omad or the one meal a day diet has gained a lot of popularity in recent years
as being an effective strategy for weight loss as the name suggests
this variation of intermittent fasting means you only eat one meal every day
usually within a one hour eating window and you fast for the other 23 hours consuming no food
but what happens when you only eat one meal a day for 30 days is it as effective
as it's claimed to be or is it doing your body more harm than good keep watching to find it
hey guys welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is kait and i am a certified health
and nutrition coach i post videos on reversing insulin resistance blood sugar management weight
loss sleep and more twice a week here on youtube so if you want to take control of your health make
sure to subscribe and you can also find me on tik tok and instagram where i share new posts every
single day as mentioned at the start of this video omad is a style of intermittent fasting where
you only eat one singular meal every day beyond weight loss omad is also said to lower blood sugar
reduce inflammation and even increase longevity but is it all just hype is omad even sustainable
and is it healthy for women we're going to start off talking about the pros of the one meal a day
diet and the positive impacts you might see after eating it for 30 days and then we will get into
some of the cons the good if you have watched some of the other videos on my channel you will already
know that i am a huge fan of intermittent fasting i have found that fasting between 12 to 16 hours
every day is ideal for most people but what about fasting for 23 hours well yes omad certainly does
have benefits and benefits that go beyond eating in a calorie deficit benefits that improve our
metabolic health when we're not eating our insulin levels drop insulin being the hormone that is
responsible for transporting excess glucose or blood sugar from our bloodstream to our cells
because when we eat our blood sugar increases and our pancreas releases insulin to deal with it
insulin being elevated signals to our body that there's energy available and this stops
fat burning insulin is actually known as the fat storage hormone for this reason and this makes
sense because if you have excess glucose in your bloodstream this is energy there's no reason for
your body to tap into your stored body fat however insulin resistance is becoming increasingly common
and when our cells start to resist insulin this makes it very difficult to lose weight because
our insulin is always elevated fasting is one of the quickest ways to improve insulin sensitivity
because it allows insulin levels to drop and if you have issues with blood sugar regulation
whether that be you have high fasting blood sugar or you suffer reactive hypoglycemia
after you eat a meal omad definitely has potential to help because it can help to stable blood sugar
but here's the thing omad is not effective for everyone i get quite a few comments from people
saying they've been sticking to a very strict intermittent fasting routine for a month now and
they haven't lost any weight there are a couple of reasons why this might be happening the bad
the first reason that omad might not be working for you is because fasting is a stressor and look
stressors are not always a bad thing exercise is a stressor short duration periodic stress helps
us to become stronger however too much stress for too long has negative impacts on the body and this
is one of the reasons why omad doesn't work for everyone especially if you have other stressors
in your life stress at work you're getting poor sleep you did a hard workout all of these compound
and if you're a woman as well depending on where you are in your cycle your blood sugar
can be more or less stable when we're stressed the hormone cortisol becomes elevated and when
cortisol becomes elevated glucose is actually created by the body and released causing blood
sugar to rise and a need for insulin and this is why i generally find that most people do better
eating two or three meals a day they progress to their goals quicker if you aren't quite sure how
many meals or what fasting window is right for you that is where today's sponsor lumen
might be able to help you lumen is a metabolism tracker that tells you in real time whether your
body is burning fat or carbs for energy and it does this by measuring the co2 in your breath to
use the device you just follow the prompts on the app it's super easy all you have to do is inhale
using the device and then exhale once you've done that lumen will give you a score out of five that
signifies whether you are burning mainly fat or carbohydrates for energy and with this information
you can figure out whether you are over fasting and stressing out your body or not by taking
evening measurements and morning measurements you can see how fasting is impacting your metabolism
ideally you want to be waking up in a fat burning state which is a one or two on lumen scale your
body should shift to burning fat overnight because it's burned through all your stored carbs however
if you are practicing omad and you're getting a four or a 5 on lumen scale before you break
your fast this might be an indicator that you are over fasting and causing cortisol to be released
and that is definitely a sign to cut back on your fasting time if you want to check out lumen there
will be a link in the description box down below and the first 100 people to shop through that link
and use code kait50 are gonna save 50 off their order thanks to lumen for sponsoring this video
but it doesn't stop there some studies have actually found that omad
can make insulin resistance worse and this is because of the large amounts of food
you're having to eat in such a small window i have worked with clients who have done omad before
and there's one in particular i want to talk about this client would wake up with high blood sugar
and it would only lower right before she was going to eat her first meal in the evening
and despite her eating a meal that was low in carbohydrates her blood sugar would rise after the
meal and it wouldn't come back down to baseline until right before she was going to eat the next
day at which point she would eat again and it would bump back up so what was going on here
those with insulin resistance and poor metabolic flexibility have a higher demand for glucose
and depending on the composition of a meal it might cause your blood sugar to spike excess
protein can be converted to glucose but this is a demand driven process people with good metabolic
flexibility who are able to burn fat efficiently are less likely to convert protein to glucose
however those with poor metabolic flexibility are more likely to and because someone eating omad
is only eating one meal a day it's likely that during that meal they're eating
a decent amount of protein and look i am all for eating enough protein for your needs but
this much at once might not be ideal if you have poor metabolic flexibility
adding more fat to your meal can help to lower the blood sugar and insulin response to that meal
but it might just be a better strategy to split that one meal up into two or three
throughout the day so in summary eating one meal a day might be a good strategy for some
people but it can also be an additional stressor and slow progress for others
let me know in the comment section down below if you have tried omad for 30 days or more what was
your experience with it the pros and the cons and remember to check out today's sponsor lumen
if you want to see the impact that fasting is having on your metabolism and lumen also helps
you to improve metabolic flexibility once again the link is in the description box down below
anyways guys thank you so much for watching if you did enjoy this video you might also enjoy my video
where i show you a grocery haul for weight loss you can check it out here if you want to catch up
on my most recent upload you can find it here and if you want to check out my keto diet and
carter overnight coaching programs you can find them here thanks guys i'll see you next time bye