New lunch time is out of my eating window.

Over the last couple of weeks I started doing 16:8 fasting mixed with intuitive eating. Unfortunately, my work has implemented a time dependent break schedule due to people in my department getting COVID from each other. My time slot is from 11:00am-11:30am. I don’t want to eat if I’m not hungry, which most days I’m not, and it’s outside the hours that I’m allowed to eat. I tend to not get a break other than lunch while I’m working and I work in a lab so I cannot eat while working. By the time I get home though I’m starving but I also don’t want to overeat so I portion a ~500-700 cal meal. I don’t get hungry again until after my eating window closes and it’s too close to bed time for me to eat or I will get horrible acid reflux. Is this okay for 5 days a week? I usually aim to eat no more than 1500 cals when I’m not working.

Answer

Are you asking if it’s ok to eat only 500-700 calories a day for 5 out of the 7 days of the week? No. Adjust your eating window so you’re hungry at your break time, or do OMAD and eat one 1500 calorie meal when you get home.

Honestly it’s kind of impossible to do IF and intuitive eating at the same time, because intuitive eating is about eating when you’re hungry, and IF is about limiting when you can eat. They’re at odds with each other. At a certain point you do need to actually make sure you’re getting enough calories! And if you’re committed to doing IF then that might mean eating when you’re “not hungry”.

Answer

You could officially switch to OMAD and make your dinner a larger meal (1200-1500 calories). It sounds like you are basically doing OMAD right now anyway — just eating way too small of a meal. If you know that will be your only meal of the day anyway, why do you not want to eat more than 500-700 calories at that meal? It’s not like you need to save the calories for another meal.