OMAD - Why do people eat this way?

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  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
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    I have never done it but I likely could easier than most. I rarely eat breakfast, even on days that I burn 800/900 calories on my hard cardio days. I would rather drink black coffee in the AM. Only two days a week, when I really push it, am I hungry by 1 PM.

    I'm a natural early evening eater. I like huge dinners, though healthy, and I stop eating around 7 PM or so.

    Aside from a decent lunch, which I think I could easily put off with my natural inclinations, I could do this (though I don't know what purpose, at all, it would serve). Once you get beyond a certain time frame, though IF for the sake of extending time, isn't valuable. I do believe IF trains your body to burn fat more easily, but even that's iffy science.

    Like @NovusDies mentioned above, the concern is you're supposed to eat around your workouts. I recover best when I eat at least 2/3 of my exercise calories back within an hour. Otherwise, fatigue can set in and you have slower recoveries. If I didn't exercise at all, this might be easy to do. With working out harder 6 days a week, that's different.
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
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    I actually knew a guy who did OMAD for at least 5 or 6 years (might still be doing it - we lost touch). This was before it was called OMAD. He was not fat at all - actually quite thin, a coworker with a very athletic/active lifestyle. I was stunned by the notion that someone would only eat once per day, but he said he didn't have time to work his 12 hr/day job, pursue all his interests, raise a family, and then waste 2 hours per day preparing and eating three meals. So he just ate one and was happy with that. When I asked if he was hungry, he said you'd be surprised, the less often you eat the less hungry you are when it isn't mealtime. Which I thought was a giant crock of s&&t at the time - one of those "easy for a thin person to say" things.

    Fast forward to today, I eat noon to 7 pm, which is not OMAD. But I now agree with his observation. I used to wake up starving, and be starving all evening, and nowadays, the only time I'm generally hungry is between noon and 7 pm. Occasionally at 11:30 am as my brain tries to get ahead of me LOL

    So I think the answer is, OMAD like other forms of TRE can help manage hunger, and like all other forms of TRE, the idea as far as how it works for weight loss is to compact your calorie consumption into a window so that it's easier to hit a calorie target. However, my n=1 data point is of a very thin, non-food-focused person. I know OMAD would never work for me. I love the eating parts of my day, and I think trying to narrow them down to an hour would leave me very dissatisfied. Seems to me that unless you fall into OMAD naturally, which must be quite rare, it requires an iron discipline that more laid back forms of TRE don't require of you.
  • Dogmom1978
    Dogmom1978 Posts: 1,580 Member
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    Once upon a time, I had a job that was so demanding I never had time to eat. I ate once a day when I got up and then was so exhausted by the time I got home, that I would throw myself into bed and go to sleep.

    I did NOT consume enough calories. I lost over 70 lbs, but I looked sickly and had 0 energy. As soon as I quit that job, I started to gain the weight back because I had time to eat again. I wasn’t doing OMAD though, I was just grossly under eating. My single meal was one buttered onion roll and a cup of coffee... maybe 350 calories? I wasn’t tracking back then.

    People CAN eat a balanced diet with OMAD and lose weight, but again, it isn’t magic, it works by being in a deficit.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    If I'm in a diet so less to eat, I usually fall into OMAD just because of the schedule.
    Well, 1-2 hr OMAD depending on how much to eat, if that still counts. Maybe that's a short IF instead.

    Busy with things (now helping high risk friends with errands and my mom much more) and trying to get workouts in, dinner doesn't happen until 10-11 many nights, follow up with snack closer to midnight to finish off the calories. Up until 2 am usually so a few hours to digest before going to bed.
    In which case yes lots of heat from all that processing, especially if hard bike ride and lots of carb-store filling.

    If I'm in maintenance, then IF with about 3-4 hr window is fine, though dinner is still usually late, I may just get in some snacks prior to exercise, or if long ride then during.

    I've been shocked how well I can still do a workout fasted after 18-19 hrs, what workout occurred the prior day has more an impact than the fast, in diet or maintenance.
    And not hungry unless I do eat something during day.
  • Jacq_qui
    Jacq_qui Posts: 429 Member
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    Eat at a deficit, move more. There's a new way of eating every time I log on here it seems. You can do it how you wish , but is it sustainable? if you want to live like that and it works for you, then sure. But if it's just a temporary change I personally can't see the point -you'll just have to 'retrain' yourself to eat at a deficit/new maintenance when your done/bored with it/hit weight goal.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,995 Member
    edited October 2020
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    It's made life slightly easier. No longer am I cooking 3 times a day or ordering food.

    I realise you were only describing what works and how/why it works for you - but just on this point; although I eat usually 3 meals, 2 snacks per day (sometimes bit different on weekends) I am definitely not cooking or ordering food (you mean, buying take out food?) 3 times per day


    Nearly always only eat one cooked meal per day - and if it is ever 2, one is cooked by someone else - eg some days at work cooked lunch is provided.

    My breakfast and lunch consist of cold things like cereal, yoghert, fruit, crackers, sandwich.
    Occasionally toast - which I guess is technically a cooked meal

    nearly always only my main meal at tea time is a full cooked meal.
  • VeryKatie
    VeryKatie Posts: 5,931 Member
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    I don't do it... but I think people assume if they eat OMAD they can only consume so much before getting full, thus resulting in weight loss.

    That or it could be time constraints, such as being a Dr, nurse, paramedic, or something.

