While raising and homeschooling seven children for thirty-two years, we often had children want to “change” the schedule or change the plans for “special” occasions. “Can we skip math today? It’s snowing…we’re going to the dentist…we’re sleepy…we’re happy…we’re tired…” Take your pick. And I would give them my typical answer: “Every day can’t be a ‘special day’ even though every day is ‘special’!” In other words, we have to choose our special to create exceptions for; we can’t change our schedule all the time.

When we look at our week and try to find “special days,” we are falling back into the diet mentality–that mentality in which we are looking for loopholes and excuses to get out of our prescribed eating protocol. We don’t need to do that with Daily Intermittent Fasting! This lifestyle is so doable that it really can be just that–a lifestyle. We need to quit looking for ways that we can extend our eating window or shorten our fasting window. Quit looking for ways that we can go “off”–and instead make this a way of life, knowing that the end result will be health, wellness, and weight management.

Instead of looking for ways and times to go “off” and “on,” we should be guarding our fasting time and keeping close tabs on our feeding time. They should become automatic and welcomed. When we guard our fasting time, knowing that the longer and more often we fast, the sooner we will be at our goals, we quit looking for “special” and try to make even the truly “specials” doable–figuring out how we can still get in a sixteen or eighteen hour fast on vacation or trying to make a later lunch date with a friend. We will WANT to fast–not want to get out of it.

Thus, we must choose our “specials” carefully. A recurring day is not special. Saturday comes every seven days. When we do have a unique situation, we need to tweak our fasting window the day before a “recurring special” so that we finish eating earlier if we are going to start eating earlier the next day. A holiday might be special. A weekend get away (if we don’t do them monthly!) might be special. A birthday party for a close family member might be special. A vacation is special. But every day can’t be a “special day.”

When we do come across a day that needs some “tweaking” in order to have a decent-length fast, we need to plan for that day earlier in the week, rather than just giving up and eating for a long period of time. We know when a brunch is coming up that we can’t get out of. We know when we’ll be having a business lunch that week. So we need to look at that week and see how we can still get fasting hours in–even on those “semi special” days. There are a few ways to do this in order to still keep a fasting average intact. (You can use an app to track your average fasting hours for the last seven days to be sure that even a shorter fasting window of 17 or 18 hours {or whatever} doesn’t take your fasting average down too low. I try to keep my fasting average close to 20 hours per day by doing some 22 hour fasts during the week and some 18 on the weekend, as needed for “semi special” occasions.)

Let’s look at a couple of scenarios that you might encounter that could  require some tweaking (but no going “off”!). If you have a lunch that is earlier than you usually open your eating window, you can close your eating window earlier the day before. So if you are having a 12:00 lunch that you absolutely can’t move around, just end the night before by 5:00 and still make your 19 hours. (And watch out for those “two meal days” if you are trying to lose with OMAD–One Meal a Day. They sneak up on you when you’re tweaking and can really wreak havoc on your weight loss goals.) If you ever have to eat in the morning for some unusual reason, simply eat no carbs in that meal and don’t eat anything again until a short 30 minute dinner window that evening. This no carb breakfast will closely mimic fasting and won’t throw you completely off. If you have to have a 16 or 18 hour fasting day, precede it or follow it with a 24 hour fast. Look at your entire week and plan for your fasting. A clean long daily fast is your gift to yourself each day!

There will be times in which a 19 or 20 hour fast isn’t possible, but keeping in tune with our “every day can’t be a special day” theme, these should be few and far between. For me, these are long weekend trips and vacations. Otherwise, I have been able (in several months of Daily IF) to make the little tweaks suggested above rather than “skipping the fast.” Before I get into how you might want to handle these truly  special occasions, keep in mind that if you have made it through the first month of fasting consistently, you are likely fat adapted. One question I ask myself when I am considering whether I want to shorten my fast for something “special” over several days is this “Do I want to go through the fat adapting period all over again?” That is, do I want to take a full week off from fasting–and eat for 12 or more hours a day–if it means that I might fill my glycogen stores so full from the constant eating, larger number of calories, and so many carbs…and have to go through the “hangries” to get fat adaption again?

