How to manage hotel breakfasts abroad while doing 16:8 fasting

I normally only eat 2 meals a day between the hours of 8 and 4. I have just come back from a 10 day holiday in Italy. I didn't stick to any plan. Ate lots of food and drank far too much wine! Enjoy yourself. Life is far too short! I'm now back to my normal eating pattern.

This.
I've been in your situation. I hate it when people say 'relax...you're on holiday...loosen up' as you're trying to make life long changes.
I'd widen the eating window but try to be really protein based. Eggs, Greek yoghurt, nuts, some meat and cheese but avoid all those pastries etc and no fruit juice. You'll feel nice and full too then.

Relax your rules and enjoy a protein and fruit / vegetable breakfast with your family.

I think dinner is going to be much more tricky as in many places in Southern Europe the earliest you can get a table is 7 often 7.30-8 . Also most hotels have a ban on removing any food from the buffet breakfast I would shift your eating window from 10-6 to more like 1-9pm

If this is the new you forever and you want to stick to it, remind yourself that just because food is in front of you, if that food doesn't suit you, you don't have to eat it.

Go to breakfast with your family, have a coffee and a chat. They'll barely notice what you're eating (or not eating). Grab a banana on your way out. Keep whatever you'd normally have (or a local, portable version of it) in your room for later.

I fast OP, I’ve done it for about 15 years. At home I don’t eat until noon. On holiday though I suspend fasting, I’ll eat breakfast normally with my family. It’s part of the fun 😊

This is what I was going to say, most places you’ll struggle to find dinner service before 7.30 and if you are staying in an all inclusive I’ve never seen food before 6.30 on an evening. If you did want to stick to 16:8 fasting you’d probably have to skip breakfast and go straight to lunch at 12.

I intermittent fast (usually 18/6) and I'm also gluten intolerant I have found it helps my health condition.
When on holiday I join for breakfast and will eat if I want but I stick to protein so eggs usually and I don't force it if I don't and will just have black coffee.

Most buffets have hard boiled eggs if you do want to take something. I also take nakd bars on holiday with me.

Our bodies are not robots. It’s not going to react by not being exact to the timings.

Go to breakfast half an hour before it finishes. Have eggs, cheese, cold meats, fruit, salad etc. Don't have pastries, donuts or too much toast.

Have a decent breakfast and you probably won't want much lunch, especially if you're having dinner at 5.30/6 pm.

I don't follow any particular way of eating and on holiday we normally have breakfast at about 9.30, lunch at around 3 pm and then I just have something light in the evening although DP will usually have a proper dinner.

Last hotel I was in had a gluten free area so had bread,rolls and a cereal.

Life is too short to spend your holiday stressing about not eating til 10am. Does it really matter if you eat a high protein healthy breakfast at 9 instead of 10?

Surely, the bigger problem is dinner. You will have to stop eating at 6pm and no one has dinner before 8pm in Europe. Will you not go out with them? Sit there and eat nothing? Or you could just have a coffee at breakfast and start with your first meal at 12?

Personally, I’d just eat healthily and enjoy your holiday not stressing about food.

I fast every day for at least 17 hours (I don’t call it that I just don’t eat breakfast and have a late lunch). But on holiday, I always eat breakfast. I don’t like carbs much, so it’s easy to stick to protein.

Hotel breakfasts will have sausages,bacon. and eggs deli meat etc etc so you can definitely avoid carbs.

Seriously? Drop the diet for a week

I’ve never been to a hotel outside the uk that stops breakfast before 10am.

Even if it did would you doing you ate at 9:50am instead of 10:30?

Fasting on holiday? Well, if you must do it then you must. There's generally gf options on a hotel buffet like yoghurt and fruit that you can eat with your family for breakfast and salads or carb light options at dinner.

As you won't have a set routine on holiday concentrate on healthy eating rather than fasting - and don't panic if you fall off the wagon.

If you're going to drip feed a diagnosed health problem which means you have to lose weight then what I'm about to say is irrelevant.

But otherwise, really?! Life is for living. Holidays are there for enjoyment. Fannying around with diets and tupperware on holiday is really sad. You should be planning days out, packing suncream, researching books, dreaming of chilling out and spending quality time with your loved ones, not worrying and writing mumsnet threads about what time breakfast will be. Chill out. Forget about your diet. Have a fantastic holiday!

I speak as someone with an ED in the family, so my view might be a bit skewed

please have fun eating breakfast with your kids

Posters are right just eat with your i don't think a hourish early is going to make that much difference, also there might be thread on here about a woman and her tupperware of buffet 😀

Go half an hour before breakfast finishes. Adjust your IF fasting times.
Breakfast buffets are not takeaways.

Honestly, for a holiday I’d accept that my fast would be more like 14:10 and possibly slow down weight loss a bit. Keep on avoiding the carbs, keep active, drink plenty of water and you will be ok. I usually lose weight on holiday eating 3 meals a day because I eat protein breakfast (Greek yoghurt, eggs, maybe a bit of cheese), salad lunch and grilled fish with veg or salad for dinner. I do have a glass of dry wine with dinner but otherwise drink loads of water, and I do have a bit of carb at dinner but never eat the full portion, just a few chips or spoonful of rice as the protein in fish is so filling.

This. Not being able to relax your way of eating on holiday seems problematic to me.

Enjoying family comes first on holiday surely

I think you're better off having a healthy breakfast with your family - such as yoghurt and fruit, or cold lean meat if it's offered - than trying to fill a Tupperware box with things that, by their portable nature, are likely to be less healthy,