Everyday Systems: nosdiet: message 1628 of 3212

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Hi Donna,

> thanks guys for telling me what you do with s days,

I have to admit, I do it a little differently. I put
no restrictions on myself at all on S-days. I want to
keep that reward rewarding, with no sneaky guilt
inspiring caveats. Weekends are to be looked forward
to, enjoyed, not viewed as awful tests. Sure,
occasionally I overdo it, but most of the time my
problem is "how do I take best advantage of my limited
appetite? How do I really make this S-day count?" Not
a bad problem to have, obviously. Because of my non-s
day habits, the bar for excess has been lowered. I
really am full with less. It takes time to get to this
point, but you do (if you are strict on non-s days).
It might be hard to imagine now, but think about it,
it makes sense. 

There is a danger in carrying rules over to S-days.
The danger is that you give yourself just enough rules
to guarantee you'll break one, and when you do, the
result is much worse than an immoderate weekend.

I've written before that I use the rules as "rough
guidelines" on the weekends, and there is that
parenthetical "sometimes" in the rules. What do I mean
by this? I mean mostly just paying attention to what I
am doing, and preemptively eating what I really want
so I don't break down and have a ton of what I don't.
I also say it just to point out that while that it is
*possible* to subvert these rules and fail even while
sticking to the literal letter, I don't think it's a
realistic danger if you're being honest.

The greatest danger on S-days is *not* the caloric
damage you might do. Yes, you can pack away a lot in
one weekend, but long term, I don't think that's the
issue, because your weekday habits will change you.
The greatest danger is that by eating too much you'll
think "aw, hell, I'm a pig" and use this low opinion
of yourself as an excuse to call it quits on Monday.
Loading on extra rules makes it that much more likely
that you'll feel defeated and give up. Focus on
reducing your appetite and automatic snacking by your
behavior during the week, not on reducing the bar for
thinking yourself a glutton on the weekend.

If you are having no problem at all with weekdays,
then sure, worry about the weekends if you want to.
But it sounds like you're finding week days hard
enough. Don't worry about "advanced" when "basic"
requires 100% (or more). And my bet is when you master
basic, advanced will no longer seem necessary.

I'm not speaking "ex cathedra" here. As other posters
have pointed out, it's possible to lose weight doing
things slightly differently. You might be one of them.
But I think most people will do best coming at it from
this angle, so give it some consideration. 

> just keep telling myself not to make a minor
> indescretion a full fledged binge. 

This is precisely why you should be careful about not
setting yourself up for failure on the weekends. Non-s
days are hard enough. You need to save your limited
reserves of willpower to deal with these. 

> how do you guys deal with insanely stong cravings to
> eat?

1) Big portions. 

2) drink lots of water/tea/black coffee in between.

Best of luck to you, Donna. Post incessantly while
you're finding your bearings. Besides debating the
relative merits of national health care systems,
that's what this group is for :-).

Reinhard