In this video, you'll discover the top 5 One Meal a Day fasting mistakes, and of course,
how to avoid them.
Eating One Meal a Day isn't always as easy as it seems. It can cause a lot of negative
side effects anything from cravings to weight gain. Most people are doing it to lose weight
and they start gaining weight, your hair to fall out, or even some sleep disturbances.
I mean, you name it, there's a lot of problems that come out of this when you're doing it
incorrectly. So, what I want to do is teach you some of the main things that people are
doing wrong and of course, how to counteract them. And at the end of this video, I have
a bonus tip as to one of the most recent strategies I recently discovered while doing One Meal
a Day. So stick around to the end. But before we get started, I'm Dr. Zyrowski and welcome
to the channel. If you're new to the channel, it's a pleasure to have you here. Be sure
to subscribe, hit that notification bell, and join our notification community so I can
help you excel your health and your life.
Now doing One Meal a Day is a great strategy to improve your health, but you have to make
sure that you're avoiding some of these different things. And so, let's go ahead and talk through
some of these different points here so that you can be set up for success and get absolute,
absolute great results when doing One Meal a Day.
So rigid structure is one of the big things that I see people have a problem with. What
do I mean by rigid structure? Well, when people decide that if they're going to do One Meal
a Day, they decide that that's all they're going to do. They can only stick to One Meal
a Day and then they might decide, well, I'm going to do keto on top of that. And so they
decide that I have to do One Meal a Day Keto, and then they stick to this rigid structure
regardless of what's happening in their life, regardless of the exercise they're doing,
regardless of the fact that maybe they're under a lot of stress some days and not so
much the other. And so, anyway based on your life and what is happening, you have to be
flexible. And sometimes One Meal a Day is not the best strategy for every single day
of the week. And so, we have to understand that if we're doing One Meal a Day, the great
part about it is that it's a healthy strategy that we can utilize. And the other great thing
about it is that we don't just totally fall off the wagon and all our progress is not
lost if we go and don't do One Meal a Day, one or two days a week. We have to understand
that. And that's very important. That's not how health works. It's not how life works.
You're not going to lose all your progress just because you came off of it. In fact,
you could actually get more progress and better results if you come off one meal a day here
and there.
So, to give you an example, if you're doing One Meal a Day and you have a lighter day,
you're not doing anything too physically active, it's great to do that OMAD on that particular
day, but let's say the next day you have a really crushing workout. You do this really
heavy amount of physical activity. And then next thing you know, you're not feeling so
great on one meal a day it's causing for you to have a lot of cravings, a lot of problems
come off of it, do 16 and 8, try another method. That's completely okay. Do not get stuck in
a rigid structure. Understand that in order to have sustainable health, you have to be
flexible. Very important.
Next is hunger and not knowing how to deal with it. A lot of people approach One Meal
a Day and they're like, well, it worked. I liked the results I got from it, but I kept
having hunger issues. So, know hunger issues can be a problem and you just have to know
how to counteract them. One of the ways many people counteract it is by following like
a ketogenic diet. They tend to work very well together – Keto and One Meal a Day. Now
another couple of things that you can do in order to counteract hunger - these are some
things that I like to do. Apple cider vinegar helps with this. Coffee helps with this - just
plain old black coffee that is while you're fasting. And that's what I'm referring to
with these particular items while in a fasted day. So coffee is a big one. And then also
sparkling water. You hear me talk about this quite often because it works. And I've found
that when working with patients, it works, it really helps people. So, if you haven't
tried it and you're struggling with hunger when you're doing One Meal a Day, try implementing
that. And the other thing too is when you are busy, when you are actually staying very
active, your brain's active, you're focused on particular things, hunger is not as much
of an issue. If you're sitting around just chilling and you're doing One Meal a Day,
you're watching the clock, then there's a good chance hunger will be a much larger issue
for you. I mean, there's so many days that I don't even necessarily intend to do One
Meal a Day and I end up falling in that category just simply because I was so busy and I didn't
have time to go eat.
