Tag Archives for " episode 466 "
December 28, 2020
- in guest/interview , health , keto by allan
Can you lose weight and get healthy eating one meal per day?
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
On this episode, Alyssa Sybertz, author of The OMAD Diet: Intermittent Fasting with One Meal a Day to Burn Fat and Lose Weight, helps us understand how the OMAD diet can be a part of your eating strategy to lose weight and get healthy.
[show_more more=Transcript less=Less… size=150 color=#F49242]Let’s Say Hello
[00:02:48.040] – AllanRaz, how are you doing? [00:02:50.050] – Rachel
Great. Allan. How are you today? [00:02:52.570] – Allan
I’m doing well. You know, we’re prerecording these intro and outro thing conversations now because we want to take a break at the end of the year. And so actually, while I’m recording this, I’m in a town in Panama called Boquete. It’s in the mountains. So it’s moderate temperatures. A lot of expats that want to come down here and live. They like this region because it’s really cool and comfortable and it doesn’t get too hot. [00:03:21.430] – Allan
And you’re about an hour or two away from beaches. If you want to go see some Pacific beaches. So a lot of people like living here. And so we’ve been talking to a lot of expats and they call themselves expats. We’re immigrants. But I won’t let that definitional term really bother me too much. So we’ve been spending some time here. [00:03:41.590] – Allan
We went to a coffee farm yesterday and went through the whole process of how they make coffee from start to finish to picking beans to all the way to grinding them when you’re done toasting them. It’s pretty cool. [00:03:56.650] – Rachel
So are you a coffee drinker? [00:03:58.270] – Allan
Oh, I am. [00:03:59.230] – Rachel
Yeah. Nice. How does it taste? [00:04:01.000] – Allan
As soon as we get off this call, I’m going to go back to the dining table because we’re recording this around breakfast time. Tammy is having breakfast right now. I’m going to get some more coffee because it’s so wonderful around here. [00:04:11.060] – Rachel
Oh, that sounds so wonderful. I’m a big coffee drinker, too. I love trying different types of coffees. And that would be really neat to see it all in action like you just did. [00:04:20.350] – Allan
Yeah, I bought a bag a pound of this what they call double roasted, which is basically where when you roasted I guess it’s similar like make popcorn I guess is the analogy she uses. It pops the beans as you’re roasting the beans pop. And so what you want to do to get to a medium roast is literally just get to the point where all the beans are popped once. And that’s the kind of I like the medium roast. And so what you can do is you go to a point right before they crack and then you let them cool off and then you go and roast them again. So that’s a double roast to get to that medium. And so I’m interested to get back and grind some of that up and try that tomorrow or next week. But so, yeah, I bought that. She said after you have this, you won’t like any other coffee again. [00:05:07.660] – Rachel
So that’s so awesome. [00:05:10.280] – Allan
She’s like, you’ll be calling me asking you to ship this stuff to you. [00:05:13.990] – Rachel
Wonderful. That sounds wonderful. [00:05:16.750] – Allan
Yeah. So it’s good. Tammy’s recovering from her surgery, so everything’s good on this side and we’ll spend about another four or five days here. In fact, as we’re recording this, Tammy goes back to see her doctor for her follow up and have her stitches removed. So she’s on the mend. And then we’re going to get back to Bocas and I guess try to open up a bed and breakfast and a gym. [00:05:37.330] – Rachel
That’s exciting. For sure. Sounds like great plans for the next year. [00:05:42.550] – Allan
How are you doing? [00:05:43.780] – Rachel
Good. Getting ready for winter up here. We haven’t seen any substantial snow quite yet, but I know it’s coming. So just getting out my yak tracks and my studs for my shoes and all my winter gear, it’s going to be fun. [00:05:59.730] – Allan
Fun. [00:06:02.720] – Rachel
Yeah. [00:06:03.340] – Allan
I’ll, I’ll be walking the beaches in Bocas about the time you’re running with your studs through ice and snow. [00:06:10.240] – Rachel
That’s right. [00:06:10.900] – Allan
OK, I guess each person has to have their own and love that they have. [00:06:14.920] – Rachel
Got to love it. [00:06:16.300] – Allan
Oh bless your little heart. [00:06:19.570] – Rachel
Thanks. I need it. [00:06:21.970] – Allan
OK, well it’s interesting because the podcast now has been going on for over five years and I’ve never covered one aspect of dieting that’s called the OMAD Diet, which is basically a form of intermittent fasting. I would call it intermittent fasting 2.0. It’s a little bit more extreme than than just standard intermittent fasting with one meal per day. And so let’s go ahead and start this conversation with Alyssa.
