The No S Diet

The No Diet Manifesto [ An Everyday Systems publication ]

The NoSDiet, described below, is a diet I invented for myself that I imagine might work for similarly minded people.

No funny science or calorie accounting involved, just a few simple and mnemonic tricks for giving your willpower the upper hand.

I spell it nosdiet for easy googling and pronounce it Noes or No Esses or No Es diet, depending on which aspect of the pun I feel like emphasizing.

There are just three rules and one exception:

No Snacks
No Sweets
No Seconds

Except (sometimes) on days that start with 's'

That's it.

Too simple for you? Read on for explanations, justifications, and rants.

Why should I buy this book?

...since I gave away the whole diet on the cover. And I'm not being cute. That's really all you need. You can put this book down, walk away, and lose weight, just be remembering and sticking to those 14 words.

But there are some reasons why you still might want to buy it.

As a reminder for yourself. 14 words should be easy enough to remember, but some people find having a little physical totem to carry around helps remind them that these words apply to them. See also the businesscards and refigerator magnet at the back of the book.
As a slightly obnoxious gift for someone else. It makes a great stocking stuffer.
Because by buying this book you are psychologically buying into the diet. If you don't buy it, how can you really buy it, right? That's the American way.
Because it's entertaining.
Because I've anticipated just about every way you can weasel out of following the rules strictly and your willpower is so depleted and your appetite so sneaky that you need to have these hammered into you over and over again.
Because you think it might really work or have already lost weight with it and want to tip the author.
Because it's cheap.

Why are other diets so lousy?

Most diets today can be divided into two categories:

Pseudo-science (or "focused-gluttony") diets that hold you can go on being a glutton as long as you focus your gluttony on particular kinds foods to the exclusion of others (no agreement on what these particular kinds of foods are, of course). It's funny that these diets masquerade as scientific, because psychologically they rely on the most primitive magicism: magic potion foods that are good for you and can be gorged with impunity, and cursed poison foods that explode with a mouthful (carbohydrates and fat are the two biggies, alternating roles).

Diets that require you to be a full time calorie accountant.

The pseudo-science diets are patent nonsense. They contradict one another, go in and out of fashion every ten years, and never seem to gather any serious scientific support. You won't stick with one of these because it won't work and it might even make you sick.

The calorie accounting diets are time consuming and joyless. You won't be able to stick with one of these because it will make you miserable. If you think of food as fuel, a mere quantity, you'll come to hate it -- and yourself.

Pretty much any diet will lose you weight if you stick with it. The problem isn't how to lose weight. The problem is how to stick with the diet. According to the FDA, 95% of dieters fail to do this for more than a few months at a time. You need a diet that acknowledges this grim statistic and targets the real culprit: not your belly, but your mind.

Why is this diet so much better?

Because it is simple, sustainable, and you aren't really depriving yourself of anything. You don't have to sacrifice anything -- not time, not health, not any delicious thing. There are no magic potions and there are no poisons. You are targeting just the culprit, just the bad habit of overeating itself.

Overeating is first and foremost a bad habit. Bad habits are overcome by willpower. Willpower doesn't work unless it has clear, limited goals. And that's just what the NoSDiet consists of -- a crutch and a focus for your willpower.

And I imagine it's also good for your teeth (no sugar).

Ask yourself if you can imagine staying on a particular diet for the rest of your life. If not, don't bother starting, it's a waste of time and will.

That's much too rational and straightforward. Come on, REALLY, why is this diet so much better?

You wouldn't take diet advice from a fat person, why take it from a fat book? Weighing in at just 14 words, the NoSDiet is the ultra featherweight of diet plans.

Is there any scientific evidence that this diet works?

Absolutely none. But I'm not aware that I have any competition in this regard.

What days start with "s"?

Saturday, Sunday and "Special" days. Special days include (your) national and (your) religious and (your) close family and friend's birthdays. My apologies to atheists and non-native English speakers. A lean and hungry look becomes you.

What do you mean by "sometimes"?

I stuck the word 'sometimes' in the exception to remind you not to be an idiot on S-days. It's been my experience that the good habits you build on the non-S-days will see you through the S-days without too much excess. My S-days tend to be no worse than my pre-NoSDiet ordinary days.

What do you mean by "seconds?"

As I mentioned in a post to the nosdiet yahoo group, by "no seconds," I officially mean one physical plate, and I think for beginners especially it's good to stick with this, even if it means a fairly overloaded plate. If the amount of food on your one plate is a little bestial and disgusting, that's part of the educational process.

What do you mean by "sweets"?