If we are consistent in Daily IF/OMAD (eating only three, four, or five hours a day for a few weeks), we will likely go into ketosis/fat burning during our fasting hours. We will no longer be “hangry” during the fast. We have earned that “daily state” through that first month of consistency. That was a hard month for many of us. I personally don’t want to repeat it. So when I take long weekends and vacations/writing retreats (I’ve had three of these plus three big holidays during my first four months!), I examine the entire week and try to get in at least sixteen hour fasts. I no longer snack on the drive or in the airport. I “save” my eating for things that are really worthwhile–and try to preserve some fasting time throughout the trip. I can usually do 19 hours on the first day and the last day of a trip. The days between are “navigated” with the tips from #3 above, again, while still trying to get in sixteen hours of fasting whenever possible.

We have to look at every hour of fasting above twelve hours as being beneficial. It isn’t like calorie counting or carb counting where we used to say, “I’ve already blown it; I may as well just eat whatever I want now.” That is a diet mentality–not a lifestyle mentality. Daily IF is the one eating protocol that will truly allow us to eat local cuisine and desserts when we travel! We can do the little tweaks above. We can try to empty as much glycogen during a shorter fast as we can (and possibly throw in some low carb meals to keep them from getting overly full). We can exercise, walk a lot, swim, etc., to help burn through some of the glycogen too. We can plan ahead and preserve some good fasting hours. We don’t have to be perfect on vacation in order to still get some of the benefits of IF!

While we can plan ahead (I like to do some low carb days leading up to a vacation to get those glycogen stores low, low, low!) and we can do some serious 22-24 hour fasts after the trip, we want to be careful that we don’t punish ourselves for vacations and truly special occasions. We are in control. Once we changed from a temporary diet mentality to a lifestyle mentality, we made the commitment to ourselves to fit in fasting as a way of life. Do we all make mistakes? Yes. Do we sometimes decide that the trip to Europe is a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience, so we’re changing our lifestyle for that week? (I don’t know…I’ve never traveled outside of North America!) The point is, yes, plan. But no punishment.

1) Every Day Can’t Be a Special Day

2) Choose Your “Specials” Carefully

3) Make Little Tweaks and Schedule Changes As Needed Rather Than “Going Off IF”

4) Do I Still Want to Do Some Fasting During My Special Occasion?

5)  Don’t Fall Into the “All or Nothing” Diet Mentality and Don’t Punish Yourself : Delay, Don’t Deny

If there was one thing that I could impart to new fasters, it is this: The ravenous hunger you feel during the first several days of Daily Intermittent Fasting (IF) will pass. When a faster talks to a non-faster, the person who isn’t fasting simply cannot believe that the faster goes without food for 18, 19, 22, or more hours a day. The inquiring person often comments that they get “sick-hungry” if they just miss breakfast! Some go on to report how terrible they felt when they had a fasting blood test. “I can’t feel that terrible all the time. I don’t know how you do it!”

Trust me. We fasters wouldn’t fast if we felt that way. Nobody wants to feel terrible all day long—even to lose weight and get healthy! There is an amazing process that happens in the body after two to three weeks of consistent Daily IF: your hunger subsides. Yep. Your body becomes “fat adapted,” which means that it uses all of the glucose from your storage and from yesterday’s food, and it starts using your body’s own fat for energy. Eventually (again, after consistency!), your body does this seamlessly—and you no longer feel starved when you’re “all out of food stores” to use.

Ghrelin is a hormone that is released that causes hunger. It is known as the hunger hormone. (In my teachings, I call these hormones Ghrelin Gremlins….and guess what they do? Yep….they growl!) Many people describe hunger as “waves,” which it actually is. Ghrelin is released periodically (not surprisingly at breakfast, lunch, and dinner!), but it does not “accumulate.” That is, we don’t have so much when we first get hungry (surprisingly, mid morning—we can go all  night and still not be hungry first thing in the morning!) then more than that at lunchtime. Then the most at dinner time.

This is why we say it comes in waves—and leaves just as quickly! You can usually overcome hunger within ten minutes or so. If you ignore it, distract yourself, drink something (non-caloric and non-flavored), it will go away—not continue to grow. Studies done on people who did extended fasting (33 hours or more) showed that ghrelin did not continue to increase during that time period. The people actually got less hungry over time, not more!

There are some things you can partake of during the first few weeks of fasting to help with the ravenous hunger during the fasting window. While calories can cause a metabolic response, resulting in breaking the fast (and causing more hunger), there are non-caloric things you can consume and still remain in the fasted state. First of all, water can help with hunger as it fills you up some. Sparkling (non-flavored) water can trick the “growling ghrelin gremlins” into thinking you are putting food in the stomach—and they just might stop growling. For hunger that is associated with low electrolytes, many people find that pink Himalayan salt (stirred into water or coffee or taken as crystals under the tongue) can instantly give the minerals that are needed.