Calories is the next big one. Calories is something that I stress more than ever right
now because I run into so many people having this issue, they decided to do One Meal a
Day and they loved it cause they're losing all this weight, but then they plateaued.
So, they thought, well, I'm going to start cutting my calories more and then they plateaued
some more. And then they started cutting calories more. And guess what they did? They messed
up their metabolism really bad. Now they have really bad cravings. Now they can't stop binge
eating. Now they're gaining weight. Now everything is chaotic and they just can't get it to make
sense to them. And so, we have to know what our calorie intake is. It doesn't matter if
you're following a ketogenic diet, it doesn't matter what kind of diet that you're following,
you should have a pretty decent idea of what your calories are.
Now, a lot of people will ask me, well, Dr. Zyrowski, what should my calories be? And
I can't give you that information accurately because basically what it comes down to is
based on your size, based on your activity level, based on everything about you, you
have to determine what your particular calories are. And then still once you put it into the
computer, once you type in all the different variables and it spits out a number at you,
you have to understand that those calories are still going to sway a little bit. There's
no perfect number out there. There's no system that's going to be able to give you an exact
perfect number. You just have to get something close and then you have to watch how your
body reacts and then act accordingly. And so, it makes sure that you're dialing in your
calories. It’s something that’s very confusing to people when you go from three meals a day
down to maybe two meals a day or even one meal a day, people get lost in this. And then
the other thing that's very counterintuitive is some people are binge-eating so much that
they're actually gaining weight. So, some people tell me, well, I did one meal a day
and it didn't work cause I gained weight. Well, One Meal a Day is not a magic weight
loss treatment or something like that. It's just a strategy. It's an eating strategy.
So, if you're doing one meal a day and eating a calorie surplus of 500 calories a day, you
will gain weight easily. And so, we have to be careful of that. Make sure you're monitoring
your calories.
Macros are another big one. A lot of people get lost in the macros. Some people forget
to eat protein. Some people forget to eat veggies. Some people are eating so many veggies
and it's filling them up on a daily basis because they hear well it's very important
eat lots of greens, but one of the problems is, is that then you are not really getting
the protein, not getting what you need so you're constantly hungry. We have to really
make sure that we dial in macros when doing One Meal a Day. So, though protein is important,
you don't want to be doing too much of it. And the same thing with veggies. Though they're
important, you don't want to be eating an overabundance of them and not getting enough
of the other foods. You're not getting enough food to feel satiated and then you're constantly
hungry. That's one of the challenges that I have with One Meal a Day is if I eat like
a whole bunch of veggies, then I'm like, wow, I'm stuffed. And I know deep down, I'm like
this isn't good because I'm really full right now, but on the same hand, we're going to
have a problem because I'm going to be really hungry come tomorrow and I'm only a couple
hours into my fast. And so, we have to be careful with that and make sure that we're
doing the macros right.
And the other thing we have to be careful for two is some people actually skip the veggies
altogether and they're eating way too many calories. And they're just like, man, I'm
still hungry. And I just can't figure this One Meal a Day thing out. Well, that is when
you would actually add more veggies in because it's a great filler. You can eat a lot of
veggies and there's not that many calories in there. Gotta learn your macros - very important.
Sleep and stress - this is another big one. They pretty much are like this negative feedback
cycle. When you don't get enough sleep, you have more stress. When you have more stress,
you don't get enough sleep. One of the things that the One Meal a Day can do though, especially
if you're calorie cutting, because you're trying to put a little bit of deficit in there
in order to lose weight, one of the things that can happen is that you can actually raise
cortisol in your body and cause a little bit too much stress. So, let's say you're calorie
deficit-ing, you're somebody who is maybe a little bit under a little bit of stress
at work, you're doing One Meal a Day. It can be too much on your body. And so, what I recommend
in these cases, and it really helps a lot so pay close attention to this, is add in
a B vitamin complex. Add in a B vitamin complex and an adaptogen and it really helps get you
through. I mean, if you are really struggling in that One Meal a Day mark - you notice that
your body's just dragging your calories are good, your macros are good, but your body's
just not liking it, and then you're waking up at night and you're just feeling a lot
of stress, add those B vitamins in the adaptogens and I promise you the next couple of days,
you'll start to feel it like immediately. It’s a big thing that helps quite a bit.
