First “N” Day

So far, my first N day (that’s a non-S day, for short) has gone well. But, at the moment I’m struggling. It’s this time of day (mid-afternoon) when I’ve always gone to the kitchen looking for a snack — usually something “sweet”. I’ve caught myself 3 times, already, reaching for chocolate Easter eggs. But, luckily, I’ve realized it just in time to stop and say “nuh-uh!” and walk away.

I’m drinking water like crazy, hoping it’ll get me through until dinner. And, dinner will be earlier today than normal … I don’t need to wait as long as I normally do, and I don’t want to get *too* ravenous from having gone all afternoon without eating. So, eating one hour earlier seems like a good plan, and it won’t completely ruin my evening. I’m not really big on eating in the evenings anyway (except, sometimes, when I watch a movie… but, even that is getting better… I don’t watch a lot of movies any more, either).

In fact, I do have a movie home to watch tonight, so that’s going to take some extra diligence in sticking with my new “plan”, but I’m willing to go through the “trial” in order to come out on the other side successful!

 Edited to add: I managed to have ONLY water while watching my movie, and did very well for my first day of “No S”! I didn’t cheat, and didn’t give in. So, I’m looking forward to my next “No S” day!

First “S” weekend

Well, given that they’re not all that far off from what I’ve already *been* doing, my first two “s” days went really well. I didn’t go crazy with sweets and snacking — in fact, my snacking was mostly done only when I was actually hungry! So, very good for a first “S” weekend.

Mind you, I hadn’t had a full week of “no sweets” prior to it, so this may be an entirely different story next weekend! LOL.

For now, though, I’m feeling good about this. Today will be my first “No S” day… the first one where I have to be disciplined & say “no” to sweets & snacks.

I’ve come up with a “Good Constraint“, though. A Good Constraint is basically a phrase that helps you counteract “automatic” actions… it limits your choices so you don’t get stressed and just go with what’s “easiest”. My phrase is “Not An Option“. So, say I want to snack despite the fact that the NoS rules say “no snacking” throughout the week. I have to tell myself “Not An Option” and walk away! Or, say I want to NOT exercise when I know that exercise is good for me… I’ll tell myself it’s “Not An Option” to avoid exercise, and I’ll “do it anyway“. ((Note: I borrowed the “Not An Option” phrase from Lisa Delaney — she recommended this phrase in her book, “Secrets of a Former Fat Girl“.))

I’m a little torn on whether or not to consider my morning “French Vanilla” fake-coffee as a sweet or not. It’s awfully sweet, but listed as “coffee” (the instant stuff). The NoS website says you can still have “coffee”, but that it’s also up to you to decide what you’re going to label a “sweet”, and what you’re going to allow. So, my thinking is that I’ll keep the “French Vanilla” this week, and slowly wean myself off it — going back to having more decaf. teas instead. I don’t need the caffeine anyway. But, I can’t just totally give up caffeine today — I’ll go through major withdrawl! Been there, done that, don’t wanna do it again! LOL. So, given that I can’t have any other sweets this week, I need to slowly let go of the caffinated “coffee”. Next week I should be able to go without it without having to suffer the consequences of withdrawl symptoms.

Now, this isn’t to say I *have* to give up the coffee. But, I’m thinking that I’ll CHOOSE to do so, solely because I’d like to cut out as much caffeine from my diet as possible. I know it’s not good for me, and it really doesn’t help me in any way (other than to wake me up in the mornings! LOL).