Caffeine is another appetite suppressant for many Daily IF’ers. While consuming anything with flavors or sweet tastes (including flavored coffee, tea, water, or drinks) can cause an insulin response and create hunger (and break the fast), unflavored water, black coffee, and real (not herbal) tea can provide help with hunger. Caffeinated water, coffee, tea, and supplements help many people with hunger during the fast.

Work, hobbies, to-do lists, baths, naps, story time, reading, hand work, exercise—all of these and more can provide welcome distractions to hunger. It is best to start Daily IF during your busiest days. Some people take up new hobbies to keep their hands and minds busy during the fasting hours. Others take naps or go to bed earlier. Plan non-food activities to fill your

In the book, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, the author teaches that the brain, just like a computer that you program, believes anything you tell it. Tell it good things about yourself and your fasting journey!Each day tell yourself that you are a great faster. That you control food, not the other way around. That each day you turn your body into a fat burning machine. And that YOU re successful. Your brain will believe it—and tell your body to act accordingly.

Many people are unnecessarily hungry during their fasting window because of what they ate during their eating window. Some people count calories and simply eat too few calories in an effort to “speed up their weight loss.” Others eat too low in fat and too high in carbohydrates, filling their glycogen stores so full that the body doesn’t go into fat burning very easily.

There is not a hard and fast rule for WHAT to eat during Daily IF (at least not in my groups and course). This is where you will need to experiment. Some people find that if they eat fat in the end of their eating window, their hunger is lessened. Others find that if they have enough carbs, especially eating a complex carb like brown rice or white/sweet potato the evening before helps with hunger the next day. Find out what helps you the most food-wise with your hunger and eat that!

1. Trust the Process: Hunger Will Decrease After Three Weeks or So When Your Body Becomes Fat Adapted
2. Ghrelin (the Hunger Hormone) Rises in Waves But Decreases Quickly
3. Control Hunger During the Fasting Window With Water, Salt, Caffeine, and More
4. Control Hunger During the Fasting Window With Distractions and Affirmations
5. Control Hunger By Eating Well During Your Eating Window

OMAD is a popular abbreviation for a Daily Intermittent Fasting (IF) protocol known as “One Meal a Day.” (Some people pronounce it Oh/Madd. I love abbreviations and cutesy names, so I’m all about the Oh/Madd!) There is a lot of confusion about exactly what this term means.

In social media groups, diehard “one plate of food” during “one half an hour period of time” people say that it isn’t true OMAD if you eat a snack during your eating window or you eat anything besides that one plate of food. Others say that OMAD means you have an eating window of somewhere between one hour and five hours in length—and you can have a snack or appetizer to open your window and then eat your meal and dessert later. It should be noted that there is another abbreviation, OPAD—One Plate a Day—for those who truly eat one plate of food every day within a thirty minute (or so) time period.

OMAD/3 is a shortened form that I created for the concept of thinking of your eating window in three parts. Many OMAD’ers automatically do this without thinking—but the curriculum writer/teacher in me wanted to create a catch phrase for it!

Thus, OMAD/3 is One Meal a Day divided by 3. (Teacher’s Note: Remember the fraction symbol means divide. Smile….) This means that the eating window is broken up into three “eating parts”: (1) Appetizer/salad/snack to open the eating window; (2) Main entrée a couple of hours later (depending on how long the eating window is); (3) Dessert (or snack) before closing the eating window if/when desired.

Generally speaking, we lose weight with Daily IF through eating less food (creating a caloric deficit), putting our body into fat burning each day during the fasting period, and re-distributing our body’s composition into a leaner-looking physique through losing body fat and holding onto muscle. (Yay us!)

A person can lose weight with a different Daily IF protocol, such as a shorter fasting window/longer eating window of 16:8 or 17:7. However, these plans will usually involve two meals rather than one meal and may even add an extra snack in there. Thus, a 16:8 protocol would not be OMAD but could result in two meals and two or three snacks/desserts. Typically, when someone does two meals a day to lose weight, that person will also do the keto diet, low fat diet, or some other “calorie” or “carb-controlled” eating protocol along with Daily IF to achieve weight loss since they can’t count on that time period/number of eating instances to automatically create a calorie deficit (and they may not be that far into fat burning depending on what they ate yesterday).

