What Really Breaks A Fast? (Fasting Basics 2) | Jason Fung

what breaks a fast what can you take while you're fasting these are the questions we're going to cover and it's coming right up first i'm going to share with you mitch's story she started fasting about two and a half years ago and since then she's been able to regain her health and lost over 12 dress sizes she says i've been on a yo-yo diet for most of my adult life i've tried many diets weight loss groups gyms you name it i've tried it but she could never keep that weight off and eventually her health started to climb she got diagnosed with pre-diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and that's when she stumbled across fasting she read the complete guide to fasting and thought it made sense so she started out and i'm going to share with you her best tip and also her regimen coming right up after this video [Music] what can you take during fasting well it really depends on the reason that you're fasting so there's many different reasons some are religious some are spiritual some are for weight loss some are to reverse type 2 diabetes and depending on the reason that you're doing the fast that can determine what you can take during the fast so let's go over some of the basics first dry fasting dry fasting is when you don't take any food and you also don't drink any fluids during that fast dry fasting is limited because you can't go very very long periods of time without drinking so i generally recommend to be less than 16 or 18 hours because you're not only fasting but because you're not getting fluids you're also going to be getting dehydrated so this is only for short periods of time some people find that dry fasting is much easier for them than regular fasting when you fast a lot of times the body's trying to get rid of the excess water and this can cause people to go to the bathroom a lot or even sometimes some diarrhea dry fasting is a way to get around that some people also find that when they're doing dry fasting that the hunger is easier to control so that's one of the reasons you might consider it but remember you can only do it for a short period of time the classic fast allows only water that's it so you're not eating but you're still staying hydrated by drinking water and this is great if you're doing things like trying to activate autophagy where anything will really cause you to go out of autophagy we can get into that in another video so when people say what brakes are fast really anything other than water technically breaks your fast but if you're fasting for something such as weight loss then there are other things that you can take during the fast that are still going to allow you to lose weight effectively even though it's not strictly speaking a fast and i call these fasting variations so there's lots of fasting fluids that you can take to help you on your fast that are still going to let you get great results in terms of weight loss and reversing your type 2 diabetes is a great fluid to take during fasting there's green teas there's black teas and there's herbal teas herbal teas are not true teas but they're things such as mint leaves or hibiscus or chamomile for example so green teas are from the unfermented tea leaves and black teas are fully fermented both of them are great during fasting and they're not going to affect you in terms of weight loss they really have no calories green tea is great and often is not taken with any other types of additives or sweeteners with black teas there are often sweeteners but you have to really cut those out because they are going to affect your weight loss a little bit of cream is probably okay coffee is also a great fluid to take while you're fasting it also has a lot of caffeine and that's great to give you some energy and also keep your metabolic rate up and it also tends to suppress the hunger oftentimes i'll say to people if you're feeling hungry get yourself a nice big cup of green tea or coffee and by the time you finish it your hunger will have mostly passed what about adding things to your coffee a lot of people add either cream or milk or sugar or sweetener in terms of cream and milk you can add a little bit but just a little bit for flavor and it doesn't really affect the fast very much sweeteners and sugar you definitely have to cut those out while it sounds like a great idea to take sweeteners for example that have no calories the problem is that they're very sweet and they may stimulate your appetite and make you more hungry so they're going to have a paradoxical effect on your fast it's going to make it harder rather than easier so you need to cut those out entirely so why is a little bit of cream okay when you take a little bit of cream there's calories there so it clearly breaks your fast but it doesn't mean that all your hard work has gone out the window when you're fasting the whole point is that you're trying to lower your insulin levels as your insulin levels fall that's the signal for your body to start using up some of the stores of food energy or calories that is stored away either the sugar like blood sugar or body fat when you take that little bit of cream and it's the same for a little bit of snacks for example if you have a handful of nuts or something very small what's going to happen is that your insulin level is going to blip up a little bit but because it was very small