Three simple rules for helping you lose weight
What’s this? A diet book with no recipes? Reinhard Engels, mastermind of the No S Diet (and author with Ben Kallen of a new book by the same name), says that the recipes usually found in diet books are “pretty disgusting” and that “diet books tend not to be written by people who actually like to eat.”
Since he, and, we can assume, you, if you’re looking for a diet book, like to eat, there are no recipes taking up space in The No S Diet: The Strikingly Simple Weight-Loss Strategy That Has Dieters Raving — and Dropping Pounds.
Instead, the book is devoted to explaining the simple diet plan, which can actually be summed up in just a few words: No snacks, no sweets, no seconds, except on days that start with S.
Who needs a book when the rules are on the cover?
While the diet in itself is pretty basic, and most of the information in the book has been available on the No S Diet website for years, the book is a concise and portable version that answers many of the questions users of the website have had through the years.
Engles developed the diet himself (perhaps with a little help from his wife) and used it to lose 20 pounds in two months and 40 pounds total since he began the program in 2002. He’s not trained as a health professional, but in this case that may be a good thing, because he doesn’t focus on nutrition or specific foods that you should eat.
Instead, the book is focused on getting all that food on one plate during three meals a day and ensuring that none of it is sweets.
Little changes, big results
It might be hard to believe that these three little changes can make that much of a difference, but Engels says the main reason so many of us are overweight today is because we’re snacking more, eating bigger portions and getting too much sugar.
“We eat more than 10 times as much added sugar as our nineteenth-century ancestors did,” he writes, as an example. “That’s a lot of sugar calories and a lot of room for improvement. So much room that we could still enjoy plenty of sugar — say, merely five times as much as our ancestors — and still lose weight.”
He also notes that the United States Department of Agriculture says about 90 percent of the increase in calorie consumption that happened between 1977 and 1996 came not from meals but from snacking.
The days that start with S
This diet is pretty straightforward and even has built-in cheat days, called S days in the shorthand of the diet. That means Saturdays, Sundays and special days, defined as your birthday, the birthdays of close family members and friends, and your national and religious holidays.
On these days you’re allowed to go for seconds, snack if you want and have sweet stuff without feeling stress or guilt about it. The book says these days are key rewards that will keep you sticking to the diet during the week.
“You need S days,” the authors write. “Even just as concession to your appetite; they’re a necessary concession because your appetite will take revenge without them. But they’re more than that, too. They are a pleasure, a real, legitimate, powerful pleasure, and that’s worth something.”
Laying off the junk
There’s no specific restriction of junk food or fast food in this diet, and that may be the place where this plan won’t work for some people. The book suggests that when you know you only have three meals a day you’ll want to fill up on healthy things.
“The spotlight that having limited input opportunities puts on your meals means you won’t want to waste them on junk,” the authors write. “I know that seems hard to believe now, but once you get a few weeks of good eating habits under your belt, that pile of Cheetos on your plate just won’t seem right.”
This may be true, but I’m sure there are people out there who are piling their plates high with junk food and would continue to do so even within the diet (the book does suggest you can make your own rule against junk food if you know it’s a problem for you).
Engels and Kallen suggest that most diets fail because they either restrict you to too few foods or they make you count something (calories, carbs or points) that you’ll eventually get sick of doing. This diet is much simpler than that, and for those who can stick with it for life, it’s probably much more effective, too.
(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
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I’ve had much success on the No S Diet and would highly encourage using it ! It’s not only a successful diet for losing weight, but also for changing one’s “Food attitudes”.