OMAD/3 is especially helpful for two types of people: The first people who are helped with this are those just starting out with Daily IF who have not gotten into “Appetite Correction” yet. Appetite Correction (AC) happens a couple to a few weeks into consistent Daily IF—sometimes sooner. It is when you naturally get full and/or want to stop eating before you overeat. It is one of the amazing benefits of Daily IF. Before AC begins, however, a new faster might find themselves “eating everything that isn’t nailed down.” OMAD/3 gives people built-in boundaries without their having to count calories or macros before AC sets in and helps them naturally eat less.

The second group of people who are helped with OMAD/3 are those who are not eating low carb or keto/do not want to count anything except for time. It is a natural boundary for food that can help us keep the amount of food we consume in check when we don’t want to consider the type  of food (i.e. low carb, high fat, low calorie, etc.).  Yes, we can eat whatever we want in our eating window and still lose weight—but we can’t eat huge amounts and/or non-stop during that window.

One of the things that many people love about Daily Intermittent Fasting is the freedom to eat whatever they want—oftentimes for the first time after many years of attempted dieting and deprivation. (Daily IF is “short term sacrifice for long term success”!) So if we can eat whatever we want during IF, why is this a point titled “Choosing Foods for OMAD/3”? I am thrilled to be teaching IF from the standpoint of eating whatever you enjoy. It is much-needed and long-awaited for many of us 40-60 year olds who have struggled with dozens of diets throughout our adult lives.

However, I like to teach three benchmarks for choosing your foods during OMAD/3: (1) Getting nutrition in (i.e. fruits, veggies, and proteins for sure!); (2) Feeling great (no carb comas, brain fog, or tummy troubles); and (3) Eating what you enjoy.  For me, this means that on most days, I open my window with a snack/appetizer/salad this is nutrient-dense and low carb—salad, soup, cheese and low carb crackers, leftover meat, green beans, nuts, etc. This isn’t a hard and fast rule. I just know that I will feel great until my meal (which is whatever I want to eat that doesn’t make me feel bad) AND I won’t crave foods while I’m waiting for my meal (since low carb foods do not make me crave). Then I have my meal and oftentimes a dessert of my choice—one dessert!

1)    What Is OMAD?  IF Journal podcast/videocast week 5

2)    What Is OMAD/3? Slideshow: 5 Tips Creating Simple Boundaries in IF

3)    Why OMAD Over Others?  Slideshow: 5 Reasons Might Need Shorter Eating Window

4)    Creating Boundaries With OMAD/3 IF Journal podcast/videocast week 11

5)    Choosing Foods for OMAD/3: Slideshow: 5 Ways to Start IF Hours and Options

Sometimes people who practice Daily Intermittent Fasting feel a need for more boundaries. After all, most of us have lived or tried to live within certain food boundaries for decades through various diet protocols in our adult lives. Thus, Daily IF can feel a little loosey-goosey to some people—especially in the beginning before Appetite Correction (AC) sets in and our hormones are balanced, when we naturally eat less during our eating window. The first and most natural boundary that a Daily Intermittent Faster can, and probably should, implement to get the best results is changing up of the Fasting and Feeding Windows.

This is an easy fix for someone who isn’t getting the results they desire or someone who has been doing Daily IF consistently for over a month and still feels that the feeding window is too out of control. A simple tweak, such as going from 18:6 to 19:5 or 20:4 (18, 19, or 20 fasting hours and 6, 5, or 4 feeding hour) is a boundary that can make a huge difference without any extra counting or food choice limits. This tweak is especially helpful if you find yourself eating two full meals during 18:6 but only one meal and a snack or two (small) during 20:4.

As much as I hate to recommend this because one of the beauty of Daily IF is NOT counting, I feel that I must. Some people need a period of time in which the old crutches of “dieting” are still being implemented during their eating window. Eventually, this might become a thing of the past for lifetime dieters, but during the first three or four months, many people need this boundary to feel success and get results.

