How to Schedule Your Fasting
First and foremost, every person on the planet is completely unique and the best routine of IF is individual to the person partaking in this WOL. There are no wrong or right ways to take part as one schedule may work for one and not for another. For example, one may find skipping breakfast an easy practice and something they already subconsciously loosely do. Another may feel that it’s completely out of the question and would rather their last meal of the day be late afternoon.
It’s vitally important to create a fasting lifestyle that works for you – one you can consistently stick to. That means not only knowing why you want to fast, but also factoring in your unique body and circumstances such as budget, food preferences, nutritional needs and lifestyle. No IF schedule needs to be rigidly adhered to. In fact, at HYH we actively encourage you to mix it up from time to time. Not only does this give you the flexibility to fit this around your life, but it confuses the metabolic system. Most importantly, listen to your body.
Any dietary change in routine will alter your typical eating habits, therefore your body will need a few weeks to adjust, but the side effects will soon subside as you get into your groove. The typical IF schedules are:
12:12 — 12 hours of fasting, 12 hours of eating
14:10 — 14 hours of fasting, 10 hours of eating
16:8 — 16 hours of fasting, 8 hours of eating – this is a popular choice
18:6 — 18 hours of fasting, 6 hours of eating – Lucie’s personal choice
20:4 — 20 hours of fasting, 4 hours of eating
OMAD — One Meal A Day - Rich particularly likes this one
Alternate Day Fasting – you abstain from eating for a full day, then eat what you like the following day.
Anything beyond 36hrs is classed as an extended fast. More on these later.
From a personal standpoint, our preferred routine for IF is the 18:6 (12pm-6pm). It fits into our daily life perfectly as skipping breakfast is something we’ve done consistently for my entire adult life. We like to have dinner with the children so 6pm cut off is ideal. We didn’t start with this schedule, however. We gradually worked up to this timeframe and throughout our time living an IF lifestyle we’ve been flexible and tried a variety of schedules to see what works best. There are days, especially weekends, when we may break the fast at 10.30am as we often like to brunch. Perhaps if we’ve a date night or have friends for dinner we may extend our fast or not fast at all that day.
This is exactly why this way of life is so brilliant. You can alter it to suit your lifestyle so easily.
If we have social arrangements, we embrace that whole heartedly but get back to IF the very next day. This is the reason we’ve found a sustainable rhythm and have maintained this lifestyle. This is now our life-we will continue this way of life for LIFE!
So often we discuss the schedules of IF with friends and family who have questions regarding our new lifestyle. They’ve seen the positive transformation in both of us and are intrigued to know more about it. However, we are so often greeted with:
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly not have milk in my coffee in the morning’.
Our response to this is ‘you absolutely can’. As with any life change, there must be a few compromises. In reality, this one is a really minor issue when you think of the bigger picture. I truly believe if you want something enough, you can make that small compromise of milk in your morning coffee.
Prior to this newly adopted lifestyle we would have two large cups of tea in bed WITHOUT FAIL. It was almost like we couldn’t start the day properly if we didn’t, so I do understand people’s worry when I explain the rules of fasting. It took a matter of days (a week tops) to move on from that concern.
We now ONLY drink black coffee and have invested in a small Nespresso machine to explore all the different flavours. I genuinely can’t imagine our morning routine being any different now, and black coffee is my drink of choice even in my eating window.