Intermittent Fasting Meal Plan - 2

This will be part of a series on how you can plan for a day of Intermittent Fasting (assuming this is something that you'd do daily for a decently long period of time).

I will not be going too deep into what exactly to eat since that will depend on your end goal. However, I will keep it simple and try to cover as broad a base as possible. This series of articles will be short as a result.

Today, I am assuming that the reader is following a 16:8 Intermittent Fasting Schedule.

As part of this, the best way to go about is to finish your dinner by 7:30 pm.

Now what I will do instead is not assume the specific time but will rather explain in terms of number of hours passed.

Now we begin.

Assume you have just eaten your dinner. The next step would involve the following.

1. Not eating anything till your next feeding period which is 16 Hours later.
2. Sleeping at a decent time at night so that you get 7-8 hours of sleep.

Now the above 2 points may seem sort of unrelated to Intermittent Fasting but it has a lot to do with your mental conditioning. The first point stresses that you will not snack late at night. You are aiming to go into a fasted state so having nothing but water after your dinner is essential.

Sleeping well gives your body the rest it deserves and I find it easier to fast when the body is well rested.

Once you get up, till the time your feeding period begins, do not eat any calories or at the worst, keep it under 100 Calories (a random benchmark but one that I have found useful - for instance, this is the caloric value of around 5-7 almonds).

What you can in abundance is water, black coffee or tea and green tea. Keep yourself hydrated. This should solve most hunger pangs.

After 16 hours, I prefer to have a light lunch since I don’t want to feel groggy on a work day.

Assume this is around 2 pm.

Now around 4:30 you can again have some liquids and this time you could include milk in your coffee /tea.

Assuming you had an early dinner the previous day, try to have your last meal around the same time. This will give you a sense of timing and will help maintain the fasting for an extended period of time.

Other Tips:

1. Eat protein heavy meals - This will reduce your urge to snack
2. Drink ample water. Don’t overdo this but there is a lot of truth behind the thought that many times you aren't actually hungry, rather just thirsty
3. Do not snack at any point in the day. This is just useless calories and will more often than throw you off your diet.
4. Cheese, Dark Chocolate, Cottage Cheese, Yoghurt etc. are all super foods when you are Intermittent Fasting.
5. Eat as early as possible so that most of your Fasting period comes in the night when you are asleep. This will help you go for longer periods of "Fasting" without feeling the hunger pangs for most part of the Fasting Period.