– You know, chances are you've
tried one too many fad diets but could eating just one meal a day be a weight loss magic bullet? Take a look. – [Narrator] 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, Brooke 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. – 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.
OMAD 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
23 hours of fasting a day now. So, one of my meals for
OMAD would consist of four to five separate plates
of food, lean protein, two vegetables, dessert,
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 shell, salsa. And I would eat all of
that within my hour. I think if people are
already intermittent fasting, I think they should try OMAD.
I would talk to a doctor before starting because fasting for 23 hours
is- that's pretty extreme. You know, it isn't for everybody. – Well, here to weigh in our
one meal a day diet debate we've got the A team. We have holistic
cardiologist, Dr. Joel Kahn, celebrity trainer and host of the Jorge Cruise podcast, Jorge Cruise, and the intermittent fasting expert and kidney specialist, Dr. Jason Fung. So, let's start off with you, Jorge. We just heard from
Amanda- That tape piece… Amazing. I mean, you can't deny the
before and after pictures. She lost nearly 200
pounds on the OMAD diet but she eats more than 1,700
calories at any one time. What is your take on that? – Well, you know, I really
feel- I have no issue.
Really doesn't because it mimics what we call paleolithic nutrition. It's this how our ancestors ate really up until the 1930s almost. And I really feel it's powerful. I just turned 50 and for
anyone, say, over 50, it's also the only diet
that will extend lifespan. It's been shown that through this cellular regeneration
process called autophagy. So, it goes way beyond weight loss. – So, let's go to Dr. Khan. Dr. Khan, why do you take issue with this? – Yeah, I'm really glad
that this young woman had such a success at this. I think I could have suggested
a more healthful diet and gotten the same result but I would have called this more a bullet than a magic bullet diet. You know, recently in San Francisco, they did a randomized study of just not eating 16 hours a day. There was essentially no difference from the three-meal-a-day group and there was more lean mass loss. You don't want to lose your muscle.
That's been a consistent finding with restrictive dieting is losing muscle and, you know, the National
Institutes of Health in 2007 published studies on the OMAD diet. Mark Mattson, senior brain researcher. What did they report
in the randomized group eating one meal a day? Higher blood pressure,
higher LDL cholesterol, more insulin resistance. You want to create a heart disease diet, you put those three things
together, you keep going. She's a young woman. I deal with adult patients
at risk of heart disease. Finally, and medically, gallstones go up when you do restrictive feeding and you have to now ask the question, "23 hours no meal?" I'm actually writing a book
called "The No Meal a Day Diet." Just get duct tape. (laughs) And in the report at the
National Institutes of Health, the biggest side effect
was that people randomized one meal a day for the 12 weeks, they were angry and hungry
and it never got better.
And she may be a very special subject but to suggest this is
something we recommend as medical professionals
across the board, no way..