Accidentally doing time restricted eating alongside my weekly 24-hour fast

[Lemonthyme]

I use a food tracking app just to keep myself accountable. I don't restrict the amount I eat, nor the time I eat it, apart from my 1 24 hour fast a week.

Over the past week though, I've noticed I've naturally started to restrict the hours I'm eating. Not deliberately but by just waiting till I actually feel like breakfast before eating it and not eating later on in the day unless I'm hungry.

So times "fasting" but by accident over the past few days:

Friday night - 13 and a half hours
Thursday night - 12 and a half hours
Weds night - 12 and a half hours
Tues night - 13 hours
Monday night - 24 and a half hours (my one weekly fast)
Sunday night - 13 hours
Sat night - 13 hours

I hadn't realised but consistently I've been doing what some people would consider time restricted eating. I just thought I'd share that in case it helps people realise that some of these approaches aren't actually as drastic as they might seam. They're just avoiding a bit of late night snacking and eating breakfast at a time when you really feel like you want it. (Hunger is the best seasoning and all that.)

12/12 is a pretty mild form of time restricted eating but for some people, especially if you snack a lot, that would be a big start. And from what I'm accidentally doing, not a huge leap to 16/8. I'm not going to do that as I'm already doing that once a week fast but it was just interesting data to me that perhaps because of that once a week fast, I'm now challenging myself more around some of my old snacking behaviours and accidentally doing more than I intended.

Honestly, it sounds to me like it’s verging on disordered eating.

Really? How bizarre. Ok, what's making you think that?

There are people here who are weighing everything they eat then calculating calories for what they eat. Down to the nearest number. Do you consider that disordered eating?

12-13 hours of fasting sounds like normal eating to me. Have dinner at 6.30 pm and then don’t eat breakfast until 7 the next day. What I do as standard and I’m not a faster

Agree 12-13 hours is basically no evening snacks.

anything much beyond that takes more effort I find. Last night I ate dinner at 8 and just had breakfast now; so that’s nearly 15 hours

Yep I realise this isn't a massive deal but some people start off with time restricted eating at 12/12 and some, including me, would have seen 16/8 as borderline impossible.

The thing is I wasn't eating like this before when I was eating more simple carbs, not fasting one day etc. It's something that's crept up on me unintentionally and possibly because on days I'm not fasting, I'm listening better to hunger cues now.

I didn't mean to post it saying this was anything but normal but for a lot of people it's not where they are with late night snacking and early breakfasts being the norm.

That is interesting OP that this has happened naturally. I do this deliberately (when I can) in past found 16:8 always required too much effort/ food noise).