#241 Is Eating One Meal a Day Healthy - The Doctors Reaction

Siim Land (0:00)

Hey, welcome back to the channel, my name is Siim Land, and in this video, we're going to talk about is the One Meal a Day healthy? And I saw this video from the Doctors TV show, and they were talking about the OMAD diet, which is One Meal a Day.

And yeah, the discussion is like, is it healthy? What is the other implications you may have to be aware of? And that sort of thing. So I'm just going to basically react to it and give my little bit of like analysis and my own thoughts about it.

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SPEAKER_2 (0:54)

Just one meal a day, be a weight loss magic bullet, take a look.

You've probably heard about the trendy intermittent fasting diet, but the OMAD diet tips the scales on this concept. OMAD is short for one meal a day, and that's essentially all you have to do on this plan. A number of celebrities have reportedly tried this diet, including Channing Tatum, Jennifer Aniston, Rook Shields, and Chris Pratt. And while eating just one meal a day may sound unappealing, people still want a taste of this diet's apparent benefits.

Amanda (1:20)

Hi, my name is Amanda. I'm 31 years old. I went from 400 pounds to 198 pounds in 20 months using the OMAD diet.

Siim Land (1:27)

That's quite crazy to lose, how much was it, like 200 pounds in 10 months. That's a huge weight loss. Like most people, it takes years for them to reach that sort of result. And she did it, you know, in only, what was it, 10 months or 12 months or so.

And yeah, in 20 months, sorry. So yeah, it's a pretty remarkable weight loss result.

Amanda (1:53)

O-mad diet, O-mad worked for me because I'm a volume eater. I like to eat large quantities at one time. I got really serious about losing weight when I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. And I was told that my weight was a factor. I was 387 pounds at the time. I introduced the intermittent fasting, starting with just the simple 13 hours, 14 hours, could I go 15? How about 16? And then I slowly just worked my way up to, I do about 22 and a half to 20

Siim Land (2:19)

So it's a, yeah, you usually people start off, like I wouldn't recommend people to start off with the WOMAD diet immediately, because it's pretty hard or if you're not used to it, then you're going to at least have a harder time doing it.

And your potential for like rebounding and quitting is much higher compared to something if you start off with the 14 hour, 15 hour or 16 hour window, then you build up your body's let's say ability to tolerate the fast and it's also gets easier, kind of the longer you do it. So, a more transitional phase would be, let's say, it's going to give you more results or more sustainable results in the long term.

Amanda (2:55)

So, one of my meals for OMAD would consist of four to five separate plates of food, lean protein, two vegetables, oatmeal with peanut butter, then I would have what I would call my snack chips, popcorn pretzels, snack mix, and then chicken, zucchini and potatoes, turkey meat with like taco shells, salsa, and I would eat all of that within my hours.

Siim Land (3:15)

So, she described a lot of like food, talking like it and it kind of makes people think that, oh my God, that's such a massive amount of food, like how can you actually eat it? So, it's not actually like, you know, she describes all these different foods, but the reality is that probably the quantities of each of those foods is still relatively small because, you know, you need to, if you want to lose weight, then you need to be in a calorie deficit and you can't, let's say, you can't eat as many calories as you want within that one meal a day and still lose weight. So there's need to be some sort of calorie deficit occurring somewhere. And she just, you know, fits in all those foods, different foods that she likes, you know, she mentioned these proteins, salads, vegetables, peanut butter, cake, pretzels, popcorn, whatever it is, it kind of fits in all these different foods that she likes. And you know, that's what helps her to kind of stick to the diet and not, let's say, feel like she's dieting or starving. And that's one of the better, one of the reasons why some people may want to do the OMAD diet, that they just get to enjoy, like she said, like a larger quantity of food without feeling that you're starving and without feeling that you're restricting yourself, while at the same time being able to still have like some of those foods. She had like one of the first pictures where she showed, there we go, like, this is probably one of her meals. So it's not, you know, as you can see, it's not a huge, massive quantity of food. Like, yeah, it's more than one meal, you know, it does have like three plates, four plates, but it's not, I don't know, like a binge fest or something. Like most people, if they're watching TV, they'll probably eat this, they'll probably eat this bowl of popcorn and chips without even thinking about it. Like they don't even recognize that they ate such a large quantity of chips.