The No S Diet: The Strikingly Simple Weight-Loss Strategy That Has Dieters Raving--and Dropping Pounds

Update February, 2017. Still basically No S-ing. Seven years. I have adjusted some things, but I don't think I could have done that much earlier. It's mostly in response to a reduced appetite as I age.Update Jan, 14, 2013. I've now been No S-ing for three years. I lost another 7% of my original weight over this last year, for a total of 18% down. I am fitting into a size of pants I haven't been able to wear for more than 15 years. This is with no regular exercise (maybe this year!), still slipping at times, and after menopause. I still can't imagine having stuck to anything else this long. My appetite has continued to diminish. It's surprising how small my meals can be and still be enough. This is now my normal way of eating.Update Dec. 20, 2011 I wanted to update this review because of the reality of most dieting efforts: 97% of those who reach goal gain most, all, or even more weight back; of those who do not right away, only 25% have kept the weight off after 5 years. I'm here after committing to at least a year of No S on Jan. 1 of 2010. After a year, I had no desire to ever return to traditional dieting. Thus it is nearly two years later. Is it bad news that I have not reached a low weight? It will be to some, but the wise will see that being able to sustain an 11% weight loss with no consistent added exercise and only 85% compliance is a real-life victory. (Did you know that a 5-10% sustained loss that leaves most obese patients still obese is considered great success in the anti-obesity medical industry? It's true. Check google scholar, not the average websites.) People tell me I look good and are surprised that I'm still a bit overweight by BMI standards. I'm happy to report that though there have been ups and downs, they have been much milder than anything in my previous 40 years of attempts at weight loss, and it's getting easier all the time! I rarely crave junk, I actually prefer savory meals over sweet desserts most of the time, and I love getting hungry! I do not fear food! I also feel I look better than I thought I did in my 20's, though I'm heavier now. Maybe that's a function of age and resignation, but it really feels a lot more like the result of hundreds of delicious meals savored and hundreds of sufficient gaps between those meals to engender enjoyment and the realization that the greater stringency to get skinny would not likely be sustainable. I'm sure there are chemical reasons for these successes; I do look at the literature on such at times and find that much of what Reinhard suggests is backed by science; the astonishing fact is that he gleaned this without spending his time on the science, but more on 1) examining the habits of generations here and in other cultures, as well as those before us who attempted the fulfilled life and 2) using their precepts to live it himself, looking for a way to avoid the food and exercise obsessions of so many to that he could turn his attention to so much more that matters in life; his profession, his wife and children (I hope they feel his loving attention), and the great minds of civilization. At least those are the ones he is public about. He is unfailing kind to all except the purveyors of false hope, and his program is a reflection of that humous kindness. But you don't have to admire the heck out of Reinhard to get benefit from the program.I've been on the No S boards long enough now to see many who ran from the everyday pragmatics of the program to the arms of the traditional diet industry return ready to surrender after more failure and weight gain. Like the father of the prodigal son, we rejoice and open our arms with no approbation. Come and live sanity and peace with food, the new prosperity of 21st century modern life.If you're looking for a way to return to or experience long-term sanity with regard to food this new year, please give No S a real college try. Even if it's not perfect for you, I doubt it will do the damage most programs do, though everyone handles failure in his/her own way. Dec. 20, 2011This is from my original review so long ago. I've actually rarely followed traditonal diet books that dictated exactly what to eat when. I learned early of the idea of de-criminalizing food and of the difference between hunger and the desire to eat. However, I still ate too much and gained weight. I couldn't find a way to be disciplined about how much and when to eat. I also spent a few years trying to follow the eat-5-to-6 times a day advice of the bodybuilder crowd, assuming that they were THE experts in fat loss, and that fat loss was the holy grail of weight loss. Trouble was, my real goal was not to get to an extremely low bodyfat-a dubious goal, in my opinion- but to learn to eat in accordance with my body's real needs AND live in the real world. In short, to make peace with food, my body, and my work/social life .Reinhard is the first to say that even this "diet" program is a work in progress, but, for me, 55 and counting, this is the best of many worlds when it comes to trying to live peaceably with food and reach a healthy weight.No one said that you don't need a calorie deficit to lose weight. What is said is that there are other ways to limit calories and that psychological elements combined with greater attunement with the body's true needs are what really help people make long-term changes in their eating habits. Many people who maintain their weight and have very good health profiles eat three meals a day. Naturally slim people never count calories. How is it that they maintain the same weight, often for years, without figuring out their intake and expenditures? The answer is that the body already knows! What has to be removed are the screens that cover up the body's feedback and the impetus to eat according to its needs. The fact that this has been hard to do for many overeaters doesn't mean it isn't true. It also doesn't mean you become a slave to your hunger, as many of the programs that advocate eating only when hungry and stopping before you are full make you, any more than you want to remain a slave to your impulses to overeat. Over a period of time, the "diet" is giving me a chance to learn how to balance this eating machine within the parameters of human culture, i.e., to eat reasonably and moderately and still enjoy the social and entertainment aspects of food. I thought at first that free eating on the weekends would carry over into the week, but it's been true that the five days in a row of three meals a day without a lot of restrictions besides no sweets, as well as the liberating sense that I have not failed by eating a little too much on the weekends, has really helped dull the desire to keep going on the chocolate after Sunday.If you have real health problems that absolutely dictate that you eliminate certain foods and eat at more frequent intervals, Reinhard would be the first to tell you to listen to your doctor and do what she says! But most overweight people are not in that category. Do yourself a favor, give up the belief that some diet that recommends many restrictions to start--promoting speed at the expense of a real solution--, get this book, and commit to ending the cycle of optimistic curtailment, failure, and discouragement. It doesn't mean you will get this first try, but you when you do, you'll feel that it really will get easier and that you can do this...forever.

