How Hard Has My Diet Been?

I've been doing my diet for just over a month; so I thought now would be a good time to have a look at how severe it's been.

During the 32 full days in which it has been in force:

• On 14 days I have had no rules in place at all; so I have been able to eat exactly what I like, when I like, in what quantities I like. This included Christmas Day!
• On 18 days I haven't been allowed second helpings.
• On 13 days I also haven't been allowed to eat more than 3 meals a day.
• On 6 days I also haven't been allowed to eat anything sweet.
• On 3 days I've also had to eat small portions
• On 1 day I also had to skip a meal.

Total weight loss during a period which included the Christmas festivities: 4.5 lbs, right on schedule!

Full details of the diet I am following can be found here.

Dieting at Christmas - Final Report

I concluded the Christmas period with a big New Year's Eve dinner on Sunday and a big family lunch on New Year's Day. This morning when I weighed myself I was 1 lb below my target weight for the day. This means that since writing my first "Dieting at Christmas" post on December 22nd I have lost 3 lbs. Is this some sort of a record for Christmas dieting? It certainly is for me!

Mind you, for yesterday's lunch I had to refuse the pre-lunch nibbles, take only small portions of the starter and main course, refuse the puds and do without supper that evening. But in fact I found that I enjoyed the party even more for not stuffing myself, and doing without the evening meal was no real hardship. I did enjoy breakfast this morning though!

So the rules I have in force today are:

1. No second helpings
2. No snacking (3 meals a day only)
3. No sweets
4. Small portions only

The result of being under target today is that I feel very virtuous and, what's more, I really appreciate the reward of being able to drop the "Skip one meal" rule. As I said when I first suggested the idea of this diet, it seems to be a nice blend of carrot and stick.

I occupied myself yesterday evening in place of supper by writing all the daily target weights into my diary, right up to the time when I achieve my overall target. It is rather a good feeling being able to say within a pound or too exactly what weight I will be on any given day this year. Completion date is AUGUST 31st - you can work out for yourself how much weight I am planning to lose by then!

Full details of the diet I am following can be found here.

Dieting at Christmas - Part III

To my amazement this morning I was exactly on my target weight for the day. This was a much faster recovery than I was expecting. All I needed to get there was the first two rules: No Second Helpings and No Snacking, both of which remain in force. The next hurdle will be when the target weight drops on schedule by half a pound tomorrow. Nothing out of the ordinary after that until a large meal on New Year’s Eve and another large meal on New Year’s Day. And when I say “large” I mean LARGE!

This diet is truly proving itself to be both effective and extremely easy. In fact for most of the four and a half weeks since starting it, I have eaten perfectly normally without any rules in place at all. If I get through into the new year ok, I will write it up properly with the tips which I have picked up on the way so that other people can follow it if they wish.

To sum up, I have a rare feeling of confidence in this diet - both that I will have no trouble at all in keeping to it, and that it will enable me to lose the weight I want.

Full details of the diet I am following can be found here.

Dieting at Christmas - Part II

I managed to reach Christmas Day with no rules in place which meant that I was free to gorge myself as much as I pleased, which I took full advantage of. The result of all this was that I was 4 lbs over the day's target weight when I weighed in this morning.

There's another family lunch coming up today. The only rule in force at the moment is "No Second Helpings", so it's a fairly good bet that I will still be several pounds over the target tomorrow.

This is all fine. The rules will kick in progressively until I am back on target. The only question is just how many rules will come into force before that happens. If this diet can survive Christmas, it can survive anything!

Full details of the diet I am following can be found here.

Dieting at Christmas

The Christmas season is now well under way chez Forster, and a great party on Wednesday evening has resulted in my being over the target weight for two days running. Accordingly I have now got two rules in force:

1. No second helpings
2. Three meals a day only (no snacking)

No great deprivation there yet then, but it will be interesting to see how far up the rules ladder I will get before the season of good cheer is over. The good cheer will be rather limited though as - due to a dodgy tooth - I have been put on a strong antibiotic. This means that I am on a third rule (not part of the diet): No alcohol!

Full details of the diet I am following can be found here.

Diet Report

After several days on the "No Seconds" rule, my weight suddenly decided this morning to plunge to 3.5 lbs below my target weight for the day. I've no idea why - but one's weight never behaves as predictably as one would like. Anyway that means the "No Seconds" rule comes off and I am back to eating what I like, when I like and in what quantities I like. With Christmas getting closer and closer I am quite happy about being a few pounds under my target weight.

By the way my definition of "No Seconds" is "no second helpings", a much easier rule to keep than the "No S Diet" definition of only one plate of food during a meal.

So far I have been doing my composite diet for a week and a half during which I have lost 5 lbs. The only change I have made to my normal eating habits is to avoid eating second helpings for a few days. This must be about the easiest diet I have ever been on.

Full details of the diet I am following can be found here.

Further Diet Report

I weighed in exactly on my target weight for the day this morning, so yesterday's addition of one rule (No Seconds) was enough. The rule remains in place though, because rules are only taken off if I am below the target weight. As I selected No Seconds as the first rule on the basis that it is the easiest to keep, it shouldn't be too much hardship.

Diet report

Today for the first time I crept a little above my target weight for the day. It was only half a pound, but nevertheless it triggered the first rule "No Seconds". This is the easiest rule on my list. Will it be enough to bring me back to the target weight, especially as the target reduces by 1/2 lb tomorrow? We will see!

Anyway up to now my diet has consisted of eating exactly what I normally eat, in the quantities I normally eat, and when I normally eat. I can't complain that it's been hard work!

Diet Day Three

There's nothing like a diet to bring out the comments. My mention of skipping meals brought me some contrasting reactions, divided equally between those who told me that it would make me fat, and those who said that it would be the start of the slippery slope to starving myself to death. Fortunately, as with most disaster scenarios, they can't all happen at once.

