If there was one thing that I could impart to new fasters, it is this: The ravenous hunger you feel during the first several days of Daily Intermittent Fasting (IF) will pass. When a faster talks to a non-faster, the person who isn’t fasting simply cannot believe that the faster goes without food for 18, 19, 22, or more hours a day. The inquiring person often comments that they get “sick-hungry” if they just miss breakfast! Some go on to report how terrible they felt when they had a fasting blood test. “I can’t feel that terrible all the time. I don’t know how you do it!”

Trust me. We fasters wouldn’t fast if we felt that way. Nobody wants to feel terrible all day long—even to lose weight and get healthy! There is an amazing process that happens in the body after two to three weeks of consistent Daily IF: your hunger subsides. Yep. Your body becomes “fat adapted,” which means that it uses all of the glucose from your storage and from yesterday’s food, and it starts using your body’s own fat for energy. Eventually (again, after consistency!), your body does this seamlessly—and you no longer feel starved when you’re “all out of food stores” to use.

Ghrelin is a hormone that is released that causes hunger. It is known as the hunger hormone. (In my teachings, I call these hormones Ghrelin Gremlins….and guess what they do? Yep….they growl!) Many people describe hunger as “waves,” which it actually is. Ghrelin is released periodically (not surprisingly at breakfast, lunch, and dinner!), but it does not “accumulate.” That is, we don’t have so much when we first get hungry (surprisingly, mid morning—we can go all  night and still not be hungry first thing in the morning!) then more than that at lunchtime. Then the most at dinner time.

This is why we say it comes in waves—and leaves just as quickly! You can usually overcome hunger within ten minutes or so. If you ignore it, distract yourself, drink something (non-caloric and non-flavored), it will go away—not continue to grow. Studies done on people who did extended fasting (33 hours or more) showed that ghrelin did not continue to increase during that time period. The people actually got less hungry over time, not more!

There are some things you can partake of during the first few weeks of fasting to help with the ravenous hunger during the fasting window. While calories can cause a metabolic response, resulting in breaking the fast (and causing more hunger), there are non-caloric things you can consume and still remain in the fasted state. First of all, water can help with hunger as it fills you up some. Sparkling (non-flavored) water can trick the “growling ghrelin gremlins” into thinking you are putting food in the stomach—and they just might stop growling. For hunger that is associated with low electrolytes, many people find that pink Himalayan salt (stirred into water or coffee or taken as crystals under the tongue) can instantly give the minerals that are needed.

Caffeine is another appetite suppressant for many Daily IF’ers. While consuming anything with flavors or sweet tastes (including flavored coffee, tea, water, or drinks) can cause an insulin response and create hunger (and break the fast), unflavored water, black coffee, and real (not herbal) tea can provide help with hunger. Caffeinated water, coffee, tea, and supplements help many people with hunger during the fast.

Work, hobbies, to-do lists, baths, naps, story time, reading, hand work, exercise—all of these and more can provide welcome distractions to hunger. It is best to start Daily IF during your busiest days. Some people take up new hobbies to keep their hands and minds busy during the fasting hours. Others take naps or go to bed earlier. Plan non-food activities to fill your

In the book, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, the author teaches that the brain, just like a computer that you program, believes anything you tell it. Tell it good things about yourself and your fasting journey!Each day tell yourself that you are a great faster. That you control food, not the other way around. That each day you turn your body into a fat burning machine. And that YOU re successful. Your brain will believe it—and tell your body to act accordingly.

Many people are unnecessarily hungry during their fasting window because of what they ate during their eating window. Some people count calories and simply eat too few calories in an effort to “speed up their weight loss.” Others eat too low in fat and too high in carbohydrates, filling their glycogen stores so full that the body doesn’t go into fat burning very easily.

There is not a hard and fast rule for WHAT to eat during Daily IF (at least not in my groups and course). This is where you will need to experiment. Some people find that if they eat fat in the end of their eating window, their hunger is lessened. Others find that if they have enough carbs, especially eating a complex carb like brown rice or white/sweet potato the evening before helps with hunger the next day. Find out what helps you the most food-wise with your hunger and eat that!

1. Trust the Process: Hunger Will Decrease After Three Weeks or So When Your Body Becomes Fat Adapted
2. Ghrelin (the Hunger Hormone) Rises in Waves But Decreases Quickly
3. Control Hunger During the Fasting Window With Water, Salt, Caffeine, and More
4. Control Hunger During the Fasting Window With Distractions and Affirmations
5. Control Hunger By Eating Well During Your Eating Window

OMAD is a popular abbreviation for a Daily Intermittent Fasting (IF) protocol known as “One Meal a Day.” (Some people pronounce it Oh/Madd. I love abbreviations and cutesy names, so I’m all about the Oh/Madd!) There is a lot of confusion about exactly what this term means.

