Staying consistent with your intermittent fasting goals is important, but you also need to be flexible. If you had a particularly gruelling morning workout and you're starving by 10 a.m. and your eating window doesn't open until noon, you may want to shift your eating window earlier to prevent feeling so famished that you can't help but overeat. Maybe eat from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
You also want to be flexible about extending your eating window if plans come up. "I never want clients to feel overly restricted either," Leslie said. "If you have a dinner out at 7 p.m. but this is after your fasting window, please don't turn your plans down!" Go enjoy yourself and get back on your routine tomorrow.
Or maybe 16:8 isn't the best fasting protocol for you and you'd do better with 14:10. Or maybe you'd do better not doing IF every day. Or not doing intermittent fasting at all! Intermittent fasting is supposed to feel effortless and be beneficial, so if it's not, why do it?