7 lbs, followed by a long plateau. This then gave way to a gradual increase in weight again. During all this time I have kept pretty closely to both the letter and the spirit of the diet. So it doesn’t seem to be working for me. Do I give it up, or start adjusting it to see if I can make it work?
Needless to say, as an inveterate “improver” of other people’s ideas, I am going to try and make it work better for me. In many ways I like the diet. It is easy to keep to, and the principles are sensible. I think the problem lies (for me) in the special days and weekends in which the diet doesn’t apply. I have a fairly high level of socialising at weekends, which is only going to get worse (from the diet point of view) as Christmas approaches. So can I manage the seemingly impossible - to have an effective diet while at the same time not depriving myself unnecessarily?
I think I can. Anyway, I’m going to give it a good try.
One of the weight loss methods I had considerable success with about 20 years ago was to keep myself to a steady rate of loss of 1 lb per week (which is the best rate for health purposes). Unfortunately I can’t remember what book I got it from or who the author was - if anyone recognises it I will be happy to credit him (yes, I do remember it was a him). [Afternote: John Wilson has identified the book as Total Fitness in 30 Minutes a Day by Lawrence E.Morehouse and Leonard Gross] The idea was to draw a graph of one’s current target weight and plot one’s actual weight against it. If you were above the target weight, you ate less. If you were below the target weight, you ate more. It was simple but effective, and I got right down to my target weight. Unfortunately that’s where I stopped and I gradually put it back on again. However my idea now is to combine it with the No S diet and add a few of my own ideas. So here’s my plan:-
The aim is to lose 1 lb per week. In order to do that I weighed myself for the first time this morning (Monday). That is the initial weight. I will then be weighing myself every morning. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday the target weight is half a pound less than the initial weight. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and the following Monday the target weight is one pound less than the initial weight. Then on the following Tuesday the target weight drops by half a pound again, and so on.
My aim each day is to be exactly on the target weight, neither above nor below it. Each day I am above the target weight I add one rule; each day I am on the target weight I keep the same set of rules; each day I am below the target weight I can take one rule off.
The rules are (in order of application):
No seconds [Afternote: defined as no second helpings]
No snacks (three meals a day only)
No sweets
Small helpings
Single course only [new rule]
Skip one meal
Skip two meals
Skip all meals (aaagh!)
What I hope is that I will find a combination of rules which will allow me to lose weight steadily with a minimum of suffering.
I am also hoping that skipping meals will be a deterrent rather than something that actually has to be done!
I want to emphasize that this is something I am trying out, not something that I am recommending. You are welcome to try it out with me, but if it doesn’t work don’t blame me! However I think it has a nice balance of carrot and stick.
Day One
I weighed myself this morning to establish my baseline (B). Tomorrow my target is (B - 1/2) lb. For today I have no rules to keep to. Great! Where’s that choccy cake?
Mark Forster
Having bought a new set of bathroom scales, I am now decreasing my target weight in increments of a quarter pound instead of half a pound. That means that the target weight decreases four times a week instead of twice. Otherwise the method remains exactly the same.
Reader Comments (57)
What I realized that BEFORE I did this diet I hardly snacked anyhow, so that wasn't really a problem I had to begin with. I always monitored what I was eating, and once or maybe twice a day I'd allow myself a small indulgence, like a small piece of chocolate....THIS enabled me to feel like I wasn't making any major sacrifices. When I did "no S" I found all I did was eat more food, which I found, sugar or no, made more of me!
This diet honestly sounded like a dream, but I can't continue for the next however many weeks to see if this little scientific experiment works with my body. It doesn't. I don't need to gain 20 pounds to prove it.
antioxidant foods reduce stress and no stress means no comfort eating. That's what really causes people to gain weight, just reaching for foods high in fat and carbs so we get that little dopamine hit to make us feel good. We've all done it and we all know the feel good factor only lasts a second or two.
What's amusing it that weight watchers are looking at a loyalty scheme. How stupid is that. You are not supposed to keep going back, you are supposed to lose weight and keep it off. Either people are not getting the message or weight watchers are not doing a good enough job.
