Spring has finally arrived, and the sun has tuned up the temperature notably - as well as my mood, which has been affected by some sleep deprivation in the last six months.
What happened?
Each night, I woke up and had massive issues falling back asleep. Every noise—even those barely noticeable—kept me awake for hours. It felt like I wasn´t able to calm down during the night, and I was in hyper-alert mode all the time. And believe me, all these thoughts that then come chasing you during the night are no fun.
As someone who has always been very proud of their deep sleep, the last six months have been nothing but a pain. So, I really, really need to tackle my sleep issues before they start to influence other areas of my life and my health negatively.
Learnings from the past OMAD challenge
My past food and fasting experiments have revealed that I sleep best after not having eaten for six to eight hours before bedtime. A fact that I might have ignored most of all days in the past months ðŸ«
Based on this and especially after my positive experience with OMAD (=One Meal A Day), I decided it was time to try OMAD again to replicate its positive effects on my sleep.
I will follow the same two simple rules that I set up for my past OMAD challenges:
Eat one meal a day while sticking to low-carb foods
Fast for the rest of the time
The idea is that stabilised blood glucose levels, reduced insulin levels, a relaxed digestive system and the detox effect of fasting help cure my sleep issues and make me more relaxed during the night while more alarmed during the day.
Preparations and first successes
In the last 14 days, I eased myself back into a fasting regime. I went from "3 meals a day" and a 12-hour overnight fast to 14, 16, 18, then 20, 22, and finally 23 hours fast—and thus, One Meal A Day.
At the same time, I flexed back into ketosis to make fasting easier (during ketosis, there are no real fluctuations in blood glucose levels that spike cravings and hunger).
With this setup, I feel ready for OMAD May and am super excited to see my first successes: I already counted three nights in which I could either sleep through or, at least, block out disturbances and fall back to sleep within minutes. While three nights doesn´t sound like a big success, it is already a massive relief and motivates me to take this challenge not only seriously but as a real chance to make lasting positive impacts on my sleep, my health and my life.
Additional positive effects of OMAD
OMAD comes with a huge range of positive effects that we can benefit from besides better sleep.
Reduced insulin levels will increase insulin sensitivity and a better response to the hormone after meals. This then might lead to less water retention, weight loss, clearer skin and and overall improvement in general health.
Additionally, skipping two meals a day gives you a ton of time for your hobbies and family that you might not have had before. Not only does the time spent at meals reduce, but so does the time to go shopping, prepare food, and clean up the kitchen afterwards.
Last but not least, OMAD saves you money on food, medicine, doctors, health apps, or programmes that you otherwise might have spent to cure sleep issues or other health issues, like weight gain or water retention.