So, make sure that you have these things on point.
And also, let me tell you this. If you're not getting good sleep at night, I'm always
an advocate of tracking your sleep. If you're not getting good sleep at night, make sure
that you are working on that because that will totally throw everything off. If you're
not getting sleep, your willpower will diminish and you'll be like, why am I doing this one
meal a day thing? You'll start binge eating. All kinds of crazy stuff happens because the
way that sleep acts on your metabolism is quite destructive in many cases.
So, get this under control and remember B-vitamins and adaptogens. Let me tell you this stuff
works. I've worked with many patients and I've had to troubleshoot some pretty complex
situations. This stuff works. And in the description below, I'll put a link to some adaptogens
and some things that work there. And now the other thing that we want to do is focus on
this bonus tip, but before we get there, I also want to tell you, if you want to learn
what to eat on One Meal a Day, go ahead and check this video out right here. It's very
powerful. And I even include a download that has a food plan that you can kind of kickstart
the One Meal a Day eating program with. Check that out.
Let's talk about the bonus tip because this is important and this is something I've discovered
in my own life as of recent. So, one of the things that happens with One Meal a Day is
many times you're working all day and you're having that OMAD at night. When you're going
and having that one meal, it's essentially, you're eating a lot of calories in a one to
two-hour period. Now, as a result, you're eating a lot of calories before bed if you're
eating later on in the night, like I typically ended up having to do the time I get home
from the clinic. Now here's the bad thing about that is that that actually can cause
a lot of digestive distress eating that late at night. It has been linked to heart disease.
It's been linked to havingacid reflux, all kinds of different gastrointestinal disorders.
And the other big thing that I noticed that it does is it crushes your sleep. It doesn't
do very good things for you, almost like if you drink alcohol and how that acts on your
sleep, eating a huge meal right before bed can also act pretty negatively on your sleep.
What I find is eating about three to four hours prior to going to sleep will help you
increase your sleep. And let me tell you I've tracked it. So, I know that this is a guaranteed
factor here. And I think that, of course it can differentiate from one person to the next.
It can be a little bit different, but absolutely in my own life and a couple other individuals
I tested this on, one of the things I see is that your sleep drastically improves if
you don't eat that huge meal at night. So, we want to make sure that we're careful with
that and try to get that big meal in prior to going to sleep. If you push that too far
back into the night, it causes issues. And like I said, it's related to some really negative
health consequences as well. So, if you want to improve your sleep and you want to do One
Meal a Day, try not to get that meal too late. And if you're someone who's not really sure
if this is having a negative impact on you, just wear sleep tracker, check it out and
see what it does. In most cases, what you can do is you can literally just move that
meal a couple hours before bed, like three to four hours like I said, and as a result,
you'll notice immediately that you started to sleep better versus if you're someone who
does your One Meal a Day and then you go to sleep an hour later, it's not great, causes
digestive distress as I mentioned.
Now, also putting the comment section below if you're doing One Meal a Day, and if these
tips right here are going to be beneficial to you and maybe some of the strategies that
you've learned, that I didn't talk about, share your knowledge with us, share this video
with your friends, so that they also can make sure that they're doing this correctly. And
then watch this video right over here on the One Meal a Day food pyramid - powerful stuff
in order to help you eat correctly on OMAD.
You need those fats in order to support proper nervous system function. You need that protein
to make sure that you're not losing a whole bunch of muscle. You need to make sure you're
hitting the right amount of calories.