Focus on having a meal that you find fully satisfying. Restricting your calories during your eating window is going to make it much much harder to stick to IF. Pay attention while your eating - Really taste your food. Then after your meal, check in with your body every 30 minutes to se how that meal is making you feel. The foods and quantities you want will change with time and that’s ok.
Use internet calculator or observation over time to determine your maintenance calories. Then eat food that is really filling per calorie (protein, fiber) and kachow, you might not even eat to maintenance. Establish a healthy dietary habit that is sustainable. Kachow
Personally, weekly meal prep.Calorie counting via by the week rather than daily.
So I take X amount of calories I need for 7 days, however many thousands of calories. Then I meal prep up to that big number.
In this way you can eat whatever.
Whole box of hamburger helper? Sure cook it up. Crock pot recipe? Go for it.An then I just divide it by 7 days. Or eat it any way you like. One day you’re hungryer? Eat more. One day less hungry? Doesn’t matter. Because it’s the weekly consumption that matter. ^ This with occasional fasting. Cause I still will eat out with friends or may end up gaining some weight etc.
If you want to know your true maintenance then eat regularly with moderate restraint, and record everything you eat daily. After 2 or 3 weeks calculate the average. It’s a pain in the ass but will give you an idea of how much you ate. Eat that consistently and boom it will become maintenance.
Calorie counting can be a pain which is why regular occasional fasting is another option. Eat whatever you want and do one 48 hour fast a week. Or one every 2 weeks. Or 3 weeks. Whatever keeps you level.
^ all of these are options.If you have gym goals I recommend weekly meal prep. Takes me maybe 2 hours to decide all the nonsense I want to eat. And 3 hours to cook if I have a full kitchen. Much longer now as no full kitchen so I make my options a bit more simple.
Just don’t do what I have done in the past and gorge on absolutely anything and everything within a 2-4hr window, and eat “just because”. It’s the reason I failed so bad and am now trying to get back on track, a year or so later…