I have my main meal about 2hrs before bed and don’t eat breakfast. I can deal with hunger in the morning (I actually find it gets worse a couple hours after eating than if I’ve had nothing) but it keeps me up at night. Many people prefer an early eating window but it never worked for me but the later one works really well.
Maybe your body is not ready for 16:8 yet. Try a longer eating window, maybe 14:10 or even 12:12.
Just make sure you don’t eat big meals during those long eating windows, have regular meals at your “16:8 schedule” and in the rest, allow yourself some healthy snacking, untill you eliminate it for good.
And from there, week after week, eliminate 1 hour, till you reach 16:8. You got higher chances of success, less chances to abandon or binge eat, sleep better and also help your body get used to fasting without shocking it. This is a lifetime journey, you may as well take your time into getting used to it and taking small steps. Not everyone can jump right into it and it’s ok!
That’s how I personally did it. I kept falling off the wagon until I decided to take it that way and it worked. I was doing 16:8 on paper, but in reality I would allow myself eat a boiled egg with cream cheese and a slice of ham, for example, outside my eating window (not more than 12 hours tho), or a small porridge, a banana with peanut butter, an apple, etc. Meals not bigger than 150 ish calories.
Week by week i’d start to move my “breakfast snack” 1 hour later. For example, for a 8 AM- 8 PM eating window, i’d have my snack at 8 AM, then next week at 9 AM, then at 10 AM, then I’d get rid of the 8 PM snack and move it at 7 PM, until my window went to 16:8.
And now I alternate between OMAD, 16:8, 20:4, 18:6 (my main one), depends on how I feel.
Good luck!
That actually sounds similar to acid reflux/heartburn, which I used to get on fast days when I did 5:2. I use melatonin when I can’t sleep, sleep is essential for proper digestion so it could be a catch-22 where the sleep deprivation is making everything worse.