I mean something whose principal source of calories is sugar. Go ahead and put sugar in your coffee or oatmeal; you have my blessing. Of course fruits are fine.

But beware of soda and corn syrup "juice" drinks. I'm not just being a killjoy; Americans get an estimated 10% of their calories from such nutritionally bankrupt "liquid carbohydrates." (footnote pending)

I wouldn't worry too much about borderline foods like yoghurt and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If these are a problem for you, i.e., you eat them every day and lay it on thick, then make them esses. If not, don't. Just by targeting the really egregious offenders you'll be cutting out a lot of calories. And you'll be that much more likely to stick with the plan. If you're like most first worlders, it's a little revolting to think how much unambiguously crappy food you consume. So forget the borderline cases, the clear cut cases are 80% of the problem and 0% of the headache.

This is probably the most important S. Do you know how many pounds of sugar the average American ingests today? According to the USDA's Economic Research Service, 105 pounds (2001). That's about 20% of total calories. You could make a snowman out of that. That's less than 2 years till you've eaten your body weight in sugar. If you're a real whopper, chances are you eat even more sugar than that, so I figure it works out about the same. And this is a pretty conservative number. The ERS assumes that over 40 pounds of "delivered" sugar is "lost" (147 delivered, 105 ingested), which I find a little hard to believe, but I guess we're wastrels as well as gluttons.

How do you think that compares with the sugar intake of our ancestors? We don't have to go back to hunter gatherer times to find a striking contrast, or even before Columbus (when it was close to nil because there was no refined sugar in most places). 1821 will do: 10 pounds (that's delivered, not ingested!). (footnote pending)

You don't need to be an Atkins nut to see there's a problem here. Indeed, why bother taking it to the next level, severely restricting carbs in general, with all the dubious health issues that entails, when there is plenty problem here, at the sugar level? If orange juice is really your problem, you don't have much of a problem.

I'm not some food hating, pleasure begrudging voice in the wilderness. I'm not telling you to give up sweets completely. I love sweets. But I love them even more on S days. That way I can love them unreservedly, without also hating them for what they do to my body. On S-days, I make sure to pick out something really nice, to make it count. Sweets weren't designed for daily, routine consumption, physically or spiritually. Deserve your desserts. They taste much better that way.

Does fake sugar count as an "s"?

As I mentioned in a post to the nosdiet yahoo group, I would avoid fake sugar products for 3 reasons.

they tend to be pretty disgusting
you *know* that in 10 years scientists are going to discover that they're even worse for you than real sugar.
you might be fooling your taste buds, but you're also fooling the habit forming portion of your brain. It's bad psychology, and the whole premise of the nosdiet is that psychology is the most important part.

So does it officially count as an S? No. But I'd be surprised if you can eat a lot of it without reverting to genuine S.

What about healthy snacks?

Eat healthy meals. If you know you have just three, you'll make them count. I'm perfectly aware that an orange between meals is not going kill you, that, taken in itself, it's perfectly healthy. But the idea is to have the orange instead of, not in addition to, and in justification of, some unhealthy part of your meal. The problem is primarily one of self-discipline, and if you start making all kinds of exceptions, you'll fail.

What about nutrition?

The nosdiet is a framework for controlling excess. Beyond that it makes no stipulations about your nutritional or gastronomic choices. That doesn't mean they're not important, they're just separate issues. Fight one enemy at a time, not three at once.

That said, I find that having a limited number of limited quantity meals makes me take them more seriously, both from a gastronomic and a nutritional point of view. Pretty much every meal I eat is delicious or healthy or both.

If you feel the need to take a systematic approach towards nutrition too, be my guest. The nosdiet is compatible with pretty much every other diet plan I've come across. You can be a No-S/Vegan if you want (shudder). You could even do No-S plus Atkins, or No-S/Zone if you want to hedge your weight loss bets (though I think it's becoming increasingly clear these last two examples are emphatically *not* going to help you in the nutrition department, if at all).

What about exercise?

Of course you should exercise. Diet can't substitute for exercise. You need to do both. If you're having trouble figuring out what exercise to do, consider walking. If you feel walking is too, well, pedestrian, get over it. Health-wise, it's the best long term exercise you can do, and the only consistently useful or interesting one. If you need more color, you'll get plenty using my homemade exercise machine as a supplement.

Will this diet help me look like Kate Moss?

No. It will help you attain and maintain a healthy and therefore presumably attractive weight. I'm not sure it's healthy to look like Kate Moss.

It won't help you look like Victoria Beckham, known as Posh Spice, Courtney Cox, or Calista Flockhart, either (I just threw that in there for the search engines. Sneaky, yes, but who knows how many young lives l'm saving :)).

