As part of my new year resolution I tailored a 20/4 fasting plan. The idea is to have a salad and soup every day 4pm.
Depending on schedule I get to enjoy a lunch 4hours before – or 4 hours after I get to enjoy a dinner (no snacking in between).
It offers enough flexibility to work it into my schedule and should be easy for me to adhere to it hunger/willpower wise (I did many fasting schedules incl. longer fasts, OMAD etc., which I found manageable but not pleasurable).
My thoughts are:
- The Salad ensures one healthy meal a day with low insulin spike
- Should automatically operate at quite the kcal deficit without tracking
- Enables going for lunch with colleagues at lunch some days – whilst having dinner on others
- It’s manageable to stop eating after 4pm (lunch schedule)
- It’s easy to fast till 4pm (dinner schedule)
- Days that involve “evening socializing” are planned as dinner schedule – and just add a few hours to the eating window (and thus, whilst likely breaking the kcal limitations etc. soften the blow).
Thoughts (and/or prayers)? Anyone doing a similar schedule?
Answer
Soup and salad is an excellent idea for refeeds, IMHO. And with soup the nutrient/fiber density is as good as it gets, especially if you can sprinkle fresh and dried herbs on your soups, stoups, & stews. You can also make several servings at once and freeze soups for later. Or use your crockpot for convenience. And soups can be extremely economical. So much flexibility there, why not extend that principle to being flexible in other facets of your regimen? Like maybe think of your eating window not as “4 hours” but as “<4 hours” so that you squeeze more fasting hours out of the day when you feel strong. (Remember your fasting processes accelerate the longer you go, meaning Hour #21 is more valuable than Hour #1.) Also, why does it have to start at 4pm? You can have a customary or preferred eating window, but when I OMAD I have my 2 hour eating window wherever it suits me that day.
Anyway, you program sounds very sound just as it is. The question is, how good are you at making soups, stoups, and stews? Good luck in 2022!