How not to lose muscle on OMAD

MrDracoMalfoy

I'm on my 7th day of OMAD, I lo e it, but I fee like I'm losing muscle.
I eat dinner at 5pm and eat around 1500 to 1800 calories in my meal. I workout in the mornings for an hour. Drink coffe and stevia in the morning and un sweet tea with stevia in mid afternoon. Anyone have any suggestions or have gone through a similar situation?
Thanks in advance.

kjratliff55

Sounds like you are doing fine. It' takes longer than that to lose muscle, losing energy however is another matter.
It will take your system a while to adjust to your current meal schedule. With that said now we get to the hard part....
keeping you Calorie count in your current range make sure you getting a minimum of .7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. If you are working out to gain more muscle (difficult but not impossible when trying to lose weight) add more protein to a max of 2 grams per pound of body weight. Most important for both weight lose and Muscle gain is consistency try not fluctuate much in daily Calorie and Protein intake and don't miss a workout.

MrDracoMalfoy

Great info! Thanks!

NovusDies

1500 calories is the minimum for a sedentary male. 1800 may or may not be enough depending on your workouts.

OMAD is something I did when I was less active. I did it for more than a year without any problems. Now that I am doing the morning workouts though trying to eat one meal a day makes me sick and fatigued.

steveko89

I recently saw another user post a study that suggested a loss rate of 0.7% or less per week was requisite to retain lean mass. As Novus suggested, 1800 probably isn't enough to clear that threshold; it isn't based on my TDEE and I'm 173 lbs. Granted, in 7 days if you've seen the scale drop and feel smaller it's due more to glycogen depletion, dropping calories (and likely carbs), and the adjustment to eating schedule such that there are changes to timing of food in your system.

study link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15615615/

Unknown

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sal10851

Fasting kills gains. There is 5 opportunities for muscle growth synthesis and you're missing out on 4.

psuLemon

If you goal is to maintain or gain muscle, while losing weight, OMAD is going to be suboptimal as you are not stimulating MPS frequently and there is a cap for how much protein a person can utilize in a given period; it will use all the amino acids and calories, but more protein doesn't mean greater MPS rates.

One of the most important things is weight lifting, but maybe do 16:8 and have 2-3 meals in that.

LucasLean

I used to do something like that myself, but it was fasting 20 hours and eating during the 4 hours. I'd eat mornings and fast until about 2 PM. I recommend not doing long fasts (20+ hours) daily though, as you might lose muscle due to high cortisol levels from working out while fasting (both increasing cortisol). Some people can handle it, some can't. I could up to a certain point. I eased off this approach, but it's personal and this is just my opinion. I now eat before my workouts in the morning and spread out my meals. Then I felt my strength growing even while continually losing on the same calories (almost near your calories). You might see great results. I did as well. But it was temporary. I think I might have lost some muscle doing so. Then I incorporated protein before and after my workout and switched back to a more conservative approach, 17:7 (I know, weird numbers). Cortisol isn't bad, only overstimulating it. I changed my opinion on long fasts after watching a Youtube video by Christian Thibadeau about cortisol levels being extremely important to bodybuilding/fasting/dieting/etc. If you do continue doing your fast, eat after your workout at least, which you might need to position before your main meal of the day. The body could adapt to your diet, but the ability to build muscle is strained from such a long fast. It's useful for losing weight, but I would only do it on rest days or about once or twice a week. I noticed no negative effects from doing it once or twice a week. Trying out different strategies is useful. Trust your gut.