So I’ve been intermittent fasting for almost 2 years now. I typically do an 8 hour window, and occasionally I will do an extended fast. My issue is that sometimes I find myself either breaking my fast early because I’m hungry, or eating late, if I get home from work later than usual. When this happens, I end up feeling horrible after, like I’ve just done something bad. Does anyone else experience this?
I like tracking my fasting-to-eating-window ratio as a 30-day moving average. Provided that this metric keeps hovering above a certain “worst-still-acceptable case” threshold – one that I’ve deemed to be realistically satisfiable and at the same time in alignment with my goals –, I don’t quite care about what happens on isolated days. Given that I personally practice OMAD, the minimum acceptable 30-day average ratio I’ve opted for has been 20:4. For over a year and a half now I have yet to violate that lower bound, despite day-to-day having encountered everything from 12- to 36-hour fasting windows and 1- to 6-hour eating windows.
This is, generally speaking, my preferred approach of adherence monitoring – employing metrics that on the one hand discourage short-term micro-management, yet still capable of promptly sounding the alarm, in the event that I should somehow manage to screw up spectacularly, on the other.
Yeah, that’s not healthy.
Letting the clock determine your intake, and feeling guilty when you don’t follow it, is disordered eating.
Food is your friend, and vital to your well-being. By allowing the clock to govern your eating you are surrendering agency to a rigid and unnatural external force, rather than being empowered to manage your nutrition based on what your body needs.
A fasting schedule is a tool, to be used by you, not the other way around.
If you’re actually hungry, you should eat, regardless of what the window tells you.
Just a lurker summarizing some of what I’ve read on this sub in the time I’ve been here:
For a lot of IFers IF seems to be something that is somewhat flexible and meant to work FOR you, not against you. Several people set their eating window as the first time they could/want to eat, but if they aren’t hungry yet they just extend the fast and their isn’t anything wrong with that. Don’t sweat it if you get home later than you thought and eat a little bit later. The extended fast is perfectly fine so long as you’re maintaining some healthy energy level and not hurting yourself.
As for being hungry and breaking the fast early, have you evaluated your fasting window recently? Is it too long or too short? Does your work schedule conflict with it? I myself am working on see what IF would look like for me if I were to truly incorporate it and it seems like 18:6 would be perfect for most days, maybe 17:7 on other days. If you’re not a big breakfast eater, see what time you lunch break is for work and start there for when your eating window should begin. Then, based off when you leave work how soon are you eating dinner and closing your window? Ultimately, IF is a tool that is flexible and should be made to fit your lifestyle. I’m sure others on this sub know a lot more than I do and have more firsthand experience, but my point is make sure that you’re making IF work for you and not the other way around! Life won’t always be the same so the odd day out won’t hurt you too much. If you hop right back on the train the next day instead of scrapping it you’ll be much better off. You can do it!