A foundational protocol for time-restricted feeding includes not ingesting any food for the first hour after waking and for two to three hours prior to bedtime.

“first of all, it pays off in the metabolic sense and in the health sense and in the weight maintenance or loss sense to not ingest any food in the first hour after waking and potentially for longer, so I want to repeat that. One of the key pillars of intermittent fasting is that for the first hour after you wake up and potentially for longer to not ingest any food, okay, the second major pillar that's well supported by research is that for the two and ideally three hours prior to bedtime, you also don't ingest any food or liquid calories for that matter.”

“so that's why what we think is eight to ten hours maybe the ideal spot to begin with and um once you are physically active and you are also spending a lot of energy in physical activity or Sports you can even go up to 12 hours”

“An 8-hour feeding window as a target seems to be the best target feeding window.”

“You would place it smack dab in the middle of the day. It would be a schedule in which you started eating, for instance, at 10:00 a.m. and you stopped eating at 6:00 p.m.”

“At the same time it syncs with another aspect of the genome; that is it helps us stay awake for 10 to 12 hours and to reduce our energy level and go into a sleep or less active state for the rest of the day.”