In social media groups, diehard “one plate of food” during “one half an hour period of time” people say that it isn’t true OMAD if you eat a snack during your eating window or you eat anything besides that one plate of food. Others say that OMAD means you have an eating window of somewhere between one hour and five hours in length—and you can have a snack or appetizer to open your window and then eat your meal and dessert later. It should be noted that there is another abbreviation, OPAD—One Plate a Day—for those who truly eat one plate of food every day within a thirty minute (or so) time period.

OMAD/3 is a shortened form that I created for the concept of thinking of your eating window in three parts. Many OMAD’ers automatically do this without thinking—but the curriculum writer/teacher in me wanted to create a catch phrase for it!

Thus, OMAD/3 is One Meal a Day divided by 3. (Teacher’s Note: Remember the fraction symbol means divide. Smile….) This means that the eating window is broken up into three “eating parts”: (1) Appetizer/salad/snack to open the eating window; (2) Main entrée a couple of hours later (depending on how long the eating window is); (3) Dessert (or snack) before closing the eating window if/when desired.

Generally speaking, we lose weight with Daily IF through eating less food (creating a caloric deficit), putting our body into fat burning each day during the fasting period, and re-distributing our body’s composition into a leaner-looking physique through losing body fat and holding onto muscle. (Yay us!)

A person can lose weight with a different Daily IF protocol, such as a shorter fasting window/longer eating window of 16:8 or 17:7. However, these plans will usually involve two meals rather than one meal and may even add an extra snack in there. Thus, a 16:8 protocol would not be OMAD but could result in two meals and two or three snacks/desserts. Typically, when someone does two meals a day to lose weight, that person will also do the keto diet, low fat diet, or some other “calorie” or “carb-controlled” eating protocol along with Daily IF to achieve weight loss since they can’t count on that time period/number of eating instances to automatically create a calorie deficit (and they may not be that far into fat burning depending on what they ate yesterday).

OMAD/3 is especially helpful for two types of people: The first people who are helped with this are those just starting out with Daily IF who have not gotten into “Appetite Correction” yet. Appetite Correction (AC) happens a couple to a few weeks into consistent Daily IF—sometimes sooner. It is when you naturally get full and/or want to stop eating before you overeat. It is one of the amazing benefits of Daily IF. Before AC begins, however, a new faster might find themselves “eating everything that isn’t nailed down.” OMAD/3 gives people built-in boundaries without their having to count calories or macros before AC sets in and helps them naturally eat less.

The second group of people who are helped with OMAD/3 are those who are not eating low carb or keto/do not want to count anything except for time. It is a natural boundary for food that can help us keep the amount of food we consume in check when we don’t want to consider the type  of food (i.e. low carb, high fat, low calorie, etc.).  Yes, we can eat whatever we want in our eating window and still lose weight—but we can’t eat huge amounts and/or non-stop during that window.

One of the things that many people love about Daily Intermittent Fasting is the freedom to eat whatever they want—oftentimes for the first time after many years of attempted dieting and deprivation. (Daily IF is “short term sacrifice for long term success”!) So if we can eat whatever we want during IF, why is this a point titled “Choosing Foods for OMAD/3”? I am thrilled to be teaching IF from the standpoint of eating whatever you enjoy. It is much-needed and long-awaited for many of us 40-60 year olds who have struggled with dozens of diets throughout our adult lives.

However, I like to teach three benchmarks for choosing your foods during OMAD/3: (1) Getting nutrition in (i.e. fruits, veggies, and proteins for sure!); (2) Feeling great (no carb comas, brain fog, or tummy troubles); and (3) Eating what you enjoy.  For me, this means that on most days, I open my window with a snack/appetizer/salad this is nutrient-dense and low carb—salad, soup, cheese and low carb crackers, leftover meat, green beans, nuts, etc. This isn’t a hard and fast rule. I just know that I will feel great until my meal (which is whatever I want to eat that doesn’t make me feel bad) AND I won’t crave foods while I’m waiting for my meal (since low carb foods do not make me crave). Then I have my meal and oftentimes a dessert of my choice—one dessert!

