I have transitioned to OMAD and just out of curiosity I logged my food today. It wasn’t even 500 calories. I feel full and I won’t really feel hungry until it’s time for lunch again tomorrow. Is it dangerous to have my caloric intake that low regularly? I am 5’5” and weigh 195lbs down from 225lbs! I don’t do any kind of vigorous workouts or anything. My meals consists mainly of protein and fats…typically under 20 total carbs.
Is a day or two going to have hugely negative consequences, no. Obviously some folks can fast for a few days and still be healthy overall. But it’s about a pattern of behavior. If you’re consistently below 1,200 that can start to potentially have malnutrition issues, just not enough of everything the body needs in so little.
Cutting that extremely also has implications for the body to use increasingly more lean body mass instead of fat for energy. So someone can be losing weight but not changing their body fat percentage as much, and that muscle tissue is more metabolically active so it’s just throwing out away metabolism. Making it harder to lose more weight, and especially vulnerable to yo-yo-ing since added weight is going to increase their body fat percentage from where they started.
Finding some better nutrient and calorie dense foods can help.
Learning to listen to your hungry cues is part of what makes IF so appealing imo. If you feel full, don’t force yourself to eat more. Perhaps wait an hour and check in with yourself before closing your window for the day. Today you may feel full on that much food, but the next day you may have more of an appetite. Not every day is the same. You’ve probably learned that from your great success of weight loss already!
I just finished Fast Feast Repeat by Gin Stephens and she talks about appetite correction and there’s a lot of great info in this book that is easy to comprehend.
I’m obviously not condoning it, but you could literally not eat for a month and it wouldn’t be “dangerous”. People literally go months (or in some cases over a year) with no complications. Take vitamins and hydrate with what you eat, and eat normally during your meal. Listen to your body. If you feel light headed or sick increase your calories.
You’re spot on - OMAD over time doesn’t provide enough calories.
Risks are:
- malnutrition (though this can be somewhat mitigated via supplements)
- drop in metabolism < this is the tricky one.
I’ve been an IF for about 10 years. Tried all combinations.
I find the best combination to mitigate malnutrition and drop in metabolism (base metabolic activity), is ADF - alternate day fasting.
But even with ADF, need to be mindful of homeostasis, where your body may recognise overall, you’re only consuming X calories per week and then over time, you’ll still see a drop in your metabolism.
Regardless of what IF pattern you chose, throw in a random day to mitigate homeostasis-triggered drop in metabolism.