What to eat on OMAD
I don’t think I can emphasize this strongly enough. The benefits of OMAD are many and very important for your health. In comparison, what you eat plays a small part. When I called this site “Feast and fast for life” I wanted to emphasize that you such eat to satiety. One should not be counting calories or altering your macronutrient proportions, at least not at first. Your first goal should be bringing down your sugar addiction and the easiest way is through fasting. Finally, the third element is sustainability: OMAD is a regimen that may be sustained for life and as a result save your life. So you see, Feast is for satiety, Fast is for sugar addiction control and for Life is for sustainability and health.
At first, keep your diet, only OMAD
Let’s be clear, for the first 21 days (could be less), it is going to be difficult to adapt to eating only OMAD. So do not make it more complicated than you need to: KISS (keep it simple, stupid) is a good principle to go for at first. I don’t even suggest that you change your exercise routine. Just learn to listen to your body. Reducing your addiction to sugar will be a great achievement to start with. By eating only one meal a day, you will reduce your insulin secretion to only one spike a day. Lowering insulin alone, will decrease your appetite and increase human growth hormone secretion. HGH will tell us when our bodies are ready for more intense exercise routines and that will be the next step in our journey.
2nd step: physical activity
Once you have succeeded in maintaining your OMAD regimen for 21 days, you are ready for the next step. I still would not worry about my meals, other than reaching satiety every day. It is not yet time to worry about macronutrients. In fact, you are going to start noticing that you have more energy, and a desire to increase performance. After a few weeks on OMAD, I began to increase the duration of my walks from 45min progressively to 2hrs. Then progressively incorporated pushups and weight lifting. One of my favorite activities is hiking for 90 min every Sunday. Of course, it all depends on your gender, age, and body weight. Learn to listen to your body and do not feel afraid of pushing your limits. As long as you enjoy it, the benefits are well worth it.
3rd step: lowering your carbs
If you do not have any metabolic diseases, what you have done until now will reduce your body weight, make you more energetic and start making you feel young again. I feel fitter now at 62 than I ever did on my teens and 20s. However, some of us may suffer from type II diabetes and in such cases, lowering our carb intake would be beneficial. A low carb diet is a must, and that could be step 2 for diabetics and prediabetics. Here I will refer you to Dr. Jason Fung and his book The Diabetes Code. If you want to lose weight faster than with OMAD and exercise, lowering your carbs may be a good idea. I lost 28% of my body over 5 years without changing my diet. Ulla lost 24% of her body in 6 months as she adapted to a low carb diet in addition to OMAD and exercise. My muscle mass did grow considerably during those 5 years, so weight alone is not a good indicator of progress.
Measuring calories and macronutrients
Now you have lost the weight you wanted to lose. Now you are probably wondering if you are getting all the nutrients you need. First, if you are healthy what is a balanced diet to eat with OMAD? Here is an interesting video dealing with this issue by Dr. Nick Zyrowski. I recommend that you first determine how many calories should you be eating to maintain your body weight HERE. Next, you could keep track of your daily calories and macronutrients at MyFitnessPal.com. Warning: this will require a lot of your time, so it is very optional. In my next post, I will demonstrate the calorie calculator and MyFitnessPal.com for my case.
