Intermittent fasting is not a protocol you start on a Monday. Anytime you are not eating, you are intermittently fasting — which means you have been doing it your whole life without calling it that.
Dinner to breakfast the next morning is a fast of roughly 12 to 14 hours. Dinner to lunch the next day is about 16. Those are the same numbers that appear on every fasting chart, and most people hit the first one without trying.
Why the framing matters
Treating fasting as a special intervention makes it feel like something you either succeed or fail at. Treating it as a window you already have makes it something you adjust. You can start and stop for any reason, or no reason at all.
The practical goal is to notice the window you are already keeping, then decide whether to narrow it.
