A comprehensive overview of what you can drink while fasting without breaking your fast.
First Thing’s First, Avoid Rookie Mistakes
If you’re doing intermittent fasting, then you need to avoid all caloric intake for a certain period of time. You can’t eat food, drink juices, have desserts or snacks.
Once your body enters a fasted state, your physiology shifts into mild ketosis, which increases fat burning and reduces appetite.
So, the longer you fast, the deeper into ketosis you get and the easier it gets. There’s not much difference in terms of your hunger levels between fasting for 48 hours vs fasting for 5 days because your body adapts very quickly to the abstinence of calories.
Nevertheless, there are still some additional beverages you can drink during your fast that won’t break the fast.
These drinks can actually boost the effectiveness of your fast because they promote cellular detoxification, cleansing of the gut and ketosis. Here they are:
#1 Pink Salt
Sodium is important for energy production, electrolyte balance, helps to maintain blood pressure, helps to fire nerve impulses. Deficiencies in sodium can cause muscle cramping, brain fog, fatigue, water retention, and even insulin resistance. It can also create binge eating after breaking a fast because the body is depleted of essential nutrients.
Click here to Buy Pink Himalayan Salt
See: Homemade Electrolyte Drink for Extended Fasting
#2 Spring Water (mineral water)
You can drink regular water, sparkling water, and mineral water (Perrier). The reason you’d want to drink spring/mineral water is that when you’re fasting, you’re flushing out a lot of water and this may lead to electrolyte imbalances and mineral deficiencies.
To prevent that, you can simply add a pinch of sea salt or Pink Himalayan sea salt to your water. Also, consuming ionized rock salt will give you some iodine as well, which promotes thyroid functioning and prevents hypothyroidism.
Click here to Buy Spring Water
#3 Baking Soda
You might be using baking soda only for cooking, but it has other health benefits as well.
- It helps with digestive issues
- Relieves constipation and bloating
- Kills parasites and bad bacteria
- Reduces fatigue and muscle soreness
- Neutralizes the acidity in the gut
- Helps to balance pH levels in the body
- You can consume a teaspoon of baking soda in your water to boost your physical performance and overall health.
When you’re fasting, it’s important to keep your electrolytes in check because you tend to flush out some water and minerals.
Baking soda consists of 100% sodium bicarbonate, which is great for getting some sodium while your fasting but, to be honest, it tastes quite bad so it can also be used to prevent hunger. After you drink it you really don’t want to be consuming anything else and you’ll happily continue your fast.
#4 Herbal Teas
- Herbal teas taste great and they can be used to stave off hunger while fasting. However, they also have some detoxifying and other medicinal benefits.
- Chamomile is known to calm an upset stomach and help with sleep
- Peppermint improves digestion, reduces inflammation and muscle pain
- Jasmine strengthens the immune system, prevents diabetes and lowers cholesterol
- Green tea is considered the healthiest drink in the world after water. It has a lot of polyphenols, which promote heart and brain health. The small amount of caffeine also boosts fat burning.
- Black tea is enriched with compounds that benefit heart, digestion and stress levels.
- There are maybe 1-5 calories in a cup of tea, but it’s not enough to kick you out of a fasted state. However, don’t brew teas with fruit, berries or other types of seasoning that have carbohydrates in them. That sugar will most likely stop the beneficial effects of autophagy.
#5 Coffee
The easiest and most effective way of suppressing hunger while fasting is to drink coffee. Caffeine gives you a jolt of energy and increases your focus while boosting fat burning.
At the same time, coffee has other health benefits, such as better blood sugar regulation, high polyphenol count and lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease. So, it’s an amazing enhancer for the brain and mitochondria.
To not get kicked out of a fasted state, you want to be drinking black coffee. If you add a pinch of cinnamon or Stevia, then you may accidentally kick yourself out of a fasted state but small amounts – like a few milligrams – won’t have any significant effect on fasting. Instant coffee mixers tend to also have added substances that will kick you out of a fasted state.
Do consider the amount of caffeine you consume. You shouldn’t drink any more than 2-4 cups of coffee a day because it leads to caffeine intolerance and higher cortisol levels. Stress can kick you out of ketosis but it can also make you more catabolic while fasting. Decaf, however, is potentially unlimited, although there is some caffeine in it as well.
What About Bulletproof Coffee While Fasting?
Which brings me to the question of: Can you add butter to your coffee while fasting Bulletproof style?
It’s true that pure fat like butter, coconut oil, or MCT oil, won’t raise blood sugar and this can keep you in a semi-fasted state. The fat won’t cross the blood-brain barrier, making your mind think that it hasn’t actually eaten anything.
