I do rolling ADF (36:12) fasting. I have no problem with that rhythm now. Starting out, however, was hard.
To work up to 36 hour fasting, I failed a lot of fasts. Some things I learned.
- Cut out all simple carbs. For me this was essential for keeping hunger and cravings to a reasonable level between fasts. In my 12 hour eating windows I eat TDEE + 20%. I don’t quite eat to keto levels of low carb, but they’re pretty low and I stick to complex carbs only and in conjunction with high protein / fat.
- When starting out, eat a very high fat meal for the last meal going into the 36 hour fast. This isn’t required for me any longer, I can eat a regular meal, but to start out it helped a lot. I made this pasta bake dish full of cream cheese, regular cheese, and bacon. It really helped.
- I drank coffee and matcha green tea (appetite suppressing). I found a big box of the matcha green tea at Costco for cheap. It worked for me.
- Know that you can bail out at any time. If you’re committed, you’ll eventually do it, but it was important for me psychologically to know this was voluntary. I bailed on over half of my 36 hour fasts the first month.
- Rolling ADF is easier than occasional ADF. My body has gotten into the rhythm. It moves easily and without fuss from 0% of energy from body fat to 100% of energy from fat every 48 hours and it feels pretty great. I did 3x per week ADF (Sat & Sun off every week) for a while. I like rolling ADF better. That Sunday evening meal was so stressful because I was going back to the grind after two days off.
- The psychological aspect of dealing with a 36 hour fast, at least to start, is a big deal. It’s easy to get into the spiraling thoughts of, “I’m so hungry, how long left? 18 more hours!!! I can’t do that. No way! How about now? 17.5 hours!?! Dear lord….” My approach that has worked for me is to ignore durations and how long to end the fast. I have trained myself to think only in terms of, “I’m fasting now” or “I’m in my eating window now.” I never calculate how many more hours remaining until I eat. I try to keep the end of my fast window from being a big deal in my head. When I got up this morning to break the fast, my thought was, “huh. it’s an eating day. So let’s go get a good breakfast.” I consciously try to not feel strong relief. It’s just an emotionless, “I’m getting my calories from food today instead of body fat” feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy eating in my eating windows, but I work to minimize the emotional reward of getting to eat. It helps me a lot.
I don’t have any great advice beyond telling you to just jump on into it. If you’re familiar with fasting (a lot of people struggle even with 24hr fasts) you know the mental hurdles you need to jump to get through. I fast all the time (on and off for years) and have only recently realized that there are days where I just fall into it, already accepting I’m fasting—and there are days where it’s extremely difficult to get through. I’ve stopped trying to fast on those days, beyond my usual 22/2 or omad. 36hrs isn’t much of a leap from 24, which you’ve already mastered. Go for it, but of course also listen to your body.
I like a ~40:8 schedule (sometimes up to 43:5 due to meetings and life) and found it easy after doing 16:8 and then 20:4 pretty consistently for a few years.
I end eating around 6/7pm one night and then don’t eat the whole next day. Only challenging hours are a couple in the evening where my pattern is usually to have dinner, here the key is delay not deny; the stray through for food are easily put aside as I know I will be eating the next afternoon.
Then you get free hours overnight and boom by 12ish I hit my 40 hours and then have 2 meals that day, ending eating around 6/7 pm again.