OMAD, or one meal a day, is a form of intermittent fasting where you only eat... well, once a day. Pretty self-explanatory, OMAD has become really popular. In fact, I got a lot of requests to talk about it. So, I looked at all the science on OMAD. Let's look at the main positives and the potential concerns. First, the positives. #1. OMAD is simple. Not easy (we'll get to that in a second), but simple. You eat once a day, within a 1-hour window, and that's it. You're doing OMAD. No counting calories, no cutting out entire food groups, no complicated meal plans. Simple. Okay, I like simple. What else you got? #2. OMAD can help you cut calories. Unless you're one of those competitive eaters, you're probably not going to eat as much in one meal as if you ate all day long. So, it naturally cuts calories, even if people aren't focused on them.

That can help with weight loss and the usual metabolic improvements that come with it (better glucose, etc). 3. OMAD saves time. Less time spent eating and cooking and doing dishes and whatnot. I like it so far. Simple, saves time. Sounds like my kinda diet. Ok, let's look at the concerns. You're gonna ruin it, aren't you? Not necessarily, they're not negatives per se. More like a heads-up. Something to bear in mind. I don’t have a horse in this race. I don't have anything personal for or against OMAD. As long as people are healthy and making informed choices, whether it's OMAD or IF or whatever acronym they like, fine with me. Stop softening the blow. Let's just hear the negatives. #1: OMAD can be hard. Some people may find it difficult to fast 23h/day. You might feel very hungry. But it's a personal thing. Some people may find it super convenient and doable.

#2 is the issue of quality. I raised this in the 1st intermittent fasting video. Fasting focuses on quantity, but the main issue with food in our society is quality. The last time I mentioned this, some of you brought up an interesting point. Fglend73 said most people who promote fasting promote healthy foods. That's great! If this is clear to everybody out there, great news! And I have no doubt this is obvious for most of you who watch my videos. My concern is I keep seeing these diets marketed to the general public as cheat codes. As this article says: ‘You can eat or drink pretty much whatever you want on OMAD, even pizza, burgers, and beer, and as much as you want, as long as you do it during your scheduled mealtime.’ So that's what I'm talking about. Fasting won’t fix a bad diet. Like I said last time, the main issue is not the fasting, it’s the feasting. It’s possible to lose weight and remain unhealthy. Here's another issue

someone goes on OMAD and loses some weight. Then what? OMAD doesn't teach them how to eat healthy, so they're a little trimmer, and they think 'problem solved,' and they go back to eating the way that created the problem. It's a vicious cycle. Several studies show the weight lost during fasting is often regained unless there is an overall change to how people eat. So I hope that viewer's right and everybody who’s fasting is super clear on this and eating really healthy! Everybody wins! Moving on. #3: If you're gonna do OMAD, I suggest you make sure your nutrient requirements are met. Maybe run your OMAD meal through cronometer to make sure it covers all the vitamins and minerals and fiber and even protein, which normally is one of the easiest nutrients to get enough of, but at one meal a day, you might wanna make sure. 4. If you have conditions like type 2 diabetes, talk to your doctor before you start any form of fasting (OMAD or otherwise).

So: make sure I eat healthy foods between fasting, make sure I get my daily requirements, and make sure I don’t have a condition that makes it dangerous. Anything else? Here's a concern I've seen raised, but I don't necessarily agree. This video by a big channel makes an interesting observation that OMAD may worsen glucose metabolism based on this study. I love that he's showing solid scientific sources. I wish more people would do it. But I'm not sure about that interpretation. The study compared eating 3 meals a day with eating all the food in a big dinner. The negative effects could come from eating only one meal a day, but there's another possibility. It could come from when the meal was eaten. As we saw in the time-restricted feeding video, our circadian rhythm has a strong effect on our physiology and on how we react to food. It’s part of a whole field called chronobiology. Crown of what?? Speak English, son. If people eat a snack late at night, they can have higher cholesterol.

and burn less fat than if they eat the same snack in the morning. Your body uses up more calories to process food in the morning than at night, so when you eat earlier, you end up with less calories even if you ate the same amount of calories. I'll say that again in case it's confusing. If you eat the same amount of calories earlier and later in the day, your body uses a higher percentage of calories earlier, so you end up with less even though you ate the same amount of calories. Crazy, right? Researchers call this effect diet-induced thermogenesis. Thelma, what? Here we go. He's gonna start with the nerd fest. Back to cat videos it is! And that's not all. Research has shown we tend to get hungrier, feel less satiated, and crave more fatty foods at night than in the morning. Many studies point to this circadian effect and suggest we front-load our calories: a strong breakfast and lunch and lighter meals later in the day.

So personally, if I was going to do OMAD, I would do the OMAD meal in the morning or early afternoon. That will give you the benefit of cutting calories from OMAD, plus the chronobiology benefit of eating earlier in the day. This is why it's important we make sure we look at all the data in a field we normally call it the totality of the evidence, but I don't want to get too nerdy on you, okay? No risk of that... In general, with any new dietary trend, we're not going to have a lot of data, precisely because it's new, so it's always a bit of an educated guess with these novelties. So there's a lot of unanswered questions with OMAD, as long as we're honest about what we do and do not know, because the marketing is always going to be hypey, and the new diet is always going to be a miracle that gives you wings and immortality and great hair. So as long as we have the data and we don't fall for that, that puts you in a good position to make an informed choice.

here’s the video on intermittent fasting and the one on meal timing in case you missed them. Let me know if you have any questions. See you next week.

Doctor Reviews OMAD (One Meal a Day)

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