In this scenario, a person is fasting for 16, 18, 19, or more hours but also doing one of their old diet protocols. This may be carb counting in order to stay keto or LCHF (low carb high fat). It might be point counting, such as in a Weight Watchers program. Or it might be calorie counting if that is what the person feels “safe” with. One benefit of any of these counting scenarios is that a person might have greater weight loss in the beginning whereas some people do not lose a lot at first until Appetite Correction sets in. Another benefit is that a person can gradually realize that they can eat this way without counting and still have success—but this happens over time, so they feel more confident in Daily IF.

An easy boundary that I have implanted that helps me utilize Appetite Correction (AC) more fully is the OMAD/3. OMAD stands for One Meal a Day. Divided by 3 means that we are dividing the feeding window (the “one meal”) into three parts: (1) Appetizer/Snack/Salad when feeding window is first opened; (2) Entrée an hour or two later; (3) Dessert or Snack just before closing feeding window (if desired).

OMAD/3 gives some structure to what new Daily IF’ers might feel is unstructured—the feeding window. It helps while you are waiting for AC to set in, during the first few weeks when you are basking in the IF liberties of eating whatever you want a little bit too much. Rather than just eating continually during three, four, or five hours of a feeding window, the food intake is more controlled as “eating episodes” while still not necessarily dictating WHAT the person eats.

This boundary has been a lifesaver for me. First of all, I was feeling a little hypoglycemic when I opened my eating window with carbs. While I haven’t been pre-diabetic for years (controlled it with 100 carbs per day and supplementation), I felt it coming back when I ate carbs only or sugar during my eating-window-opening. However, when I started opening my eating window with low carb foods (for others it might just be something really nutrient dense, not necessarily low carb), this feeling completely went away.

Thus, the first part of OMAD/3 for me consists of something 20 carbs or fewer. Another benefit to this is that a person seldom overeats or overindulges on nutrient-dense foods or low carb foods—and since AC usually happens later in the eating window, this simple boundary keeps the IFer from eating crazily as the window opens. Another thing this window-opening boundary helps with is getting in the nutrition that we need. Yes, we have the freedom to eat pizza on pizza night, but starting with something healthful helps us get more nutrition in on pizza night or birthday cake party day!

Again, not my favorite boundary, but one that definitely works and doesn’t require counting and recording. This boundary is one in which the Daily Intermittent Faster chooses certain days to not eat certain types of foods. If you are still having trouble overeating during your feeding window, this can help you stop that madness.

Another beauty of considering certain food types off limits on certain days is that it is short term deprivation. Just like Daily IF is easy to follow because it is short term deprivation for long term results, making Monday and Wednesday low carb days or Tuesday and Thursday no sugar days can help you get a handle on overeating without counting anything and without feeling deprived every day of the week.

1) Have Shorter Eating Windows/Longer Fasting Windows

2) Count Something

3) Implement OMAD/3 and Utilize Appetite Correction More Fully

4) Open Window With Nutrient-Dense Foods

5)   Consider Certain Foods Off Limits on Certain Days

After 3 to 4 weeks of consistent Daily Intermittent Fasting, a process called Appetite Correction sets in. During the first few weeks, people wonder how they will ever lose weight eating everything they want during a three five , four, or five hour eating window. However, Appetite Correction happens when we balance our hormones through Intermittent Fasting and we quit wanting to eat everything in sight.

Appetite Correction is a built in monitoring system, a natural boundary for us without us having to count anything or try to manipulate our food too much. We crave healthier foods with Appetite Correction, and by eating healthier foods, we are not eating as much junk. This results in weight loss. Moreover, Appetite Correction causes us to just be “done” eating when we would normally keep on eating more desserts and more treats at the end of our eating window.

Daily Intermittent Fasting causes us to become Fat Adapted. Fat Adapted means that each day during our fast, we use up our circulating glucose and/or glycogen stores and start burning body fat rather than burning the food we just ate. That is, the food we ate yesterday gets burned up during the fast somewhere between the 12 and 16 hour mark, and our body goes into Fat Adaption where we burn our body fat for fuel.

This is when real weight loss occurs because this is similar to when the body goes into ketosis during a low-carb diet (keto diet). Our body moves seamlessly from burning circulating glucose and glycogen stores into burning its own body fat for fuel. Usually someone has to follow a very low-carb diet, such as 20 to 30 carbs a day, and/or much interval and high intensity exercising in order to burn body fat. Daily Intermittent Fasting does it for us naturally.

When we start to do Daily Intermittent Fasting consistently, the combination of Fat Adaption and Appetite Correction and seeing our body shrink through fat burning causes us to organically eat more healthily. We stop wanting junk food as much, though we have the freedom to have treats, and we do not overeat as much.

