Failure? What failure? 

You have been attempting to lose weight with the one meal a day (OMAD) Weight loss plan I have suggested. But you find it hard to try to stop eating for 23 hrs. Don’t give up, here is some help: You are not failing; you are only going at a slower pace to your goal. More importantly, you have already taken large steps towards eliminating your sugar addiction and ultimately obesity. In a previous series in this blog, I established that obesity is not your fault. Rather, it is the result of habits and addictions due to misinformation: What should we eat (low fat, low calorie, high carbohydrate diets) and how often we should eat (3-6 meals a day). As studies done on “The Biggest Loser” (TBL) contestants have shown, you will only succeed in reducing your metabolic rate. No matter how hard or how much you work out. This is because your body seeks to adapt to what it perceives as scarcity.

Success Already with the OMAD Weight loss plan

Our goal with the OMAD Weight loss plan is not to restrict calories. It is to reduce the number of insulin spikes in a day, so you may have already succeeded. Even if you cheated once or twice, your goal of 21 days in OMAD is much closer now. You have already adapted to your new lifestyle considerably. You are becoming more and more disciplined as you overcome your sugar addiction. Remember what I said in the first article in this series: “If you fail on any one day, either because:

• a. You had a family dinner at an odd time and you were “forced” to eat a second time.
• b. You could not resist the temptation to break your fast with a quick snack.

Then your 21-day streak will be over and you are going to have to start over. Do not feel bad about it. Just find a new determination to succeed and start over.”  

21 days to a new lifestyle

Your goal is still reaching that 21-day streak. Why is this so important? Because repeating a behavior for 21 consecutive days makes it a habit, and a habit is hard to break.  It will take a new habit to break a previous, undesirable habit. Then you will hardly feel the need to muster the strength to repeat another OMAD day. I am often told that OMAD is hard for most people and that most people cannot imagine “going hungry” for 23 hours. Hunger is really not a problem because:

• a. You are allowed to eat all that you want in the one meal. So you are eating enough calories to sustain you for more than 23 hours.
• b. Your body will adapt by learning to find its own energy supply. Glycogen stores in the liver or muscle will be depleted. Then, more importantly, your body fat will be used for energy, which is our ultimate goal.
• c. The hunger hormone Ghrelin will stop spiking 3 times a day, and will only spike the one time you end up having your OMAD.

The sooner you hit that 21-day streak, the sooner your body is going to adapt. Your body will learn to use the fat stores and to reduce Ghrelin and insulin spikes to one a day. So let’s try to reach that 21-day goal. The benefits are countless.