Interview
Text
[00:07:20.920] – AllanAlyssa, welcome to 40+ Fitness. [00:07:23.170] – Alyssa
Thank you so much for having me. [00:07:25.360] – Allan
So, you know, it’s weird. I’ve had this podcast for five years, over five years now, and I’ve talked about every kind of topic I thought I could talk about. And then I realized, oh, here’s a book on OMAD, and I’ve never covered a book on OMAD. Wow! It’s called The OMAD Diet: Intermittent Fasting with One Meal a Day to Burn Fat and Lose Weight. [00:07:48.860] – Allan
And just general admission: I do intermittent fasting all the time. I do. I’m in keto most of the time and intermittent fasting just becomes natural. There have been a few times where I found that I did only eat one meal. It was never a planned, I’m going to go do an OMAD thing. It was a I got stuck. You know, one situation. My truck got stuck in my front yard of my property. I was at a property doing some work, and then my truck got stuck. And when the tow truck came, the tow truck broke. So it’s three more hours for the tow truck to fix and get me finally get me out. [00:08:26.150] – Allan
And so I ate. You know, I had eaten the night before. I skipped breakfast and went out, worked for a few hours. And then here I was now driving home at six o’clock. And I’m like, oh, it’s been 23 hours since I even ate. I might ought to eat something. So I wasn’t you know, I wasn’t hungry. [00:08:43.940] – Allan
I wasn’t starving myself. And then I did have a pretty good meal. So can you take just a minute to talk about what OMAD is? Because I think a lot of people get confused and think it’s just a way to really restrict calories or trick your body or can you talk about it? [00:09:02.090] – Alyssa
Certainly. So, first of all, I’m honored that the first person you had on to talk about OMAD. And I think that a lot of people have had similar experiences to you in that the kind of you have to eat three meals a day has been so ingrained. And even with some diet programs that have been popular over the last 20 years, it’s more like you have to eat six times a day or you have to eat every two hours or something like this. [00:09:32.840] – Alyssa
And people don’t realize that eating one meal a day an option and can be a kind of sustainable and nutritious approach when in fact it can be. So kind of the basic idea behind OMAD, which stands for one meal, is just as it sounds in that it’s really you’re only sitting down to eat once a day. But for that reason, it kind of gets rid of all of those different possible restrictions on eating. If you’re kind of like calorie counting or things like that, there are people who approach, OMAD as because I’m only eating once, I can eat whatever I want, which is an approach you can take and because you are still fasting for twenty-three hours, you will still get some benefits from that approach. [00:10:35.510] – Alyssa
But the approach that I tried to take in the book was to kind of figure out how I could create really balanced, well-rounded meals for the one meal a day that we’re going to make the fast sustainable. So you wouldn’t be starving and also kind of give you a wide array of macro and micronutrients that will support your health overall. [00:11:03.920] – Allan
Yeah, that was one of the critical things that was in there that I thought was really important is you’re not just talking keto, which is why I ended up in that situation where, I basically went OMAD without expecting to. And it didn’t bother me because I was already really comfortable with ketosis. But you have vegan recipes and you have vegetarian recipes and you have things that are keto-friendly. You have really a good mix in there. So it’s not just keto, is this keto is that, there’s this OMAD is this or OMAD is that. Quite literally, whatever your approache and nutritional needs are, you’re still meeting those with OMAD. [00:11:43.590] – Alyssa
Yeah, it’s incredibly adaptable in a lot of ways. One way is that you can adapt it if you are following keto or if you are on a plant-based or a gluten-free diet, you can do any number of those things. But it’s also really adaptable to your lifestyle. So going back to that, like folks who felt like they needed to eat multiple times a day, that can be incredibly stressful on a person with a busy kind of full life, like trying to fit that in. [00:12:15.570] – Alyssa
And then if they don’t get their second of six meals and they think, oh, well, now today is a wash, like, I’ll have to start again tomorrow. Whereas with OMAD you really you only have to find that time to sit down and eat a healthy meal once a day. And that was one of the things that actually surprised me a little as I was working on the book and speaking to people who have done OMAD. Was that the fact that it was really easy and kind of didn’t put any added stress on their lifestyle was one of the things that they loved most about it? [00:12:53.880] – Allan
Yeah, there are a lot of benefits. I mean, for me, it’s the food freedom of not having to have food everywhere because I tried I tried some other eating styles after keto. I was trying some eating styles and I was like, OK, so I’ve got to have a snack of nuts now and have a snack of fruit now. OK, now here’s my meal. And now here’s this other snack and here’s the other snack and then a meal and then another snack. And I had food in my truck, had foodin my office. I had at food all around me so that I would always have this available food. And it was just it was difficult. You know, if I’d got stuck in the mud and I was eating six meals a day, well, I would have just missed five of them. [00:13:41.370] – Allan
What are some of the other benefits besides the time savings and the and then kind of having that freedom? What are some of the other benefits we could see with OMAD? [00:13:50.430] – Alyssa
