Ferran Torres's Diet: 18 Hours of Fasting and Training on an Empty Stomach
In short
- Ferran Torres fasts every day: dinner between 7:30 and 8:00pm, then nothing until 2:00pm the next day — roughly 18 hours without food.
- He trains in the morning fasted, on coffee alone: 'Training on an empty stomach gives me more energy.'
- He says the hunger is gone: 'I'm not hungry. I don't feel the need.'
- Match days break the rule — 'when there's a game, it's our birthday' — with white chocolate waffles.
- He passed the habit to teammate Pedri, and pairs it with sauna, an 8-9 °C ice bath and red light before bed.
- It isn't a keto diet: what he shares with keto is the tool — fasting — not the macros.
The protocol: 18 hours fasting, 6 hours eating
What Ferran Torres does has a name and a number: intermittent fasting on an 18:6 window. He has dinner between 7:30 and 8:00pm and doesn't eat again until 2:00pm the following day. That's roughly 18 hours of fasting and a 6-hour eating window.
The striking part isn't skipping breakfast — it's training inside the fast. He wakes up, trains, and drinks only coffee until his first meal. "I have dinner around half seven or eight and then nothing until two the next day," he explained on Spanish TV show El Hormiguero. "Training on an empty stomach gives me more energy."
On hunger — everyone's objection — his answer is adaptation: "I'm not hungry. I don't feel the need." And it isn't a one-off soundbite: he described the same routine back in February 2026, months before the World Cup.
What Ferran Torres eats (and what he hasn't said)
Precision matters here, because this is where headlines start inventing things: Torres has described in detail when he eats, not what he eats. There is no published menu or food list from him.
The only documented items are the ones around the fast: coffee during the fasting window — black and unsweetened, so it carries no meaningful calories and doesn't break it — and the match-day breakfast. Everything else circulating as "the Ferran Torres diet" is filler.
Match day breaks the fast — with white chocolate
The exception is as memorable as the rule. On match days he does eat breakfast, and he eats it sweet: waffles with white chocolate, a ritual he shares with Pedri. "When there's a game, it's our birthday," he joked.
Physiologically that's not a contradiction, it's the expected move: competing at full intensity is paid for in glycogen, and the hours before kick-off are the worst possible time to arrive empty. An elite footballer times carbohydrates to the calendar. The fast is for training days, not match days.
Pedri copied it — and the rest of the routine
Part of what made this go viral is that it spread inside the dressing room: Pedri adopted the same schedule. "I got him into intermittent fasting. He struggled at first, but now he thanks me. We have dinner at night and don't eat again until lunch," Torres said.
Fasting is one piece of a broader recovery routine: sauna followed by an 8-9 °C ice bath in the morning, with breath control, and red light at home in the hours before sleep to protect his circadian rhythm — the same territory Marcos Llorente occupies.
Is Ferran Torres's diet keto?
No — and the reason is worth understanding. Keto is a rule about what you eat: cut carbohydrates far enough that your body runs on fat and ketones. Intermittent fasting is a rule about when you eat, and says nothing about macros. You can fast for 18 hours and break it with pasta — or with white chocolate waffles.
What's interesting is that they're complementary tools, not rivals. Both push the same way metabolically: fewer insulin spikes, more hours burning fat. And they help each other — a keto meal, high in protein and fat, keeps you full for hours, so holding out until 2pm is far easier on keto than on carbs. Plenty of people eating keto drift into a 16:8 window without trying, simply because mid-morning hunger disappears.
If the Ferran Torres routine caught your eye, the logical order is the reverse of the headline: fix what you eat first, and the window narrows on its own.
What the headline leaves out
Three caveats, because copying a world champion's clock without copying his context is the easy, wrong half.
One: fasting isn't magic. As personal trainer José Ruiz noted about this very case, there's no trick that burns fat on its own; total calories and the quality of what you eat in the window still decide the outcome. Fasting mostly works because it makes people eat less, and better, without counting anything.
Two: fasted training isn't universally better. It depends on the type of effort, the intensity and your conditioning. And the evidence in elite athletes specifically is thin — most intermittent fasting research is in the general population, not professional footballers.
Three: he isn't improvising. There's a performance staff and nutritionists behind it, tuned to his training and match schedule. If you take medication, are pregnant, have diabetes or a history of disordered eating, extended fasting isn't for you without medical supervision.
Eat this way, keto-style
Not strictly keto — but the whole-food, high-protein core is exactly what keto is built on. Here's how to apply it:
Foods on this diet
Frequently asked questions
What intermittent fasting does Ferran Torres do?
Roughly an 18:6 window. He has dinner between 7:30 and 8:00pm and doesn't eat again until 2:00pm the next day — about 18 hours fasting and a 6-hour eating window.
Does Ferran Torres eat breakfast?
No, except on match days. His first meal is at 2:00pm and he drinks only coffee through the morning. On match days he breaks the fast with a sweet breakfast.
Does Ferran Torres train fasted?
Yes. He trains in the morning inside his fasting window, on coffee alone. He has said that 'training on an empty stomach gives me more energy'.
What does Ferran Torres eat on match days?
Waffles with white chocolate, a breakfast he shares with Pedri. 'When there's a game, it's our birthday,' he has said. It's the exception to his fasting routine.
Is Ferran Torres's diet keto?
No. Intermittent fasting governs when you eat, not what you eat, and he does take performance carbohydrates. That said, fasting and keto pair well: both reduce insulin spikes, and a keto meal keeps you full enough that holding out until 2pm becomes easy.
Does Pedri do intermittent fasting too?
Yes. Ferran Torres passed it on: 'He struggled at first, but now he thanks me.' Both have dinner at night and don't eat again until lunch.
Does coffee break a fast?
Black coffee with no sugar or milk carries no meaningful calories and doesn't break a fast — it's exactly what Torres drinks while training. Adding sugar, milk or syrups does break it.
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