OMAD? More like HOMAD ( Making less than 1600 cals feel like 2500+)
Why I'm Spending the Next 9 Months Rebuilding Myself through a never done before ( or at least unheard of) experiment.
I’ve always liked the idea of OMAD.
For anyone who doesn’t know OMAD stands for “One Meal A Day.” The concept is simple: eat all of your calories in one sitting and fast for the rest of the day.
The problem?
I’m a foodie.
I love food. I love trying new restaurants. I love snacks. I love dessert. I love those random moments when someone says “Want to grab food?” and the answer is automatically yes.
The more I looked into OMAD, the more I realized I loved the simplicity of it but I wasn’t convinced I wanted to live like that. I didn’t want to spend the next nine months staring at the clock waiting for my one meal. I didn’t want to build a lifestyle around feeling deprived and I need to loose weight fast.
So I started asking myself a question..
What if I took the best parts of OMAD and got rid of the parts that made me not want to do it?
That’s how I thought of HOMAD
Heavy One Meal Of The Day.
Instead of one giant meal, I structure my day around one heavy meal and a few smaller support meals.
A light breakfast.
A heavy lunch.
A small treat.
A satisfying dinner.
The goal isn’t to starve myself. The goal is to make weight loss feel as normal as possible under a pretty rigorous and consistent calory deficit
The biggest hack behind HOMAD is probably volume eating.
The goal is to make a 1,650-calorie day feel like a 2,500-calorie day.
1. Build Bigger Plates actually..
Most diets tell us to eat less.
with HOMAD instead the question is:
“How can I make this meal look twice as big without doubling the calories?”
That means adding foods that take up a lot of space for very few calories.
Just a few examples:
Cucumber (entire cucumber): ~30 calories
Lettuce (large bowl): ~15 calories
Mushrooms (1 cup): ~15 calories
Spinach (1 cup): ~7 calories
Pickles: ~5 calories each
Strawberries (1 cup): ~50 calories
Watermelon (1 cup): ~45 calories
Bell peppers (1 cup): ~25 calories
Tomatoes (1 cup): ~30 calories
These foods can dramatically increase fullness while barely affecting calories.
2. Focus on What You Can Add
Most diets begin with restrictions.
No bread.
No sugar.
No carbs.
No fun.
HOMAD starts somewhere different.
Instead of asking:
“What can’t I eat?”
I ask:
“What can I add to make this meal more filling?”
More vegetables.
More fiber.
More volume.
More protein.
Less hunger.
3. Make Every Meal Look Ridiculous
One of my goals is to create meals that make people ask:
“Wait... that’s only how many calories?”
Examples:
Breakfast (~200 Calories)
Egg white omelet
Mushrooms
Spinach
Tomatoes
Strawberries
Tea
A surprisingly large breakfast for very few calories.
Heavy Lunch (~800 Calories)
Chicken breast
Rice
Black beans
Salsa
Vegetables
Massive salad
The star of the day.
The meal HOMAD is built around.
Dessert (~150 Calories)
Greek yogurt
Berries
Cinnamon
Zero-calorie sweetener
Because life is too short to never have dessert.
Dinner (~500 Calories)
Salmon
Sweet potato
Roasted vegetables
Large side salad
Simple. Filling. Sustainable.
4. Become a Research Project
Part of this experiment is research.
Over the next nine months I’ll be testing:
Volume eating
Low-calorie foods
High-protein meals
Different cuisines
Grocery hacks
Weight-loss psychology
Habit building
Fitness strategies
Hunger management
If I find something that works, I’ll share it.
If I find something that doesn’t, I’ll share that too.
The goal isn’t perfection.
The goal is building a system that is enjoyable enough to stick to and effective enough to produce results.
The next nine months are going to pass regardless. I might as well do something with my time.
If you’re curious or trying to lose weight yourself or simply enjoy watching people attempt ambitious projects stick around.
Welcome to Day One.