The reality of the diet is that, in spite of my best efforts before and after the Velazquez exhibition (well worth seeing by the way) I had lost another pound this morning. That meant I was 1 1/2 pounds under my target for the day. So now I have another day without any rules. Great! The choccy cake has run out, so I am now tucking in to scones with loads of jam.

Diet Report - Day 2

In spite of the choccy cake (yes, it really did exist), I found I had lost a pound when I weighed myself this morning. That's half a pound under my target weight for the day. So I still have no rules. This afternoon we will be going up to London to see the Velasquez exhibition at the National Gallery. Trips like that always involve eating out, so it will be interesting to see how well my (so far) ruleless diet survives.

Can I improve on the "No S" diet?

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?

Update on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 10:57 by 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.

"No S Diet" Report

I weighed myself this morning and found that I had lost 7 lbs in all. This is exactly the same as when I weighed myself last a couple of weeks ago. To be fair, I had an exceptionally heavy weekend at the end of last week - with a wedding, a family lunch party and two visits to a restaurant with friends. Since they all were on "S Days" the rules didn't apply.  My life isn't usually anything like as social as that, so I don't normally go mad at weekends. If it hadn't been for that exceptional two days I might well have lost another one or two pounds.

Excuses of course are what dieting is all about - but the great thing about this diet is that I don't have to feel guilty about last weekend because I had in fact stuck to the rules.

My original intention was not to weigh myself until the month was up. If I'd kept to that intention, I would have been delighted that I'd lost 7 lbs in a month. As it is the delight is muted by the knowledge that all the loss happened at the start.

This is not intended to be a quickie diet. It is there for the long-term so I intend to stick to it. I've found it easy to keep to, and the results so far have been good. I'll do some follow-up reports to show how I get on.

You can read all about the "No S Diet" at www.nosdiet.com

"No S Diet" Update

Two weeks and two days into the "No S Diet", how am I doing?

Firstly, I have had no problem at all in keeping to the diet. I've never felt hungry and I've never felt deprived. I've enjoyed the weekend breaks from the diet without going overboard. So in terms of how easy it is to keep to, so far 10 out of 10.

I know I said at the beginning that I wasn't going to weigh myself for a month (when will I learn not to make promises I can't keep?), but I couldn't resist taking a look this morning (hence this blog entry) and I had lost seven pounds!

As far as I'm concerned that's another 10 out of 10.

This is very definitely not a starvation diet, so I feel quite confident that I can continue. I expect the weight loss will slow down a bit now, but I am happy just so long as it continues downwards.

No S Diet: First Weekend

In the "No S" diet I'm allowed a holiday on "S Days", i.e. Saturdays, Sundays and Special Days (such as birthdays). So what was the effect on me of the first weekend?

I had very little trouble keeping to the diet during the first week. Occasionally the Nanny part of me had to give me a sharp reminder "No Seconds!" or "No Snacking!" but most of the time the diet didn't bother me at all. But I was looking forward to the weekend and the chance to have the odd biscuit, cake or chocolate.

The strange thing was that on Saturday I actually felt more like keeping to the diet than not. I almost had to force myself to have a slice of cake at tea time, and it tasted almost unpleasantly sweet. The rest of the weekend I ate much the same as I would have before starting the diet, but found myself looking forward to getting back on the diet.

That seems to indicate that it should be easy to keep to the diet in the long term. That's great, but will it result in weight loss if I do?

My intention was that I wouldn't weigh myself until the first month of the trial was over. But I must admit that I sneaked a peek on Saturday morning and found that I had lost 4 lbs. That's all to the good and was certainly encouraging. But the truth is that virtually any change in eating habits will result in that sort of initial weight loss. What counts is what happens after that first adjustment to the new regime has been made.

No S Diet: First Reactions

I've decided that I won't weigh myself again until the month's trial is up, but will soley report on how the diet is going from the point of view of whether and how easily I can keep to it. If I manage to keep to it, then we will be able to see whether it's had any effect on my weight.

The first day has been really easy. I may actually have eaten more than usual because I went out to the local pub for lunch and had a curry. But I successfully resisted having a pud. No cake at tea time. No sweet pud at supper, instead I ate cheese but didn't have any seconds. So not that much different from normal. Oh, and no chocolates in spite of having a box of truffles that someone gave us.

I think this is a good diet from the point of view of ease of use. I can't see myself having any trouble keeping to it, especially if I have to blog about it all the time! That of course is a factor. Keeping oneself to doing something is much easier if one has to stand up in front of the world and say how well one is keeping to it. Constructing a supporting structure can be done by anyone of course. For instance you can report progress back to friends and family. Some people get their weight loss attempts sponsored for a charity, which again gives you a lot of support in keeping to it.

The next posting on this subject will be after the weekend, when I'll report back on what effect the two-day break has on keeping to it.

The No S Diet

I’ve decided to start a new category “Road Tests” in which I try out various projects and products on myself or by myself. The first I want to start with is something called “The No S Diet” which was recommended by Mike Brown in the Readers’ Comments on my No Options article. The diet was invented by Reinhard Engels and you can read all about it at www.nosdiet.com (And by the way one of the great advantages of this new website for me is being able to get feedback and suggestions from readers - it’s a great way for me to learn from you)

Basically it consists of No Snacks, No Sweets and No Seconds. There is also an exception: you don’t follow the diet on “S Days”, which are defined as Saturdays, Sundays and Special Days (i.e. birthdays, Christmas, etc.).

To me this sounds eminently sensible. It’s more a set of guidelines than a diet. So I’m going to try it out and I will report back in one month’s time. If anyone wants to join me, feel free to make your commitment on the Comments.

And no, I have no intention of telling you lot what I weigh now!