The reviewer who said that everything in the book is on the front cover is basically right -- the diet can be summarized in 13-14 words, which are on the cover of the book. And furthermore just about all the content is on the website [...]. The author points as much out himself. (He'd probably like for you to buy his book, but you can also go to his website and click on the Amazon link to buy something else, like a really good cookbook for your favorite cuisine.) I bought the Kindle edition because I did find it handy to have the explanations and advice all in one place so that I could look at them any time, but I'd already been following the diet for a month at that point.The great thing about the No-S diet is that the idea IS simple -- yet it works. He could have called it the "No Duh Diet." I'm probably a fairly typical 50-year-old adult who was more active and had less exposure to snack food when I was younger but who has found my weight slowly creeping up over the years. Sure I could lose a few pounds with a concerted effort, but they'd come right back when I stopped trying so hard. By following this simple advice I've been losing close to a pound a week and (after the first week) really haven't had to think too much about it. Even on weekends when I'm technically free to eat as I please, I've found that the No-S habits have helped me to avoid overeating when I probably would have otherwise. I seldom take seconds at weekend meals now. I do have dessert and occasional snacks on the weekend, but it's easier to limit these as well to what I really want and will enjoy.With this diet -- really I don't consider it a diet so much as a change of eating habits -- you follow a few strict rules 5 days a week. You eat no snacks between meals and no sweets for dessert. Three times a day you fill a plate with enough food to get you to your next meal and then enjoy eating it -- no seconds. These 5 days are enough to retrain your pattern of appetite and eating so that even on weekends and other special days when you're not so strict, you don't lose control and are still aware of what you're eating. This retraining of habit is the heart of the diet. You learn that you don't really need to stoke every slight pang of "hunger" the moment you feel it and that if you eat enough sustaining food at meals and drink a reasonable amount of fluid in between, you won't be getting so many pangs anyway. On the other hand, there's no food that you can't eat and enjoy at the right time and in a reasonable amount.One of the first things I learned on the No-S diet was just how much I had been snacking during the day. I'd catch myself reaching for something over and over at first. The author cites a study on his website that found that 110 percent of the 16 percent increase in calories calories consumed by women in a recent year compared to 1970 were consumed outside meals (for men it was 90 % of the excess -- I think men are bigger at going back for seconds); in other words we eat less at meals but snack WAY more. I'd read in the past that NOT snacking was one of the habits associated with longevity, and I'd always thought this odd since so many sources actually advise snacking as a good thing. But the truth is that it's just very hard to snack and not overeat because so much snacking is mindless. Ten tortilla chips - 100 calories, an apple -100 calories, a spoonful of peanut butter - 100 calories. It adds up fast. At the end of a year, hundred extra calories a day is stored as ten extra pounds of fat!A nice thing about this diet is that it's quite adaptable to a variety of cuisines and special diets -- you can follow it and keep Kosher or vegetarian, you can eat French food or Chinese food. There are people who follow it and do low carb or low fat diets, though the author doesn't himself advise either of these. You can also adapt the rules if they don't quite work for you (as long as you're strict about you adaptations and not overly hard on yourself), and you can decide how you want to handle S days and which days you call "special." (My rule for non-weekend birthdays for instance is that I eat like a normal day EXCEPT for one plate or bowl of dessert, such as birthday cake and ice cream. So if I go to a kid's party and the chips and sodas are everywhere, I just say I'm saving up for the birthday cake -- and I enjoy it when it's time. If there's pizza and it's mealtime, I have a slice or two, whatever fits on a plate, hopefully with some veggies, and call it a meal. Obviously most meals aren't like that, but I don't have to choose between my diet and being part of the party. If I don't lose weight that day, no big deal -- most likely I'm not gaining either. The first week on the diet my 14 year old son, who usually moans about toasting himself a bagel, went on the internet and found a recipe for Alfredo sauce and decided on a whim that he was going to make it for the family dinner. If I had been on any other diet -- low carb or low fat -- that would have been difficult for me to manage. As it was, I helped my son find the ingredients he needed, cooked the pasta, suggested adding a bit of ham that we had, and sauteed some baby Portabellas we had for my husband and me to add to the sauce. I had a moderate portion of the pasta on a plate with some salad, told my son his sauce was great, felt fine about it (a successful day on the No-S diet), and still lost a pound that week.So who would this diet not be good for? I think someone who has a lot of food issues or a true eating disorder might not find it helpful. The diet is pretty straightforward and no-nonsense, but it's certainly possible to sabotage it (say by loading up huge plates and meals and bingeing on weekends) or to add so many personal rules that the simplicity of the idea is undermined. And certainly a person with a metabolic disease such as diabetes would need to work out with a doctor whether this would be suitable and also whether the S-days would be problematic, since day to day consistency could be an issue.But for someone who just needs a simple way to control overeating and maybe lose weight while still being able to enjoy a variety of good foods without a lot of stress or guilt, it's an extremely useful tool.