Sure, you already you mentioned ketosis a little bit. That is kind of one of the primary methods through which if you’re doing OMAD to lose weight, that is definitely going to help. So that is the process where when you’re eating on a regular basis and getting carbohydrates into your body, your body is first going to use up all of those carbohydrates for energy before it starts using anything else. But when you are on an extended fast, your body will work its way through all of that glucose, all of those carbohydrates, and switch to burning fat. And then the longer you go after that switch occurs, just the more fat you’re going to burn. So that’s one of the big ones. [00:14:38.700] – Alyssa
Another big way that it can help with weight loss is through its effect on hormones. So the first hormone that it has a big effect on is insulin. So, going back to eating regularly throughout the day, when you’re doing that, your pancreas is constantly producing insulin so that the insulin can then go in and take the sugar out of your bloodstream and bring it to your cells to be used as energy. [00:15:07.170] – Alyssa
But if you’re constantly putting in carbohydrates, insulin is constantly being produced. And a lot of people get to the point where the pancreas just gets tired of producing insulin and it can’t produce anymore. And so that production starts to slow down. And that slow down is what leads to problems like Type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which are big contributors to weight gain, especially in America, with the number of people that are type 2 diabetics few days. [00:15:42.030] – Alyssa
But when you’re only eating one today, insulin does not need to constantly being be produced. So your pancreas shoots out insulin when you eat and then when you’re not eating, the pancreas is like, oh, I can take a break. It gets to rest and relax and recharge. And then the next time you eat, it’s ready to produce the insulin that you need. [00:16:07.560] – Alyssa
And then the other hormone that is impacted is HGH, which has a big impact on exercise as well, which I mentioned later. HGH, human growth hormone, it plays a big role in maintaining lean muscle mass and a steady metabolism. But for a lot of people, the levels of HGH that the body produces is pretty erratic. And it’s also one of the hormones that decline significantly with age. But there have been studies that show that extended fasts with things like OMAD really rapidly increase HGH levels, and so that’s kind of maintaining muscle mass, especially as you get older, plays such a key role in not only maintaining a healthy metabolism and a healthy weight, but also like keeping your body strong, your joints strong, protecting against all sorts of all sorts of different things. [00:17:07.870] – Alyssa
And then and then, yeah, there are tons of additional studies that have been done on how it can be beneficial for heart health, for brain health, how it helps people who are going through cancer treatment. There’s very new research now into how it affects this process called autophagy, which is like allowing old and debilitated cells in your body to be replaced by newer, younger, healthier cells. And the idea is that the more young, healthy cells you have in your body compared to these old ones that aren’t working as well, the better everything is going to run. And the more recent research into fasting is showing that it allows your body to do this cell turn over more quickly. And that is proving to have lots of different benefits as well. [00:18:15.590] – SPONSOR
Whenever people ask me who I listen to to keep up with what it takes to get and stay fit as we age, to learn new techniques and to keep motivated, on top of my list is Brock Armstrong, fitness coach and host of the Get Fit Guy podcast. It’s part of the Quick and Dirty Tips Network. So in quick, smart episodes, Brock uses step by step explanations and scientific evidence to help you move through the world with ease and enjoyment. [00:18:41.420] – SPONSOR
He covers practical topics like how to train for a five K, how to walk your way to fitness, and how to make the most of your recovery days. And he’ll share tips for applying mindfulness to your workouts, using exercise to sleep better and creating a top notch home gym. Rather, you want to begin an exercise routine and don’t know where to start or you’re looking to shake things up. Brocks Tips will help you reach your fitness goals and create a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. Listen to new episodes of the Get Fit Guy every Tuesday. Just search for get fit guy wherever you listen to podcasts. [00:19:21.130] – Allan
Now, a lot of people when you say, OK, well, what I want you to do is I want you to have your dinner or have your breakfast and then I want you to wait twenty four hours to eat again. I think a lot of people look at that and say, well, oh my God, my blood sugar is going to drop down to zero and I’m going to be jonesing. How how would you recommend that someone go through and basically get to OMAD? Because I think it’s a process. I don’t really think it’s just OK, today I’m eating and I’m not going to eat again for some. Some people can. Don’t get me wrong. There’s people who can. But for a lot of people, it’s a little scary to kind of go off that cliff and say, I’m going to do this. What are some recommendations you have on on a good general approach to that? [00:20:04.810] – Alyssa
Well, first off, you mentioned like, oh, my blood sugar is going to get too low. Like, there are a couple, like couple kind of groups of people for whom OMAD isn’t the best idea. Like, if you do have low blood sugar and that’s a health concern of yours, then it like it might not be best. But for the majority of healthy people, if you get the OK from your doctor, it’s definitely it’s not going to hurt you to give it a shot. [00:20:33.880] – Alyssa
