Dear Kayla,

What is the eating window for OMAD?

Signed,

Mojo

Dear Mojo,

This is the type of question that, if you ask 5 different OMAD-ers, you’ll probably get 5 different answers. I’ll tell you mine.

Whenever I say OMAD, I mean it literally. When I practice OMAD, I only eat once a day. One meal. No snacks. It’s not a window. It’s a limitation of how many times one eats. On an OMAD day, I have coffee with half and half whenever I want it, but I don’t eat any food until I sit down to supper with my family. I eat until I’m full. Then, when I get up from the table, I don’t eat again until my OMAD the next day.

The process of eating my supper takes about 45 minutes, so I suppose you could call it a 45-minute eating window. Now, I know some people practice OMAD differently. They’ll “open” with a small snack, then later on have a meal and perhaps a little something after that. That window of time might be a few hours long. Because I like to be specific, I’d instead call that a 21:3 or a 20:4, depending on how much time elapses between the first and last bite of food. The reason I like to be specific is because I want to clearly communicate what I’m doing.

A major reason I love OMAD the way I practice it is there’s no thinking about time, or calculating windows. Time awareness is not my strong suit. But the good news is, you can experiment and see what works best for you. The most important thing is that you are clear with yourself what your OMAD rules are, so that in the future you’ll have an easier time understanding what’s working, and how to troubleshoot what’s not.

Sincerely,

Kayla