u/Cold_Evidence_7461

Eight months tracking macros consistently. My protein target is around 180g a day, which is on the higher end, but I lift a few times a week and wanted to keep muscle while cutting. That side of things has been working. Now that I'm a few weeks into 16:8, the math is getting uncomfortable. Fitting 180g of protein into an eight hour window means every single meal has to be loaded or I fall short by dinner. On a longer schedule I was grazing across 12 to 14 hours, so it was easy to spread out. Now the window is tight and I'm either forcing a third meal I don't want or I'm hitting maybe 140 to 150g and calling it close enough.

What I keep running into when I read about this is conflicting information on whether protein absorption per meal actually has a ceiling, or whether the older research on that is outdated. Some threads say your body handles a large bolus fine. Others say spread it out or you waste it. Nobody links anything useful.

If you're running IF with a high protein target above 160g and actually tracking it daily, not estimating, what does your meal structure look like and did your muscle retention hold up?

Spent years doing overnight longhaul runs and my body just adapted to sleeping from like 8am to 3pm. That was my normal. Recently moved to local day routes, which means I actually need to sleep at night like a regular person, and I genuinely did not expect the reset to be this brutal.

Three weeks in and I'm lying there at 11pm completely wired. Then I'm dragging myself out of bed at 5:30 feeling like I slept maybe half of what the clock says I did. The hours are there on paper but something feels off.

I've been tracking sleep with a cheap ring. Not going to pretend I know exactly what the data means, but the deep sleep numbers look low compared to what I was getting before the switch, even though the total time is similar.

What I'm trying to figure out is how long a circadian rhythm shift like this actually takes. Not looking for the generic 2 weeks answer. I want to know if there's any research on people who worked overnight schedules for years and then hardswitched to days. Does the body actually fully recalibrate or does it just find a weird middle ground and stay there? Anyone been through something similar with a major schedule flip.

Transitioning off longhaul to local routes starting next month. Hours are more predictable now, home most nights, but the schedule still shifts depending on dispatch. Some days I clock in at 4am, some days 6am, rarely past 7am. Shift ends anywhere from 1pm to 5pm depending on freight.

Been tracking macros for about eight months and I want to add 16:8 on top of that. The macro side is dialed in, protein target hits, calories are consistent. The fasting window is where I keep secondguessing myself.

My original plan was a 6am to 2pm eating window. That works on early days. On late start days it feels like I'm eating breakfast at 6am when my body barely woke up, then cutting off at 2pm when I'm still active.

The alternative I keep landing on is anchoring the window to wake time rather than clock time, so always skip the first two hours after waking and eat for eight hours from there. But I've read conflicting stuff about whether consistency in clock time actually matters more than consistency relative to your schedule.

Anyone running IF with a shifting wake time, did you anchor to clock or to wake time, and did it actually make a difference for you?