I think as far as a good approach, you can definitely kind of work towards it. So maybe if you’re eating three meals a day, switch to just two and see how you feel then then the other big thing is that, as you just mentioned, it really doesn’t matter what time of day you eat your one meal. So when you’re just getting started, mix it up and you can have your one meal around breakfast. And like, I actually I have a whole chapter in my book of breakfast style meals. If you are someone who likes to eat in the day, maybe try that for two days and then switch to a midday meal. Try that for a little bit of time. And so you can really play with it to determine what what is best for you, what kind of what timing keeps keeps your energy up the best. [00:21:35.110] – Alyssa
And then the other another key part is that you are only eating once a day. But that doesn’t mean you can’t put anything else in your body during the other twenty three hours. So drinking fluids throughout the day can have a huge impact on how full you feel. So that’s water, that’s black coffee and tea. That’s like chicken broth or beef broth, like bone bone broth, those kinds of things. A lot of the time in general, if you feel like you need a snack or something, if you feel hungry a lot of the time, you might just be thirsty. [00:22:14.050] – Alyssa
And so kind of keeping I know you were talking about earlier, kind of always having a snack of nuts or something on you, I think, with, oh, you always want to have a bottle of water or a mug of something to keep you going. And again, to the last thing which I touched on briefly earlier is to kind of really think about creating meals that are really well-balanced and have a variety of nutrients. [00:22:48.370] – Alyssa
So a lot of the in creating the recipes for my book, I put a lot of focus on protein and fiber because these are the ones that are going to give you energy, keep you full throughout the day. Also a lot of vegetables because those are going to increase portion sizes. Vegetables take longer to chew. Like the longer it takes you to eat, the more full and satisfied you’re going to feel. I also talked a little bit about mindful eating. I’m sure a lot of listeners are familiar with mindfulness or like mindfulness meditation. [00:23:28.060] – Alyssa
And so this is kind of applying that idea to cooking and eating. So really being in the present, like smelling the smells, kind of feeling the textures of your food and really being there with your meal and not watching TV or eating while you’re driving, because hopefully, like it’s only one meal, you haven’t had to carve out a bunch of different times in your day. So hopefully you’re able to commit that like 20 to 30 minutes just to enjoying your meal. And that can make a huge difference as well. And kind of how satisfied you then feel going into your fast? [00:24:12.930] – Allan
I think it’s really important to emphasize we brought this up at the beginning just to talk to your doctor. And if you’re on any kind of blood sugar lowering meds like metformin or you’re taking insulin or anything like that, recognize that when you change the way you eat, you change the formula of how your body is going to work. And so if you’re on those and using those, your dosages are probably going to have to change to adapt to what you’re doing now. As you get into this, this is not something to just jump in to have the conversation with your doctor, be prepared to change your meds as needed so that you can manage through that. But this is particularly for diabetes and obesity. [00:24:53.400] – Allan
This is a hugely popular and good approach to eating well and keeping your blood sugar and insulin levels stable. So, you know, this is something you really want to look into. One thing I think a lot of people would be surprised with is like, oh, well, if I’m going to do this, I’m just going to be losing weight. I just I don’t need to exercise. But I’ll tell you, as a personal trainer. Yeah, you do need to exercise? [00:25:20.880] – Allan
So there’s little concern. And I you know, I had a I hired a personal trainer. I want to get stronger for a Spartan. So I hired a personal trainer, Coach Dave and I meet him every morning. And I told him, I said, you know, I don’t care how early we meet. I don’t you know, he says, I want you to have time to eat, wake up and eat. And like, no, I don’t need to worry about eating before I can do things like, yeah, you need those carbs, you need that, you know, that protein and carbs. So you have the energy to make it through a workout. [00:25:48.390] – Allan
And I’m like, no, Dave, I’ll be fine through the workout. But it was only because I knew my body well enough. I’d been training long enough to know that I can exercise without food in my system. Can you talk a little bit about exercising when you’re on OMAD? Considerations and things to do. [00:26:06.660] – Alyssa
Yeah. So just like you can play around with the timing of your one meal, I definitely recommend playing around with the timing of your workout in relation to your meal, because like you said, some people do feel comfortable and energized and strong exercising on an empty stomach. And there have been studies that do show like some benefits to that, but other people that might make them feel nauseous or weak or things like that. And so you can definitely see if you want to do your workout before your meal, after your meal [00:26:47.250] – Alyssa
