Dear Kayla,
Have you ever done a video showing what you actually eat in your OMAD (One Meal A Day) window? This might be helpful for those of us that are overthinking the eating window. If you have, can you provide me with a link?
Thank you!!!
Christine
Dear Christine,
Thanks for your question! One thing I love best about OMAD is the freedom that comes with it. Diets typically dictate what you can and cannot eat. But with OMAD, I eat whatever I’m in the mood for, or whatever’s in the budget, or whatever someone sets before me. Everything is on the menu. My philosophy is: eat the food.
This is not a popular opinion. There’s a lot of diet dogma out there, especially on YouTube. Carnivores tell me I’m eating too many vegetables. Vegans tell me not to eat meat. Keto folks tell me to cut out the sugar. They won’t convince me. I won’t convince them. Because the topic is polarizing, my strategy is to put the monkey on the individual’s back. Each person must figure out what works for them.
I don’t routinely discuss what I eat for the sake of my own mental health. I struggled with my weight and my relationship with food from childhood until age 31. Rarely did I experience peace when I sat down to eat a meal. Instead, there was a constant inner dialogue that bickered about what I should or shouldn’t be eating. It was an exhausting food drama that took up too much mental space. Until one day, I shut it off.
I got rid of the notion that certain foods were bad, and certain ones were good. From that day forward, I was going to be grateful for every bite, no matter what it was. That’s when I found peace with food.
I don’t (even mentally) refer to any food as junk food. I’ve read too many accounts of starvation situations to think of food in such a dismissive way. Mark Haub’s convenience store diet also informed my paradigm. Watching the eating habits of people around me and noticing their quality of life gave me food for thought. People like Elizabeth Sullivan, a woman who lived to 106 and who credited her longevity to drinking 3 Dr. Peppers a day, also shaped my views. All these things helped me form my own conclusions about food. To put it simply, I eat everything and I don’t worry about it.
However, I’m not bulletproof. I’m all too human. Posting videos about what I’m eating on YouTube is treading on dangerous ground. I’m careful about when I do it, in what way, and how often. Overthinking and a lack of peace can creep in all too easily. That said, I have publicly shared what I eat at OMAD occasionally.
- Five years ago, I made a video that detailed the previous week’s OMAD meals. You can watch the video and see the list of meals and amounts here.
- I post vlogs frequently for Insiders where I talk about what I’ve been eating at my OMADs. If it ever leads to overthinking, I’ll stop.
- Yesterday I uploaded this video, where I detail 5 cheap OMAD meals I regularly eat. (Click here for accompanying blog post that has the recipes and cost breakdown.
- During live Q&As I sometimes will give a rundown of the past few OMADs I had, based on my own recollections.
There is no need for a meal plan or complicated rules with OMAD. If the scale is moving down, you’re eating the right amount in order to lose weight. If the scale is not moving down, eat less at your OMAD. Anything beyond that is overthinking. Keep it simple.
A quick clarification: when I say OMAD, I literally mean one meal a day. I sit down to eat a single meal. When I finish with the meal, I stand up from the table and begin fasting again. I won’t eat again until supper the next day. For me, there isn’t an OMAD window. If I am eating in a window, I refer to that in the traditional way (16:8, 18:6, 20:4, 22:2, etc).
I hope that clarifies things a bit!
Sincerely,
Kayla