Hello, SJ_Jones – The main thing is just to keep within your maximum fast day limit, usually around 500/600 calories for the average female/male. Otherwise, eat at whatever time and in whatever pattern most keeps you happy and able to sustain your 5:2 regime on an on-going basis.
One health advisor I have read – Dr Ritamarie Loscalzo – generally advises that one should ideally have 5 hours of not eating between each meal and should finish eating at least three hours before sleeping at night, in order to give your hormones time to relax in the day and do their repair work during sleep. However, this is not a requirement of the 5:2 approach, which builds its success on the ease of on-going compliance that so many people experience.
Some people using the 5:2 method prefer to eat nothing throughout their fasting period; some, eat one evening meal; some eat two meals (for example, breakfast and evening meal or, maybe, lunch and evening meal); some, like you, prefer meals and small snacks throughout the period. The choice is yours – there is no ‘wrong’ timing – just do what most suits your personal needs and circumstances. Your main fasting goes on during the non-eating times surrounding (and including) the times you are asleep on the night before and the night of your fast day and if those blocks of time are 12-14 hours long you should gain all the health and weight-loss benefits associated with Intermittent Fasting. To date, human research has not proved that longer periods of fasting necessarily enhance the weight-loss outcomes or health improvements.
There is no dogma in the 5:2 advice – everything is geared to relaxed, gentle and gradual weight-loss, if that is wanted, and to long-term, on-going health benefits. I wish you all the joys of happily and easily succeeding at your goals using the 5:2 system.