Answers to OMAD questions

A bit late but… here are my answers to questions from spark friend White-green:

WG: How long did it take for you to get used to the OMAD? And to reap the benefits of feeling at ease with it, with planning the social events, etc?

• Not very long, I had sort of slided into a two-meal-a-day routine so it was just a question of skipping breakfast. About social events I have to admit that I have very little social life nowadays, when I meet people it is mostly over a cup of coffee. During a week course this summer I got used to saying: ” Well I only eat one time a day and it is not now” when suggestions were made that we should go together for breakfast or lunch.

WG: How did the OMAD help you to handle the compulsive overeating? Is it now still easier to not overeat now that you no longer do the OMAD?

• It helped me to get used to not eat between meals at all, and no, when I left OMAD I had some relapse into overeating so my disease is very much present.

WG: Do you think that if you had smaller meals (not big servings) with less calorie-rich foods (butter, cream etc.) that you would have struggled with hunger (more)?

• Not really, hunger is in my opinion truly a habit. I get hunger feelings during the day, they last for maybe five minutes and then disappear.

WG: Can you describe what a meal usually looked like for you while on the OMAD

• A chicken breast, rice, stir fry vegetables, blue cheese sauce. Or pork belly, rice, stir fry vegetables and some sort of creamy sauce…Shrimp salad with a driessing with mayonaisse. Quorn fillets, rice, peanutsauce…

WG: Did you lose weigth while on the OMAD? I think you did if I read that right? Do you know how much per month or per week?

• At the start I did, but that stopped as I slipped into getting bigger servings AND lately I realised that the LCHF trend has made me believe that I can eat unlimited amounts of fat. the reason I stopped losing weight was more that my servings was cooked with added cream, blue cheese, creme fraiche mayonaisse on the side… I am not sensivitve to sugar, I am sensitive to fat, I cna´t handle fat that well and have to rethink my food plans…

WG: If you compare the OMAD to other diets you tried, how do you rate it? Which diet that you've done so far (I know you have a lot of experience) do you think works best or made most sense to you, and why?

• I love OMAD, in fact I am back on it again. The best thing was that I learned that you really don´t have to eat all the time, it is perfectly okay to have one meal a day once you find ways to handle the social aspect. And that too has gotten a lot easier these days when everybody seem to be ”special” in their food preferences. Twenty years ago it was very rare that you invited people for dinner and they had special concerns about the menu. Today you have to ask if they are vegetarians, vegans, lactose intolerant, gluten intolerant, LCHF… it is accepted or shall I say ”normal” to be not nromal with food… Funny enough I have not been forced to defend it as I have been in the past with different kind of diets. I think we have Michael Mosley to thank a lot for this – when he made 5:2 known and popular he opened for fasting as an okay part of a diet.

It clearly suits my lifestyle and personality, to me it is really ”Kiss” – ”Keep it simple stupid!”

WG: And... would you consider doing it again? If so would you make changes? What kind of changes?

• I am back on it because it is so simple… I am lazy and it is so easy to work with just one meal. The thing I don´t love is to miss breakfast, I think that I want breakfast as part of my menu but nor right now.

The reason that I am back on it is that I gained weight during august, I did not step on the scale for fifty days and fooled myselfthat I was eating okay. Which I was not.

By coincidence the day I stepped on my scale the same day I found that my laziness with exercise during august meant that I only had five days to complete a swim challenge… So I went swimming (”the Amsterdam dash” a 37 km long challenge in Swimtag, whit five days left I had seven kilometers to go…) like a maniac and together with meals with 1200-2000 calories in OMAD I lost the weight I gained in a week…craaaaazy!



The changes I make is to decrease the amount of fat I use in cooking. No more cream or creme fraiche in my fridge…

I notice that it has changed my thinking, I am still a compulsive overeater but I look at healthy eating with OMAD with a kind of peace in my heart, it feels as if I have found a pattern that will work for me, with or without overweight. And it has convinced me that you can get used to a lot of things and you are free to decide what works best for you.

WG: I hope you can find ways to exercise that bring you pleasure.

• In fact the weird experience last week made me realise that this is my big challenge now, to incorporate more exercise in my daily life. Because the hysterical exercise I did last week made me feel so much better, my oedema disappeared, I slept better, my joints are better, my artros feels better… this is a very big challenge because I don´t have any natural exercise in my life anymore. In my former life with horses I moved around a lot with farm work, today I have to add ”artificial” exercise because it is not a part of my life. I have to go swimming, biking, walking or whatever… it has to be a concious effort… and I find it hard!