I work from home so easier for me to be able to do my meals but I started with 16:8 and every week increased until I eventually went 23:1 omad. Now I constantly switch things up with omad, 2mad, 36, 48 hour fasts. The more you practice fasting the easier it gets. I’m currently on day 9 of a 21. Also don’t know what your diet is but low/no carbs makes the fasting a lot easier.
Perhaps a casual start. Have an early dinner, say 5pm. Then skip breakfast till 10am or so. That’s 17 hours! 8am is 15 hours! If you care, you can get a meter that measures if you get in ketosis or not. If yes than that is awesome. You are burning fat! Settle into something simple that you can live with. Then perhaps think about changing your diet at bit. Less carbs? Perhaps more exercise like a bit of walking.
I do the 18 and 6 and have since my second day. I think the last two hours and even the last hour can get tough if I’m just sitting around and waiting cause that’s like torture to me lol. 12pm to 6pm eating, and 6pm to 12pm fasting.
But anyways like for me the 19 plus hour fasting happens when I’m busy at work and then end up fasting to a later lunch break. So yes I agree it can happen where you end up fasting for longer.
I also do one scheduled 20 hour fast on Friday night into Saturday 2pm. IF since 2/2/23 and happy to have found this.
I started at 16:8 I found just drinking water throughout the day helps a ton. Tap water, and maybe even a canned seltzer water thrown in there. If you ramp up to 16, maybe add more water to the mix. I didn’t have real emotional or physical side effects. I guess just one was geralin or whatever the I-feel-hungry tummy hormone is, would kick in. But I quashed it with drinking another slow cup of two of water…gradually the feeling went away. Maybe take it slow up to 16hours with adding another cup or few of water if things get rough. Emotions and stuff might level out for you after you’ve attained weeks of going out to 16 or 18 hours. I found everything got better for me after weeks in. Body got used to it. I now do 20 or 22 hours a day fast as a standard. I didn;t make adjustments in the starting time of my schedule. I always started my fast at 6pm, and then moved it out from 10am the next day, to eventually out to noon to break fast, then out to 2pm to break fast- so eventually just eating 2pm-6pm. Good luck with your IF! ETA: I haven’t found if black coffee helps me against any hunger pangs, but I definitely drink coffee black everyday and it doesn;t interfere, because coffee has almost no calories!
You’ve received soMe good advice for if you want to increase your fasting window, but there’s no need not to feel proud of yourself for 14:10! In fact, if you’re seeing improvement with your feelings around food and some change in your weight or energy or waist size (any metric you’re tracking), I’d say stick with 14:10 until you’re not seeing any improvement. You can always increase your fasting window, and you can do so on any schedule that works for you, say increasing 1/2 an hour every few weeks.
The longer fast periods have some accelerated benefits, but that doesn’t negate that 14:10 is a longer fast than you were doing three weeks ago, and better than many others ever achieve. Small incremental changes can lead to amazing long term progress, and it sounds like you’re moving to a new approach to avoid the extreme measures you disliked when you were practicing calorie restriction and keto. Give yourself a pat on the back and some grace for your new way of eating.