Simple but effective.

This is great for those of us that entertain a lot or go out to friends and restaurants. Simple, easy to remember, and doable.

I am following this diet and it has helped me control my eating

For a long time, I've felt there must be a simple formula to eating, that is achievable and doesn't lead to weight gain, disordered eating or messing up your relationship with food, and whereby you can enjoy your food. Not being a logic person, I didn't see the formula, but the author of this book, being a librarian/computer programmer by background, and seemingly having that logic brain, has come up with something excellent. I like the pragmatism and did laugh at points. This was a book I didn't want to put down.

This book is a must for serial dieters as it brings a common sense approach to what has become a vastly confusing and contradictory subject - should you go low fat or low carb, Atkins or paelo, should you count calories or points. The No S diet works because it tackles the root problem of obesity - we eat to excess in a culture where food has become readily available and abundant so we need to redraw the boundaries as far as food consumption is concerned. The diet which allows you three plates of food a day, no snacks, no sweets and no seconds on normal days and a relaxation of the rules on days beginning with an S or special days like birthdays and religious holidays more accurately mirrors the diets of our immediate ancestors when food particularly protein and fat were scarce and where people adhered to three meals a day. The simplicity of the diet and the fact that it takes a long term view differentiates it from other diets.The book as well as making complete sense is a highly enjoyable read and is one in the eye for the diet industry. Highly recommended.