Treats become just as they were intended to be – treats. We do not eat so many of them so that we have way too many calories in any given day. We organically and naturally eat better, and we lose weight in the process.

A smaller eating window of three, four, or five hours will naturally yield fewer carbohydrates. It is thought that the average person eats 300 or 400 carbohydrates in any given day. A short eating window will often find the Intermittent Faster eating between 100 and 150 carbs per day.

While 150 carb sounds like a lot of carbs compared to the keto diet of 30 carbs, the fewer carbs we eat (along with moderate protein), will reduce the amount of circulating glucose and the amount of stored glycogen. This means that we will go into that Fat Adaption, or body fat burning, earlier….sometimes even at the 12 hour fasting mark for non-keto people.

When we have shorter eating windows of three, four, and five hours, and we also have Appetite Correction, we will have a calorie deficit many days of the week. So even without considering being Fat Adapted, eating fewer carbs, consuming fewer treats, having Appetite Correction, etc., we are creating a calorie deficit every week.

If a person stays on Daily Intermittent Fasting consistently, overtime, that person will naturally lose weight from a small calorie deficit in addition to all of the other perks of weight loss that occur with Daily Intermittent Fasting. And….weight loss breeds more weight loss. Success leads to more success.

1) We Lose Weight When Appetite Correction Sets In: Appetite Correction Book

 2) We Lose Weight When Fat Adaption Happens: 5 Ways to IF Hours and Schedules slideshow

3) We Lose Weight When We Organically Eat Fewer Treats: Delay, Don’t Deny

 4) We Lose Weight When We Naturally Eat Fewer Carbs

5) We Lose Weight Over Time When We Create Even a Small Calorie Deficit and Then Have Motivation From the Weight Loss

Whether your end goal is OMAD (One Meal a Day) or a more conservative 16 hour fasting window (also known as 16:8–16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating), you might be the type of person who doesn’t want training wheels, fat bombs, or incrementality to get started. Maybe you just want to GO—and not look back. If this is you and you are going to do a shorter fasting window of say 14-16 hours, you can simply look at your schedule and cut out your evening snack, breakfast, and mid-day snack and choose an 8-10 hour eating window of noon to eight or whatever suits your time period. You might be a little hungry going to bed at first and it might be difficult to work through the morning for the first week or so, but it shouldn’t be impossible for you.

If this is you and you want to end up with a short eating window of say five hours or fewer (also called 19:5, 20:4, and 21:3 protocols), cold turkey can be challenging. If you are used to eating five or six times a day (and only truly being in a “fasted” state for, say, 8 hours of sleep), it can be overwhelming to wake up and face twelve hours without food. You will want to be sure that you are super busy during your first two to four weeks of cold turkey OMAD (while you are waiting for your body to become fat adapted and have less hunger during the fast). You will also want to utilize coping and distraction techniques, such as self-talk, five second rule tips, app use, pink himalayan salt, mineral water, sparkling water, and more.

For those who are desiring the Daily Intermittent Fasting protocol of One Meal a Day (OMAD—short eating windows of between 1 and 5 hours and longer fasts of 23 to 19 hours), you may desire to get there quickly but not necessarily in one week. You want some incrementality, but you don’t want to wait eight weeks to reach your final fasting goal. Thus, the fast start means that you will reduce snacks and meals quickly–possibly one or two per week–for up to four weeks or so.

Someone following this approach will want to examine their eating schedule and consider where you want to cut first. You will likely start with eliminating your evening snack OR breakfast. This would put you at twelve to fourteen hours of fasting the first week. While it looks like a short jump from 14 to 19 fasting hours, if you are truly going for OMAD, that is not just another snack being cut–but is another full meal and can feel harder than it looks on paper! So the next week, you will cut whichever you didn’t cut the first week (either the night snack or breakfast). Then you’ll be closer to a 16 hour fast. The third week, you will be ready to push lunch out to later in the afternoon until the next week, you replace lunch with a snack/appetizer/salad later in the afternoon when you open your eating window.

Some people are afraid of the hunger associated with Daily Intermittent Fasting. They remember their experiences with fasting blood work or working late without having a snack on them and automatically assume that the type of hunger and sometimes sick feelings that they had during those short “fasts” are the types of hunger that they will have for the rest of their lives with Daily IF. This isn’t true, but it is reasonable to think so. Some people assume they will “get used to it” better if they do the introduction to fasting slowly. For those people, a “training wheel” approach over eight weeks might be the best way to start Daily IF.

