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OMAD Carnivore: Benefits and How To
OMAD carnivore means combining a diet of only meat and animal products with the OMAD (One Meal a Day) approach to intermittent fasting.
In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of combining OMAD and carnivore, offer an OMAD carnivore meal plan, and provide some helpful tips for making OMAD carnivore as healthy and sustainable as possible.
Table of Contents
What is OMAD
OMAD stands for “One Meal A Day” and means restricting your eating to a one-hour window within a 24-hour period.
Though this approach seems radical in the context of a standard American Diet that calls for three meals a day with snacks in between, it was likely the norm for our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
What is Carnivore
The carnivore diet means eating only animal products while eliminating all plant and processed foods including fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, vegetable oils, and added sugars.
Versions of Carnivore
There are variations on the carnivore diet, beginning with the most restrictive Lion Diet (steak, salt, water).
More inclusive approaches like Dr. Kiltz’s BEBBIIS plan calls for red meat, bacon, blue cheese, duck liver, and even allows for occasional treats like homemade low-carb ice cream and french fries fried in tallow.
The nose-to-tail carnivore diet calls for the regular addition of nutrient-dense organ meats.
Each of these approaches to a carnivore diet can be considered a version of a low-carb high-fat ketogenic diet. As an extremely low-carb diet, carnivore diets require consuming between 70-80% of your calories from animal fats.
Ancestral Roots of OMAD Carnivore
Both OMAD and carnivore have roots in ancestral eating patterns.
For this reason, many people practicing OMAD carnivore use it as a way of reclaiming health and wellness by realigning our ancestral physiology (forged over millennia as hunter gatherers) with the foods we were designed to eat.
Studies show that for nearly 2 million years hunter gatherers thrived on a hyper-carnivorous diet of fatty meats. Without refrigeration, our ancestors had to feast on meat while it was fresh. Between successful hunts (and feasts) they fasted.
Not surprisingly, OMAD and carnivore, are naturally harmonious. In fact, for many carnivore dieters, OMAD is more often a natural progression of the carnivore lifestyle rather than a restrictive addition.
Benefits of OMAD Carnivore
People combine “One Meal a Day” intermittent fasting with a carnivore diet meal plan in order to enhance the benefits of both practices.
Reported and studied benefits of OMAD carnivore include
- Reduced inflammation
- Overcoming food and carb cravings
- Improved gut health and healing intestinal permeability
- Sustained and steady energy
- Improved cognition and protection against neurodegenerative disorders
- Improved mood
- Improved heart health
- Cellular regeneration
- Overcoming fertility issues like PCOS, and endometriosis while improving sperm quality
- Better recovery after exercise
- Clearer skin
- Better digestion
- Reduced inflammation
Below you can watch Doctor Kiltz discuss combining OMAD with carnivore
Reduced Inflammation
Inflammation is at the root of the most common and deadliest diseases across the globe, including heart disease, cancer, type-2 diabetes, and numerous chronic inflammatory disorders .2
Fasting protocols like OMAD, and carb-restricting diets like carnivore have been shown to dramatically reduce inflammation.
One of the key ways that OMAD carnivore reduces inflammation is by eliminating most carbs.
Numerous studies show that high-carb diets promote inflammation while low-carb diets decrease inflammation. 2 1 6 9 10 11
A recent study found that intermittent fasting combats inflammation by reducing inflammatory cells called “monocytes.” 3
The researchers theorize that the reduction of monocytes in blood from IF isn’t a product of starvation/restriction but a result of eating in greater alignment with our ancestral fasting/feasting cycles. In other words, it’s not about eating fewer calories, just eating them less often and from far fewer carbs.
Other studies show that IF reduces C-reactive protein, another marker of inflammation. 1
Reducing levels of inflammation is important because they’re associated with [11]:
- Reduced severity and incidences of neurodegenerative disease
- Improved ‘healthspan’
- Improved longevity
Improved Cognition and Neuroprotection
OMAD carnivore mimics the ancestral pattern of fasting between hunts and feasting on fatty ruminant animals. This ancient pattern has left its mark on our genes in powerful ways.
Research shows that when we’re in a fasted state, our brains think faster, blood vessels dilate, and muscles become more resistant to lactic acid. [3]
In other words, when we fast we become better hunters. In modern life, the things that make us better hunters make us healthier, more productive and present humans.
Conversely, when we’re fed all the time, we get fatter, slower, and dumber. [4]
Furthermore, a 2020 study found that combining a ketogenic diet like carnivore with intermittent fasting can reduce biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. And another study found that keto and fasting can improve cognitive function for people already impaired. 4 5
Improved Gut Health
OMAD combined with a carnivore diet may be remarkably effective at improving gut health and resolving digestive issues.
Research shows that intermittent calorie restriction like OMAD can reduce endotoxin levels.
