i've been fasting for years now, even before carnivore. skipping breakfast is pretty easy. i can sometimes skip lunch but i think my body is too stressed to do 20 hour fasts. today i tried and i actually suffered SI so i broke my fast at 18 hours. that might be the new sweet spot for me.

I think a lot of people go the 16:8 route.

I have never had insulin nor blood glucose issues (never got over a 100 til carnivore, go figure?) If the circadian rhythm is factored and the normal dawn effect with blood sugar, an early breakfast sets the tone for insulin resistance the rest of the day. For me, if I am eating breakfast I make it much later in the morning, more like lunch time.

I have read 16:8 is more effective if the 16 is from later at night til midafternoon.

Personally, I have used OMAD form of fasting, and my longest was 7 days.

I'm back on nights this week. I ate last night and will eat again this weekend, maybe Friday or Saturday.

I'm a big fan of the fast. At this point it is all about the healing and the life longevity it provides. Weight loss is just a "lil' bonus".

Scott

I been OMAD for almost 2 years. I go 22 ish hours , eat and window closes 2 hours later. I try ti be very consistent. I aim for regularity.

yes paul i'm trying to narrow my window to maybe 4 hours. OMAD is too stressful still. 16:8 makes me feel sluggish all day. i hate being at work after eating anything. i really like fasting all day. i run into trouble, though, when i eat a large meal first, then i don't feel to eat again later in the evening, making me break my fast earlier the next day. thus repeating the cycle.

I get it, my pattern just sort of evolved.

OMAD just came naturally to me in the beginning. I didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened. I had a rule that I would only eat when I was hungry. It seemed silly to eat by the clock. Our ancestors ate when they were hungry but we started eating by the clock to fit into corporate America timelines.

I now eat 2MAD to keep my weight up and to spread out my meals because as I said on another post, I would eat so much at my one meal that I would be too stuffed to get anything done.

Don’t concern yourself with eating ONAD just because other people are doing it. Do what works best for you. You’ll have less stress and feel better about your diet.

that's good advise geezy. what's weird is that i tend to gravitate towards a 20 hour fast. but eating 2 meals within 4 hours seems a little strange. i don't know why, but it's hard for me to push beyond 4 hours.

Dr. Chaffee has a video and pretty much says if you are eating once per day on carnivore there is no need to "fast". And then others don't call it 'intermittent fasting' but choose the term 'time restrictive eating'. I would guess going twenty hours apart it would not make much difference between one larger meal or two smaller meals.

And then it depends on the goals. If fasting is being done for weight loss then OMAD with 20+ hours between should serve the purpose, especially if the OMAD is the carnivore/low to zero carb approach.

The metabolic benefits require some longer fasts.

So far all the changes I have made have been relatively easy. I switched to carnivore cold turkey and didn't experience any cravings for all the crap I was eating before. When I tried fasting, I didn't have any issues going past 24, nor 48 and then 72 hours. No issues doing 96 hours and have done one 7-day water fast.

My biggest issue with fasting is how to break the fast. I have not figured that out at all. I have tried smaller meals, broths/soups, eggs, what feels like everything but fruits. (read about the benefits of melons recently but have not tried it) The first thing I eat gives me really loose stools for a day or so afterwards.

I just woke up from night shift and I am about 52-53 hours into this fast. Feel great. I had a solid lift this morning at the gym after work. Although I only slept from 10AM to 3PM I feel well rested. I'm going to lift again in the morning and then figure out when and how I break the fast from there.

Big fan of fasting. And if someone made this same post some two years ago I would think they were as full of it as a Christmas turkey. It makes no sense to be energetic and feel great from "not eating". I have found the more I read and experiment with fasting how little I actually knew about things before.

Scott

Different windows of eating n g on your journey may be best, see Dr. Tony Hampton

I finished a 72 hour fast yesterday. I'm still not all that good at breaking the fast as I was a tad bit 'loose with the caboose' last night and sort of the same this morning. Still a work in progress, I guess. My next attempt will be fruit. I have read melons are a good choice but I can't think of any of the melon family I actually like.

This one was the first one in a while that I got hungry, actually hungry, going into day #3. Most of them is a little hunger around 24-36 hours and then none afterwards. I was standing int he shift meeting at 7PM Thursday night about to starve. A co-worker who went carnivore and lost a hundred pounds last year (carnivore, fasting and has switched back to some fruits) was standing beside me and he could hear my stomach growling. I have not had a stomach growl in what seems like forever. If I had brought something to work, I would have broken the fast then, but I stuck it out. I was pretty much hungry all night. Around 3AM I went to the vending machine and the only thing remotely close to what I will eat is beef jerky and of course, that slot was empty. So, I toughed it out. At 7AM I told my co-worker I could have 'eaten the hind end out of dead skunk' and he said "that would still qualify as carnivore but he would go another route'.