In this way, the person seeking OMAD slowly starts out simply cutting out an hour of eating on either end (or both), gradually reducing the number of eating opportunities over six to eight weeks. So the first week, you might stop eating at 8 pm and not eat breakfast until 8 am, thus doing a twelve hour fast for a week. The next week, add an hour of fasting to the evening and the morning. And continue in this way until you land in your perfect OMAD. The downfalls of this approach are that you aren’t getting fat adapted very quickly, so it really could take the entire six to eight weeks before ravenous hunger is gone. Another disadvantage is that you will probably not see weight loss in the first six weeks or so unless you are changing what you are eating during your eating window since that is a lot of time with many eating hours each day. However, just like training wheels make the new biker more comfortable during the transition to bike riding, this approach really helps many people.

In my experience, the people who lose weight consistently and have the most IF benefits while having a shorter fasting window (16, 17, or 18 fasting hours) seem to be those who are eating a low carb diet plan while doing Daily IF. I have never met a person or seen a testimony of someone with life-long weight issues who got to their goal weight eating anything they want for 8 hours a day (two meals). There are three potential reasons for this: (1) Consuming too many calories during a six to eight hour eating window; (2) Not getting the benefits of Appetite Correction during your eating window because you are “getting full two times”; (3) Having too much circulating glucose/glycogen stores to burn through before you get into body fat burning. With those problems, you might not go into body fat burning (become fat adapted) until closer to 16 hours or so; thus, by the time your body starts using its own stores, you are ready to eat again and refill that glycogen.

If a person wants to do 16:8, 17:7, or 18:6, they probably need to be keto during their eating window if they are looking for weight loss. (This is actually where much of today’s IF has its roots–IF/Keto together.) For the most part, a keto diet means that you will get into body fat burning way sooner than someone eating carbs (and you may stay in ketosis all the time). Thus, even a shorter fasting window of 16 hours would still yield body fat burning every day.

As explained in the previous protocol, fasting for 16, 17, or 18 hours a day with a net weight loss is challenging at best. Generally speaking, this means that you are eating two meals a day and possibly one or two desserts and one or two snacks (with no other eating boundaries in place). In order for a person to lose weight eating that frequently and that amount, they probably have to put another “diet” into play, thus eliminating one of the cool aspects of Daily Intermittent Fasting. However, many people want the health benefits of IF while still not doing terribly long fasts, or they have health challenges, social situations, or other factors coming into play that make them choose a 16:8, 17:7, or 18:6 fasting protocol. For these people, they feel it is worth it add another “diet’ to IF.

Obviously, a ketogenic diet (high fat, moderate protein, low carb {20-40 grams of carbs per day}) is a great addition for someone seeking to lose weight with a longer eating window. However, there are Daily IF’ers who count calories, fat grams, or points during their eating window. There are those who eat paleo or vegetarian and within those food boundaries, their calories (or carbs) are low enough during a longer eating window to lose weight. If you desire to do a shorter fasting window/longer eating window, you will have to play around with your food choices to achieve weight loss, but it can be done. One way that people “extend” their “fasting window” beyond 16 hours during 16:8 is to eat low carb foods during the first half of their eating window (though, unless you are doing keto, don’t eat high fat or you will end up with a high fat/high calorie diet!). While you will not still be “fasting” once you start eating, you can possibly keep yourself in body fat burning longer by eating moderate protein and low carb for the first meal and snack during your eating window. Again, you will have to tinker with your eating window to see what works for your body.

1) Cold Turkey–Regardless of Plan: Ways to Make It Through the Fast: https://donnareish.com/5-motivations-keep-fast-daily-intermittent-fasting/

2) Fast Start Incrementally to OMAD (One Meal a Day): https://donnareish.com/intermittent-fasting-journal-week-10/

3) Training Wheels Incrementally to OMAD (One Meal a Day): https://donnareish.com/intermittent-fasting-journal-week-8/

4) 16:8 to 18:6 With Keto Start Up: https://donnareish.com/5-reasons-might-need-shorter-eating-window-daily-intermittent-fasting/

5) 16:8 to 18:6 Not Keto Start Up: https://donnareish.com/5-areas-look-not-losing-weight-daily/