OMAD Diet: Intermittent fasting to boost performance and weight loss is skyrocketing in popularity, as modern research uncovers the benefits behind this ancient health practice. One type of intermittent fasting style on the rise is one meal a day, or the OMAD diet. Fasting is a powerful tool for modulating your body’s performance, and not eating for anywhere from 16-48 hours (or longer) can profoundly impact your body and brain.
Types of intermittent fasting styles range from calorie restriction to cycling between regular and fasting days, to limiting the times in a day that you can consume food.
Omad Diet
The OMAD intermittent fasting schedule aims for a 23:1 fasting ratio, giving your body 23 hours each day to reap the benefits of a fasting lifestyle. If you’re looking to burn fat, improve mental resilience, and simplify the time you spend on food, eating just one meal a day could be the key to taking your keto or Bulletproof Diet to the next level.
Read on for a quick guide to starting the one meal a day diet, OMAD benefits, plus the pros and cons you need to decide if this fasting style fits you.
(There are infinite ways to incorporate fasting strategies into your diet. Get the scoop on how to get started with intermittent fasting here.)
Omad Keto
Omad Results
OMAD is a form of intermittent fasting, the practice of cycling in and out of periods of eating and not eating. Different intermittent fasting styles range from fasting one day each week to restricting food to a shortened period each day. OMAD is a popular form of intermittent fasting that shrinks your eating window even more than usual.
In this case, you eat all of your daily calories in just one meal each day — typically fasting for the remaining 23-ish hours. One meal a day fasting lets you reap the health benefits of fasting, while hugely simplifying your schedule (you know, if meal prep and eating feel bothersome to you). Between 4-7 PM is an ideal time to break your fast, giving you fuel when you need it, a time to eat with friends or family, and enough time to digest before heading to bed.
Omad Fasting
From an evolutionary standpoint, humans aren’t meant for three scheduled and square meals a day. Your ancestors developed powerful adaptations to keep their bodies and brains performing at high levels, even when food was scarce. Intermittent fasting schedules such as OMAD supercharge your body by activating stress response pathways that boost mitochondrial performance, autophagy, and DNA repair in your cells, as well as triggering beneficial metabolic changes and preventing chronic disease processes.
If you’re a woman, you may have different needs when it comes to intermittent fasting.
What Is Omad
OMAD can be a pretty extreme intermittent fasting schedule, especially for newbies. Avoiding food for 23 hours a day takes a lot of extra effort, and creating a situation that stresses you out can undo some of the powerful benefits from fasting.
Here, the top three tips for transitioning into one meal a day schedule, and finding the right balance for your body
Omad Benefits
- Increased focus and productivity. Who hasn’t hit that groggy 2:30 p.m. slump at the office?
- Weight loss. It’s extremely hard to be at a caloric surplus when you’re eating one time per day.
- Diet freedom. Forget logging calories or eating out of Tupperware.
Omad Before And After
To set yourself up for the best intermittent fasting results and the least crankiness: limit the number of carbs in your diet. When you eat a lot of carbohydrates, your body will stockpile glucose as glycogen — this means it takes a lot longer for your body to shift into ketosis, or fat-burning mode when you are fasting.
Limiting your starches and fruit by following the Bulletproof Diet or eating keto will curb your hunger and keep your body feeling satisfied longer without the ups and downs of sugar crashes.