How to BREAK a PROLONGED Fast (What to Eat After Fasting for 24-72 Hours)

your body does some wild things after a longer term fast 36 hours 48 hours 72 hours it's a whole different ballgame from a shorter-term fast and it's an entirely different universe from your standard eating so how do you break a long term fast properly well there's a lot of things we have to cover I'm gonna try to condense it because I want you to just be able to have a simple package that you can take and run away with so that you can make sure you exit your fast safely and effectively so that you can get the best results hey before we dive into all the science here can you please hit that red subscribe button and I think you'll really like what we have on this channel that way you'll always see our daily videos then you hit that little Bell icon that's there and that's gonna allow you to turn on notifications so you get a little ding on your phone every time I do post a daily educational video all right let's dive in so refeeding after a fast is one of the most important things in my opinion it's almost more important than the fast itself okay but you have to remember during a longer fast your body goes into these different I don't know kind of safety processes now one of the things I want to focus on the most is electrolytes and this isn't some basic thing me telling you to consume electrolytes during a fast notice is actually the opposite I want you to avoid having salt and avoid having specific electrolytes after your fast so hear me out what ends up happening is your body does a good job of stabilizing serum electrolyte levels what that means is when you fast you're not you're not taking in food so your body does a good job of realizing uh-oh we don't have electrolytes coming in so it sucks electrolytes out of your cells and puts them into the bloodstream that's a good way for your body to maintain serum electrolyte homeostasis keeps it in balance well then what happens is after we break our fast we suddenly have a spike in insulin because we consumed food well what happens then well because insulin allows the cell to open up what happens is because of what is called the law of osmolarity all the electrolytes that are now in the bloodstream flood into a cell that is depleted of electrolytes it's a natural law it's called the law of osmolarity when you have a cell that doesn't have a lot of electrolytes sodium potassium magnesium phosphorus stuff like that in it but you have a lot in the bloodstream the moment that glue for transporter comes to the edge to sell all those electrolytes are gonna flood into that cell which sounds like kind of a cool thing except it can damage a cellular membrane because it happens so fast so what you want to do is you want to be very conscious of this by not consuming carbohydrates after you break a long term fast and I do not care if you are keto carnivore whatever if you want to have carbs just don't because right after you break your fast you need to keep those insulin levels low or you can throw yourself off this whole electrolyte imbalance and this has been talked about in research journals as a refeeding syndrome it's a legit thing okay so we have to be careful so step one do not consume carbohydrates right after you break a long term fast lean protein is where it's at but secondly you're better off to not add salt after you're fast okay it's a better option to consume a little bit of salt water throughout the course of your long term fast than it is to load up on it afterwards do not go and have some deli meat that's got 400 milligrams of sodium in a 2 ounce serving because you're only adding fuel to that fire that can disrupt that metabolic or that membrane okay that cellular membrane this may not seem like an issue but at a cellular level it's causing damage and can cause some issues later on down the line okay so we just don't want to deal with that another thing is very important to have small portions very important to have small portions that a you're not having big insulin spikes but B you're also able to digest it but you're also not gonna just take in just random amounts of sodium that are in some foods for example if you were to have eggs eggs have a good amount of sodium so don't go having six eggs anyhow I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a minute now let's jump over to something else that is randomly esoteric but exceptionally important and that is thiamine okay I amine is required for a lot of in somatic processes specifically when it comes down to glucose and fat metabolism okay so after a fast you're already a little bit depleted in thiamine but then if you have a bunch of carbohydrates your body has to exhaust its resources of thiamine in order to metabolize the glucose so let me back up for a second to make some sense of this when you metabolize carbohydrates you require thiamine okay if you have too many carbohydrates coming in right after a fast all of the thymine that's in your body relatively speaking gets zapped in order to break down and help process that glucose which leads to a thiamine deficiency in the short term what's called acute thiamine deficiency this acute thiamine deficiency can result in a lot of different issues a myriad of problems mainly that you don't have enough thiamine for glycolytic enzymes what does that mean in layman's terms it means all of your thymine has been used up to process the glucose that you just consumed so you don't have enough left to store it to store the carbohydrates properly so you end up going through what's called anaerobic glucose metabolism again complicated but it's a process that could alter your body's blood pH leading to a bunch of other issues if you've ever done a longer term fast and broken it kind of randomly because you just didn't have instruction and you notice that hours later you just feel foggy you don't feel weird well I have experienced that too and generally speaking I could say that well at least I think that is what a thiamine deficiency feels like your body's all out of whack you're going through anaerobic metabolism of the glucose rather than storing it as glycogen and you've run yourself into an issue so what foods do you consume that are high in thiamine well you could take a short cut and take a thiamine supplement but I think it's always best to do it with Whole Foods whenever possible so lean salmon because I don't want you breaking up fast with a high amount of fat so like a lean sockeye salmon lean chicken lean turkey or lean pork is actually really good because pork is also high in phosphorus which can help kind of counterbalance some of the electrolyte issues that I talked about earlier okay now let's jump over let's talk fats for just a second I know that the tendency is to get some fats in you to get your calories up but I urge you to be very very cautious with the fats okay saturated fats specifically are hard to break down monounsaturated