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

[Kitchenbattle]

Posting here for traffic. Need a bit of advice and/or perspective perhaps. I have started a new way of eating (I hate the term diet) and that involves 16:8 intermittent fasting. My question is I’m due to go abroad a few times this summer. And breakfast is included in the hotel and I will be with my family. I don’t normally eat my first meal until 10. How will I manage this? I don’t want to eat breakfast too early. Should I just take what I can from the breakfast buffet put it in a Tupperware and eat at 10. I also am avoiding carbs as as much as I can. And I am coeliac, so I can’t just go have a croissant and I won’t want to either. So I’ll need protein etc. Anyone else in the same situation who can give some advice?

we will normally have dinner around 5:30 six so that’s not a problem really. It’s just breakfast.

I had the same dilemma last year. The first day I had a coffee and took a few bits for later but then decided life was too short and just ate what I fancied about 9.30am then nothing other than maybe an ice cream till dinner. After getting home 18 months ago, I can honestly say it was really easy to go back to not eating before 12.30pm and I don’t think I’ve broken my rule since.

i often find my choices very limited at the hotel buffet given my allergy restrictions. You just can never predict what they are going to put out. Adding needing it to be something you can take and stash in your bag for later is going to make things even harder.

if this is your plan I think you should have a cup of tea and bring some sort of bar or something with you that you know you can eat on the go. I keep a nut bar in my purse at all times for food emergencies since there is always a chance of not having anything to eat when I am out of the house.

Have you been on holiday since your coeliac diagnosis @Kitchenbattle ?

I find holidays really hard, breakfast buffets mostly need to be avoided anyway - they'll sneak flour into things like scrambled eggs and bacon and that's before any cross contamination considerations

Life is too short.., eat your breakfast and enjoy it. if it’s a lifestyle change and not a diet it needs to be flexible to every day life and sometimes that means eating pizza or cake, or buffet breakfast!

I’m very much an all or nothing kind of person too, and I find that if I try and keep up these sort of things on holiday I damage my rhythm more than if I just treat the holiday as an isolated period.

On holiday, I either have to compromise and eat something I don’t want, or the level of restraint needed is so much higher than it is at home. It’s impossible to keep the conditions consistent.

For some reason my brain can move from all to nothing fairly easily as long as I haven’t overwhelmed my restraint capacity on the holiday.

Enjoy the holiday, enjoy the breakfast. I say this as an IF-er.

Yes and yes, the same experience. You can just never be sure at all. I thought I was doing well but I still had symptoms and then I had a gastroscope to check I was getting better and they said it was a bit better but I was compliant with the diet when I REALLY thought I was 😞 so I have made some more changes and this is where I have landed. I have a nutritionist appointment soon so I will tie in with her then too.

Being ceoliac means that this is not easy done unfortunately ☹️

Like it’s really frustrating I can’t even just grab a quick McDonald’s or kfc etc.not that I should as it would make me ill. But you get the gist, a lot more thought and prep goes into it.

This would be breaking the fast. Not a problem if you are choosing to widen the window, but for me it'd be enough to make me want to eat again quite soon. If I eat anything before work, I'm starving by mid morning. If I don't, I'm good til about 2pm or even later sometimes!

Personally I’d skip the new way of eating but would stick to only eating the same amount.

So have some protein and fruit for breakfast.

then fast until dinner.

if you eat at 6pm and then 8am it become a 14:10 which will
still have a fasting effect.

I would enjoy my holiday but if I wanted to stick to my 16:8 then I would swap out to high protein breakfasts ( very accessible in a buffet and a light lunch) and push around a side sald at dinner.

Ahh, I see! We eat about 9.30pm 🤣

I do intermittent fasting too, although I call it "not having breakfast". I am never hungry until about noon. If we are overseas in a hotel I will have coffee at breakfast and then just have lunch and dinner. If you have lunch at noon or 1pm, then your 8 hours window will take you to 9pm which is plenty late enough for an evening meal.

I mean, it might not work for you if you are ravenous in the mornings, but works for me.

We tend to eat out evening meal at 5:30/6 normally. So on hols would or be 6ish. We are getting ready for bed at 9pm 😆

Why can’t you go to the hotel breakfast at 10?

Because we will more than likely be gone out somewhere.

Just have a small breakfast with your family. You don't have to eat a lot just because it's a buffet.

I get it @KitchenbattleI also prefer this way of eating. You’ve had some good suggestions about moving your eating window. Have you thought about moving it earlier in the day?
what if you filled up on a low carb breakfast and enjoyed a big lunch with your family (depending on where you are holidaying - there might be some lovely restaurants), have an afternoon snack if you need it then skip dinner? Do you have young children? Is that why you eat early? I don’t know your accomodation set up but it might work to make lunch the big focus meal and give the kids something smaller later on?
Just another option.

No they are not particularly young. They are 10 and 13. We are home after school/work by 5 most days so I just get dinner on straight away, it’s just the rhythm we work at tbh. House is quiet and all in bedrooms for 9:30 most nights. If I tried to hold of dinner they would just moan at me tbh and then snack and not want dinner. So this way they have dinner and if they are hungry before bed they get a small snack. On holiday we pretty much run on the same rhythm we are out and about during the day, we are not lay by the pool people. Maybe for a few hours a day

So I am also GF and do IF for health reasons, and not by choice. At home my non eating window is 16-21 hours, depending on appetite and degree of busyness. I usually have a black coffee around 11am and eat lunch about 1pm, an apple mid afternoon, and have dinner around 7pm.

On holiday I either stick to the same schedule or I relax the IF window to 12 hours. Quite often at a hotel buffet breakfast, I ask for poached eggs on GF bread and they often accommodate me! And very kindly too. Then I skip lunch and have an early dinner. I find lunch is the hardest meal to find gluten free when travelling, as so much involves, fast food, sandwiches, pasta etc. So a big breakfast removes the issue.

Maintaining your coeliac diet is your primary diet, and your eating window is where you have flexibility if required.

I would love a child that went to bed by 9.30! On holidays my 10 year old is up until 11/ midnight by day 2! It’s me that wants to go to bed earlier. I have a coffee at breakfast then start eating at lunch otherwise I can’t stop. Sounds like self catering might be a good fit ? We’re moving to that as I prefer to eat when I want and not when the buffet is open.

I mean the eldest would sit in bed and read or go on her phone for a half hour but they would be wrecked (especially on holiday) youngest will sleep once his head hits the pillow most nights

Can you not have a late supper and early breakfast?

Well I normally do 16:8 fasting so that would be reducing the fasting time a lot.