Day 14 of OMAD! Aside from the downfall of the holiday, I have been staying strong. I'm no longer hungry during the day. This has helped keep me from indulging in the office candy bowl at work. I have been eating one meal a day, and I am 6 pounds down in 14 days. That's an average of 3 pounds a week. I hit 210 pounds and it was too much for me. I knew it was time to change.

This journey has already shown me how much of my eating was environment triggered. I get very stressed out, and my reaction is to crave sugar. I have been journaling and taking time to reflect with my newly taken up yoga practice to make changes. I don't want food to control me anymore.

Thank you to everyone who responded to this thread. It is my goal to update this thread at least once a day to stay accountable.

Update for 7/11/16:

I am now .7 from being under 200 lbs.

I learned a little something yesterday. I get more psychological cravings now than physical ones. I am not hungry during the day, but I get something in my mind that sounds good and I concentrate on it until I fulfill it. For example, early last week I was hungry for Carne Asada fries from the local Mexican fast food joint. I ignored it for several days, but after my feeding window was pushed back by an hour yesterday I decided to break down and go get it. I knew I wasn't going to eat the whole thing, but it seemed like the craving would subside if I just gave in. So I ordered my fries, enjoyed the heck out of the portion I did eat, and gave the rest to my boyfriend.

1) It didn't taste THAT great. It satiated me with the taste I was craving, but it wasn't as fantastic as I was expecting. 2) Although I am going into week 3 of OMAD, I didn't think my body was to the point it craved healthy foods yet. However, after the food passed through my stomach like liquid lava I felt TERRIBLE. Seriously terrible. I soothed my tummy with water and some walking on the treadmill. Now I know a psychological craving is not worth the physical repercussions!

I have struggled with emotional eating and binge eating long before I knew these were conditions. A few months ago when I knew I was 'trying' to lose weight but nothing was happening I started a journal to help keep me on track. It pin pointed a lot of my emotional downfalls where I turned to food (sugar) for comfort or stress relief. Interestingly enough, I feel more balanced now eating one meal a day and it seems my stress levels have also come down. There was only one day last week I caved and ate a few cookies at work. I took the lesson of not beating yourself up for not having a 'perfect' day (which usually triggers more binging to ease the negative feelings about failure), and moved on. This week my boyfriend has said he wants to cook every day, so I will be eating less fast food/more homecooked meals which I am looking forward too. I still have a little sugary dessert after my meals, but it is coming down (with the intentions of stopping completely) and easing away from fast (processed) foods will be good.

Loving my OMAD lifestyle so far.

Today I am up .2, but I am still extremely happy! I know my body is adjusting since I dropped by 2 lbs, 2 times last week.

Today I am feeling nice and hungry but it is not unmanagable. I have not been drinking enough water the last few days. I have been so busy I can barely change my mind let alone get more water in me. I tend to drink Iced Tea with dinner since I like to have something flavored with food. I'm proud that I have not given in to any soda temptations over the last few weeks. I have been sticking to water and tea, or sometimes a black coffee during work. I cannot do artificially sweetened beverages because I have a reaction to Aspartame. It makes me break out in these horrible red bumps.

I have 10 days until vacation. It could not come fast enough! I plan to go shopping on Saturday for some summer clothes to wear at Disney.

thebobo6740 wrote: »

I love Disney! You are going to feel great and enjoy your trip so much! Good job, and I really enjoy reading your updates, the one from July 11th really resonated with me...

Me too! It's been over 5 years since I have been. We are also going to Universal Studios so I can be at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter for my birthday!

Today has been an interesting day. I continue to troll the MyFitnessPal communities for support and inspiration. Tonight I had spaghetti with meatballs for dinner. The day to day has been uneventful the last few days, but I'm holding in there. Since I had to finish an exam for school, there was no workout for me today. I will probably still make time for yoga this evening. I took up my yoga practice that I had let go of back in 2012. I had made a New Year's resolution to do yoga, and I was getting pretty far with it. You know, I was advancing and getting more flexible Kama getting more ability to do different poses, but then I let it go. It's been very good for me to pick it back up. More updates tomorrow.