Three years after your initial posting -- what's your life like? Higher weight or no? No S or no?
Good question!
I actually weigh 4.5 lbs more now than I did when I started the modified S diet, but I haven't been on that diet consistently since then. I lost about 15 lbs using the diet, but because of a series of overseas trips I found myself putting weight on again. Once back in this country for an extended period I found it very difficult to keep to the diet.
I tried several other diets after that (including some suggested on this blog) but in the end decided that for the time being I would forget about dieting at all.
In fact it's opportune that you've posted because I have just restarted my modified diet as shown above. So far so good.
My one reserve- and I don't know how much your version worked for you, as I see you did this 2006- is the rules don't seem to really suggest getting incrementally more difficult in a way that would support your loss goals. It seems like you'll either be eating little enough to lose or you won't be in those first few rules, and then you'll quickly get stuck skipping meals a hell of a lot
You also don't really have S Days? Which, I get the wanting to focus on actually consistently losing, but S Days are important in the No S Diet. Even if you insist on having some kind of rule limiting them, what makes No S work is the moderation.
So I'll probably use bite counting for your method, and redo it kinda like this.
Start out with 25 bites a meal, 3 times a day, as my N Days (Mon- Fri). No snacks (any other eating events than those), no sweets, no seconds (no more than the 25 bites in any given eating event). If the next day, I wake up above my target, I must subtract one bite from each meal, making it 24 a day, and so on, till I'm at my target. Similarly to how you put it, if I reach my target I don't modify, if I go below my target I add a bite back.
On S Days, I'll allow a certain number of S-es, see how that limit works for me. If the following day I've gained above my target, I reduce the S-es I'm allowed.
Instead of aiming for half of what I want to lose Mon-Thur and half Fri through Sun, I'm gonna try to aim for a /net/ target.
So say a hypothetical person was 200 lbs and wanted to lose 1 pound a week. They could aim to weigh 298 pounds Saturday morning and 299 Monday morning. The the next week be 297 on Saturday morning and 298 Monday morning. Then 296 the following Saturday and 297 the following Monday. Etc. Keeps the same pace, but allows the S Days to exist.
I'd say mine might take a little more fiddling to get right because of the S Days- After all, it's hard to estimate exactly how many S-es on a weekend would let you gain /exactly/ what you're willing to gain, but I think that's a nitpick. A straight line might be pretty and feel good, but it's not really moderate and wouldn't help you psychologically the way No S is supposed to, I don't think!
So I'm gonna try it that way ^^
One of your commenters said you weren't really doing the No S diet because you were watching certain kinds of foods. It's perfectly acceptable. Reinhard said those kinds of decisions are up to each person, and by seeing what you have on your plate every day, it is appropriate to notice if you're not getting enough of some foods and too much of others, and to adjust. It doesn't have to be done by feel, especially since we don't have the benefit of being from traditional cultures which might induce more prudence from the start. The cultural rules influence "intuition."
The S days were never meant to be a continual free for all indefinitely. That was just a pressure release transition until weekday moderation began to feel like a better option. In fact, I got to the point at which I sometimes eat even less often on S days because of eating out or more social events.
I've been at it nearly 10 years but have modified considerably after reaching my mid-60's because of altered appetite. It has actually taken a few years to get as consistent as I was. I lost about 21% of my starting weight in a few years and maintained. I actually lost more weight from my 5-year baseline as I adjusted in later years, but put it back on when it seemed that I was getting too stingy with myself. Not actively trying to lose as I'm in my normal BMI range and lower weight is not necessarily an advantage in seniors, especially if one is sacrificing quality food to get there.
If you didn't keep up with this or a reasonable modification of it, I hope you found SOMETHING to help navigate the choppy waters of our food-excessive culture/environment. The health of individuals and the health care system depends on it!
I was actually looking for the nosdiet discussion board, but some search engine brought your site up.
Continued success in your endeavors!