I have found that fasting has helped our swimmers stay healthy by severely reducing calories on recovery days. The efforts to digest a high frequency of meals during heavy days is tough on the system. The research on the immune system and caloric load and insulin response is rather clear that large, high GI meals, can impair many of the cell repsonses if the body is under severe fatigue. Fasting can only be done during a very light training week with two days off. The fasting day again must be after the athlete's glycogen stores have been "topped off". Various soups and simple meals can be consumed, providing that they add up to less then 2000 kcal. I prefer to do this mainly during the restoration phase after two weeks.
