How does the 16:8 Evening fasting work?

You get three recipe suggestions for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for your eating window of 8 hours. We suggest that you start your eating window at about 10.00 AM with breakfast and have your last meal, dinner, before 6.00 PM when your fast begins again.

You don't have to follow the suggestions above but can adjust your 8-hour eating window according to your own schedule and lifestyle.

I can't find the 16:8 Evening fasting meal plan. Where can I find it?1) With a Premium subscription, you can access the "16:8 Evening fasting" Meal Plan

2) Please make sure to follow the required settings for food preferences and allergies.  

Find these settings:

Tap into Progress -> Profile -> Dietary needs & Preferences.

Make sure that neither allergies nor food preferences are activated.

The Meal Plan includes recipes that may not be compatible with vegetarian, vegan, and pescatarian food preferences. Also, note that it does not adapt to food allergies like gluten, dairy, nuts, eggs, shellfish, etc.

Here's a suggestion of foods to add to the plan for users with a higher energy requirement than what the plan contains:Recipes in this plan include around 1300 kcal in total for the whole day. If your energy requirements exceed this, it's important that you add food to your daily intake for you to reach your individual energy requirement.

Even though the most important is when you eat and not what you eat while you are following a fasting meal plan, we encourage you to pick nutrient-dense food, such as:

• Vegetables & root vegetables, i.e., broccoli, cauliflower, tomato, eggplant, kale, cabbage, beetroots, carrot, parsnip, celery
• Fruit & berries, i.e., banana, apple, pear, orange, peach, melon, plum, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries
• Whole grains, i.e., oats, whole grain bread, barley, brown rice, whole-grain pasta
• Legumes, i.e., beans, lentils
• Lean protein, i.e., tofu, fish, egg, poultry
• Unsaturated fat: olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocado, fatty fish
• Low-fat dairy products: low-fat cottage cheese, low-fat yogurt

What does 'meal planner' in the program mean?You get help in planning your meals for the upcoming days.

What does 'shopping list' in the app mean?

The shopping list provides the ingredients included in every meal of the Meal Plan. If you add more days, more items will be added, and vice versa. A red dot indicates that new items have been added. (Android)

The shopping list provides the ingredients included in every meal of the Meal Plan. If you tap on the shopping cart icon below each recipe, the ingredients in the recipe will be added to the shopping list. You'll find the shopping list in the left top corner of the meal planner (iOS).

In the shopping list, I see, e.g., that bananas are listed a few times because they are included in more than one recipe, and the bananas should be prepared in different ways. Is it ok to buy one kind of banana for all the recipes with banana in it? Yes, absolutely. If you, e.g., need peeled cucumber for one recipe and grated cucumber food for another recipe, just buy a cucumber and prepare it according to the recipe later on.

Some of the ingredients in the recipes are hard to find where I live. Can I use a similar food item instead?Yes, absolutely. Please check out this list for possible alternatives:

I can't see my vegetable or seafood trackers any longer. Why is that?

The trackers are not activated during a Meal Plan, the app will return back to its original settings once the Meal Plan is finished.

When I completed the 16:8 Meal Plan, I ended up in the Diets tab, and everything is back to my regular settings. Why is that?As soon as you have tracked your last meal in this Meal Plan, you will see a pop-up asking you to choose a new plan from the Plans tab in the app. This is because the meal plan is over, and we will no longer provide any shopping list or meal planner.

Is it safe to follow '16:8' for more than 21 days and restart the Meal Plan after it has ended?Yes, it is safe. You can follow our Meal Plans for more than 21 days. However, one should always strive to have a balanced and varied diet, especially when the goal is to lose weight and the energy intake displayed in the chosen plan is lower than usual. Therefore, if you continue longer than 21 days, it can be beneficial to add or change some meals to make sure you vary your intake to get all the vitamins and minerals you need. If you wish to add additional food/meals, just track them directly in the Diary.

Can I restart the Meal Plan?Yes. You can restart the Meal Plan in the settings (top right) or the Diets tab by activating the meal plan once again. You will then see the button "Restart Plan."

How can I deactivate the Meal Plan if I do not want to complete it?Please go to the Diets tab in the app and choose another Diet or Meal Plan.

Why is there no "cheat meal" available for this plan?There are no cheat meals in this Meal Plan as it is intended to work as inspiration. However, if you want to eat something not included in the Meal Plan, please feel free to track it as usual in the Diary.

I happened to press ‘Eat this every day’ but now I regret it, how can I undo that?To undo that, you have to manually tap into each day and meal where you want to eat something else.

When I swap between meals in the meal planner the macronutrient intake for the day appears to be higher than what I’ve been recommended, why?

The meal plans are formed by general recommendations, so they are not customized to your specific goals. What you can do is to see the goals for each of the macronutrients more as guidelines. It’s difficult to nail each macronutrient goal every day and not something you shall strive for. Aim instead to get close to the goals for both calories and macronutrients. You will reach balanced eating this way.

Tips on how to increase the energy amount in the prepared meals:

You could increase the amount of the ingredients in the meals. If you want to add additional food items, we recommend that you add nutrient-dense foods such as:

• Vegetables & root vegetables, i.e., broccoli, cauliflower, tomato, eggplant, kale, cabbage, beetroots, carrot, parsnip, celery
• Fruit & berries, i.e., banana, apple, pear, orange, peach, melon, plum, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries
• Whole grains, i.e., oats, whole grain bread, barley, brown rice, whole grain pasta
• Legumes, i.e. beans and lentils
• Lean protein, i.e., tofu, fish, egg, poultry,
• Unsaturated fat, i.e., olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocado, fatty fish
• Low-fat dairy products, i.e., low-fat cottage cheese, low-fat yogurt

How come I see “skip snack” and 0 calories in the beginning of the day but after I exercise or track some meals I see “Add snack” and calories in the snack? It is very important that you follow your daily goal for calories. The inspirational recipes you see in the meal plan may not fit your calorie recommendation per meal, therefore we make sure to move these calories to the remaining meals to make sure you will eat according to your goal. The same happens if you exercise and include exercise calories.

How come I get notifications for the meals I am supposed to skip when I am on a fasting meal plan? The notifications are not yet customised for the fasting meal plans. Therefore you may get notifications for meals you don’t have recipe suggestions for. We recommend you to tap into settings and turn off the notifications you don’t want to have during the duration of the meal plan.

This plan is based on the nutritional recommendations of the Lifesum Standard Diet we have in the app. To read more about the recommendation and health benefits, read HERE