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Hunger Control with OMAD
Why is it that most weight control plans fail and you eventually gain it back? Why HUNGER of course! In this video, I will show you how to bring your hunger under control. With a simple test, you’d see how you too could transform your life, starting today. 10 years ago, I was in my early 50’s and I was obese. I was a couch potato. I was eating 3 times a day.
Like most baby boomers, I was on a low-fat, high-carb diet. It consisted primarily of starches like bread, potatoes, rice, and pasta. I often raided the pantry at least once times a day, especially in the evenings, during the commercials on TV.
OMAD and the Switch
Then I started my OMAD regimen or one-meal-a-day. I started on the regimen cold-turkey, which means I had no adaptation periods. I ate 1-meal a day for 21 days in a row. This is how I made the metabolic switch.
Flipping the switch means that I went from a carbohydrate-based metabolism to a lipid-based metabolism. The first, dependent on food intake, and the second on which I could use my body fat for energy.
Then I adapted to OMAD. I ate 1-meal-a-day, day-in, and day-out non-stop for 5 years, until age 57. Uncontrollable hunger became a thing of the past.
All you can eat
I know what you are thinking: Fasting recalls images of Jesus in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights without food. You think “I can’t possibly stop eating 2 of my meals and the snacks altogether”.
You have gone through calorie-restrictive diets and all you can remember is how hard they were. They were simply unsustainable and when you stop you gain all the weight back.
I assure you, OMAD is not like either of those two options.
In the OMAD regimen, you could eat whatever you want and eat to satiety in that one single meal. Once adapted you too will think of hunger as a thing of the past.
OMAD is not hard
Better yet, once you are adapted to OMAD, you will feel like you have more energy than ever before. I want to show you with a simple test, that OMAD is not nearly as hard as you think. You should have more energy than ever, and progressively, you will find fitness and health and even feel young again.
Your motivation for doing it should be a life of fitness and health without hunger or fear of working out. You should believe me because I too, hated exercise and could not control my hunger. Yet I changed my life, starting 10 years ago, at age 53. I am now 63 (yesterday was my birthday), and I am still slim, fit and energetic.
The OMAD Hunger test
Day 1
The test is to be done over 2 days. Choose a Saturday and a Sunday, so there are no working day distractions. On day 1, wakeup and have your breakfast as you normally do. Eat what you’d normally eat on a Saturday morning. Pancakes, waffles, orange juice, cereal, oatmeal, muffins, again, do it as you normally would.
Wait for your digestion and go for a walk, or do your normal workout as you normally would. Make a note of how long it took, how many miles or how many reps did you do. This is your baseline for weeks to come.
Next, wait until you are hungry before eating anything. I mean really hungry. Make a note of the time and give yourself a score from 1 to 10 of how hungry you feel. One being you could have a bite and 10 you could eat a horse.
Then, and this is critical, before eating anything, wait 30 minutes. This might seem hard, but you will be surprised. Once again, record your score from 1 to 10. It could be more or less than what you recorded before.
After your second meal, wait for your digestion and go for another walk, or do another workout. Do as much as you can, or feel like. We are not looking to bust our ass here. We just want to have a baseline of what we can do after a meal.
Day 2
On day 2. After waking up and without breakfast, do your workout routine. Here again, record how long you workout or walked and how many reps or miles you did. Do your best, but keep in mind that this is a baseline. We are not expected to hit a new record. Also, write down how you felt during the workout. Did you feel like your energy was lower or higher than day 1?
Once again, wait until you are hungry, ready to have your next meal. It could be breakfast, or it could be lunch. Record the time when you feel that it is time to eat. Then score your hunger again from 1 to 10. However, instead of eating, wait 30 minutes.
Record your score from 1 to 10. It could be more or less than that of your previous 3 scores. Then eat to satiety. Repeat what you did the day before: Wait for digestion and go for another walk, or do another workout, until you feel you have done your best. Remember, this is a baseline.
OMAD Hunger Test Results
Day 1
On the first day, exercising after your first meal will give you a baseline of what you are capable of doing in your current physical condition. This baseline will help you evaluate your progress in the weeks and months to come. Your goal would be to exceed this baseline in endurance and intensity.
Naturally, your performance after eating will not be good. However, you will notice that is not because of a lack of trying, your body simply is not up to it. This is quite natural because we all feel sluggish after eating. Then we are under the influence of the energy-storage-hormone, Insulin. This is precisely the problem. Eating several meals a day will keep us under the influence of Insulin.
Day 2
On the second day, you should see an increase in your workout performance. Your body should tap into your body fat for energy during fasting. That is a more efficient form of energy for your workouts.
It is the dependence on glucose for energy that will make you hungry, and weak. Why? because the storage of glucose as glycogen is quite limited and easily exhausted.
The second workout will be very difficult in both days because your insulin levels are going to be high. This should convince you of the effects of insulin on your energy levels.
Holding your meal for another 30 minutes after you were ready to eat will not increase your hunger. In fact, it may reduce it. Hunger does not increase with the duration of your fasting. Hunger comes and goes in waves at the time of your regular meals. Then it goes away until the next mealtime. This is because of the hormone Ghrelin, whose effect is not cumulative but Transitory.
With OMAD, you will get Ghrelin and Insulin under control. Instead of being secreted several times in a day, these hormones will be secreted once.
Ghrelin and Hunger
Ghrelin, just before the time of your one meal and insulin after you have eaten the one meal. The rest of the time you’d feel no hunger, once you have adapted to the OMAD approach. This may happen 21 days after starting, at the most.
Over the years I thought that exercise was getting more difficult and that I was losing my flexibility and endurance. Little did I know that it was my eating habits and that OMAD will help me get fit again.
Ghrelin spikes within 30 minutes before the time we normally have our daily meals, Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Interestingly, Ghrelin seems to spike also at night, when we are sleeping. If we are asleep we don’t feel the urge to eat, although some might snack before bed.
With 21 days of continuous OMAD, you should end up with a single spike of Ghrelin. That is If you eat that single meal consistently at the same time every day for 21 days. The rest of the day (or night), you will feel no hunger. That is my experience, and it should be yours. Hunger should be a thing of the past for you too.
Insulin and Hunger
Insulin is the energy storage hormone. It is secreted after a meal and moves glucose into the cells. It promotes the storage of energy in the form of body fat for later use.
If we eat 3 meals a day, insulin spikes 3 times at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Insulin could spike even more if we eat 1 or 2 snacks on top. Ironically, when we are asleep, insulin levels come down.
Once adapted to OMAD. We begin to use our body fat for energy. This is through the reduction in the daily levels of Insulin and the activation of Glucagon.
With lower insulin levels, our growth hormone (HGH) begins to have more of an impact on our bodies. Eventually, HGH leads to a lean, muscular body at any age.
The test I have outlined here will help you see that your body has what it takes to bring hunger under control. Armed with this knowledge, you will permanently change your life. Just like I did. You can extend the time between meals by waiting until the spike of Ghrelin comes down. 30 minutes will do. Eventually, you will get used to one meal a day, permanently.
Check a previous post on this subject:
http://feastfastforlife.com/control-hunger-with-omad-hunger-hormones/
