Tried searching the sub for this but couldn’t find it. My psychiatrist briefly mentioned that early eating windows are better for women (i.e. I should eat after early AM workout and stop at 4pm). Has anyone heard this before? Experienced it?
No longer seeing her (it’s a long story but she was dismissive and only wanted to sell her “coaching plan”) so can’t ask her lol
Lots of discussion on this. Comes down to, what works for you? What will you stick to?I prefer skipping breakfast and lunch because I can keep busy. But in the evening at home I’m sitting next to that evil refrigerator! Tempting evil refrigerator!
For me, a 7:30 am to 1:30 pm window works really well. No calories or food just kinda sitting in me overnight, undigested. Almost half my fasting window spent asleep, and I start every day with breakfast, so I have energy. And lunch gives me energy to finish out my afternoon. After maybe 5 or 6 pm I start getting tired, but that’s normal since I have a fairly busy and stressful life. Plus, most people are tired after work or school from what I’ve seen, so I think that judging by the patterns so far, a fairly early eating window is good.
It also depends on how wide your window is. If you are talking about an early morning workout (which I assume starts somewhere between 5:30 and 8:30 am) and end at 4 pm, I presume that’s 8-10.5 hours, which is kind of a lot (I think most people do 4-8), but if you are doing a workout early, it’s good to eat a little more and eat right after anyway. Frankly if you are eating at around 8:00 am (I’m assuming that would be post workout besides maybe weekends, and you have a job you have to get to), I’d stop eating by 3. But it all depends on what works for you, plus I don’t really know your schedule besides that you end at 4 pm.
The earlier window certainly worked much better for me. I’m around 12:00-4:00.
The best piece of advice I’ve seen (and that I pass onward all the time) is to start by eating three solid meals a day and eliminating all snacking. Once that is comfortable, start sliding your mealtimes closer together until one naturally drops off. That’s your window.