Congrats, all. Everyone seems to have taken a step or two up instead of down—some setbacks notwithstanding. I’m royally glad to hear it.
As most of you are now finding out, you have to be careful jumping off and back on OMAD. You will very easily make that a habit, and of course, when that happens, you will have to re-adjust back with great discomfort.
Adjusting back to one meal isn’t all that difficult without the common trigger foods. The trigger foods (cakes, candies, chips, etc) make things insanely hard, which is why it is advisable to give them a total no-go while you are in the prime losing phase (remember, they do NOTHING for you at all, so there is no sense in allowing them a place). You can bring them back in sure enough in maintenance (see below), but even then you have to be careful.
It is easy to see old habits re-appear. Just like that alcoholic friend I once had. He did so well for six years. And then he relapsed. Those jaudicey, yellowing eyes quickly returned, he was again arrested for public intox, and before we knew it, he had crawled into a drunkard’s grave. Once you toy with being out of control, it is hard to take that control back. Once gone, the momentum seems hard to get back. Sure, it may not seem to matter as much with food as opposed to substance abuse, but what you do today affects the you of tomorrow, and you keep putting off your long-term goals when you jump back off and say “this is good enough for now.” Get to where you want to be and then have a solid plan to stay there (again, see below).
My personal update: My current weight is 186.4 as I enjoy maintenance mode and continue to add back lean muscle. The easiest way to maintain weight with little OMAD form-factoring is actually quite fun and pliable; I now do 3 days strict OMAD with the other 4 as “eat anything you want when you want” days, and it all levels out. The times I am around my family or friends, I just eat when everyone else eats. It works out nicely, although my body still prefers to eat once and I often have to remind myself I need at least several big splurge days to keep where I am. This involves me going for “junk”-ish foods, if for no other reason, then to make up for some not-so-big eating days. Amazingly, even with trigger foods, I still find it hard to want to really chow down again. I add in Chinese foods and all sorts of fast foods on peak eating days just to get back those needed calories. If I top out at 4,500 calories, it just levels things off and I’ve got muscle-building tools + lots of extra energy. Lasts for several days, actually, and I have trouble wanting to follow up with another two splurge days.
My activity levels continue to stay high—with the occasional rest day due to some moderate arthritis that has developed in the knees and hips. But if I make a deal with my body to hit it hard consistently and then hike no more than, say, 3 or 4 miles the next day, plus the weights, I recuperate well enough to be just fine and functional after an 8 to 10-mile hike and/or heavy weight routine the next day following. My body continues to get used to rigorous activity. Since I am 40+ now, I do have to take it a bit easier on running, but not really. Just because of the jarring of the body in the process, I save that and do it when needed as opposed to for recreation (and I never really need to).
But for maintenance, it is easiest to work the scale with 2 or 3 days strict OMAD vs 3 or 4 days on unregulated eating. We evolved to go between feast and famine, feast and famine. It just works beautifully to stay in control this way. I finish off each week with two strict 1,200-calorie OMAD days and that takes me quickly back down about 8 or 10 lbs to where I stay where I want to, but if I need to change things up further, I always can and still be in control. The body really likes losing when there are several top-off days in calories. And if I don’t watch it and make sure to get a good amount of eating done on the unregulated days, I will actually lose more weight. This is kind of fun…it’s like a mini-polar bear expedition where I mini-lose and mini-gain and my body gets extra-ready to not make me suffer when I have to go lean again. As with weighing, it is so very easy to track things over the week as opposed to longer time intervals.