Dealing with Your Fasted Hours

During intermittent fasting, you have two phases, including the fasted state and the 
feeding state, or fed state. When you are fasting, this is the period of time where you 
don’t have anything to eat or anything with calories, including beverages with calories. 
This is often the challenge for people, especially those fasting for 16-24 hours or longer. 
Here are some tips for dealing with the fasted hours.

Have Water, Coffee, and Tea

It is really important that you stay hydrated during your fasted period, which does seem 
to be an issuer with people starting this. Continue drinking plenty of water while you are 
fasting, as this keeps you hydrated and can help keep you full. You can also have 
coffee or tea, just don’t put anything in it with calories. Some people will have diet soda 
or add a sugar substitute with no calories to their coffee, but if you notice intermittent 
fasting isn’t working for you, this might be where you are going wrong.

Fasting Hours Should Be While You Are Sleeping

Naturally, a good amount of your fasting hours should exist while you are sleeping. You 
are already going to be in a fasted state during this time, so the rest of your fasted hours 
are before and after your bedtime hours. This is a good way to schedule it as well. You 
want to consider if you are hungrier in the morning or evening when deciding when the 
eating hours should be. Someone who is starving when waking has a harder time 
fasting in the morning. So, you can adjust your schedule to where your fast actually 
starts late in the afternoon, instead in the evening.

Stay Busy During Fasting Hours

While you will likely get used to fasting over time, it can be hard in the beginning. When 
you have some of your fasting hours before or after bedtime, this makes it a little more 
difficult not to want to snack. However, keep in mind it won’t last forever, and soon you 
will be able to enjoy the foods you love. A good way to distract yourself from thinking 
about foods and counting down the hours is to simply stay busy. Find hobbies, focus on 
work, or go for a walk. This can really help to keep your mind off the food or lack 
thereof.

Exercise While Fasting

This is going to vary based on the person, but there are a lot of benefits to working out 
in your fasted state. First of all, you are already burning more fat, so adding in a fasted 
workout just helps you to burn even more. You can also avoid the hunger pangs by 
working out, and distract yourself with your fitness routine.