Something else I discuss in the book as the only thing you can kind of quote unquote eat during your fast are fat bombs, which I’m sure you’re familiar with as it comes comes out of the keto world. So these are like little treats that you make using healthy fats like coconut oil or coconut butter, and then add a little bit of flavoring like maybe like a drop or two of liquid stevia and some cocoa powder. And then you mix it up and you freeze them and you have really indulgent little snacks, the fat that can be kind of an instant hit of energy if you do feel like you need just that little something before or after a workout. [00:27:34.860] – Alyssa
But, yeah, it’s very personal. And there are certainly benefits to exercising during while you’re fasting, while you’re on OMAD, as I mentioned earlier, insulin and HGH, those are really the benefits you get from fasting as they affect those hormones. And the benefits that you get from exercising are really complementary to one another. So, like, if fasting is kind of keeping your insulin production low and steady, exercise has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, which means that the body doesn’t need as much insulin to begin with to kind of move the glucose out of your bloodstream. So the way that both fasting and exercise impact insulin is incredibly good for your good for your overall health. [00:28:35.460] – Alyssa
And then obviously with HGH as well, if your HGH levels are high there, that’s kind of allowing you to build that lead muscle mass that you’re trying to build through exercise, and then just as the time of day that you exercise is very personal. So is the form of exercise you choose. I think one of the most important things about exercise is that you have to be doing something that you enjoy because if you don’t like doing it, then you’re not going to stick with it and then you’re going to feel bad about not sticking with it. [00:29:16.830] – Alyssa
And then it’s just going to be this cycle of. Not maintaining your healthy habits, and so I think that any form of movement, whether that’s walking, running, biking, dancing, strength training, interval training, really anything, anything that you enjoy and that you feel good afterwards is a good strategy to take while you’re also doing all that. [00:29:49.670] – Allan
Alyssa, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be, what are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well. [00:30:00.140] – Alyssa
My first one is one that I just started talking about, which is find activities that are good for you that also make you happy. So the biggest way to find, maintain healthy habits are to find habits that you actually enjoy doing and that you get up every morning wanting to do, excited to do, because you’re much more likely to do those things on a regular basis. You’re much more likely to keep them in your in your life for longer. [00:30:41.440] – Alyssa
I’m not a huge fan of, like, doing something that just because you think it’s good for you, but you don’t feel great afterwards or you kind of are the second you finish your dreading the next time you have to do it. Because like you said, happiness is such an enormous part of fitness and wellness that I really don’t think these things are worth doing unless you enjoy them. And there are so many ways you can impact your health in a positive way that you’re bound to find at least one that that makes you happy while you do it. [00:31:24.580] – Alyssa
My second strategy is to be kind to yourself. So life is busy. It’s unpredictable. You could have this set plan of like you’re going to do X workout, you’re going to make X dinner, but then your car breaks down and you have to wait for triple A for three hours and then you end up pizza and really like these are things that are not going to derail all of your efforts. They’re not things that mean you have to erase any progress you’ve made so far and kind of go back to start. And so just giving yourself that leeway to deal with those kinds of twists and turns when when they arrive and really just do what you can, when you can and be proud of what you’ve accomplished is really, really important. [00:32:27.640] – Alyssa
And then my last strategy is to just be outside as much as possible. I know personally, I just I always feel better about life when I’m when I’m outside and whether that can be something of like walking your dog every day, going on hikes on the weekends or even just kind of sitting outside for a couple of minutes in the morning while you drink your coffee. I feel like the kind of being connected to nature, even if you live in a city or something like that, just kind of feeling the fresh air or the sun or like seeing grass or trees just has such a kind of calming, stress reducing effect that really can just take you out of your head, even if it’s just for a couple of minutes and give you that moment of feeling refreshed and renewed and also empowered to tackle anything that might come your way. [00:33:40.070] – Allan
Thank you. Alyssa. If someone wanted to learn more about you and the things that you’re doing, including your book, The OMAD Diet, where would you like for me to send them? [00:33:50.160] – Alyssa
Sure. When this goes live, the the diet will be available for purchase wherever books are sold. It’s on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, a lot of different places. So if you search for it there, you should be able to find it. You can also find it. And a lot of the other work I do on my website, which is alyssasybertz.com. And there you’ll find information and links to the book, as well as to a lot of the other writing and stuff that I do. [00:34:37.100] – Allan
All right. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/466. And I’ll be sure to have the links there. Alyssa, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness. [00:34:47.840] – Alyssa
Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.