it's immediately going to start falling again and as it starts falling again your body's gonna start going back and looking for those calories from the body stores a little bit of cream in the tea that's okay but don't overdo it same thing goes if you're having a snack if you inadvertently broke your fast by taking a little bit of salad or little nuts don't worry about it it's not the end of the world it doesn't mean that all that fasting you did ahead of it is for waste you don't have to start again from zero it's just a little blip you just go right back to fasting and then you're still gonna get all the benefits of that weight loss can you drink diet soda during a fast this one's a little tricky some people find that they do fine with diet soda but for a lot of people that sweetness makes them very hungry and makes it much harder for them to fast so if you don't have any problems with it go ahead use it but for most people i recommend staying away supplements don't need to be taken during fasting but if you want to they're not going to break the fast after remember these are often vitamins or minerals sometimes oils such as omega-3 oils vitamin d vitamin e those things are not going to stimulate insulin and therefore they're perfectly fine to take while you're fasting but you don't need to fast because you're going to eat again and it's best to get all your vitamins from the natural foods but if you take one every day there's no need to cut that out during fasting the same goes for electrolytes and this is salt potassium for example magnesium sometimes people feel that they need to take some of these electrolytes during their fast and it's perfectly okay to but don't feel that you need to if you're not eating and you're not drinking you're really getting almost zero sodium so some people might feel a little dizzy from that and so they can take a little salt and water or sometimes just a little salt under the tongue sounds very strange but some people find real benefit from that same thing goes for potassium or magnesium supplements if you feel that you need some go ahead ahead and take it but don't feel that you have to take it your body is very smart even though you're not taking in electrolytes like sodium and potassium if your body needs those electrolytes it will take it all back in your kidneys so you don't have to control it your body is going to do that automatically for you what about juices juice fasting is very popular where you don't eat but you drink some juice however for weight loss it's probably not the best thing if you're taking juices that are full of sugar so fruit juices like apple juice or orange juice contain a significant amount of sugar these are natural sugars contained in the fruit but because you're getting rid of all the other things all the fiber all the pulp and so on it is a relatively concentrated amount of sugar so i don't recommend it so let's get back to mitch's story here she was after years of dieting weight came down weight went back up and she was left with severe back and leg pain she could barely even walk when she started fasting she started off with two months of 16 8. but during her fasting period she would drink diet soda and what she found was that the sweeteners always made her hungry it was so hard to keep on that fast after she read the book she found oh that's not a good idea she cut that out and switched instead to black coffee and then she found she could easily go 19 hours fasting without difficulty so most days she started going 19 hours fasting 5 hour eating window sometimes some people call this time restricted eating and then the weight started to come off and her pain started to go away then her sugars came back down to normal her pre-diabetes went away the liver enzymes normalized and her fatty liver got better once a month she also adds in a 24-hour fast just to get all those additional benefits and she's able to keep that weight off and she has more energy than she's ever had when we asked her what her top tip was she said if your scale is not showing you the results then try taking a photo once a week because even if the scale is not moving she could sense that her body was changing her waist was coming down her dress size was coming down and it was clear in front she was able to look back that she was getting healthier and that kept her motivated to keep going all the way until she got to her goal great work mitch well that's it for this week i hope you learned something and if you did make sure you share it with your friends maybe you can help them as well and if you enjoyed it if you could do me a favor can you just hit the like button just down below the one that looks like this thanks everybody and thanks for subscribing we're at thousand subscriber that's a huge number and it's all due to you so thank you very much i'm hoping that we can share this out there make sure that everybody knows how they can use this information to change their lives bye everybody

Channel: Jason Fung

Views: 385,140

Rating: 4.9826722 out of 5

Keywords: intermittent fasting, weight loss, dr jason fung intermittent fasting, jason fung, dr jason fung, fasting tips, weight loss tips, intermittent fasting for beginners, intermittent fasting tips, fasting tips and tricks for weight loss, fasting tips for beginners

Id: 7aRLsCpxy3o

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 24 2021