Original email for context: I viewed all the videos that discussed intermittent fasting but none of them addressed daily fasting. Specially not eating before noon or after 8. Can this be done with the program? It is not a good idea?
If you do this and it suits your body well, then I think that’s fine. If that’s the case it’s possible you might end up eating the breakfast item as a mid-afternoon snack (like the chia puddings or mug muffins) around 4 or 5pm. If you skip the breakfasts meals entirely and don’t fit them in somewhere else, I would be just a little concerned that the calories will be too low and that’s something you don’t want to do for too long. You could also potentially replace the breakfast calories with something else that suits you for a snack that’s low carb midday as well.
Long term I think having an 8 or 10 hour eating window can work out great- it’s actually similar to what I do as I don’t eat breakfast – my first meal is somewhere between noon-1pm and my final food is usually around 10pm or so. This has definitely worked fine for me for over 6 years now!
The main thing is of course to get full meals in those windows so that you are consuming enough calories each day to maintain a healthy metabolism and also to be able to support any exercise you do.
Another point I’d like to bring out here though is sometimes, depending on how you are viewing the eating window, this can create an unhealthy relationship with food. So for instance, for me, even though I end up having a 9-11 hour eating window, I don’t purposefully have that in my head each day. If I have a limit on when I can eat or when I have to stop eating every single day, this creates a really strong negative feeling in my head – “what if I want to eat something at such and such time and I can’t?” It makes me feel trapped. Also another thing that can happen is it can cause a person to eat a lot up to that deadline, knowing they will not be able to eat after that point and this can cause a person to eat too many calories – that has happened to me before.
So as long as it’s done in a reasonable way where it naturally becomes a part of your life, then I think it can work in a healthy way. So I don’t have a specific cut off for when I no longer eat- it might be 9pm, it might be 12 midnight. I might eat lunch at 11, or 12 or 1pm. It varies from day to day on my schedule and my hunger level. But in general I end up having a natural IF window since my body is very adapted to not eating breakfast.
That’s the only thing I wanted to mention as far as cautions go- if you start to notice your plan creating anything unhealthy or negative in the way you are viewing food or your interaction with it, perhaps stop and ask yourself some honest questions and see if you can readjust how you view what you’re trying to do to keep it healthy.
I hope this helps!
