Skip breakfast or skip dinner? Eat at noon or 2pm? Intermittent fasting boils down to three windows — each with trade-offs.
Most people learn the formula once in school and never touch it again — until life forces them to. Skip breakfast or skip dinner? Eat at noon or 2pm? Intermittent fasting boils down to three windows — each with trade-offs.
16 hours fasting, 8-hour eating window. Skip breakfast, eat noon–8pm. Sustainable, calorie-friendly, fits social life.
Tighter window. Often eat 1pm–7pm. Sharper hunger, better adherence for fast fat loss, easier to under-eat.
4-hour eating window. Most aggressive. Risk: under-eating, poor training performance, hormone disruption long-term.
24-hour fasts. Use sparingly. Not for muscle gain, not for women trying to conceive.
Does fasting boost metabolism? Short-term, slightly. Long-term, calories in vs out still wins.
Is fasting safe for women? Most tolerate 14–16h windows. Beyond 18h can disrupt hormones in some women — listen to the body.
Whatever number you land on, sanity-check it against a second method or a quick estimate in your head.