What I Eat While Intermittent Fasting: Whatever I Want, Just Less

By Brian Hupp · October 12, 2026

I eat whatever I want. I did when I started and I still do. If I want Taco Bell, I go get Taco Bell. The food is the same as it was. I just can't eat much of it anymore.

I went from 520 pounds to 200 by changing when I ate (the whole story is in How I Lost 300 Pounds With Intermittent Fasting). I'm not a doctor and this isn't medical advice. This is what I do. I'm not telling you to do the same.

I didn't start by changing the food

When I started, the point was to eat less. Quitting unhealthy food wasn't part of it.

In late 2022 rheumatoid arthritis left me unable to move for about three months. Those months made it clear to me that I had to change my habits first, before I worried about anything else.

So I didn't write a meal plan or throw anything out of the kitchen. I changed how often I ate and left the food alone.

What we eat is important. I'm not going to tell you it isn't. But my weight didn't come off because I switched foods, and that's where my story is different from most.

My Taco Bell order, then and now

My old Taco Bell order was two Gordita Crunches, two soft tacos, a burrito and a large pop. I could eat a whole pizza back then and still be hungry.

Now the order is one Gordita Crunch, and maybe a soft taco if I feel like I can eat it. With pizza I'm full after two pieces. Good luck getting a third one down.

It's the same food from the same places. I just can't eat like an obese person anymore.

What the one meal looks like

Most days I eat one meal, somewhere between 5 and 10 at night. It's whatever I pick that day. There's no list of foods I'm allowed and no list I'm not.

These days I can hold a 20:4 day if I want to. That's twenty hours without food and four hours to eat in. I couldn't have done that at the start, when I began below 12:12.

A few mornings a week I have a protein shake or a smoothie, and I drink pop that I haven't quit. Both of those break a fast. The full list is in What Breaks a Fast? And What I Actually Drink.

I track how much, not what

I don't count calories and I don't keep a food log. I don't track what I eat, only how much. I also walk a lot, more than 10,000 steps a day, and do some mild exercise.

Dr. Krista Varady is a nutrition professor who runs fasting studies. In an NIDDK interview she says: "Even though you get to eat what you want in that 8-hour window, you naturally cut out about 500 calories because you're eating in a shortened timeframe."

She doesn't treat the fasting as magic either: "I don't think it's the fasting. I think they're just eating less, so they're losing weight."

That's what she sees in her studies, and it isn't a promise for you or for me. But eating less is what happened in my case.

The habits changed before the meals did

I didn't shrink my meals on purpose. They got smaller over time. Food stopped being something I wanted and turned into something I needed. I eat because I need to, so I eat less. At least that's how it works for me.

If a fasting schedule sounds like too much right now, start smaller. One glass of water in the morning is a habit too. Start there if you need to.

Don't take this as a meal plan

Fast food isn't good for you, and I can't promise that eating the way I do gets you my result, or any result. The pop is still a mistake and I'd lose more if I quit it.

Fasting isn't right for everyone, and I don't want to push it on anybody. If you have a health condition, take medication, are pregnant, or have a history of disordered eating, talk to your doctor before you change how you eat. Some conditions and some medications need a certain kind of food, or food at certain times, and that's a question for your doctor.

Before You Try Intermittent Fasting has questions worth bringing to that appointment.

If you want to try

I started without buying anything, and you don't need to either. The free Fasting Readiness Quiz is an educational tool that helps you think about where to begin. It can't tell you whether fasting is safe for you. The free Fasting Tracker keeps a history of your fasts on your own device.

If you want more than that, Finding Your Window is my $9.99 PDF guide. It covers five fasting windows, with common mistakes and what to expect in the first weeks, and has tracking logs. It is not a meal plan.

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