So I am currently doing 20:4 fasts or 18:6 fasts depending on the day, hoping to work my way up into a set of longer fasts like 36-48 hours in the future. This seems to be going fairly well and I’m going to be incorporating electrolytes and stuff soon.
I had a question about ending my fast window too late. I generally start fasting around 8-9pm and don’t eat until 6pm or later the next day. However sometimes, because of my schedule or my partners schedule, we don’t get the chance to eat dinner until around 10pm which then closes my window later and then I have to wait a lot longer to eat the next day.
Basically my question is, how do you guys reset your fasting schedule when life gets in the way and your eating window closes a lot later than you would like it to? How do you reset while not losing progress? I feel really bad about myself and my commitment to all of this when I get off schedule and then it also becomes confusing and draining to work out how to get back on track.
Would appreciate any tips or advice you all have to give! Thank you
Answer
I had this issue when I first started. I just break my fast early the next day to get back on schedule. If you’re fasting for weight loss you’re not going to lose progress as long as you’re also still eating in a calorie deficit. I do 18:6 but I’m working up to alternate day 24hr fasts.
Answer
Best thing you can do is just keep to it, progress isn’t linear. The only time I was able to stick to fasting was when I gave myself some grace.
What worked for me was to track hours fasted by weeks, rather than days. So if your shooting for a 20:4 split, you want a minimum of 140 hours of fasting a week. If that looks intimidating think of it as having 28 hours to eat every week.
This has helped me, speaking from personal experience, good luck!