The FastDay Forum

Hi this is my 1st post and I'm sure this has been covered before, I just can't find it.
I was looking to find out if I can add my calories burnt off while training to my 600 calories I'm aloud on fast days.
Eg if I burn 600 calories running on my fast day does mean I'm allowed up till 1200 calories on my fast day ?

Hi and welcome! The short answer is no. The idea is reduce your calorie INTAKE not a deficit to 25% of your normal TDEE. The way I do this is to eat my fast day meal straight after I train. I work out in the mornings on an empty stomach and then eat my fast day calories. If you have a protein shake or some eggs you still have something left for later.

Thank you for the reply and answering my question . I was hoping I was alound to add the calories on but I suppose that would make things to easy .

[Tracieknits]

Welcome to the forum!

Another idea is that since you are supposed to eat 25% of your TDEE, I would say you could eat 25% of whatever calories you burn. My fitbit tracks my exercise and my calories burned for the day, so I eat up to 25% of the total calories I burned that day. So if I burned an extra 300 calories exercising, I would allow myself to eat up to 75 of those calories.

That sounds sensible , I used my fitness pal does something the same .
Thanks for the help

It's been my experience that it's best not to counteract the calories burned during exercise on fast days, treating them as a bonus reduction amount instead. Considering that calorie counters are notoriously and innacurately optimistic, trusting them can sabotage your efforts.

Realize also that at the start of IF'ing, it takes a 2-3 weeks for the body to get used to burning fat (instead of carbs) for energy so feeling a bit more tired during that time is normal. Soon after that, fast day or not, there's little difference.

When you get to your target weight you will need to add in calories burned, before that happy time it pays to stick to the 600 regardless. Beware the overenthusiastic calories burned figures from technology - running is about 100/mile, walking 60/mile!