HOME / FASTING / CHOOSING A SCHEDULE

Which fasting schedule is right for you?

The best schedule is the one you will still be running in three months. That usually means starting shorter than you think you need to.

Four questions will narrow it down. Answer them honestly rather than ambitiously.

Start with the questions

Burn's timer at 8 hours 41 minutes, the stage pill reading GLYCOGEN LOW

Burn's Begin Your Fast sheet, offering Start Now or a custom backdated time, with an optional name for the fast

Burn's timer at 20 hours 9 minutes on a 20:4 fast, the stage pill reading KETOSIS

WHERE YOU WILL ANSWER THEM

Every schedule below is a plan you can select in Burn

Nine built-in lengths grouped from beginner upward, plus three custom protocols and an open-ended fast with no set end. Switch whenever the current length stops taking effort, and your history follows you across.

All schedules →

Burn's Choose a Plan sheet, listing fasting schedules grouped from beginner plans upward

QUESTION 01

Which meal can you actually skip?

This decides your window more than anything else. If breakfast is the meal you barely notice, a noon to 8pm window writes itself. If you cannot function without breakfast but rarely want dinner, run the window early instead.

Skip breakfast → noon to 8pm Skip dinner → 10am to 6pm Neither → start at 12:12

QUESTION 02

Have you fasted before?

A 20:4 abandoned on day three is worth less than a 14:10 you keep for a year. If this is new, start at 12:12 or 14:10 and add an hour every few days. Burn groups the shorter plans under Beginner plans, so they are easy to find.

Never → 12:12, then work up A bit → 16:8 Regularly → 18:6 or longer

QUESTION 03

When do you eat with other people?

The schedule that survives is the one that does not require declining every invitation. If family dinner is at seven every night, an early window will fail. If work lunches are frequent, a late window will.

Family dinners → keep dinner in the window Work lunches → keep noon in the window Both → 16:8 or a weekday plan

QUESTION 04

When do you train?

Plenty of people train fasted without trouble, but heavy sessions usually go better with food somewhere nearby. Put your window so that at least one meal lands close to your hardest session of the week.

Morning → earlier window Evening → later window Rarely → either works

Match yourself to one

Four places to start

Match yourself to the closest description. None of these is permanent.

12:12 Never fasted

Start here if fasting is new

Finish dinner, eat breakfast twelve hours later. This is close to a normal night already, without being called fasting.

Reaches Glycogen Depletion. Add an hour every few days from here.

Burn's timer at 12 hours 17 minutes, the stage pill reading GLYCOGEN LOW

16:8 Ready to skip breakfast

The default for a reason

Skip breakfast, keep lunch and dinner. Eight of the sixteen hours happen while you are asleep, and almost every social plan still fits.

Reaches Fat Mobilisation. The 16:8 guide →

Burn's timer at 16 hours 22 minutes with the 16:8 goal met

18:6 Already fasting

When 16:8 has gone boring

Two hours further, which is where the fast reaches the Ketosis Entry line. Six hours fits two meals rather than three.

Reaches Ketosis Entry at 18h. The 18:6 guide →

Burn's timer at 18 hours 47 minutes on an 18:6 fast, the stage pill reading KETOSIS, with a stage progress rail at 3h, 8h, 14h, 18h and 24h and a Ketones Rising card

Flexi No fixed end

When your days are not the same

Start the timer and stop when it feels right. Shift work, travel, and unpredictable weeks suit this better than a fixed window.

The timer keeps counting past every stage boundary, however far you go.

Burn's timer on an open-ended fast at 4 days 1 hour 19 minutes, the stage pill reading DEEP AUTOPHAGY, with every boundary from 3h to 96h passed on the stage rail

Changing your mind

Picking wrong costs you nothing

Your plan is a setting, not a commitment. Burn shows your current plan at the top of the list and you can pick a different one whenever the week calls for it.

So the honest advice is to start shorter than feels ambitious, hold it until it is boring, then add hours. That path gets more people to a long fast than starting at the deep end.

See every schedule Burn runs →

Burn's custom fast protocols screen, with saved custom fasting and eating windows

Or let Burn decide

Pick a goal instead of a number

If you would rather not choose hours at all, a guided program sets each day's target for you and moves it up when you are ready.

Programs are grouped by what you want

Just Exploring, Lose Weight, Sharpen Focus, and more. Each program shows its length and difficulty before you commit, so a four-week experienced protocol is never a surprise.

Browse the programs →

Burn's All Programs list, grouped by goal: Just Exploring, Lose Weight, and Sharpen Focus, each program showing its length and difficulty

Which fasting schedule is right for you?

Every schedule below is a plan you can select in Burn

Which meal can you actually skip?

Have you fasted before?

When do you eat with other people?

When do you train?

Four places to start

Start here if fasting is new

The default for a reason

When 16:8 has gone boring

When your days are not the same

Picking wrong costs you nothing

Pick a goal instead of a number

Programs are grouped by what you want

Before you pick anything

Read before you start

16:8 fasting

18:6 fasting

Your first week

The nine stages

Pick one tonight, change it whenever