The FastDay Forum

Hi everyone!

Sorry if this has been posted before, I couldn't find it. I was just wondering what people's opinions were about fasting days: is eating 500 calories or nothing better? I know some people find it easier to eat nothing on fast days as it doesn't wake up the hunger per say, however I wasn't sure if eating 500 calories was supposed to do something to your metabolism? Like, will eating nothing put my body into the dreaded starvation mode? I think I would find it easier eating nothing because fast days I rarely get overly hungry anyway, but have been making myself have the 500 calories. Soo.. what's best?!

Hi @britney Zero calorie is fine for your fastday or some members do a liquid only fast. Sue

You cannot put yourself into starvation mode by eating 0 calories for 24 or 36 hours, provided you start eating "normally" at the end of your fast, ie do not try to combine fasting with a very low calorie diet on your other days. I am sure one of our boffins will be along soon to give exact facts and figures. There is no magic voodoo to eating the 5/600 calories to give faster weightless - if you don't want to eat 'owt then don't saves all that effort with recipes and counting for starters (and mains, and desserts!)

The idea is 500/600kcals OR LESS on a fast day. When I'm up for it, I do liquid only fasts where I allow myself 100kcals for milk in my teas and the occasional mug of bovril (beef stock cube). Other days I amy go over my 500kcals by up to an extra 100kcals. Whatever works for you is the name of the game. To make this sustainable in the long term the diet needs to fit you, not you fitting the diet.

I am with everyone above. On Mondays I try to zero cal fast because I've usually pigged out over the weekend and am desperate for a day of rest. As Julie says though, you have to find out what suits you and then just go with it, good!luck

Ballerina x

I tend to do Monday as a zero calorie fast, just water and black tea & coffee, for recovery from the weekend, and because Monday is a down-day and ideal for it. If I fast a second day during the week, I usually have a 500 cal evening meal, so I can eat with my son. I love the food-free nature of a liquid fast day, clean kitchen, no food prep, money saved etc.

Thanks for your replies everyone! I think I'll just see how it goes: if I don't feel too hungry, I won't have any. If I do feel hungry I have the UP TO 500 calorie option.
Thanks!

I must say I'm very impressed with peeps who can go with nothing on a fast day. That's real willpower. Sometimes I could eat my elbows whilst waiting for my 5 o'clock meal. Slight exaggeration but you know what I mean

I am currently following Krista Varaday's eat every other day. In order to find the best healthy weight loss she experimented on mice. Some were given 75 percent of their calorie intake, some 50 per cent, 25 percent and then 0 per cent. She found the 25 per cent to be the best...and that means 500 calories. So, in short, it seems that having 500 cals is better than nothing!

Look forward to hearing about your progress xx

Bean

[carorees]

The trouble with the mouse experiments is that 24 hours with no calories for a mouse is like us fasting for over a week! This calculation is based on the fact that when subjected to complete food deprivation(fasting) it takes humans about 10 days to lose 10% body weight, it takes rats about 24 hours to lose 10% body weight and it takes mice less than 24 hours to lose 10% body weight, so a 24-hour fast in a mouse is like us going 10 days without food. So to do ADF like the mouse studies we need to change it to AWF (alternate weekly fasting)! Extrapolating mouse studies to humans is fraught with problems.

Varady's EOD diet in humans of course is valid to use as a model to follow (for the period she studied it for which for most of her studies is 12 weeks) but the 25% thing can't be extrapolated from mice to humans. She could have chosen any amount of calorie restriction in the human studies and it would have been just as valid as using the 25% from the mouse studies. Also, unless your TDEE is 2000 calories then 25% is not 500 calories!

I'm not saying that you should/shouldn't follow ADF or have/not have 500 cals on a fast day, I'm just pointing out that there is no scientific rationale for these choices: just do what works for you!

I agree with Beany..i am amazed by folk who don't get hungry on f and r days..! Kudos to them!
I could eat a horse between two bread vans right now and i know when i have my 500 cals later,i could go on and on eating .. I know this is why some dont eat til the next day..
In a funny way tho,there's a certain satisfaction in hunger pangs... Feel like am doing self some good and the pangs do pass quite quickly x