How can someone eat for 4 hours continuously, or how is that supposed to be understood?
They call 20-4 OMAD as well as 23-1.The latter makes sense but the former doesnt
What do they actually mean by saying 20-4?
I tried doing OMAD on 23:1, and after taking supplements and prepping/tasting food, by the end of the hour I was in a rush trying to cram everything in my face and finish any non-water beverage. It wasn’t really a healthy situation for me and was rather stressful. It would only work for me if the food was pre-prepared and ready to eat at minute 1, like when I have a pure leftovers meal and don’t need to cook anything for the next day.
I ended up landing on 20:4 for 1 meal so I have a relaxing time frame where I can prep and finish all my food leisurely. Sometimes I cook for the next day during my window to taste recipes. With recipes I’m confident in, I’ll cook in my fasting window and don’t need to taste. I often finish my meal early, but sometimes I get distracted with this or that, leaving and coming back to my meal until the end of the eating window. I call it OMAD because I only eat one meal, but if others want to call it 20:4 because I taste this or that during prep or cooking in my window or finish my non-water beverage a while after my meal, that’s fine.
Your eating window is not continuous eating. Someone who does an 18-6 doesn’t eat continuously for 6 hours. I’m sure some people who do 20-4 eat 2 meals in that 4-hour eating window. Some may only eat one with a snack. Others may only eat one meal. For that matter, one person could do all three depending on the day, their hunger, and their schedule.
I typically eat OMAD but don’t follow a schedule. I could eat dinner one day and breakfast the next making it about a 14 hr fast. Other times it’s dinner to dinner which is more of a 23hr fast. Randomly, I’ll end up skipping a day getting in 36hrs. If I ate my OMAD at the same time every day I could say I did 23-1 but I don’t.
So the schedules don’t always correlate with the number of meals someone eats. Granted most people eating 23-1 are doing OMAD. It may be possible to eat 2 meals in an hour if you eat fast and put 40mins between them. Someone doing 20-4 could like the flexibility of the 4-hour window but still be doing OMAD. I wouldn’t use them interchangeably but I can see why people do. I wouldn’t worry about the nuance. There’s no right or wrong way. Just find what works for you.
Yeah my 20:4 looked like this; full dinner at 10pm and then banana with peanut butter with my nightly glass of milk at 12am.
So by the time I was started with one and done with the other, it’s just easier to round up to 4 hours. It gives a little more leniency towards OMAD without having to become a literal python at the dinner table.
I was doing 4/20 window. I’d eat a large salad first, it digests in an hour or two then the last hour of my eating window I’d fill up on meat, a steak or chicken etc that would hold me for the 20 hour fast.
I was on 20:4 for months until I moved to OMAD. My 20:4 schedule was 2pm - 6pm.. protein shake at 2pm or start fixing food about 1:30. Small Snack around 3:30 - 4pm and prep dinner around 5 to be finish about 5:30 - 5:45. I’m always finish eating by 6pm.. now on OMAD I eat after 6pm to 6:30… but after my phase of OMAD, I will go back to 20:4 for sure.
I tend to do 22-2, but occasionally stretch it out to 20-4. I’ll break my fast with some bone broth and snack (or small meal) and then have my real meal 1-2 hours later. I call it OMAD, but it doesn’t really matter if others disagree with that label. There have been days where I continuously graze for 2-3 hours, but that’s not the norm.
It’s just the window that people allow themselves to put food in their mouths. Some might snack the whole time. Others might have a few small meals. Others still might fit one massive meal in there and just graze on it. It’s effectively just a timer. At hour 20, food allowed again. At hour 24, no more food. How they eat in that window is up to them
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As an aside, I don’t personally like time restricted since it encourages bad eating habits (stuffing food in quickly). Example: I do OMAD but some days that meal might take me 30 minutes while others it might take me 90. I want to eat slowly and deliberately. My personal rule is once I sit down to eat, that’s what I’m doing. If I get full or start doing something else, I’m done for the day full stop. This helps promote eating slowly, chewing properly, and listening to my body signals (ie: getting full) instead of feeling some kind of pressure to eat “just a little bit more” or “shovel it in faster” because of some timer
At 4 I have some light snacks then coffee with my husband after work. Then dinner at 6. Finish eating and maybe a little sweet treat like Strawberries and whipped cream. Done eating by 7. No rushing. No binging.