I broke the fast with a small portion of eggs and here we are waiting to see if I am normal again on Saturday morning. LOL

Scott

On 2/21/2026 at 8:20 AM, Scott F. said:

Around 3AM I went to the vending machine and the only thing remotely close to what I will eat is beef jerky and of course, that slot was empty. So, I toughed it out.

Good job brother. 👍👍

Hunger is a weird feeling, especially when I have not felt it in quite some time.

Anything close in the past year or so could be quashed with drinking water.

I guess I survived.

Scott

On 2/19/2026 at 3:23 PM, Scott F. said:

Dr. Chaffee has a video and pretty much says if you are eating once per day on carnivore there is no need to "fast". And then others don't call it 'intermittent fasting' but choose the term 'time restrictive eating'. I would guess going twenty hours apart it would not make much difference between one larger meal or two smaller meals.

And then it depends on the goals. If fasting is being done for weight loss then OMAD with 20+ hours between should serve the purpose, especially if the OMAD is the carnivore/low to zero carb approach.

The metabolic benefits require some longer fasts.

So far all the changes I have made have been relatively easy. I switched to carnivore cold turkey and didn't experience any cravings for all the crap I was eating before. When I tried fasting, I didn't have any issues going past 24, nor 48 and then 72 hours. No issues doing 96 hours and have done one 7-day water fast.

My biggest issue with fasting is how to break the fast. I have not figured that out at all. I have tried smaller meals, broths/soups, eggs, what feels like everything but fruits. (read about the benefits of melons recently but have not tried it) The first thing I eat gives me really loose stools for a day or so afterwards.

I just woke up from night shift and I am about 52-53 hours into this fast. Feel great. I had a solid lift this morning at the gym after work. Although I only slept from 10AM to 3PM I feel well rested. I'm going to lift again in the morning and then figure out when and how I break the fast from there.

Big fan of fasting. And if someone made this same post some two years ago I would think they were as full of it as a Christmas turkey. It makes no sense to be energetic and feel great from "not eating". I have found the more I read and experiment with fasting how little I actually knew about things before.

Scott

This topic is interesting to me. My husband and I were learning about the benefits of fasting and he went on a three day fast. Was it difficult to fast in the beginning?

For me, it was not as difficult as it sounds.

I am currently on a fast. I ate this past Monday night and plan to break it tomorrow morning.

Again, for me, around 24-36 hours there is some hunger but easily solved with a glass of water. From 24-36 hours on I do not experience any hunger at all.

Like most anything, it is probably easier and maybe even better to ease into the fast. Do 24-36 hours, then wait a while and maybe try 48 hours. Then later add 12 more, then 12 more and so on.

I don't know if I'm different, or maybe just weird, but I have tons of energy after the first 24 hours or so. The energy and ability to go and go lasts for a day or so after I break the fast.

I'm a fan of carnivore, fasting and resistance training. The combination is working really well for me.

Scott

13 minutes ago, Scott F. said:

For me, it was not as difficult as it sounds.

I am currently on a fast. I ate this past Monday night and plan to break it tomorrow morning.

Again, for me, around 24-36 hours there is some hunger but easily solved with a glass of water. From 24-36 hours on I do not experience any hunger at all.

Like most anything, it is probably easier and maybe even better to ease into the fast. Do 24-36 hours, then wait a while and maybe try 48 hours. Then later add 12 more, then 12 more and so on.

I don't know if I'm different, or maybe just weird, but I have tons of energy after the first 24 hours or so. The energy and ability to go and go lasts for a day or so after I break the fast.

I'm a fan of carnivore, fasting and resistance training. The combination is working really well for me.

Scott

I'd like to do 24 hours. There's something about carnivore that makes fasting feel natural.

7 hours ago, TitusTwoWife said:

I'd like to do 24 hours. There's something about carnivore that makes fasting feel natural.

It is natural to many of us carnivores. We just don’t look at food the same anymore and quite often we just don’t experience hunger like we used to.

I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer by any means. In the beginning people would say I OMAD and I would say I don't know much about that but I only eat one meal a day. Took awhile before I put two and two together.

With that said, the first rule of thumb I used with carnivore was 'eat fatty meats' and the second was 'eat when hungry and est til comfortably full'.

The combination of the satiating red meats and waiting til I was hungry started to curb my appetite a couple months after starting carnivore. I was OMAD before I even knew anything about OMAD.

I read where some do not consider 'intermittent fasting' a thing and choose to call it 'time restrictive eating'. For me they are one in the same, like same flavor but different labels, if that makes any sense at all.

Around 18-19 months eating once per day felt as natural as those years where it was natural to start everyday off with a 20oz Mountain Dew, a bacon, egg and cheese on white bread followed by two Little Debbie oatmeal cakes. Almost like a religion.

Turns out I actually needed some sugar in my diet in order to have an appetite again. Just the craziest thing.

Scott