    Or maybe they find figuring out what the heck to eat a bunch of times a day stressful, I could understand that.
  • whoami67
    whoami67 Posts: 297 Member
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    I do it frequently, usually when I'm working or when I want to eat something that doesn't fit into a 3 meals and a snack style menu. Some days I'm hungry so I eat more often. Some days OMAD is easy and I don't even give it a thought.

    For example, if I want pizza, I probably want to eat 3-4 slices of pizza and I probably want a salad with it with regular salad dressing. That's my whole days' calories so I eat OMAD. Yes, I could eat 1 slice of pizza, but I don't find that satisfying and then I feel sorry for myself and then I overeat to make myself feel better. Easier and more satisfying to eat OMAD on pizza day. Or I enjoy a nice Sunday brunch of eggs Benedict with some fruit, a cappuccino and a mimosa...that's pretty much the whole day's calories, too. Therefore, OMAD.

    Or when I'm working, I usually work 12-15 hours at a time with little time or access to decent food. I can either gulp down whatever I can find at work that doesn't need refrigeration or heating and can be consumed in 2-3 minutes while doing something else (and which will probably make me feel awful), or I can wait until I get home and make a nice meal. I don't really get hungry during the day until I start eating so I just don't start and then it's easy to wait until I get home from work.
  • swimmchick87
    swimmchick87 Posts: 458 Member
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    Normally I skip breakfast, do a small lunch (300ish calories) and then eat the majority of my calories for dinner. I am NOT a morning person and don't want to get up any earlier to fit breakfast in. Besides that, I find if I do eat breakfast (very occasionally I will, if it's provided at work or something, like 2-3x per year) I'm significantly MORE hungry the rest of the day than if I just skip it. As for lunch, I find that I am so busy at work that it doesn't matter what I'm eating/I don't focus on it that much. I'd rather have the bulk of my calories in the evening when I can relax and enjoy them.

    Every once in awhile, if I'm really craving something super high calorie, I will skip lunch too so that I have all of my calories for that one meal and then can still stick to my calorie goal for that day. I actually just did that on Friday- I was really craving this buffalo chicken mac n cheese from a local place. I skipped lunch and picked it up on the way home, around 4:30 PM, and then didn't eat a snack or anything later at night either. It's definitely not something that I'd want to do every day, and I do think it would be challenging to get the right nutrients eating that way every day. For me it's more of an every once in awhile mitigation strategy if I want to fit something super high calorie in.

    Or, also very occasionally, I get so busy at work that I legitimately forget to eat my lunch until well past "lunch time." In those cases, I often reason I may as well use that as an excuse to get something higher calorie after work and just skip the lunch all together, rather than eating "lunch" only an hour or two before I plan to leave work.
  • Whidislander
    Whidislander Posts: 3,454 Member
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    I love eating the OMAD lifestyle. It isn't so much about losing weight, but its about putting myself in autophagy. During that time my body heals itself. Autophagy literally means self eating. So its cleaning house! My skin loves it, my scars love it, and it has essentially cleared up a skin condition I have had.
    No I don't eat all my calories in one sitting. Its maybe starting off eating some nuts, while I am fixing what I am having. It helps to crank up the digestive track slowly not feed it a big meal from the get go. I have a meal then a snack, or a dessert. I eat normally from 11:30am to about 3 pm. Then I am done for the day. Easy peasy. I shall eat this way forever.
  • kitaemma
    kitaemma Posts: 40 Member
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    I do OMAD but it’s because I have tummy problems. If I eat 3+ times a day I have tummy problems 3+ times a day so one is just enough for me! I know it’s not for most people but as long as I get enough calories and all of my nutrients in the one large meal it’s been okay!
  • angelexperiment
    angelexperiment Posts: 1,917 Member
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    Basically you can’t eat them all in one sitting it’s more like two medium meals in a two hour period or so. But I still am adjusting what is that to me I prefer I think 2 mad bc I just feel too full in that I tried to eat that much and I feel sick ( eating clean healthy foods) so I try to eat til full but not all of it sometimes and hunger does happen so I just drink a lot of fluids! Tea water coffee
  • SnifterPug
    SnifterPug Posts: 746 Member
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    OMAD wouldn't work for me. I would struggle to eat sufficient calories to fuel my training in only one meal. However 16:8 works brilliantly for me. I have about 400-500 cals at 2pm, about 350 cals at 5pm and main meal around 8.30pm.
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,125 Member
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    I do OMAD/IF and have for several years because of my schedule. I work about 10-12 hrs a day, if I eat in the mornig, I get an upset stomach that I would rather not have, and am much more hungry all day long, so I don't eat until evening. I am also a volume eater. I like to feel like I get to eat a substantial amount of food at a time, not some little piece of this, and a little of that for only 300 calories. It works for me. I get hungry starting usually late afternoon, and I just wait until I get home a couple of hours later to eat a big supper.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
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    What's the opposite of OMAD? Whatever it is that's how I eat :)
  • VeryKatie
    VeryKatie Posts: 5,931 Member
    edited November 2020
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    sardelsa wrote: »
    What's the opposite of OMAD? Whatever it is that's how I eat :)

    Grazing? Eating small amounts almost constantly?
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,979 Member
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    VeryKatie wrote: »
    sardelsa wrote: »
    What's the opposite of OMAD? Whatever it is that's how I eat :)

    Grazing? Eating small amounts almost constantly?

    Plus sleep eating.

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