Endotoxins are associated with intestinal permeability and systemic inflammation. 2 [4] [2] 
In a 2021 experiment on rats, researchers found that intermittent fasting reduced hypertension by changing the gut microbiota. 2
Studies also show that when during fasting your body breaks down fats for fuel, this superior energy source boost stem cells that regenerate the intestinal lining. These energized stem cells then help heal leaky gut syndrome. [26] 4
OMAD carnivore provides the added gut health-promoting benefit of eliminating nearly all sugars and inflammatory plant toxins.
Sugar, along with plant toxins like gluten and lectins, have been shown to promote harmful bacteria and reduce protective bacteria in the gut. This process is known as gut dysbiosis and can lead to intestinal permeability, AKA leaky gut, and accompanying system-wide inflammation. 5 5 13
If you’re experiencing gut-related problems like IBS, Chron’s disease, or SIBO, the OMAD carnivore approach may be beneficial.
Weight Loss
OMAD carnivore can enhance the weight loss benefits of both approaches.
Both low-carb diets like carnivore and intermittent fasting protocols, have been shown to help you lose weight. 4
Studies have found that intermittent fasting burns through visceral fat even more quickly than low-carb diets. [6] With OMAD carnivore, you’re getting the benefits of both approaches.
One study of healthy adults found that eating within a daily four-hour window resulted in far greater fat loss than consuming a calorie-restricting diet with three meals a day. [5]
OMAD Carnivore promotes autophagy
OMAD promotes the process of cellular regeneration called autophagy (Greek for self-eating).
Autophagy is a process whereby damaged cells get broken down and recycled into components of new cells.
Autophagy and its benefits were such a significant discovery that it was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2016.
The benefits of autophagy include protection against cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. Autophagy may also slow down the degeneration that normally comes with aging. [9]
It’s thought that fasts of 16 hours or more are needed to initially trigger autophagy. However, autophagy only comes online if your OMAD fast takes place overnight–in alignment with your circadian rhythm. 5
Combining OMAD with carnivore ensures that once autophagy kicks in you are nourishing your growing cells with the most nourishing foods on earth loaded with the healthy saturated fats, cholesterol, and micronutrients needed for healthy cell growth.
OMAD Increases Hormonal Sensitivity
Consuming a diet high in carbs leads to the common hormone imbalance called hyperinsulinemia.
Chronic hyperinsulinemia can lead to numerous severe health problems, including:
Fasting protocols like OMAD have been used to reduce hyperinsulinemia for over 100 years. [17]
Recent research shows that intermittent fasting may reverse hyperinsulinemia faster than conventional dieting. [18]
Not surprisingly, numerous studies show that ketogenic diets like carnivore that eliminate most carbs have been successfully used to treat and reverse hyperinsulinemia. 4 5 6
Food Addiction
Modern life is plagued with mindless snacking, emotional eating, craving, and binging processed junk food.
Intermittent fasting helps us break the habit of relying on food as an emotional crutch.
A 2020 study in the Journal of Addiction Research looking at the effects of intermittent fasting on food addiction found that “most if not all organ systems respond to intermittent fasting in ways that enable the organism to tolerate or overcome” food addiction and then return to normal. [27]
The study also notes that after a fasting period, the type of food you eat is important to maintaining a non-addictive relationship to food. These satiating superfoods can help!
And if you’re looking for more support with food addiction, you can learn more about mindful eating here.
OMAD Carnivore Foods
To get the very best results from this way of eating, however, we’d encourage you to combine OMAD’s meal timing with a nutrient-dense, animal-based diet that eliminates plant toxins and antinutrients.
- Remember that OMAD carnivore is 70-80% fat–consume plenty of butter, tallow, lard
- Salt your food liberally
- Prioritize animal products like fatty meat, fatty fish, and seafood, and eggs
- Add in full-fat dairy like keto cheese, especially creamy blue cheese, which has beneficial bioactive compounds
- Drink plenty of bone broth
- Supplement with fresh organ meats or organ meat supplements
- Add in superfoods like salmon roe, and oysters,
OMAD Carnivore 7-Day Meal Plan
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 |
| Ribeye Steak smothered in bklue chees, Eggs + raw oysters | Eggs and bacon + Salmon pan-fried basted with butter | 70/30 ground beef covered in butter and sour cream + soft boiled eggs
| Braised Pork belly + Raw oysters | Picanha steak with blue cheese butter + Duck Liver Foie Gras | Proscuitto and cheese charcuterie + Rack of lamb dipped in own fat drippings and butter
| Beef short ribs + Prawns/shrimp drenched in butter |
Is coffee allowed on OMAD Carnivore?
However, you will have to keep your coffee milk and sugar-free. Instead, you can add heavy cream and butter.
OMAD Carnivore: The Takeaway
OMAD Carnivore combines the practice of eating one meal a day with nourishing animal foods. This approach eliminates most carbs, along with all irritating plant toxins and antinutrients.
OMAD carnivore can be viewed as a way for modern people to mimic the eating patterns and food choices that humans evolved on for most of our 2 million years on earth.
Some of the key benefits of OMAD carnivore include:
- Reduced inflammation
- Improved mental clarity
- Better energy
- Improved gut health
- Hormonal balance
- Weight loss
