Nowadays, intermittent fasting gets a lot of screen time in health and wellness circles, and for good reason.
There are a lot of benefits to fasting.
Of course, the downside to it is that food cravings can sometimes trump your drive to be healthy and to put off eating until your next scheduled time—and sometimes those cravings can get really crazy.
One meal a day, also known as OMAD, is an intermittent fasting process that basically involves you eating one meal per day, at about the same time every day.
And that’s it.
This means that you fast for about 24 hours every day, while also getting to eat one full meal.
This meal can be of pretty much whatever calorie amount your diet is calling for.
Some people really like this diet and swear by it.
Other? Not so much.
We did some research to figure out what the upsides and downsides are.
Here’s what you need to know.
The Upsides Of One Meal A Day
As a general rule, intermittent fasting is really good for you.
It helps your body to heal itself, and helps you to recover faster from injuries and illnesses.
There’s also an argument to be made for the fact that our bodies simply thrive better when we’re not constantly trying to digest food.
Another benefit to intermittent fasting is that you’ll tend to drastically lower your calorie count.
Eating one meal a day will pretty much naturally help you to regulate your calorie intake to a much greater degree, even more so than most other types of diets.
Plus, this gives you one pretty big, satisfying meal where you can eat just about anything you want (within reason—you still don’t want to exceed your target calorie intake, of course).
The Downsides Of One Meal A Day
There are some downsides to this type of regimen.
The first is that the cravings can get pretty intense, especially for the first few days.
You may really struggle with putting off eating until the time for your next meal comes around.
It’s also possible that you’ll experience symptoms like brain fog, tiredness, fatigue, etc.
With that being said, these downsides do tend to go away after time, after you acclimate to the diet.
Another downside is that some people really struggle with only consuming one meal per day in the sense that it can really hit their energy levels.
Now once again, this is a downside that tends to go away over time.
But for most people, there’s going to be a period of time at the beginning of the diet where you may really struggle with feeling fatigued and low on energy at first, until your body gets used to it.
Conclusion
No matter how you swing it, OMAD is both an effective dieting technique and a challenging one at the same time.
It’s definitely not for everyone, and shouldn’t be considered a viable option by people who have diseases like diabetes, because it could throw their numbers out of whack.
However, if you’re looking for a system that will allow you to eat one big full meal per day, while also helping to put you into a pretty serious calorie deficit (or at the very least, help you to stay on track with keeping your calories normalized while also enjoying the benefits of intermittent fasting), then this may be a great idea for an intermittent fasting technique to try.
