How to Start OMAD: The Beginner’s Guide

If you’ve watched videos or read about intermittent fasting or keto online, you’ve probably heard about OMAD. 

OMAD is a type of intermittent fasting where you eat one meal a day, usually with the goal of losing weight. 

When you only eat one meal a day, your insulin lowers. 

This puts you into a deep state of ketosis so you stop being hungry. 

I’ve personally lost 40 pounds with OMAD, & in this article, I’d like to share everything I’ve learned about OMAD & how you can start OMAD to lose weight too.

What Is OMAD? 🤔

OMAD is a type of intermittent fasting where you only have one meal per day. The reason most people do OMAD is to lose weight or help their insulin resistance. OMAD helps you to lose weight & cure your insulin resistance since when you only eat one meal a day, your insulin lowers.

A lot of people have done intermittent fasting to lose weight, & then once they stop losing weight, they progress to OMAD.

When I was on my weight loss journey, I eventually stopped losing weight with keto & intermittent fasting, so then I progressed to keto & OMAD.

How Does OMAD Work? 🤨

When you only eat one meal a day, your insulin levels drop dramatically. This helps you to lose weight because you stop being hungry & you can get into a deeper state of ketosis.

When we eat high-carb & multiple meals a day, we become extremely insulin resistant. 

That means that our cells can’t take in as much glucose as they used to & our blood sugar stays elevated for hours after we eat (which isn’t good.)

This is why we become so hungry after eating a high-carb meal. 

But, when you fast with OMAD, & eat keto, you enter ketosis very quickly. This state of ketosis makes us extremely insulin sensitive. 

That means that our cells can absorb the food we eat really quickly & your blood sugar can go back down after eating. 

That’s why if you do OMAD, you’d stop being hungry and wouldn’t even think about eating. 

From my experience, when I ate multiple meals a day, I’d be much more hungry since my insulin would always be high.

But, once I did OMAD & keto for a while, I stopped being hungry during my fasting period & it helped me to lose weight really easily.

Is OMAD Easy? 😁

If you’ve done keto & intermittent fasting before OMAD, you’ll notice that OMAD is easy. All you have to do is sit down at a table with a plate of food, and eat. In terms of ease, OMAD is one of the easiest diets to try. It’s also very forgiving. If you make a bad food choice, you’d still lose weight.

So if you make a mistake or have a bad day, you can still eat one meal a day and lose weight. No other diet can offer this level of ease.

But, I highly recommend that you do keto & intermittent fasting before OMAD.

Keto 🥑

With keto, you eat fewer carbs, so you become more insulin sensitive. This helps you to get adjusted to fasting much quicker than if you just started OMAD at once.

Keto helps you to lose weight because when you eat under 50 grams of carbs per day, you go into ketosis. 

When you’re in ketosis, you can use your own body fat for fuel.

This would mean that later on when you fast, it would be much easier.

Once you start keto, you’ll automatically start losing weight. You’ll probably reach around 50% of your weight loss goal with just keto alone.

But, once you’ve stopped losing weight with keto alone, add intermittent fasting on top of keto.

Keto + Intermittent Fasting ⌚️

With intermittent fasting, you eat for a certain time period, for example, 8 hours, & then you fast for the rest, for example, 16 hours. When you combine keto with intermittent fasting, you lose weight much faster.

This is because keto & intermittent fasting both lower your insulin.

So, when you do both, you can keep losing weight.

When I did keto & intermittent fasting, I lost around 25% more of the weight that I needed to lose.

Then, to keep losing weight, I replaced intermittent fasting with OMAD.

Keto + OMAD ⏱

When you do one meal a day and keto, your insulin lowers tremendously so you start losing weight really fast.

But, if you just started OMAD & keto from the beginning, it would be too hard & you’d give up.

Instead, it’s better to maximize the weight loss in each stage so you can slowly build the habit of healthy eating.

After I did keto & OMAD, I lost around 90% of the weight I wanted to lose.

Then, I added prolonged dry fasting on top of keto & OMAD to keep losing weight.

Keto + OMAD + Prolonged Dry Fasting 🍽

With prolonged dry fasting, you don’t eat or drink for multiple days. Prolonged dry fasting works because your body can combine the hydrogen in your fat with the oxygen in the air to create H²O. If you combine keto, OMAD, & prolonged dry fasting, you’d lose a lot of weight.

I personally did keto & OMAD most days, but then around two days of the week, I’d do a prolonged dry fast.

After I did a couple of prolonged dry fasts, I lost all the weight I wanted to lose.

But, the most important thing is that you just keep progressing from each stage of keto weight loss so you can keep losing weight without quitting.

The Benefits of OMAD 😄

The biggest benefits of OMAD are that it helps you to lose weight faster, it makes you less hungry, it lowers your insulin levels, & it’s the simplest way to lose weight.

• Faster Weight Loss ⚖️––If you’re eating one meal a day, you may be in a deeper state of ketosis than someone who is eating three meals a day. When you eat low-carb & OMAD, you’d get deep into ketosis & you’d lose weight much faster compared to someone who isn’t doing OMAD.
• Less Hunger 😋––You’re not going to feel hungry when you’re in a deep ketogenic state, so you won’t be tempted to overeat or binge eat. The most common reason people don’t lose weight on low-carb diets is that they’re eating too much. But, when you do OMAD, you solve this issue.
• Lower Insulin Levels 📉––When you reduce your insulin levels and become more insulin resistant, you’d be able to lose weight much easier. You’d also solve any insulin resistance problems that you used to have.
• Easiest Way to Lose Weight 😌––The easiest way to lose weight is OMAD because it’s so simple. You just eat one meal a day, & then if you can get past the first couple of days, you’d stop being hungry. Once you stop being hungry, you’d automatically eat less & you’d lose weight.

