Steady
Schedules
Intermittent fasting schedule: pick one and stop thinking about it
There are five schedules people actually use. They are closer to each other than the internet makes them sound, and the best one is the one that survives a bad Thursday.
The five schedules, honestly compared
An intermittent fasting schedule is just a rule about when you eat. The numbers are hours: 16:8 means sixteen hours without food and an eight-hour window in which you eat normally. Here is what each one asks of you and what it tends to give back.
| Schedule | What it means | Who it suits | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14:10 | Fast 14 hours, eat within 10. Roughly: finish dinner at 8pm, eat again at 10am. | Beginners, people who wake up hungry, anyone who has quit 16:8 before. | Smaller effect on total intake. Some people find it too easy to matter. |
| 16:8 | Fast 16 hours, eat within 8. Dinner at 8pm, first meal at noon. | Most people. The default for a reason. | Hours 12 to 14 are where most people feel the switch, and where most people quit. |
| 18:6 | Fast 18 hours, eat within 6. Dinner at 7pm, first meal at 1pm. | People already comfortable at 16 who want one fewer chance to snack. | The extra two hours land in the afternoon slump. Harder than it sounds on paper. |
| 5:2 | Eat normally five days a week. On two non-consecutive days, eat around 500 to 600 calories. | People who would rather have two hard days than a hard hour every day. | The two days are genuinely hard, and it requires counting on those days. |
| OMAD | One meal a day, usually a 23:1 window. | A small number of people who find it simpler than any window. | Easy to under-eat, easy to overeat at the one meal, and hard to keep socially. |
Two things are true about that table. First, the research does not show a clear winner. Trials that compare windows against each other mostly find that people lose about what you would expect from eating less overall, and that the window itself is a way of getting there rather than a mechanism of its own. Second, the schedules differ enormously in how they feel at 3pm on a day that is going badly. That is the thing to choose on.
What actually decides it: the hard hour
Ask people who stopped fasting when they stopped and the answer is rarely "week three". It is an hour. For most people on 16:8 it is somewhere around hour 12 to 14, when the last meal is used up and reserves take over, and tiredness, hunger and low mood arrive together. For people with an afternoon slump it is 3pm whatever the clock says. For a lot of people it is the evening before the fast even starts, when the kitchen is right there.
Fasting is one decision a day. The schedule you keep is the one that puts that decision where you are strongest.
So the question is not "which schedule is best". It is "where does my hard hour fall, and which schedule keeps it somewhere I can hold". If your afternoon is the problem, a window that ends at noon means you break the fast before the slump arrives. If evenings are the problem, an earlier dinner and a later first meal moves the whole fast into sleep, where nobody is hungry.
When to start the clock
Start it at the end of dinner. Not because of any metabolic rule, but because dinner is the meal you are least likely to skip, so the fast always starts from the same place. If dinner ends at 8pm, 16:8 means noon tomorrow. If it ends at 7pm, 11am. Most of the fast happens while you are asleep, which is the single biggest reason any of this is doable.
A few practical rules that survive contact with real life:
- Put the last two hours somewhere busy. A fast that ends at your desk is easier than one that ends in your kitchen.
- Coffee, tea and water are fine. Black or with a splash of milk if that is what keeps you going. Purists will argue. Consistency matters more.
- Sleep is the easiest way anyone finishes a fast. Skipping the late snack does more than any morning heroics.
- Let the number move. A 14-hour fast on a hard day and 16 on an easy one is a schedule. The all-or-nothing version is what breaks people.
A schedule you can actually keep
If you have never fasted, start at 14:10 for two weeks and only move to 16:8 if the last two hours feel easy. If you have tried 16:8 and stopped, it is almost certainly the hard hour that stopped you, not the schedule. Go back to 14:10, notice when the hard hour hits, and move the window so the fast ends before it.
Do not start at 18:6 or OMAD because a video said the benefits scale with the hours. Steady tops out at 20 hours, and the honest position on the longer-window claims, autophagy in particular, is that they need roughly 24 hours or more and do not happen at 16. There is more on that in what intermittent fasting actually does.
What you do not need
You do not need a streak. A streak turns one missed fast into a reason to stop, which is the opposite of what a schedule is for. You do not need to log water, weight or steps to keep a window. You need to know when your window opens and, if you want it, one check-in before the hour that usually decides it. That is the whole job, and it is a small one.
Questions people ask
What is the best intermittent fasting schedule for beginners?
14:10 or 16:8, with the eating window placed so that dinner is a normal dinner. Most of the benefit comes from eating less across the week and from not eating late, and both of those schedules deliver that without making your days unusual.
Does it matter what time I start my intermittent fasting window?
It matters for whether you will keep it, not much for the physiology. Start the clock at the end of dinner, because that is the one meal you rarely skip, and put the hard hours where your day is already busy.
Is 16:8 or 18:6 better for weight loss?
Neither reliably beats the other in trials. The extra two hours of 18:6 remove one more chance to eat, which helps some people and pushes others into a hard hour they quit at. Pick the one you can do on a bad day.
Can I change my fasting schedule day to day?
Yes. The clock does not know it is Tuesday. A 14-hour fast on a hard day and 16 on an easy one is a schedule, not a failure. What breaks people is the all-or-nothing version.
Who should not follow an intermittent fasting schedule?
Anyone pregnant or breastfeeding, under 18, with a history of disordered eating, or taking insulin, a sulfonylurea or an SGLT2 inhibitor without a doctor's guidance. If you feel unwell during a fast, stop and eat.
One decision a day. One check-in.
Steady is a simple fasting app for iPhone: a timer for 12 to 20 hour windows, one check-in before the hour that usually decides it, and an honest record. No account, no streak to lose, nothing leaves your phone.