Hi all, new to this group. I’ve been trying 16:8 for past 2 months with absolutely no loss, inches or pounds. Getting married next month so need to step up my game, thought I would try OMAD. I’m very concerned about how I’m going to avoid my hunger cravings, as I know only being able to eat one meal a day is going to be hugely difficult for me. Advice & tips appreciated.
I can’t speak for everyone or you, but I’ve been doing OMAD since December of 2018. I’ve lost 125 pounds and have 20 more to go. Been a binge eater my entire life and I was obese from age 11 to 30. This past summer I tried to widen the window and I gained about 20 pounds in 4 months. So I’m back on OMAD.
For me, there is a point every day where my hunger is the worst. My one meal is dinner and it’s typically mid morning when I’m hungry. I just keep chugging water and try to stay distracted with work or video games. I also go to the gym during lunch to get 5 miles in.
I avoid temptation by not having any snacks in the house and I have deleted all food delivery apps off my phone.
Keto eating saciates your apetitate for MUCH MUCH longer, please, take a look or instruct yourself to see if it really is something you’d like to try
I’ve gone 40+ hours without eating, but I’m obese, overweight people will get hunger quicker, also, hunger from carbohydrates dependency will last only two days or so, after that you’re sailing.
Down 82 pounds in 4 months, need to lose like 100 more to be at normal weight
OMAD just kinda happened for me, I’ve never really been a breakfast person, and after doing a couple of weeks of strict keto with 1600cal; I just wasn’t hungry till about the 2pm mark, and slowly transitioned naturally from 18/6 > 20/4 > OMAD.
Low carb, high fat just makes me feel full for longer.
Do yourself a huge favor and find out how many total carbs you are eating every day. Then make food adjustments until you are eating fewer than 50g of total carbs every day. Replace all those lost calories with calories from protein and healthy fat.
Make sure to be eating a lot of protein every day so that you don’t start losing lean body mass (your muscles and bones). If you start losing lean body mass, your metabolism slows down, which will then require you to lower your calorie intake over and over to maintain your calorie deficit
Getting to the 18-20 hour fast mark regularly is a big shift from 16. You go from eating typically 2 filling meals a day to eating 1 1/2 meals a day. The body soon gets used to eating all it’s going to eat once per day, and then you’re on OMAD.
I’ve been doing OMAD for a long time now. The one meal I eat is dinner. Between 3pm and dinner time I could murder someone for a hamburger due to hunger pains. The trick is to allow your body to be hungry. Be cool with it. Hunger pains don’t mean it’s time to eat. Hunger pains mean your body wants to it. You can just acknowledge the body while ignoring it. It’s a bit of a mental trick.
Essentially ride the hunger wave.
One way to test it, is to have breakfast. Then don’t eat again until the next morning. You’ll get hunger pains through out the day but they will go away. Experiencing them go away can mentally help.
Also if you’re doing 16:8 you might be experiencing what I experienced. I would eat breakfast and then still get hunger pains before dinner time. For me the only difference between 16:8 and OMAD is that I get slightly worse hunger pains close to dinner time. That’s it. Right now it’s before lunch and I don’t have any urge to eat.
I’ve never eaten breakfast, even when I was a kid. So I was already a 2 meal a day person.
In HS I also stopped eating lunch. We were poor and school lunches were gross so I usually saved my lunch money for other things. Maybe a snack on my way home from school.
Now at 36 I usually just don’t get hungry until like 3 or 4pm. I don’t like to eat before my yoga/barre classes because it makes me nauseous. So I generally eat my 1 meal around 6 or 7. Sometimes later.
It wasn’t a difficult leap for me because it’s something I’ve done most of my life already. 🤷
You know how you sometimes get that urge to step off a curb into a bus randomly. And you think to yourself “self, why would you ever do that”.
It’s the same with hunger. We’ve been hijacked by garbage food and sweets to the point where our brain gives into those impulses.
Once I started eating good food only, stopped eating out, and walking, the weight melted off. In a rush last night I grabbed some Taco Bell, this morning I am raging inside and voraciously hungry. I’m know I’m not actually hungry, so I’ll let it pass.
You ultimately have total control over when you eat. If you just try it you will find that hunger pangs don’t last very long and you will build confidence in yourself knowing that you can skip meals and not die.
Best of luck, you can do this!
I tried to lose weight for years and just kept gaining until I started IF. I think some people can reduce calories without counting when on IF. I am not one of those people. It took me a couple of years, but I’ve lost 50 pounds overall. I’m completely happy, even if I don’t lose another pound.
I’m small and spent years trying to lose weight, but nothing was sustainable. Previously, unless I ate less than 1,100 calories on average per day, I gained weight. Not just did not lose but gained weight. IF and increasing my step count to at least 20k a day has allowed me to increase that threshold to around 1,400 calories a day, as long as I have a couple of under 1,000 calories per week (which are my OMAD days).
When trying to lose weight (I have about 10lbs I’m working off atm), I make sure to do the following…
Your body adjusts to the schedule after a bit. I drink lots of water or my favorite iced tea during the day (combo of green and white, which helps a bit with appetite suppression). I like OMAD because I can still eat the foods I tended to gravitate towards before IF for dinner, while obviously still keeping it under the calories I need for a day (I recommend counting calories only at the beginning so you can get an idea of general calories for your typical foods). I do try and keep my meals a bit healthier than I did before IF, though. You’re going to want a combo of healthy carbs & fats, protein, and fiber - any meal that incorporates that will keep you full and happy.
The key is to not push yourself past your limits - play around with what works for you, and best of luck!
I promise you adjust after a week or two. In the meantime, it helped me to treat it like a science experiment — observing my body’s signals with a sense of curiosity.
Example train of thought:
Oh, I feel hungry? How many hours have I been fasting? [checks timer] Sixteen — Oh, that’s right when my body has probably used up its stored glucose and is switching over to fat burning. I bet it just hasn’t adjusted to make that switch very efficiently yet. Wonder what happens if I take a walk — how will I feel? [takes walk] Huh, interesting — I feel way less hungry now. I guess the mild exercise forced my body to get in gear and start getting fuel by burning fat.
You’re not hungry, you’re bored. You’re not hungry, you’re bored. You’re not hungry, you’re bored.
If there’s a time you tend to get cravings, find something to do every day to occupy yourself during that time. TV/Netflix doesn’t count but reading is OK. I go for long walks in the afternoon to get out of the house and the exercise is a plus. My feeding time is dinner, around 7pm.
I’ve done a few cycles of OMAD and it gets much easier after the third or fourth day. Two weeks in right now, down 11 lbs and the cravings are gone.
I’ve been doing OMAD for about 6 months and have lost 40 pounds. It sounds daunting, but once you survive the first month, things start getting way easier and the hunger significantly decreases. My biggest struggle was giving up snack throughout the day. Now, when I want a snack, I get the snack, set it aside, and plan to eat it during my eating window. This tricked my brain into realizing I can literally eat whatever I want, I just have to wait. After eating my 1300 calorie meal for dinner however, I typically don’t even want the snack anymore. Just keep going. Sparkling water helps A LOT. It’s so worth it!