16:8 - how you you plan your daily meals?

[MrsJBaptiste]

If you follow 16:8 fasting and eat between 11.30-7.30pm, would you generally:

Skip breakfast and just have two meals per day (therefore reducing calories this way)
Have three small meals so breakfast at 11am, lunch at 1.30pm, tea at 7pm
Neither of the above!

I fast until 1pm and stop eating at 9pm. Lunch at 1pm, dinner at 7pm and snacks. My snacks are fruit, unsalted nuts, baked crisps, mini bars of dark chocolate, drinking chocolate with two scoops and water.

I advise you to eat an early lunch at 11.30am if you cannot push to midday. Then eat evening meal around 5pm.

Thanks! Sometimes it can be after 12pm when I get to eat anyway if I'm in a meeting, etc. so if I then make that my lunch I can have tea at 6.30pm with a coffee and snack in the middle of the afternoon.

I can't eat at 5pm as the rest of the family would moan that's far too early! The kids sometimes don't finish their lunch until 3pm...

I'd def go for 2 meals a day if you can manage it. I think if it was me I'd gradually try and push my eating window later, mine is 1pm-9pm (or sometimes 12.30-8.30) which means I can eat my evening meal with the family at a normal time. To me skipping breakfast and eating lunch at 1pm is fine (I don't snack in the daytime either, I sometimes have something sweet after dinner in the evening), but I've been doing this a while and am not a natural breakfast eater anyway. Do you find you feel hungry in the afternoons particularly or are you having the snack with your afternoon coffee more out of habit?

tea for breakfast
small lunch
big supper
no snacks

The problem is I’m ravenous by 9am after a small evening meal the night before so I’m definitely ready for food by 12pm. Happy to eat lunch then but I’m definitely very hungry by 4pm (especially after exercising) knowing I won’t be eating until 7pm!

Then I’m stomach-rumbling hungry when I go to bed and again when I get up. Basically I’m hungry all day but I always have been!

@ListeningQuietly you must be losing weight if you stick to that every day? That can’t be too many calories per day for you?

I tend to leave my food until about 3pm . I then have my main meal between 8.30 - 9.30. That way I'm not spending so evening starving as I would just snack .
I do have a coffee with milk around midday so some might say I've broke my fast then but it's only a small splash of milk so I don't count it!

I try to do 18:6, but it often ends up being 17:7! I try to not eat until 12ish and I try to eat my dinner at 6. I also do vegetarian keto and MyFitnessPal gives me 1480cals a day. I find having 2 substantial meals and a snack a day does the job. My husband and I were only just discussing how difficult it would be to split these cals up into 3 meals; I think I would feel more hungry. Your body gets used to it. Sometimes I get a bit peckish in the evening but I’m usually fine in the morn. I have a nice coffee in the morn but nothing else.

It also means food has stopped being such a focus in lockdown. We still have the odd treat day at the weekend but overall this has been a piece of piss, especially when working from home. It was a bit harder when I was still in work, but not impossible.

When I do this I skip breakfast, have a coffee or tea with milk at 11:30 and have lunch at midday. Dinner at 6:30 or 7pm, which is my main meal of the day, so pretty substantial. I find skipping breakfast easy after I've been doing it for a few days.

I find that I'm better off having two substantial meals that keep me fuller for longer, rather than 3 light meals.

OP
Its how I've eaten most of my adult life.
The trick is to make the meals big enough.

100 calories per day in milk in my tea
400 calories at lunch (a single slice of bread sandwich and a bit of fruit)
800 calories of food for supper
200 calories of wine with supper

I am old so my sedentary TDEE is only 1500

Thanks everyone.

I'm tracking my calories with MFP too (God, it's all so boring but needs must!) and am trying to stick to under 2000 as my TDEE is 2500.

I'll try to get into more of a rhythm and do a bigger lunch and main evening meal rather than bits here and there. Half term next week though which often leads to more wine in the evenings but I'll get some willpower from somewhere!!!

Like many of you I would struggle to spread my calories between three meals.

Lunch is one slice of toast with baked crisps, tea with one brown sugar
Snack 1 is an apple
Dinner is meat/fish with lots of vegetables and a small glass of red wine
Snack 2 is handful unsalted nuts or popcorn with mini dark choc bar and hot chocolate (2 scoops instead of recommended 4)

On days I walk I eat 1400 calories
On days I do not walk I eat 1250 calories

I skip breakfast, have black tea and coffee in the morning, eat lunch around 1230pm/1pm depending on a) when I finished dinner the night before and b) my work schedule. Lunch is fairly normal, cheese sandwich and salad, sometimes crisps but not always. Usually have a small piece of chocolate afterwards with a peppermint tea. I might have an english tea with milk around 4pm but nothing with it.

Dinner is anything although we tend to only have a carb later in the week. So last night was 5 Spice Chicken Thighs with Sesame Green Beans - no rice.

I'm also doing 5:2 so Mondays and Wednesdays are very light -total calories 600-700.