170: Clean Fasting vs Dirty Fasting
People often ask me what is or isn’t allowed during a fast. Does lemon water break my fast? Does creamer in my coffee break my fast? Does stevia break my fast? Do supplements break my fast?
I thought it would be a good time to address this topic since we are about to kick off a new round of Feast 2 Fast® and - spoiler alert - you might want to start weaning off your sweet coffee now.
The bottom line is that people want to know what they can consume during a fast and because this question has become so common and, because there is nuance and gray area, the concept of Clean vs Dirty fasting has emerged as a nutritional hot topic.
Listen to this week’s episode to get the specifics and decide which category best suits your needs and goals.
EPISODE 170: Clean Fasting vs Dirty Fasting
Show Notes
(0:00) Intro
Hello my friend! Welcome back to the club, how are you today?
Today we are going to talk about Clean vs Dirty Fasting. People often ask me what is or isn’t allowed during a fast - does lemon water break my fast? Does creamer in my coffee break a fast? Do my supplements break a fast? Does stevia break a fast?
(1:58) Clean Fasting:
Water
Water is obviously a no brainer because there are no calories, it’s a necessity of life and staying hydrated is critical to good health.
Plain sparkling water
Water with salt or plain electrolytes
Adding Salt or other electrolyte minerals actually help our cells better utlize the water that we drink, they help keep us better hydrated, plus offer other health benefits
If you do use electrolytes during your fast and you’re wanting to keep it clean, you need to make sure they are not sweetened or flavored.
Black coffee / Plain tea
Tea and coffee - both on the clean list and both of which have health benefits in that they offer antioxidants which help fight free radicals in your body and the caffeine in tea and coffee can also give your metabolism a boost AND can help suppress appetite.
Now it’s what you put IN your tea or coffee or your water that starts getting into the gray area
More than anything, it’s the intention and the heart that you bring to your fast that matters the most. We are not a better person for fasting with or without creamer in our coffee.
(7:15) Dirty Fasting:
Before I go through the list, just know that, I, a dirty faster, regularly use at least 3 of these things during my fasts.
Oil
Juice
Lemon
Lemon juice gives you a little vitamin C, potassium, it boosts detoxification.
Apple Cider Vinegar
ACV can also help boost detoxification and digestive function and help lower blood sugar.
Cream / Milk / Butter
All of these are adding calories - or energy as I prefer to call it - and technically when we engage the digestive and metabolic system to deal with incoming calories/energy we are breaking the fast - we are waking up those systems and getting them churning.
There are some people in the 50 calories or less camp which subscribe to the idea that it’s not considered breaking the fast if it’s less than 50 calories.
Carbohydrates are the macronutrient that most aggressively trigger insulin which is our energy storage hormone. Insulin blocks fat burning. So the point here is - if you ARE going to add something to your coffee or tea while you are fasting - you don’t want to add too much.
Unsweetened almond or coconut milk is ok - just don’t use too much. Califia Farms is an upgraded brand that doesn’t have some of the junk found in refrigerated non-dairy milks and creamers
Nutpods are ok - There are gums and natural flavors in there
Laird powdered creamer is a good option
Vital Proteins collagen creamers are another option
I have a blogpost on my website called What Should I Put In My Coffee where you can also find this information.
(19:21) Sweeteners
Obviously regular sugar or honey or something like that is going to break your fast and put you in sugar burning mode.
The natural alternative sugars like stevia or monkfruit are a little more gray.
Intense sweetness first thing in the morning overstimulates that signal that tells the body that the feeding window is OPEN.
One of the things we’re trying to accomplish in the first few weeks of F2F is to reset the taste buds and the pleasure receptors in your brain to get back to more reasonable expectations of what is sweet.
(22:07) Collagen & Broth
Again, the calories coming in technically break a fast.
A cup of bone broth has about 40-50 calories and 2 scoops of collagen has around 70.
Autophagy is the cellular cleansing process that happens when we fast, in fact it’s one of the great benefits of fasting! It helps get rid of damaged cells like the ones that can turn into cancer cells and in general is a wonderful self-cleaning tool in our body.
There’s an amino acid called glycine which is prominent in collagen and bone broth that has been shown to inhibit autophagy.
Exercise also induces autophagy
(24:38) Supplements
Most supplements are fine to take during a fast.
I wouldn’t take gummies supplements on a fast because they’re kind of sugary but other than that you should be good.
Now, something like branched chain amino acids that people might take before a workout DO trigger an insulin response so I wouldn’t take those during a fast.
(25:45) Closing thoughts:
Ok, so I think we can wrap things up there. If you’re still questioning what is “allowed” on your fast I think you can go ahead and surmise that if it’s not on the clean list it’s dirty.
And, again, this is not about being legalistic, it’s more about deciding what works best for your health needs and your health goals and what fits well into your lifestyle.
We welcome clean and dirty fasters alike in Feast 2 Fast which starts soon so come join us and learn how all of these pieces of metabolic health fit together. You can sign up here.
(26:40) Outro & Disclaimer
Thanks for listening! Have a healthy and blessed week!