My entry from yesterday got eaten. Booger!

Today I weighed in at 201.2. My body is stabilizing. Even though the scale has gone up, my body looks slimmer. I had a "refeed" day yesterday, where you eat slightly more than you would on your normal OMAD (which is only done periodically). So I did have some food during the day, and I had 8 oz of soda at dinner. O: I know, bad! Today I am back on track with drinking water throughout the day.

My body went into shut down mode yesterday, but not from OMAD. The last two weeks I was working day shift, and two over night shifts during the week. I had college midterms for my accounting class and I was staying at someone elses house to dog sit their furry babies. The change in schedule didn't affect me too much until yesterday. Yesterday, I had the zombie effect. I felt tired through out work yesterday. I was feeling very hungry throughout the day so I had dinner earlier than usual (4pm instead of 6 pm). After dinner I sat on the couch to relax on one of my rare off nights (no church, no classwork, no workouts, no obligitory dinners with family), and I started dozing off around 5. At 730 I peeled myself off the couch, still feeling very groggy, and climbed into bed. Aside from the 1am - 2am wake up session, I slept until 5:30 this morning. I woke up feeling normal, not tired, the sugar cravings that were plaguing me yesterday have subsided. The only downside is feeling dehydrated. On the one hand I'm sad I missed my one day off, but on the other I can tell my body needed the rest and I'm grateful I was able to claim it.

2.2 lbs to hit my first goal of 199! Still 7 days out from my vacation, which if things go on course I will still be under 200 by then. Even if I don't reach that goal by vacation, I am planning my trip with care so I don't over do it while I'm not at home and out of my routine.

So I just read the "The Truth About Exercise at a Calorie Deficit" thread.

arguablysamson wrote: »

The truth about exercise is that when you are big, you release the stress hormone called cortisol much easier with the same amount of exercise that a smaller person would have little or no trouble doing. Look at how much easier a smaller person can run upstairs compared to a bigger person, or how much further a smaller man or woman can run than a bigger person. Because of this strain on your body, a body can go into shock. Bodies react differently. Not all exercise is the same, but this is due to your body's inability to handle the stress more than anything else. What is good for one person can be bad for another, and what saves one life can end another.
[...]
Why is this the case? Because, as stated, being big has you taxing your body severely at a calorie deficit. It is already hard enough on your body as you maneuver your weight around. This produces stress, which impedes weight-loss, and in fact, puts your body into fat-building mode since it starts to "freak out" and seek ways to store fat for hard times ahead.

I think I may have found my issue. It's so strange to think I need to NOT exercise as much. However, when I was house-sitting, admittedly I wasn't exercising as much. Giving this a try.

Scale is still at 202.4. I went a little crazy yesterday with dinner, having a cookie and a half over what I meant to, and drinking a glass of soda. I am so busy this week I will try to update.

200.8 today! Today is my last day of work, and then I go on vacation. My goal is to not go too crazy while on vacation. Since I am not hungry during the day usually I am hoping to stick to one large meal in the evenings which is my home routine. I may be eating more however because 1) I am on vacation 2) Birthday--cake is mandatory! 3) I will be walking around for 12-14 hours a day so I may need more fuel.

I don't think it will be too difficult because I will be kept busy and occupied during the day so I wont be thinking about food.

Even though I didn't get what I desired, which was to be in the 199's range for vacation, I'm so close it still feels like a victory. Strangely, I am feeling anxious about not having a scale while I am gone to continue to monitor my progress. I know a lot of experts say don't weigh yourself every day, but I find I need to weigh myself every day because it keeps me on track. It's too easy to backslide if I'm not being careful, and stepping on that scale is a daily reminder that I am on a journey. I will be weighing myself first thing Sunday morning July 31, 2016.

I started this journey Saturday June 25, 2016 at 210.4, and now Friday, July 22, 2016 I am at 200.8. That is 9.6 pounds lost in 4 weeks or 2.4 pounds per week. It works! And I'm learning to anticipate it working instead of being another failed attempt.