OMAD vs alternate day fasting?

Which do you think is better and why? It seems like with OMAD, your body spends longer overall in a fasted state, but I find it hard to eat enough food on OMAD, especially while trying to build muscle. On the other hand, alternate day fasting makes it much easier to eat enough food but your body is only spending 50% of the time in a fasted state vs ~95% of the time with OMAD. Is there any research indicating one or the other being better, specifically for health/longevity?

Answer

I mean, maybe. Some OMAD do a 4 hour window. I do a 6-12 hour window on ADF. Sooo, it could be almost the same.

I can never dive enough food in during the OMAD like some people can.

I do ADF so I get more from Autophagy and other hormone shifts that ramp up the longer you fast. More happens at hour 40 than hour 20.

Answer

Your arithmetic is correct, but the math isn’t correct. Consider someone who ate 3 meals each day that were 15 minutes each (pretty easy to take in enough calories if you eat quickly). That person would spend 0.75 hours feeding and 23.25 hours fasting every 24 hours. That’s even more time fasting than OMAD! Yet this “fasting” approach is clearly nonsense as it fails to account for the constant cost to get back into a fasted state after you eat a meal.

With OMAD you’re paying that constant cost each day. With ADF you are not.

The biggest impact is what it does with your life. Is sharing meals with others important? If so, OMAD is probably the way to go. How quickly do you get cold while fasting? If that happens quickly, OMAD may be better than ADF.