I’ve been dirty fasting with OMAD for 5 days and haven’t lost any weight. Starting to wonder in overeating at that one meal, but the problem is that the appeal of OMAD is that you should be relatively free to eat what you want because it’s only one meal a day.
Has anyone been seriously slowed down by this?
I believe weight loss boils down to creating a calorie deficit for the day. Do that consistently and you’ll lose weight. (oversimplified I know) IF achieves this by restricting eating to a particular window. OMAD in your case. You still need to be eating at a deficit to achieve weight loss. You’ll still reap many benefits from fasting, but weight loss might not be one with out this other piece of the puzzle.
One of the biggest mistakes I made was to consider my eating window as a “free eating time”.I couldn’t lose weight that way.I switched to eating just two meals (lunch and dinner) with no snacking in between.That way I began losing again.
Yes, you can still eat at maintenance in even one meal, especially if you’re not looking to lose a lot. While OMAD certainly gives you a lot of flexibility by getting all your calories in one go, completely unrestricted eating will not result in a deficit.
Someone once told me if you don’t count your calories or weigh your food, you’ll gain weight. I took that to heart and started counting and weighing food.
I don’t go over board. I’ll round up and assume more calories than less, and its pretty painless. For example, if I eat a handful of almonds, I’ll just count for two servings sizes. Likely an overestimate, but then at the end of the day you’ll have that calorie deficit.
Of course, counting exactly and knowing down to the last calorie is more accurate and you’ll have a better idea. But more work, obviously.
I use MyFitnessPal to count. Not a big deal if you’re OMAD since you just count once.
If your one meal is an eight-hour roman banquet, then you probably won’t lose weight. If you’re eating sensibly and healthily within a one-hour period, combined with exercise, the weight will drop off.
Ohhh, any current or former binge eater how this pans out?
Just because it’s one meal or consumed at one specific time of day, doesn’t mean you can consume any amount of calories you want and expect to lose weight.
Even at 70 pounds overweight, I only see once a day. One big calorie laden meal. I packed on those extra pounds eating once a day.
I also eventually lost those extra pounds only eating once a day. It all comes down to it you ate in deficit, maintence, or surplus.
However, you’re only one week in. I don’t know you starting size, amount of calories you’re eating, or you daily needs. You might very well be making progress without it reflecting on the scale.
But, be careful with the mindset you can eat all and everything you want. You may want to spend a bit of time figuring your daily needs referenced with your daily intake.
It has been less than a week, but I would guess with the overeating you are at maintenance calories. You won’t lose weight at maintenance calories, just stay the same. Good news is you can keep doing the same thing, just reduce your feast a little bit and you will lose weight.
You are free to eat at a surplus on omad because the 23 hour fast is just soooo long, and your stomach has shrunk so much its pretty unlikely that you’ll overeat too far.
But not every body responds the same way, it could be you just do not respond to omad either at a deficit or a surplus, It happens.
A lot of times something looks good on paper, theoretically should work, but just does not.
Keep experimenting, I’d say 16:8, but each body is different, keep tweaking the dial there under the general principle until something clicks for you.
Sometimes something sounds just great, but just does not work for you specifically.
I had to do a 48 hour fast after two weeks to get the scale to move. I don’t think I overeat at all during my OMAD, but I guess I have stubborn fat. Also I am able to eat normal after a 48 hour fast no stomach issues.