This post is one of my 500 calorie meals I enjoy on a near weekly basis. If you’re interested in more, be sure to click on the 500 calorie meal tag, to find all the other meals I will eventually share!
Fasting, eat a single 500 calorie meal, return to fasting – this is called a down day. It is part of a protocol I learned from reading Fast. Feast. Repeat.
When you have a down day, you’re eating few calories and truly minimizing the amount you’re breaking your fast with. It’s like a small bridge that joins a fast on either side. It can vary in how it’s implemented, and I suggest you play around with it to see if it’s something you’d like to experiment more with as part of your protocol.
My personal implementation looks like this:
- fast a minimum of 18 hours
- eat a single meal of 500 calories or less (this is a down day)
- resume fasting for at least 18 hours
- break fast the following day (with an up day)
Play around with different ideas
I know 500 calories seems so low, and it’s something to adjust to. HOWEVER, I absolutely have found there is an abundance of foods that are filling, delicious and low calorie. The more I do these down days, the more fun I have putting meals together. You can check out a video with multiple ideas here.
No-Prep Meal
I like to share each meal as it’s rare they each look the same. Here is my most recent!
First, low calorie beverage. Sometimes this is a La Croix, sometimes a diet cola but today I made an iced coffee. I used sugar-free coconut torani (0 calories), black iced coffee (I drink coffee all day, so I never count these minimal calories towards my meal since I consume it even while fasting) and a half cup of unsweetened almond milk (15 calories)
Drink = 15 calories
Next, I love adding berries as most are low calorie and delicious! However, I went with low prep dried strawberries since we had a number of bags in the pantry. These are expensive, but a delicious addition from time to time. It should be no surprise I buy these from ALDI. The entire bag was added sweetness and crunch to my meal (and also 120 calories). Also, since added to a fast-food meal, this could be easily added as a road-trip meal since we’re using dried fruit, where no special handling is required.
Running Total – 135 calories
Finally, I ordered my easily favorite low calorie, fast-food addition. A Jimmy John’s unwhich (lettuce instead of bread). I picked the Club Lulu this time since it’s low calorie and still have bacon! I added extra lettuce, cucumbers, hot peppers and pickles. The total, without bread and with loaded/extra veggies came to a whopping 357 calories only! Crazy if you see how big the sandwich is…. and oh so satisfying! Jimmy John’s has a great app you can build and customize your sandwich to get calorie counts.
Running total & Final Tally – 492 calories!
Take a look at this meal! I was full when I finished, I didn’t feel like I was dieting… I was so satisfied. 500 calorie meals are a great tool in both weight loss, maintenance and to increase health. I will continue to do them every week or two especially when they’re this delicious!!
I’m hungry writing this LOL
Chow Down and Ciao!! 👋
I had a big bowl of full fat cottage cheese topped with a generous portion of raspberry jam that I made using fresh berries, monkfruit and a little xantham gum. I love cottage cheese, so this felt like a treat!
Yum!! That sounds amazing! Thanks for sharing, cottage cheese is so good! I should add that to my diet more.
I have been intermittant fasting for over a year and I haven’t lost any weight????
I’m doing 16/8. Help. I’m eating about 1200 calories during my eating window. Help
Hi Liz, I don’t know the specifics, but do you think there is a potential you’re over restricting? I would experiment with days with more calories, as well as longer fasting windows from time to time. I have not done calorie restriction with long eating windows.