The FastDay Forum

I have done this twice now; if I feel I need an extra fast day for whatever reason but can't face a full fast day then I have done a sort of half fast where I don't eat all day but have a 'normal' evening meal rather than low cal. Maybe that's as much as 1000 calories rather than 500 but with the benefits of the daytime fasting.

Does anybody else do this and does it make any difference or is it better to either fast properly or not fast at all?

I hope this does work as this is pretty much how I do maintenance - the gap between meals should give the health benefits but you have to get some decent calories not to keep losing weight. Keep it up!

I would be very interested to know the answer to this... sorry, that's no help at all

It always makes more sense to me than the variations that allow small snacks. I thought that the principle behind fasting was to get your body out of what Dr M calls go-go mode so that basically it falls back on stored resources and does a bit of patching up!

I would rather struggle through the day trying to keep busy and then, if a fall off the wagon, I'll eat a bit extra during the evening. That way I get in a good 16 or 18 hours fasting plus about another 12 hours between bedtime and my brunch the following morning.

Well, that is actually my way of fasting. 3 times a week 24 hours nothing but water but a normal meal at night. I lost more than 10 kg with this approach. Maybe slower than the others, but it also helps. So if you do 2*36 hours and 1*24 hours that should be even faster...

I've actually done this on days when I am doing an extra amount of hard work and am feeling faint. I don't seem to continue to lose but I don't gain at least. As soon as I can get back to the regular fasting, I do

This is basically Brad Pilon's approach...it's called 'Eat-Stop-Eat' and he advocates a couple of 24 hour fasts per week with no calorie restriction on the 'fast' days...just resume your normal eating pattern at the end of your 24 hour fast.

Brad believes the 24 or so hours without food is the most important part, not the calorie restriction...especially for the health benefits.

I've done it a couple of times on Sundays, after a Saturday night full of drinking and a very bad meal on Sunday morning before I go to bed. I think it helps but I'm not one of those one-meal-a-day fasters, I want my snacks!

I've been doing something like this for the last couple of weeks. I think of it as a modified 4:3. I have a typical 500cal fast day Monday and Wednesday and Friday I fast during the day and have a normal meal Friday evening. Don't know if it's helped, but it hasn't hurt. I do it because I feel good fasting but want Friday evening thru Sunday evening for social eating and drinking.

Hmmm...one benefit I can think of is that it's making fasting more of a habit with more "fasts" in a week. That might just be me though.

I'll be doing something similar tomorrow. I'm fasting on saturday (taking advantage of my husband being away and wanted to get another one in (today's a fast day) so I'm having an early tea tomorrow at about 5pm then a light brekkie and then nothing until 6pm on Thursday. Am at friends' house on thursday evening so don't want to refuse any offered biscuits! Not a full-on fast day but somewhere in the middle to keep the momentum going!