Post Show/Recap
[00:34:57.130] – AllanWelcome back, Ras. [00:34:58.570] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, wow, that was a really, really interesting interview about a whole new way of eating. It’s really an interesting concept to just choose one meal per day. There’s a lot of things I like about it, but I also have a few questions. [00:35:12.940] – Allan
Yeah, it’s you know, I’ve done it before on accident only because, you know, like, my truck got stuck in the mud. I think I’ve told this story on here. My truck gets stuck in the mud. I was gone working on a yard area I owned on some property, worked for the morning pretty hard. And then as I was trying to pull out, my truck got stuck. So I had to call AAA to pull me out of my own property and their truck broke. And so three hours later, waiting for a part, getting that fixed. [00:35:42.350] – Allan
I went fishing because that’s why I own the land in the first place. So I’m over there fishing and taking my you know, I’m I’m fine. I’m not worried about it, but I’m driving back and realizing it’s been 24 hours since I had any food whatsoever. [00:35:53.500] – Rachel
Wow. [00:35:53.950] – Allan
Because when I do my fasting, which I do intermittent fasting almost consistently when I’m in full ketosis because I’m just not hungry that often. And my goal in ketosis, particularly at the very beginning of it, is to reduce some body fat. So I will skip a breakfast. I still eat breakfast foods when I break my fast, maybe lunch time or later. I’m not going to get stuck in the whole thing of eggs and bacon and have to be in the morning. I’ll eat them whenever I want to. But so I’ve I’ve been to a point where I had one meal a day. But I think a lot of people that get into intermittent fasting and OMAD just they struggle initially because it is not something you just do. You don’t just sit there and say, I had dinner last night, I’m going to wait until dinner to eat. [00:36:40.450] – Allan
If you’re not conditioned, I’m ready for it. You’re going to see blood sugar spikes and plummets. And it’s not it’s not going be a fun experience. And I think the other thing that a lot of people do wrong with OMAD or with any kind of intermittent fasting is they just don’t eat enough food. [00:36:57.430] – Rachel
Mm hmm. [00:36:58.900] – Allan
You know, food is its energy, but it’s also nutrition. And so it’s not just it’s not just about calories. When you get into OMAD, you know, you’ve got to make sure you’re getting your nutrition in that one meal. So if you’re going to try the OMAD diet, you’re probably going to have to supplement with some vitamins and minerals because you’re probably going to find it hard to get all of that nutrition in one meal unless you really, really focus on it. [00:37:27.460] – Allan
Now, Alyssa in in her book, has laid out some pretty good plans and some one approach to it. So if you’re interested in it, I think you do want to do a little bit of research first. [00:37:39.580] – Rachel
Yeah, that was my biggest question was how do you pack all of the nutrients you need to have into one meal? Like how how can you get a full day’s worth of nutrients and into one simple meal? [00:37:52.990] – Allan
It’s it’s really about nutritional density. OK, so you’re not going to have white bread? That’s going to be something you eat. White potatoes, you might you might occasionally have that, but you’re going to be really looking for the vegetables that are really high in the vitamins and minerals that you’re going to want. [00:38:16.300] – Allan
You may, you know, do salt and you may have some potassium with your so you’re looking at what are the foods I can have that are going to give me my potassium? What are the foods that are going to give me my zinc and then iodine and the whole bit. And that’s what I was saying, is there’s a there’s a nutritional density limit there. So you’re you’re eating a lot of food. That one meal is a lot of food, but you want to look for the most nutritionally dense foods you can have so that you know that you’re getting a balanced diet because it’s still in the end you need that nutrition. Your body needs that nutrition. Short run. [00:38:50.530] – Allan
You know, you can you can go with fewer calories, but that’s not that’s not sustainable. And if you’re just doing this as a diet, meaning a fixed period of time, and then you’re going to go back to eating normal, you’re going to yo yo like crazy. [00:39:05.000] – Rachel
