Does anyone here have to take medication with food?
I have to take both AM and PM (right before bed) medication which requires food. I’ve been taking the morning medication with a tablespoon of 4% cottage cheese and it seems to work (otherwise I’d get nauseous if taken on an empty stomach.)
The night medication is more tricky. Because of side effects I have to take it off my bedside table and go to sleep right away. The issue is that the medication requires 350 calories to be effective. I have been struggling to eat such a significant snack literally right before bed. My eating window is generally 2 pm - 7 pm, which I’ve been trying to push later, when I can manage to do so.
Looking for some similar experiences and techniques you’ve implemented.
I pushed my take-with-food med to the evening rather than morning (which is okay for my specific medication) and also pushed my window later in the day, like you’re aiming to.
If you haven’t already, talk to your prescriber about it.
I also struggle with eating that many calories when I’m just not hungry (hence pushing my med to my feeding window rather than trying to miserably choke down food in the morning). So in terms of practical measures, here are my tips:
Drinking calories is often easier than eating them - maybe a smoothie would do down a bit easier. You can add heavy cream, peanut butter or powder, coconut milk, avocado, or unsalted cottage cheese to up the calorie content. Plus, hydration before bed is important, so win/win. Or you could make a decadent hot cocoa with full-fat milk and/or a splash of heavy cream.
Calorie dense, relatively low-fiber foods are your best bet for avoiding that pesky and off-putting fullness sensation. I recommend PB&Js (or anything with peanut butter, really, it’s soooo calorie dense), cheese (~100 kcal/ounce), and avocado (avo toast, anybody?).
My least healthy suggestion: cookies, ice cream, or other rich desserts. They are ridiculously calorie dense, so you wouldn’t need to eat much. Not ideal by any means, but it’s an option.
Lastly, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I mean this in two respects: 1) I know a lot of folks have hardline stances on what breaks a fast or what eating windows are optimal, but it’s okay to not always fast “perfectly”. 2) 350kcal isn’t some magic number - it’s an optimal* one. This means that even if 200 or 300kcal isn’t perfect, it’s still loads better for absorption than taking your med on an empty stomach or with just 50kcal. Assuming your prescriber agrees with this philosophy, and you don’t notice bad side effects, it’s okay to not get the full 350kcal on days where you just can’t stomach it.
Do what you gotta do and just try your best.
* In fact, if you have a source for the 350kcal suggestion, I’d love to see it. That number is also recommended for my medication, but I haven’t been able to find literature corraborating it and while taking with food is obviously important (not denying that at all), I do wonder if that number is being applied out of context for a lot of meds.
Yeah, I take a daily medication twice a day that has to be taken with food or it’s ineffective and won’t be absorbed. I just time it out with my meals. On 16:8 days this isn’t a big deal. But on OMAD days is kind of means doubling up on the medication. In this case I don’t think it’s much of an issue and I asked my doctor about it and all he said was try to take it with food whenever the window is