What if I am an idiot and insist on following the letter of the law but breaking it in spirit by (say) eating a gallon of ice cream every S-day and counting my second cousin's hamster's birthday as an S-day?

Then I can't help you. You will be fat and die young.

What if I screw up?

Say "I screwed up" and try not to do it again. Don't try to compensate for your screw up by extra deprivations -- self-revenge will only make you resentful and that much more likely to quit altogether. This diet isn't about perfection, it's about staying healthy. It's about what you do most of the time, not about achieving some kind of world's record.

The other advantage of this attitude is that it deprives you of a very seductive excuse -- I can cheat because I can make up for it later. The knowledge that there is no make up test, that you have only one chance to do each day right, will make you that much more serious about passing the first and only time around. It's a principle worth applying to other aspects of life.

But I'm genetically fat!

It's possible, but you probably aren't. Go to a poor country. Where are all the fat people? Moved to America? Fat chance.

If you're still convinced that you've been doomed by your genes, view this diet as an experiment. If you can stick with it for 6 months and not lose a significant amount of weight, then you can plead genetics with a clear conscience. And I suspect you'll be at least a somewhat skinnier genetically fat person.

But I'm a grazer!

This is a more sophisticated excuse. Under laboratory conditions, people who eat a controlled amount of calories over the course of many small meals metabolize them more efficiently than people who eat the same amount of calories in the traditional three. Where's the rub? In real word conditions, people who eat more frequently than the traditional three square meals wind up just plain eating more food -- substantially more. And despite their metabolism's scrambling, they chunk up. The NoSdiet isn't a lab diet, biology divorced from psychology. It's a real world diet, built to withstand the pressures of your stubborn, sneaky mind.

But I want an excuse, not a solution!

It sounds crazy, but a lot of people think like this. They'd prefer to stay fat and blame McDonalds or refined carbohydrates or hydrogenated vegetable oil or their lousy genes or anyone and anything but themselves. I'm not saying these things aren't factors, but they are not the decisive factor. The decisive factor is just that: human decision.

Responsibility can be liberating. If it's your fault, then chances are you can fix it. If it's not your fault, then you probably can't. Would you really prefer that a problem be insoluble than have to work to fix it?

Health aside, I'm amazed at how many people prefer to trade their sense of free will and human dignity for carte blanche to fail. It's like Esau selling his divine birthright for a mess of pottage, choosing to be a slave because it is easier than being free. If you're one of those, keep searching, this diet isn't for you.

Are there any side effects?

Yes. By setting your willpower up to succeed, and succeeding a little bit every day, you will build up general purpose willpower. It's like doing 50 spiritual pushups every morning. Contrast this with the effects of the repeated failures of willpower associated with mainstream yoyo dieting.

Can I take my Sunday Thursday? (etc.).

Not officially.

Can I do a "some-S" diet?

You can do whatever you want, I'm not going to excommunicate you, but this isn't a good idea. No-S isn't that hard. Try doing it strictly for 3 weeks, that's about how long it takes to form a habit. You'll be surprised.

Fence around the Diet

There's a Jewish expression, "Fence around the Law," which means don't do anything that might possibly be interpreted as giving even the appearance of violating sacred law. It's a principal that has its use even with profaner stuff. When your habit is young, be as strict as you can be, comically strict even. Only when you're strong, when the habit is largely unconscious, can you afford stretchers like the above.

It might seem counterintuitive, but strictness makes things easier. There is no decision to be made, no wrangling, no "can I? can't I?". You're pre-disapproved, so forget it and move on to something else. Thursdays and fruit tarts take on the aspect of concrete walls, mine fields, and concertina wire. There's no point even trying to cross.

I love the NoSDiet, but my doctor says I need to eat 4/5/6 meals a day because of my medical condition!

The nosdiet has a little known loophole just for you. If you look closely at the site, you'll notice that nowhere does it specify the actual *number* of meals. Now most people will make a certain assumption, and most people had better stick with that assumption. But if you have a medical condition that requires you to eat more often, you can still do so and be a proud nosdieter. Just make sure to figure out what number of meals is right for you, stick with it (no changing the magic number every day), and invest in some really small plates. As for the rest of you, pretend you never read this. It's for people with doctor's notes only.

Are there any NoSDiet recipes?

No. Have you ever eaten a meal cooked from a recipe in a diet book? My experience has been that they're pretty disgusting. Diet books tend not to be written by people who actually like to eat. Besides, the nosdiet isn't about what you eat. It's about when you eat. You can eat anything you want -- at the right time. So use your normal cookbook. It's nosdiet approved.