Should You Do OMAD? 🫵

Yes, if you want to lose weight or solve your insulin resistance without being overly hungry or tired, you should do OMAD. As long as you eat one meal a day for multiple days, your body will adjust to it & you’d stop being hungry. 

But, I still recommend starting off with intermittent fasting or keto first so you can get more adjusted to ketosis before you start OMAD.

Should You Do OMAD to Lose Weight? ⚖️

If you want to lose weight, OMAD is one of the simple yet effective ways to do so. When you only eat one meal a day, your insulin would lower. This would mean that you wouldn’t be hungry during your fasting period since you’d be in ketosis. 

As long as you get past the first couple of days, OMAD can be one of the easiest & most effective ways to lose weight. 

Should You Do OMAD to Break a Weight Loss Plateau? 📉

Yes, if you want to break a weight loss plateau, you should do OMAD. Since OMAD lowers your insulin, if you stopped losing weight at one point, you’d start losing weight again.

I personally used OMAD to break my weight loss plateau & it’s a great way to keep losing weight on keto if you stopped at one point.

Should You Do OMAD to Cure Insulin Resistance or Type 2 Diabetes? 💉

Yes, if you want to cure your insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes, I strongly recommend doing OMAD. Not only does OMAD lower your insulin a lot, but it can also help you to lose weight. This can help with your insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. 

How to Do OMAD 🎬

To do OMAD, just eat one meal a day, preferably with ketogenic foods like fatty meats, high-fat dairy, low-carb vegetables, nuts, seeds, etc. For the first couple of days, you’d be hungry since your ghrelin would go up when you’d normally eat. But, as long as you keep doing OMAD, you’ll stop being hungry.

FAQs 🙋

Now I’ll answer some of the most frequently asked questions that people ask me when they start OMAD.

Can I Drink Water During OMAD? 💧

Yes, you can drink water, or any other zero-calorie beverage like coffee, tea, diet soda, etc, during your fasting period on OMAD. As long as you don’t consume any calories, you’ll still be in a fasted state & you’d keep losing weight.

Is Snacking Allowed on OMAD? 🍿

No, you you can’t snack on OMAD. Snacking would raise your insulin, & it would kick you out of your fasted state. This would cause you to gain weight. Instead, focus on eating a lot of nutritious & keto foods, like vegetables, during your one meal so you can stay full through your fast.

Do I Need to Exercise to Lose Weight on OMAD? 🏃

No, you don’t need to exercise to lose weight on OMAD. As long as you eat keto & do OMAD, you’ll lose most of the weight you wanted to lose. When there is some weight that just doesn’t seem to come off, then you should just do a prolonged dry fast. 

Exercising takes a lot of effort. 

But, you can erase all of that effort in one minute of eating. 

Instead of exercising, focus on eating keto & fasting.

Why Shouldn’t I Just Eat Multiple Small Meals? 🍽

If you eat multiple small meals, your calories would be the same but your insulin would be constantly elevated. This would make you tired & hungry throughout the whole day. This would also cause you to gain weight, even if you were in a caloric deficit.

This is because your body knows that if it isn’t getting enough food, then it’ll stop using as much energy so it can survive. 

It would do this unconsciously by making you lazier, making you less motivated to move, making you fidget less, etc.

And eventually, your metabolism would go so far down that you’d start re-gaining weight.

Instead, focus on eating low-glycemic foods, like with a keto diet, & fasting, like with intermittent fasting or OMAD, so you can lose weight in the long term.

Should I Combine OMAD With Keto? 🥓

If you’ve been doing keto, then adding intermittent fasting or OMAD on top of keto is a great way to speed up your weight loss. This is because both of these things lower your insulin & put you into ketosis, so why not combine them to lose weight even faster.

Should I Do OMAD If I Eat Carbs? 🍕

Though it’s possible to do OMAD with carbs, I don’t recommend it. That’s because the goal of OMAD is to lower your insulin. But, if you eat a lot of carbs, then your insulin would spike during that one meal, meaning you wouldn’t reach ketosis during your fasting period.

This would mean that you wouldn’t lose nearly as much weight compared to someone who did keto with OMAD.

What If I Stop Losing Weight? 📉

If you stop losing weight on OMAD, start a ketogenic diet so you can lower your insulin & reach a deeper state of ketosis. But, if you’re already doing keto, start prolonged dry fasting so you can burn your own fat & keep losing weight.

What Are the Side Effects of OMAD? 🫤

The most common side effect of OMAD is that you’d be hungry & tired in your fasting period during the beginning. This is because your body hasn’t adjusted to its new eating schedule yet, so just give it a week or two & you’ll stop being hungry.

Safety ⛑

If you have a specific medical condition that may stop you from doing OMAD, contact your doctor.

You should be extra careful if you are:

• Pregnant or breastfeeding
• A woman with amenorrhea
• Taking meds
• Underweight

Conclusion 🏁

In conclusion, OMAD is one of the best ways to lose weight or cure your insulin resistance. Just start out with keto & intermittent fasting, then after you’ve gotten adjusted to those two, start OMAD. I’ve personally lost 40 pounds with OMAD & keto & hope you can do the same, regardless of what goal you have!

If you’re interested in learning more about how I lost weight with keto & fasting, here’s my article where I go in-depth on how I did it & how I would do it if I was overweight again.