I’ve been doing 16/8 for a while now, but the schedule has been:
8pm-8am: Fast
8am-12pm: Eat
12pm-4pm: Fast
4pm-8pm: Eat
Does this matter? I don’t think it would be tough for me to start eating at 12pm instead of 8am, but would it make a difference?
The idea of the 16:8 schedule is for there to be 16 continuous hours in which you fast.
So, what you are doing is not 16:8 fasting, and is not likely to have all of the benefits of intermittent fasting. But it may have various benefits for you — only you can determine that.
The goal of 16:8 is to fast for 16 hours straight. That is what gives your body the benefits of lower insulin. So no, you’re not doing 16:8. You’re effectively doing 12:12, since you only ever fast for 12 straight hours (the 4 hours between meals doesn’t count, since your insulin levels probably don’t fall back to baseline in that time). To do 16:8, you should move your first meal to start at 12 PM, and keep your second meal ending at 8 PM.
Yes. The idea is to keep your fasting hours together and your eating hours together. So 16 hours continuous for the fast and 8 hours continuous for the eating window. Dr.Jason Fung has a complete guide to fasting that you can follow that explains how to do it.
I hope this helps.