However, this will most likely block the process of autophagy. Even just as little as 50 calories puts you into a fed state and stops the cells from self-digesting themselves.
This is not necessarily a bad thing as you’ll get energy and stay in ketosis but you’ll be missing out on some of the detox health benefits.
Here you have to think about why you’re doing intermittent fasting for.
- If you’re doing fasting for weight loss purposes and adding butter or MCT oil to your coffee helps you to make it through the fast then go for it. However, do remember that you’ll still need to consume fewer calories and putting an entire stick of butter into your cup will give you at least a thousand calories.
- If you’re fasting to thoroughly clean your body from toxic proteins and inflammation, then I’d advise you to not consume anything at all and do strict water fasting with mineral water with these salts and teas.
Click here to Buy Black Coffee
#6 Artificial Sweeteners
Which brings me to another question: Can you consume artificial sweeteners while fasting?
The answer is: It depends – It depends on what type of sweetener you’re using, why you’re doing intermittent fasting for and how does your body individually reacts to them.
A lot of sweeteners have carbs in them, like maltodextrin, dextrose or sucralose – avoid them, no objections there.
Natural sweeteners like Stevia are shown to not raise insulin or blood sugar, which makes them okay to be consumed.
However, you’d still have to be aware of how you specifically respond to Stevia. Although Stevia doesn’t have calories, it’s 300 times sweeter than table sugar and this can cause a placebo-like insulin response. Your taste buds get stimulated by the sweetness and you’ll get kicked out of a fasted state – the mind is that powerful.
To be sure, I would avoid all sweeteners while fasting because… I mean, it’s not a big deal but if you do want to try them then you’d have to test and experiment.
#7 Rose Water
It’s refreshing and aids the digestive system without breaking your fast!
- Drinking rose water, especially when combined with saffron, reduces the impulse to eat.
- Drinking rose water helps cool down in the summer heat.
- The most important benefit of drinking rose water is that it contains a lot of vitamins: A, C, D, E, and B3.
- Rose water also contains tannins, citric acid and zinc.
A special mention should be made regarding Ayurveda: rose water has been used in Ayurveda medicine for centuries. It is believed to balance the subdosha of Pitta dosha that determines the emotions, which can dysfunction especially in summer and result in mood swings, and digesting problems. Drinking rose water cools down the emotions and the digestive fire.
#8 Hot Morning Elixir
You know what? This is the sort of drink that I like to begin my day with and sometimes sip on up until my first meal of the day around 10:30am (I practice 18/6 intermmitent fasting). It really curves the hunger pangs if they every come about! Instead of 1.5 cups of water, I dilute all the ingredients into approximately a half-gallon jug and sip on it cold or at room temperature.
In efforts to NOT disturb your fasted state, use ONLY a pinch of cinnamon.
Click here for the Hot Morning Elixir Recipe
#9 Apple Cider Vinegar
A great drink for fasting is apple cider vinegar because of its anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory compounds. It’s acidic but it actually helps to balance your body’s pH levels.
There are practically no calories in apple cider vinegar but it has other minerals such as potassium, some magnesium, and iron. This is perfect for fasting because you’ll be able to keep your electrolytes in check and prevent deficiencies.
Apple cider vinegar kills off bad bacteria in your gut and it staves off hunger. It can be added to sparkling water to make a nice tasty beverage.
To ensure you’re not stopping autophagy, I wouldn’t recommend you consume any more than 1-2 tablespoons of ACV at a time.
You can drink it during your fast but it’s also great for breaking your fast. In that case, add some squeezed lemon juice to promote the creation of digestive enzymes and to prepare the gut for eating. I wouldn’t add lemon juice during your fast because it can have the same placebo effect.
Click here to Buy Apple Cider Vinegar
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Article info Source: Siim Land
I’ve been a big fan on Siim for just over 4 years now. Add Siim’s books to your biohacking toolbox. If you’re interested in depth (science-backed) fasting hacks, check out his book Metabolic Autophagy. My fave is his Stronger by Stress book via Audible. It’s the perfect mind-pump while you’re driving, doing household chores, going for a walk, taking a bath, sipping your morning coffee….you get the point. I’ve listened to this audiobook at least 4 full times and I promise you…once you experience the contents, it WILL be in heavy rotation. I give a huge amount of credit to Siim’s teachings as I they equip me with the science-backed knowledge to improve myself and optimize my daily habits, thus embracing biohacking as a lifestyle. HECK YES!
“Stronger by Stress is a manual for stress adaptation and hormesis. It’s going to teach you the principles of stress science and how to leverage different beneficial stressors to become healthier, stronger, less worrisome, more resilient, and confident in your life.”-Siim
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