Are you never awake at the same time? Also, you say your spiraling a bit. There may be some correlation between your random schedule and the way you are feeling. Sleeping and eating play a big part in our mental fitness. See if you can level out a little with the sleep schedule. At least try and find a common window to be awake. Then see if you can fit IF into that. Your body and mind will thank you when you find some balance.
I think that you would find that you feel much better if you can stick to the same schedule all seven days of the week.
This doesn’t mean you can’t adjust it a bit seasonally but switching back and forth within the week feels very erratic to me.
If you must arrange things this way then obviously you’ll not be getting the benefits of IF, so I might even ask myself what’s the point.
I sympathize- my husband works nights.
But we keep exactly the same schedule seven days a week, otherwise he gets discombobulated, can’t sleep, can’t focus, and feels lousy.
At least consider trying it.
I was in this situation a year ago, and if someone had suggested that I try an extended fast, I would have said thank you, no. But I have found that they are so much easier for me. I started out just by having a goal in mind (24/36 hours), doing some you tube research on any need to knows (working up to an extended fast, importance of salt/hydration, how to break an extended fast, etc.) and just seeing how far I could go on that edge where I’m pushing, but it doesn’t feel harmful. The weight loss effects are more immediate for me (I was stagnated with inconsistent 16-18 hour fasts) and I found I was able to prepare food for my kid as normal, be at work where there were Christmas treats around and I really wasn’t tempted to eat. I did spend some time building up to it, and I’ve also changed how I eat, but I’m in the groove now and it’s great for this schedule.
I’m up at night with a baby, and I’ve had to be flexible with my start and end times. Only a few days in so I’m by no means an expert, but I start my eating window when I eat lunch which varies. I’ve read that the start and end times don’t matter as much as the reduction in calories and being in a fasted state for a set amount of time.
I’m awake different times of the day too so I just do omad. Sometimes it’s longer than 24 hours. Does really matter when you eat only how long you fast and the time interval you give yourself to eat all the meals/calories in a deficit.
I work a similar schedule. with the same flip back and fourth. I started having a lot more success when I started eating in the same period every day, regardless of sleep schedule. Currently down 90lbs.
Usually I eat 4-8pm (snacks and dinner with the family), or 2-10 (I wanted lunch and snacks), or OMAD (before work) just depending on what I got going on that day. You can change the length of the eating window, but try to have it in the same general time frame.
Eating before work sucks, but you get used to being hungry at 3am and just drinking some black coffee.