Recipes do make great filler, however, which I'm sure is why diet books are so full of them.

I can think of other things that start with S...

So can I. S-days are a useful structure for many kinds of habits (links pending).

Who are you?

I am a librarian by training and a computer programmer by accident. I have no training as a nutritionist. I noticed I was getting a little too heavy and came up with this common sense willpower trick. I lost over 20 pounds in two months and kept them off without spending too much time suffering or even thinking about it. People I've explained it to have responded enthusiastically and so I thought I'd stick it on the web.

I've since lost an additional 15 pounds (so total progress has been 210 to 175), but to be fair, that may have something to do with the fact that I started doing some exercise. This seems to be my natural, healthy weight. People now describe me as "lean," which is sweet music to a lifelong "husky."

I've been on the diet since March 2002, with no yo-yoing. Unlike most diets, that get more and more insufferable as the gimmick ages, no-s gets progressively easier and becomes largely unconscious. At this point I'm about as tempted to break the rules as a devout Hindu is to eat a cow, or a Muslim a pig. It's a great feeling.

What are other people saying about the NoSDiet?

Not much, I'm afraid. But send me email and I'll put it up on a feedback page. Or just google for nosdiet on Usenet or the web.

I set up a nosdiet yahoo group for (slightly) more intimate discussions, polls, and other time killing nonsense. People have actually started signing up recently and it's becoming a good place to get support if you want to give the diet a try. You can set it to "daily digest" or "no email" if you're afraid of getting bombarded (not much danger of that at present).

If you're really bored, have a look at my nosdiet website usage statistics page.

This diet actually works! How can I repay you?

You can't! I used to have a tongue in cheek paypal donation link here (the idea was you send me a Merchant of Venice inspired dollar per pound of flesh lost), but as I was recently informed:

Google policy does not permit the
advertisement of websites that contain "the
solicitation of funds and
do not display tax-exempt status".

Translation: my adwords competitors complained and this was the only excuse they could come up with. I'm flattered! Who would have thought a little gnat site running out of a basement could get the attention of multi million dollar competitors? I must really be onto something. And I think I can do without the 2 cents the link brought in.

Now let's just hope google policy does not forbid the mention of google policy...

What you still can do is mention this site to people you know, and link to it if you have a website. A full log file is riches enough for me. And if enough people do it, who knows, maybe I can sell T-shirts and coffee mugs or something one day.

Those whose senses of generosity and gratitude are so highly developed that this just won't do may wish to look carefully at my other site.

If you aren't making any money off this, why are you advertising?

Google adwords lets me place ads for just 5 cents a click, with a daily cap of $2. So it's cheap. Their interface is easy and fun and your changes take effect right away. People who pay more than the minimum 5 cents a click have their ads placed higher up, but ads with a very high clickthrough rate get bumped up a bit. My ads do pretty well in this regard, and it's fun coming up with ads that place better than those of presumably much better funded commercial plans.

Yes, marketing is my hobby. I'm sure this utterly perplexes the competition. Some people spend 30 bucks a month playing online video games, I do this. And who knows, maybe it'll actually help someone.

Can I buy noSdiet branded merchandise such as t-shirts, refrigerator magnets, key rings, buttons, coffee mugs, plates, calendars, bumper stickers, business cards, lunchboxes, etc. with the entire diet (all 14 words) printed on them?

Not at the present time.

I've got a business card, which you are welcome to print out and distribute, if you can figure out how.

(relatively) New! I'm also working working (very slowly) on a "Propaganda Pack," consisting of some of the above, and a NoSDiet Manifesto, which will pretty much just be a high production value, minibook sized printout of this site, but might make a nice motivational souvenir/stocking stuffer. Let me know if you're interested in either of these, and I might finish it within the lifetime of the universe.

Why should I bookmark this page and visit it again, and again, and again?

Because it changes frequently. I tweak it obsessively. Add it to the litany of sites you check every day to distract you from your job. You can tell immediately whether something has changed since you last checked because whenever I make a change the time stamp at the bottom of the page is updated.

This is a terrific idea! Mind if I steal it?

I do, strangely enough. I'm giving this thing away for free and would prefer to at least get credit for it. So please lay off Nosdiet TM, NoSDiet TM, Nos Diet TM, Nos-Diet TM, No's Diet TM, No Es Diet TM, No S Diet TM, S-Days TM, and No Esses Diet TM (you get the idea).

Last modified: Fri Aug 8 16:55:31 EDT 2003