Yeah, it sounds really challenging to not to mention that we have so many habits, you know, the morning coffee and an afternoon snack and a dessert after dinner or something or an evening snack. It’s like there’s so many habits that are built around our meals that it would be really a big foreign concept just to stick with one meal and not have anything else throughout the day. [00:39:27.940] – Allan
Yeah, well, my thoughts would be, OK, start with a step away approach, you know, so like with intermittent fasting, if I were coaching someone on intermittent fasting, I’d say, OK, look, you had your dinner at seven o’clock, so from seven or seven thirty you were eating OK. [00:39:44.140] – Allan
And then you wake up in the morning and maybe normally you would have your breakfast at seven o’clock. And so you’re saying, OK, that’s about a 12 hour gap. So that’s a fast. We have break-fast, so we break our fast. Well, if you can push your breakfast to 8:00. OK, it’s one extra hour and you might feel a little hungry. Mm hmm. That’s actually good. [00:40:06.610] – Rachel
Yeah. [00:40:07.840] – Allan
It’s it’s not a bad thing to feel a little hungry. You’re actually not going to starve. And being a little hungry is good because you feel that you actually now are listening to the leptin ghrelin conversation in your body, which is how we know we’ve eaten enough food. So you push it off an hour and you see how you feel and then you get used to that eight o’clock breakfast time and then when you’re ready, you push it off to nine o’clock and it gets easier as you practice this. But the other side of it is, no, you can’t you can’t be eating a lot of high glycemic index foods for those meals, because if you eat high glycemic breakfast, yeah, at eight o’clock by 10, 30, 11 o’clock, you’re going to be starving again as your blood sugar plummets and you’re going to want that morning snack or second breakfast, as they call it. [00:41:01.630] – Allan
So you want to avoid that in the best way to avoid that is eating nutritionally dense foods with their protein and some fat. And I would say particularly in the morning, moderate or low carbohydrate. Most of my breakfast, I have no carbohydrates, because you don’t you actually don’t need the carbohydrates at all, your body will turn to protein and fat into energy if it needs to. If it can, it’ll also use body fat. So if you tend to be towards low carb, it’s going to make intermittent fasting much easier. In fact, it might just accidentally happen. You wake up, it’s like I’m not hungry. [00:41:38.710] – Rachel
Right. [00:41:39.080] – Allan
I’m gonna go ahead and go. And you find at 1:00 or 2:00 o’clock, you’re like, well, I probably should eat and I usually do. And that’s one of the things when I’m doing my intermittent fasting, as I sometimes even force myself to have a meal at two o’clock in the afternoon, because I know having just one meal at six o’clock is going to make it very difficult for me to get enough nutrition in. So I’ll say, OK, I’m going to have, you know, a good salad. And so it’s going to have a good mix of vegetables in it and a protein source. [00:42:05.500] – Allan
So maybe I’m going to make a tuna fish salad. You know, I put that on an actual garden salad and I might sprinkle some bacon on there for just, you know, fairy dust and, you know, and maybe even cut up a little bit of an avocado and say, I’ll have the rest of that for dinner. So that’s a good, solid meal. Give me a good base of nutrition. Sure. It’s it’s generally light, so it’s not going to be overfilling. And I have at about two o’clock and then I can have a reasonable good dinner with some, you know, a good protein source and some vegetables to round out my dinner. [00:42:42.040] – Allan
And if I feel like I’m not getting the nutrition I need because, you know, maybe I’m saying, OK, I am eating some vegetables that have vitamin C, but I’m not eating a lot of fruit. So maybe I say I need to go ahead while I’m doing this. I need to take a vitamin C supplement. And so I might supplement with vitamin C, I might supplement with vitamin D. It’s really just going to depend on how I feel I’m getting the nutrients I need based on how I’m eating. [00:43:07.990] – Rachel
Yeah. Two meals a day. A day seems a lot more manageable than maybe one meal a day. [00:43:15.520] – Allan
In general I would agree. But there’s, there are there is a lot to be said. You know, the science, the science isn’t really there to say yay or nay. At least that’s what I heard going through all these, all these readings and talkings and all that is that when our body doesn’t have to focus on dealing with food, you can do a lot of other things. That energy gets used somewhere else. It was a kind of a we were going through the coffee plantation I talked about. [00:43:42.730] – Allan
