Everyday Systems: nosdiet: message 204 of 3212

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I can't actually say how much weight I've lost--I never weighed 
myself to begin with--but I am down in jeans size from a very tight 
18W to a well-fitting 16W. I feel...completely normal. I eat three 
meals a day...like normal. There are no shakes, no bars, no lots of 
tiny meals...it's a miracle for me.

Something I've found out: The "Fence around the diet" is VERY 

important for me. To quote Don Henley, "the wolf is always at the 

door". I found that if I relaxed on the one plate rule even a 
little, that my old eating habits would start creeping in. I found 
myself a couple of times, when serving my plate, sneaking bites from 
the serving container. Trying to fool myself. So now I always make 
sure to prepare my ENTIRE meal, and have it on the plate before I 
eat. Sometimes if I don't trust myself, I will help myself to a dill 
pickle and munch on that while I'm cooking. But mostly, I pretend 
that I'm french, and make a production out of my meals.

I got a nasty cold about three weeks ago...so I used that 
opportunity to stop putting half n half in my coffee. I drink it 
black now, something I never imagined I could do. I drink a lot of 
coffee, so this is a significant change for me.

Stomach capacity is WAY down. A couple of weeks ago, my husband took 
me out to dinner at a well-known mexican chain restaurant. Usually 
we run through 2-3 baskets of chips, plus the queso dip, plus our 
dinners. Wow. This time, we finished half of one basket of chips, 
1/4 of the cheese dip, and then I managed to eat about 1/8 of my 
fajita dinner. In the old days, (pre NOS), I would have eaten all of 
my dinner, now matter how many chips I had consumed. My husband is 
not on the diet, and I realized that all those times we ate all 
those chips...it was ME eating the majority. Never again. This 
night, I was "pigging out" for the special occasion of dinner out, 

and that's the best I could do. I was floored. And two nights ago, 
we stayed up late watching a movie, so I went and made a bag of 
microwave popcorn (yes, a snack, I do that occasionally), and I 
barely ate 1/4 of the bag. I used to make each of us our own bag.

Three meals is my goal every day, but yesterday, due to a weird 
schedule, I only got two meals. And occasionally, I eat 4. But when 
I eat, I use vintage dinner plates that I've collected for years, 
and they are only 9 inches across, instead of the 10 or 11 inches 
that modern dishes are. It's funny, because I used to never use 
these dishes, I just collected them because they were so pretty, but 
I didn't serve food on them because they were small. And the bowls 
are small. Well, I just had breakfast before I sat down to type, and 
I used, without even thinking, the smaller vintage bowl for my Wheat 
Chex and 1/2 banana. With whole milk. That's one of the things I 
love about the diet...I can eat whatever I want. I never drink skim 
milk anymore, I use delicious whole milk on my cereal, and I'm 
losing weight anyway!

So that's about it. I am just really happy. Everyone knows now that 
I'm on a diet, because they are noticing my weight loss. Instead of 
just saying "I'm doing portion control", I tell them about the NOS 

and tell them to look it up on the internet. 

I'm doing great, and I look better. I'm starting to see a jawline 
again. Yah!


Joanna