I’ve been doing 16/8 for the past month or so and I’m having a hard time figuring out what to eat to break my fast. Google is of no help. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Depends. What are your issues? How many calories can you have in the 8 hour window? What do you want your plan to do?
For instance… you get 1400 calories, and you want to eat two level meals for lunch and dinner, so how do you budget those 700 calories to make sure you aren’t hungry until dinner.
You have 1800 calories to spend, and want to go snack, snack, then big dinner.
The answer is always “ease into eating” when the window opens, so you don’t just start filling your face, but the specifics of what depend a lot. A boiled egg and an ounce of cheese is a less than 200 calories and might get you going, unless you hate eggs or are lactose intolerant.
For a daily 8 hour (and even a 4 hour) eating window, I’ve been fine breaking a fast with whatever I want to eat that fits my calorie/macro goals. (Not eating all calories at once, but what I mean is I’ve been fine with eating things such as fibrous or heavier foods.)
What you should eat to break a fast becomes more specific when doing longer fasts or if your stomach feels like it needs something more gentle after a fast: this is when you’ll hear people recommending lighter foods like broths and soups to break the fast.
I generally break the fast with high volume, low-moderate calorie veggie-heavy food and include protein. That helps make sure I don’t get overwhelmingly hungry and overindulge at my second meal. Some of those meals are a huge salad with a piece of chicken, or leftover roasted veggies drizzled with a sauce and paired with a sausage, or cauliflower rice and curry.
I do sometimes have a more splurge-y meal when I break the fast, and then I make sure my second meal is more aligned with the options I described above.
IF can be super flexible, which is why it works so well for me, but most especially when I remember that satiety and nutrition are important to keep me going.
I prefer to break my fast with a protein shake and give my body another hour or two before I eat a normal meal. For me personally, it felt like jumping right into a big meal was making too much of a splash.
Really whatever you like. I have a salad, crackers with cream cheese & greek yogurt with frozen berries. Fridays we order in lunch for work and I find the oily meals (mexican, pizza) are hard on my stomach, so I try and avoid that stuff, but that may just be a me thing
Yesterday I made Jamaican Jerk Souvlaki with veggie kabobs. Pineapple, yellow squash, red onion, red bell pepper and cherry tomatoes with a teriyaki sauce made from the leftover pineapple juice.
Made some Caribbean rice with half a diced red pepper, half a diced red onion using some coconut oil to sauté them along with cinnamon, jerk seasoning and some of my homemade chicken broth I made from cheap wings on sale after the superbowl.