1)    What Is OMAD?  IF Journal podcast/videocast week 5

2)    What Is OMAD/3? Slideshow: 5 Tips Creating Simple Boundaries in IF

3)    Why OMAD Over Others?  Slideshow: 5 Reasons Might Need Shorter Eating Window

4)    Creating Boundaries With OMAD/3 IF Journal podcast/videocast week 11

5)    Choosing Foods for OMAD/3: Slideshow: 5 Ways to Start IF Hours and Options

Sometimes people who practice Daily Intermittent Fasting feel a need for more boundaries. After all, most of us have lived or tried to live within certain food boundaries for decades through various diet protocols in our adult lives. Thus, Daily IF can feel a little loosey-goosey to some people—especially in the beginning before Appetite Correction (AC) sets in and our hormones are balanced, when we naturally eat less during our eating window. The first and most natural boundary that a Daily Intermittent Faster can, and probably should, implement to get the best results is changing up of the Fasting and Feeding Windows.

This is an easy fix for someone who isn’t getting the results they desire or someone who has been doing Daily IF consistently for over a month and still feels that the feeding window is too out of control. A simple tweak, such as going from 18:6 to 19:5 or 20:4 (18, 19, or 20 fasting hours and 6, 5, or 4 feeding hour) is a boundary that can make a huge difference without any extra counting or food choice limits. This tweak is especially helpful if you find yourself eating two full meals during 18:6 but only one meal and a snack or two (small) during 20:4.

As much as I hate to recommend this because one of the beauty of Daily IF is NOT counting, I feel that I must. Some people need a period of time in which the old crutches of “dieting” are still being implemented during their eating window. Eventually, this might become a thing of the past for lifetime dieters, but during the first three or four months, many people need this boundary to feel success and get results.

In this scenario, a person is fasting for 16, 18, 19, or more hours but also doing one of their old diet protocols. This may be carb counting in order to stay keto or LCHF (low carb high fat). It might be point counting, such as in a Weight Watchers program. Or it might be calorie counting if that is what the person feels “safe” with. One benefit of any of these counting scenarios is that a person might have greater weight loss in the beginning whereas some people do not lose a lot at first until Appetite Correction sets in. Another benefit is that a person can gradually realize that they can eat this way without counting and still have success—but this happens over time, so they feel more confident in Daily IF.

An easy boundary that I have implanted that helps me utilize Appetite Correction (AC) more fully is the OMAD/3. OMAD stands for One Meal a Day. Divided by 3 means that we are dividing the feeding window (the “one meal”) into three parts: (1) Appetizer/Snack/Salad when feeding window is first opened; (2) Entrée an hour or two later; (3) Dessert or Snack just before closing feeding window (if desired).

OMAD/3 gives some structure to what new Daily IF’ers might feel is unstructured—the feeding window. It helps while you are waiting for AC to set in, during the first few weeks when you are basking in the IF liberties of eating whatever you want a little bit too much. Rather than just eating continually during three, four, or five hours of a feeding window, the food intake is more controlled as “eating episodes” while still not necessarily dictating WHAT the person eats.

This boundary has been a lifesaver for me. First of all, I was feeling a little hypoglycemic when I opened my eating window with carbs. While I haven’t been pre-diabetic for years (controlled it with 100 carbs per day and supplementation), I felt it coming back when I ate carbs only or sugar during my eating-window-opening. However, when I started opening my eating window with low carb foods (for others it might just be something really nutrient dense, not necessarily low carb), this feeling completely went away.

Thus, the first part of OMAD/3 for me consists of something 20 carbs or fewer. Another benefit to this is that a person seldom overeats or overindulges on nutrient-dense foods or low carb foods—and since AC usually happens later in the eating window, this simple boundary keeps the IFer from eating crazily as the window opens. Another thing this window-opening boundary helps with is getting in the nutrition that we need. Yes, we have the freedom to eat pizza on pizza night, but starting with something healthful helps us get more nutrition in on pizza night or birthday cake party day!

Again, not my favorite boundary, but one that definitely works and doesn’t require counting and recording. This boundary is one in which the Daily Intermittent Faster chooses certain days to not eat certain types of foods. If you are still having trouble overeating during your feeding window, this can help you stop that madness.

Another beauty of considering certain food types off limits on certain days is that it is short term deprivation. Just like Daily IF is easy to follow because it is short term deprivation for long term results, making Monday and Wednesday low carb days or Tuesday and Thursday no sugar days can help you get a handle on overeating without counting anything and without feeling deprived every day of the week.

1) Have Shorter Eating Windows/Longer Fasting Windows

2) Count Something

3) Implement OMAD/3 and Utilize Appetite Correction More Fully

4) Open Window With Nutrient-Dense Foods

5)   Consider Certain Foods Off Limits on Certain Days