Everyday Systems: nosdiet: message 1336 of 3212

Note: This is an archived message from our old discussion software. Join the current discussion here.

    
dear bonnie

it seems to me from your post that you are weighing yourself quite often. 
I
realised how unhelpful this was. reinhard wrote about it recently. he said

You mentioned some scale related freak outs. Obsessive
scale watching seems to me the output end of the same
mentality behind calorie accounting. Sure it makes
sense, on a descriptive, scientific level, but:

1) you don't have the equipment to measure accurately.
Consumer scales are woefully inadequate, and even if
you have a medical grade scale at home, there are all
kinds of other factors, food and water in your gut,
muscle being heavier than fat, etc. that are
critically important but difficult to measure.

2) even if you did, you don't have the time to keep
track of all this stuff. Are you really going to stick
it all in excel and calculate moving averages and what
not?

3) even if you did, you don't have the vulcan
detachment that would be required to impartially
analyze all this stuff. Even scientists have trouble
with this. Ever heard this quote "statistics are a
form of wish fulfillment?" In the case of diet, I'll
add "nightmare fulfillment." Plateaus and
insignificant upticks will throw you.

I know what you're afraid of. That without the scale
you have nothing, that your powers of self deception
will have free reign. I have two things to say to
this:

1) weighing yourself once in a while, as a sanity
check, to keep you honest, is fine. But I'd say once a
week, tops, and take the numbers with a large grain of
kosher salt. Once a month is better. I didn't step on
a scale until I was 2 months into no-s.

2) the real goal is to be able to get a sense of how
you are doing by how you look and feel, just as you're
learning to get a gut sense of how much food you're
consuming by funneling it all through discreet, well
observed channels. Hard? Yes. Mushy? Yes. But also
necessary.

the other thing I was wondering, is aren't you being a bit hard on yourself
about the s days and what happened. it seemed to me that two things are 
imp:

1) not to punish yourself ever, and
2) to stick with the system, minimal as it is.

what have other people found?

cheers

jen




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jennifer Dunbabin
69 Doyle Avenue, Lenah Valley, 7008
0414 632 537 : 03 6228 6675
-----Original Message-----
From: Bonnie's Mail [mailto:ronnieb1@...]
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 9:17 PM
To: 
Subject: [nosdiet] Lost- One Fat Pound


Dear Group,
Yesterday, even though it was an S day, I was mindful of eating
slowly,
and had one ice cream cone-I am the one who owns the video store and we
serve ice cream in there all summer- and one snack at night of yougart,
sweetened with Splenda....had to get two esses in on an S day, and still
managed to lose a pound. Heard calcium helps one lose, but actually it 
was
because on the S-Saturday I went overboard and drank a beer, ate cake, 
had
a
couple glasses of wine, went to a picnic that was why, and came home and
had
a big Sundae for dessert...a little too out of control for even an S day
and
gained almost two pounds! Today, in spite of the holiday, I shall no S.
Did
enough esses this weekend already! I will try to remember my vitamins,
Hana
said extra B's are good, and one must take a B complex if taking B. I
think
it is B6 that helps, and for us Baby Boomers out there, we need extra B12
anyway.
Have a safe and Happy Labor Day everyone. Loved Debbies last letter about
the Itialians and Mangia Mangia.....oh how true that one is!
Bonnie

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]