The FastDay Forum

Hi I have been doing this for about 3 months and I have never fasted on my exercise days, however I normally fast Monday an Thursday and do two HITT training sessions on Wednesday and Friday. I would like to take up an exercise to music class twice a week and I am worried about fasting on exercise days as sometimes I get the shakes. I don't really want to change my fasting days.

So I was wondering how you cope and what foods do you eat on fasting days if you exercise?

Many thanks

Linnylou.

I regularly exercise on fast days and don't treat the fast days that I do exercise any differently. I normally have a mushroom omelette or something with eggs in the evening, normally a couple of hours before my exercise, Monday night I just had a bowl of muesli as wasn't overly hungry and was being lazy !! I've never had any adverse effects of exercising on fast days. I used to go to the gym on a Sunday morning straight after getting up without eating anything, so in theory 12 hours without any food and that was never a problem either.

Its something you'll need to try and see how your body reacts - many of us fast and exercise on the same day with no problems, but if you find yourself getting shaky you might need to play around with eating times and nutritional content.

I exercise most nights. I am currently doing the 30 day shred, which I think is classed as HIIT, I always exercise on fasting days, as I usually feel pretty energetic.

Hmm, I have started eating very very little up until dinner when I'll have something like meat or fish with veggies. Tomorrow I'll be having a red pepper stuffed with brown rice and vegetables.

There are some recipes on my blog if you're interested (link in signature) xx

I suspect everyone is different. I have had no problem with quite vigorous exercise with 5:2. I fasted Monday and did a pretty vigorous hot power yoga class before dinner. It made me less hungry. I then did another power yoga class Tuesday morning before eating and felt great.

Having said that I have only had the shakes on my first fast day and that was after dinner but it hasn't happened in the next 6 fast days so am not sure what that was about but maybe low blood sugar.

I don't have any issues with exercise on or the morning after a fast day either. I've been doing 20 min HIIT workouts and have recently started running on fast days too.

Have completed 6 fasts now, and have just swum a mile with only a couple of quick stops to adjust my goggles.

Before 5:2, I had to rest every couple of 50m lengths. Great improvement in my stamina levels.