Maggie's Farm

I've had some luck over the last 3 1/2 months, down 20 lb. I've been doing what is called OMAD (One Meal A Day). I haven't controlled the food, except active avoidance of sugar/HFCS in the food. Drinking black coffee, seltzer water, water.

A few things I've found. At first, I would crash, even if I ate my meal before the activity. This is dangerous as the treatment is to eat/drink sugar to pull out. I picked up some glucose tablets to have a controllable counter if I crashed. This has abated. It seemed early on, my body didn't know how to turn on the use of body fat for energy.

I also, occasionally had cravings an hour or so after eating. It felt like my body was dumping insulin into my system out of habit. I found I can mute this by having a sugar cube. Tried the glucose only but it wasn't as effective. I believe there's something, perhaps a habit forming element that demands fructose. The sugar cube is easy to control dosage without creep. Don't know if the chemical bond on the fructose/glucose in the sugar is important compared to the none in HFCS.

Both of those got less after 2 months.

I did have one meal out, burger/fries. Not off my diet, but I do avoid commercial buns as there's something they put in them, like a preservative that is hit or miss with me. But I did have a diet coke. It was about a month in, interesting experience. First few sip were the chemical bitterness of artificial sweeteners then super sweet taste. I feel the diet soda was a set back and will avoid in the future. Real problem is eating out in the fast food/casual dining is heavy on soda since that's a profit center for the restaurants.

So my feeling is there's a physiological response, likely to the fructose, that my body developed a habit of just dumping insulin post meal. This causes hunger, which you just have a bit to satisfy, and repeat. So the weight problem comes from this stimulus for constant grazing/eating. Then occasionally binge urges for sweets/cookies. I confess the latter were often uncontrollably eaten quickly.

Still working on this, but I feel the real problem is the vicious cycle I relate above. Eat, insulin dump, hunger/eat, insulin dump, repeat all day/everyday. It's less the quantity of one meal (except as for weight loss), than never letting your digetive system rest, clear, and more importantly, the insulin/blood sugar deplete so your body is conditioned to turn to ketosis for a few hours a day for energy.

Because the research has been soooo successful in reducing the obesity rate.

By implication, the research may inform, but it is hardly definitive.