He was saying, OK, if a plant gets too many berries on it, it can’t keep up with all the berries. So some of the berries just die off because the plants a plant knows I only have a certain amount of energy, I can only ripen so many fruits and then while it’s got fruit, it can’t grow. So no more leaves. It needs the leaves for energy. So it’s this trade off balance of what with the energy I have, what can I do? [00:44:12.610] – Allan
And in our bodies are the same way. If we’re not if we’re using our energy or not giving our body enough energy, it turns off functions that we would like to be doing. So share in thinking about what you eat, how often you eat. You know, those types of decisions that we’re making. We’re making those energy decisions for our body because we’re setting that mold in place. [00:44:36.610] – Allan
And so, you know, it’s that how much rain or how much sun a plant gets, how rich the soil is. We’re creating our own soil. We’re creating our own rain and our own sun. So if we’re not drinking enough water, if we’re not feeding ourselves right to give us the energy, and if we’re not grounding ourselves and doing the good things for our lifestyle, we’re not creating an environment that allows our body to flourish. [00:45:03.310] – Rachel
It’s interesting, you mentioned and similarly, I think it gives our brain a little bit of time away because how much time do we spend all day thinking about our next meal or what we need to do? And every day I get the question from the family, what’s for dinner? Even though I’m the one that cooks it, it’s Mike. But, you know, we spend a lot of time planning grocery shopping. What are we going to do for us? What are we going to cook if if that’s the attractive thing about one meal a day is that I only have to answer that question once. Then plan it out once, then I’ve got all those extra free time. I can do other things with my brain. [00:45:39.250] – Allan
And I think, as you go into that, you can go even a step further. And if you did some batch cooking, can you imagine the leverage you have. If you go through on a Saturday, Sunday and you cook four or five big meals. [00:45:54.370] – Rachel
Yeah. [00:45:54.910] – Allan
And you have those ready through the week, your whole workweek could basically be taken care of and you wouldn’t even have to think about food. You just know, OK, on Monday we’re having steak. On Tuesday, we’re having roast, you know, maybe a roast Saturday or Sunday we’re having this this vegan lasagna. And, you know, when you get through your week, you’re like by the time you get to Friday, it’s like, wow, you know, I didn’t have to actually do any cooking and I can hit the farmer’s market tomorrow and do it all again. [00:46:24.010] – Rachel
I love that. That is a great idea. We need to do more of that. [00:46:28.480] – Allan
Support your local farmers, you know. [00:46:30.050] – Rachel
That’s right. [00:46:30.500] – Allan
So that’s why I bought the the coffee from from this place. And if you find yourself in Boquete, please message me and let me know and I’ll I’ll hook you up with these guys. They’ve got a little they brought a container down with their stuff, you know, we did it, we high, we hired someone and it’s their container. But they actually bought a container up in the States and brought it down and then they turned the container into an apartment. [00:46:55.900] – Rachel
Oh, wow. [00:46:56.540] – Allan
Yeah. So they rent out this container on a on a coffee farm. Oh, my God. You want good coffee every morning when you wake up, this is the place to stay. But anyway… [00:47:07.990] – Rachel
That sounds great. [00:47:08.920] – Allan
And you can have coffee. Coffee is not really breaking a fast or a couple calories maybe in a coffee. But for the most part, the black coffee is not a violation of OMAD. You’re not going to go to OMAD jail for having your coffee. [00:47:22.390] – Rachel
Good. It’s a good thing. [00:47:24.910] – Allan
Yeah. All right, Rachel, this is a really good conversation. [00:47:28.300] – Rachel
It was. [00:47:28.300] – Allan
I’ll talk to you next week. [00:47:29.680] – Rachel
Thanks. Take care.
Patreons
The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:
| – Anne Lynch | – John Somsky | – Margaret Bakalian |
| – Deb Scarlett | – Judy Murphy | – Melissa Ball |
| – Debbie Ralston | – Leigh Tanner | – Tim Alexander |
Thank you!