Hey all,
So I hit my goals after starting IF in January (60 pounds!). I’m on OMAD and finding it difficult to switch to maintenance mode.
I’m leaps and bound more active than I ever was before and want to start working on some strength training for the first time in my life (I’m lanky) but getting calories in and controlling hunger on a 16:8 is a lot harder than I thought. Part of the struggle is not to unbalance the other lifestyle changes I’ve made (a lot of walking, cardio), activity that I made sure was sandwiched between my OMAD to offset insulin spikes, etc.
Any tips from the community for making a healthy transition from 9 months of black and white habits to a grayer / groovier maintenance mode?
Thanks in advance.
Tips…
You must have good magnesium levels to build muscle so make certain you are getting enough. Pick the foods that have the lowest carbs. You lost 60 Lbs so your body is fat adapted and can now easily switch from burning carbs to fat so it is not quite as critical as it once was to cut the carbs. Don’t be afraid to eat more and always have a variety of foods when eating as you have the tools in your guts to process a selection of nutrients simultaneously and your body works more efficiently doing that. Biggest suggestion though was magnesium diet as it will help you the most. Green leafy veggies, nuts, fortified whole grain cereal without sugar, chicken, it’s all good food and will give you energy to burn. Try working out near the end of a fast to boost metabolism. Eat after an hour rest to allow the fats to be lowered in your blood.
Maintenance is best approached slowly, only adding a little bit of food each week above what you were eating for weight loss. Since you’re also trying to build muscle, focus on the adds being protein. You may lose a little bit more weight, that’ll balance out as you build muscle and increase your intake
I’m in a similar sort of situation, I think. I’m the typical “if it ain’t broken don’t fix it” sort of person, favoring stability over efficiency and novelty. I adopted OMAD 15 months ago, entered maintenance early this year, depending on how one defines the term. For me it was more of a mental tipping point than a desire to stabilize the scale exactly where it was at the time. I acknowledged that I had lost enough and stopped caring about what I saw on the display day in and out – I still weigh daily and track a bunch of metrics just to stay alert, as, if I don’t, chances are I’ll get complacent and we all know too well what the end product of complacency tends to be –, but nonetheless refrained from introducing any changes. My intent or at least expectation was that I would eventually “exhaust” whatever deficit OMAD indirectly put me in (I don’t formally calorie-count) and that life would go on happily ever after. Surely I’d intervene if I happened to hit underweight, but per my monthly loss rate that didn’t seem likely and in fact didn’t end up happening, as I stabilized (as stable as body weight can be anyway) right above the border. So… happily ever after?
Of course not. What was the old saying – “we don’t really fix problems, we only trade them around”, or something along those lines. Like yourself, my activity has been on the rise – far from dramatically going by any objective scale, though still, given my own sedentary history spanning over a decade, significantly so. Body weight exercises are now a daily thing and slowly but surely the one or other casual walk of an hour or two. These additions require minute amounts of extra fuel, realistically some 100~300 kcal/day extra on average, and my body responds more sensitively to energy shortage at 15% body fat than it used to when it had twice the amount at its disposal a year ago.
For the time being I’m still for the most part just observing, trying to stick with OMAD until I no longer can. 100~300 kcal/day are not exactly hard to come by – a slice or two more cheese, a handful more nuts, a couple more eggs, or just a little bit more oil or butter on my main dish. And the next restaurant dinner bound to provide me with an extra day’s worth of fuel if not more, hardly ever lies much further than a week or two ahead. If I find myself in the position where I need 500 or more additional kcal/day though, I will probably fall back to TMAD (e.g. 18:6), as I wouldn’t want the overall quality and balance of my “fuel mix” to suffer by e.g. going back to highly processed and palatable options; I’d much rather spend twice the time cooking. And I also intend to preemptively schedule TMAD for those comparatively rare days known ahead of time to be going to be activity-packed from dawn till dusk.
Sorry for this autobiography which no doubt has not taken you one inch further. It all obviously boils down to “just eat more if your activity demands it”, but then again figuring out the exact recipe for doing so sustainably, without disrupting the delicate balance built for ourselves over months, takes effort and a certain minimal mental flexibility that I personally admittedly struggle at times to find.
I’m in maintenance mode also after doing OMAD and reach my goal. I tried to do more 16:8 but I noticed I gained a few pounds. Some days even with OMAD I’m not as strict with the hours.
For me, I think I have to be on top of the OMAD and do close to 22:2 to even maintain and keep my weight below 180lbs. It is what it is, but I don’t mind because it isn’t too hard to do. My issue is I overeat sometimes now when doing OMAD.