fats like olive oil avocado oil things like that they are pretty hard to break down too but not as bad as saturated fats then we have polyunsaturated fats okay like fish oil stuff like that we want to lean towards the polyunsaturated fats for the to day period after you break your fast okay so after you break your fast for two days limit saturated fat and limit monounsaturated fat and opt for more polyunsaturated fats or just go low-fat altogether the reason behind this is simple your digestive enzymes digestive process is slowed down when you're fasting why would they speed up it makes no sense right you're not consuming food so that means it takes time to rebuild those well we don't break down fats very well without digestive enzymes like lipase and things like that another thing that you can add to the mix would be MCT oil or MCT powder okay the reason i say this is because it avoids a typical digestion MCTS are absorbed via passive diffusion they don't break down the same way as regular fats so if you're concerned about not getting enough fat in and you just need to get the calories up I would advise maybe trying some MCT again this is for information purposes only I'm not a doctor I'm not advising you do anything specifically as far as medical advice goes but the MCTS will at least allow you to get some fats in and if you're doing ketosis and you want to be able to try to generate more ketones that might not be a bad way to go I've linked down below to a company called hvm n which in my opinion has some of the best tasting MCT powder out there so you can add it to coffee you can add it to whatever so I highly highly highly recommend you check them out their supporter and a sponsor of this channel so a huge thank you to you guys over at HTM in but also just special access special pricing for anyone that watches my channel and as a supporter of this channel as far as utilizing the MCT small amounts over the course of a couple days and by all means you don't have to use it I'm not trying to force it on anybody just saying if you're trying to increase calories trying to increase ketone production a little bit more it's probably the best option in my opinion for a fat that's not going to require a lot of digestion so anyway special link down below but let's move in to the veggie side of things do not by all means consume raw veggies in the first 24 hours after breaking a long term fast I know the tendency is to get the greens in and get your health stuff going on but trust me the breakdown is just not gonna work out very well in your gut you also want to avoid foods that are high in oxalates in general okay so for two days after your fast no spinach no Swiss chard you a quick Google search I'll save you the time so I'm not listing them off foods that are high in oxalates and just avoid those for two days your best option with veggies is after that 24 hour period having boiled steamed veggies that are easier to break down I'll make this easy for you in the world of nuts try to avoid almonds try to avoid pistachios try to avoid cashews quite frankly the only nut I would really recommend you have in that first couple of day period after a longer term fast is going to be probably macadamia nuts because they're easier fat to break down in terms of just the whole world of things but they also don't have the fight dates but realistically probably just avoid them okay this next piece comes back to the carbohydrates and back to the salt for a second okay I have to touch on why this is a problem when you combine them carbohydrates are going to spike insulin which is going to allow sodium into the cell but the more carbohydrates that we consume the more that the cell is going to hold on to sodium and water after a fast because of this whole osmolarity law thing you might find that if you go overboard on sodium a little much you end up retaining a bunch of water okay you end up suffering from some edema if you end up having a demon well it's a very core you feel inflamed do you feel bloated this changes some things and how the body operates and just avoid the salt and avoid the carbohydrates in combination whenever you can I hate to break it to you but a couple of days after a longer term fast are not exactly the most fun now full disclaimer again a 36 hour fast is not that long-term of a fast but for people that aren't adjusted to it it is so if you're doing frequent 36-hour fasts these rules might not apply to you but if you're doing like longer 72 96 hour fast these rules will definitely apply just want to put it out there that you don't need to be following this protocol after every single 36 hour fast and one of the biggest things that we need to focus on too is again for that two day period avoid grains avoid gluten and avoid casein protein so a little bit of whey protein would be okay but I don't want the casein protein because again how damaging it can potentially be to the gut mucosal layer it's standard practice for the body to reduce some of the collagen and they've got mucosal layer during a fast it's just part of the process so again that's why we eat small meals why we don't do things that disrupt that gut that gut layer right well it's been demonstrated in studies that when you look at gluten when you look at grains and things like that it can be disruptive to that gut membrane that mucosal layer it can be sensitive and can trigger the release of what are called lipopolysaccharides into the bloodstream this can result in chronic inflammation later on down the line because you have lipopolysaccharide act Iria from the gut that shouldn't be in the bloodstream floating around in the bloodstream this causes an immune response which in turn makes you inflamed so I don't want to go down that rabbit hole too much but the point is keeping it simple okay so we want things like boiled broccoli we want things like or Steen's broccoli we want lean chicken we want lean turkey we want lean fish we want lean pork we want minimal if no grains I'd be okay with a little bit of sweet potato a little bit of regular potato it's going to be bland it's going to be like a diet you would give a sick dog for a couple of days but the reality is that's how you're gonna build yourself back and not have a weird rebound again it's not for every single time you fast it's just for the longer term fat so as always please keep it locked in here in my channel and I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Thomas DeLauer

Views: 121,713

Rating: 4.8967462 out of 5

Keywords: how to break a fast, how to properly break a fast, how to correctly break a fast, how to break a prolonged fast, how to break a long term fast, refeeding syndrome, how do you break a fast, right way to break a fast, break a fast, safely break a fast, intermittent fasting, fasting, weight loss, fat loss, thomas delauer, keto

Id: 2LEWKoHPDmE

Length: 12min 7sec (727 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020