My Schedule

I am going to post my schedule, from morning to night in response to a comment on my "Successful Week" post from Dawn (Thanks for all your comments and support!). I have posted what I eat, but now will explain how I go about it. This might be a really long post but I know that reading about what works for others has helped me to shape the system I now have, so maybe the below can help you too...

Weekdays:

Wake up, get ready.

I don't eat breakfast. I bring my lunch to work.

I have a large cup of Earl Grey Vanilla flavoured tea with a heaping teaspoon of Benefiber Shape Management fibre supplement and a small amount of stevia (natural no calorie sweetener). I take the tea with me and drink it on the train (usually a 50 min ride into work). I only ever drink tea or water, no calorie drinks or diet sodas (carbonation gives me stomach pains anyway). Occasionally in my eating window I might have 1/3 cranberry juice and 2/3 water. And very rarely, at a party or function I will have vodka and cranberry/water or mix the vodka with home made ice tea (just tea with lemon and stevia chilled).

When I get to work I get a very large glass of water. I drink that, usually big mouth fulls at a time, in about an hour. Then I get another big glass of water. I try to drink as much water as I can in the morning. It is refreshing and it helps to hold off the hunger. I usually only get down two glasses, but occasionally I am able to fit in three. At about 11 am I get hungry, so I drink more water and tell myself only an hour and a half to go, easy right?



At around 12:30 I have lunch.

I always bring a medium sized salad, usually spinach, lettuce, broccoli cole slaw (which is shredded broccoli and carrots), cucumber, avocado (1/4 of the avocado) and feta cheese (just a sprinkle). I use a mix of two dressings, balsamic vinaigrette and thai sesame so it is kind of like a peanut sauce dressing but not as rich.

I eat the salad first. I am trying to always break my fast with vegetables. I eat all my veggies first and then eat my main lunch. I usually bring some cucumber and carrots to dip in hummus as well, which I also eat first.

Now it is time for my main lunch. It is usually something yummy. Today I had shepherds pie with gravy and cheddar cheese on top. Yesterday I had butter chicken. Tomorrow I am having beef stir fry with teriyaki.


My main meal is usually a large portion, restaurant sized. I find that since I have started eating the salad and veggies first, I sometimes can't eat the rest of my main lunch (which is the plan).

After my main lunch I will usually have a bit of fruit. Some grapes or some mango. After that I have my vitamins (Calcium with Magnesium and Vitamin D, a Multi Vitamin and a Probiotic capsule). Then back to work.

At about 3:30 I have a snack. Usually it is a dessert. Today it was a blueberry muffin and some cadbury chocolate mini eggs. Yesterday it was angel food cake with chocolate pudding and cool whip. Sometimes it is crackers and cream cheese. I just try to have something that is big enough to tide me over and low enough calories that I am not having a meal sized snack. I also try to balance out my snack in relation to what I had for lunch. If my lunch was burger and fries, then I will try to have a lower calorie snack (all just guesses, I don't count calories just use common sense).

Then I am usually done eating for the day. I am pretty full at 4 pm which means I have only used up 3 1/2 hours of my eating window. The window technically closes at 5:30 but I am usually still too full between 4pm and 5:30pm to eat any more. So most days I only use 3 1/2 hours of my eating window time.

When I get home I don't eat anything. I usually get home around 6pm and am not hungry until about 8pm. I try to drink water when I get home and if I feel hungry. I find it helps to have a plan in place for what I am going to do in the evenings to keep me occupied.

Watching TV is sometimes a pain, especially on weekends because I am up later and all they do is show food commercials at night. So I try to do something else. One of the things I do is write on this blog or search the internet for interesting news or studies on intermittent fasting. I also pack my lunch for the next day so it is easy in the morning to grab and go. I have so much more time on my hands now that I don't eat dinner.

Weeknights I am in bed at 9pm so it is rarely an issue to not eat since I am not even hungry til about 8.

Weekends:

Weekends are different. In the morning I do the same as on weekdays. Have my tea with the fibre and the stevia. But then I have time to kill. I make sure to again have a plan in place for what to do until lunch so I don't get tempted. Though I must admit, it is usually easy to resist the temptation because I go out to eat on Saturdays. The thought of the yummy lunch that awaits is more than enough motivation to hold out and resist.

When we go out to lunch I order whatever I feel like having. Chicken wing appy, burger and fries with a side caesar, or bacon and eggs with hash browns and toast with a side pancake.



If I have a function or party to go to any day of the week, I just switch my eating window to be around that function so I can eat with family or friends. If I am having a dinner, for example, I will just wait until dinner to break my fast. We usually know ahead of time when the parties or functions are happening so it is easy to just adjust my eating window to fit my day. I would never go to a party or function where there was going to be food if I was fasting, I prefer to move my window because it would be too tempting.

Sundays:

If I break my fast on Saturday at lunch time, I will have a snack before bed of protein and carbs (egg and toast or cheese and crackers). I do this because Sundays are my full fast days.

For several weeks I have been fasting all day and night on Sundays. I find it helps to even the score for any days during the week that were calorie heavy. I have really begun looking forward to Sundays and really like the feeling of fasting all day. That is why on Saturday, unless I move my window to the evening because of a party or function, I eat a small snack before bed. If I didn't do that the fasting period would be almost 48 hours and I find that a bit too difficult. My full fast Sundays are between 35 and 40 hours of fasting. (from around 10pm on Saturday night until 12:30 pm on Monday afternoon). Fasting on Sundays has helped to keep me plateau free (so far anyway, fingers crossed that it will last).

I always plan Sundays to be my busy day. I will do a home improvement project or craft project. When classes are in I do pottery on Sundays from 10am to 5pm. I drink lots of water and have a couple glasses of tea throughout the day. I find that I have leaps and bounds of energy and feel really clear headed and calm on Sundays.

Then on Monday it is back to breaking the fast at lunch time...and so it begins again...

I hope that you have found this helpful and that you can use it to create a plan that fits your lifestyle and works for you...happy fasting!