What Can I Put In My Coffee That Won’t Break My Fast
The general rule for what to put in your coffee is that it basically has zero calories, says Keri Gans, RD, author of The Small Change Diet. In other words try and enjoy it black.
But having your coffee black just might not be your ~thing~ and thats okay. Keatley says you can add the following to your coffee and still not break your fast:
- A sprinkle of cinnamon
- A teensy bit of cocoa
- Low-calorie sweeteners like Splenda
Unfortunately, buzzy supplements such as collagen powder or MCT oil *can’t* be added to your cup of coffee, “as one serving does provide too many calories,” Gans says. Ditto for a splash of milk or unsweetened almond milk in your coffee, she addsit contains too many calories.
Coffee With Cream While Fasting
During a true fast cream in coffee is forbidden, but during an intermittent fast a splash of cream will not break your fast. Cream does not stimulate the release of insulin because it is low in calories and is mostly fat.
Coffee with cream contains about 20 calories. In general drinking anything with less than 50 calories will surely keep your body within the fasted state during an intermittent fast. Even diet doctor, Dr. Jason Fung confirms that drinking coffee with cream should not hinder you from getting the results you desire during an intermittent fast.
Discussion Of Results Regarding Coffee And Intermittent Fasting
While this was a small study, our results show the following:
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Coffee With Coconut Oil
Coffee with coconut oil is similar to Bulletproof coffee. It is high in calories with about 120 calories to be exact which will lower the amount of food you can consume later in the day. Coconut oil in coffee can also boost high cholesterol.
However, there is a case for coconut oil is an intermittent fast! The fat in coconut oil, or the medium-chain triglycerides , cause beneficial metabolic changes which help to speed up fat loss. MCT found in coconut oil can increase energy expenditure, speed up metabolism and even suppress your appetite! Despite the high caloric value, the benefits seem to outweigh the cons.
Your Reasons For Doing Intermittent Fasting Matter When It Comes To If You Should Drink Coffee During Your Fast
There are lots of different ways to do intermittent fasting and just as many reasons for doing it. This is why there is no one-size-fits-all list of fasting rules, and no easy answer to the coffee question. When it comes to determining whether or not coffee will break your fast, its important to first understand what your IF goals are.
Some of the benefits of intermittent fasting include increased energy, reduced inflammation, improved cognitive function, lower blood pressure, accelerated cellular repair, blood sugar control, improved body composition, and faster entry into ketosis.
Most people begin intermittent fasting with one or more of these general goals in mind:
- weight loss/improved metabolic health
- gut rest
- longevity/disease prevention
Which of these three benefits most closely matches your personal reasons for doing intermittent fasting? If you can answer that question, then you can determine whether drinking coffee can be a part of your IF plan without breaking your fast!
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Fasting And Artificial Sweeteners
Sweet taste is a much-discussed topic regarding intermittent fasting and the keto diet. On the one hand, it is difficult to get away from it. On the other hand, it substantially promotes cravings.
Most sugar-free sweeteners have zero protein, carbohydrates, and calories. Therefore, they do not raise the blood sugar level. But is the calculation that simple?
No, since people often forget that both intermittent fasting and keto have one essential goal: Lowering insulin levels to allow your body to tap into stored fat for energy.
Since the storage hormone, insulin, prevents body fat breakdown and ketone production, a significant increase in insulin levels breaks the fast.
Unfortunately, most diet gurus have not done their homework in this context.
As endocrinologist and fasting pioneer Dr. Jason Fung correctly points out, it does not matter whether food increases blood sugar levels as long as it increases insulin levels .
Youre Not Eating Less Youre Eating Less Often
When you do eat, you eat delicious, healthy foods until you feel satisfied. You wont have to fear healthy fats, grass-fed meats, organic vegetables, or strategic amounts of healthy carbs. You hold off eating to allow your body to burn its own fat, and then eat until you are full. See how your body responds to coffee while fasting, and test your glucose before and after. If your body responds positively, enjoy that cup of coffee!
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Added Ingredients Could Reduce Fasting Benefits
Although coffee alone isnt likely to break your fast, added ingredients could.
Loading up your cup with high-calorie additives like milk and sugar can disrupt intermittent fasting, limiting the benefits of this dietary pattern.
Many popular health and media outlets claim that you wont break your fast as long as you stay under 5075 calories during each fasting window. However, no scientific evidence backs these claims.
Instead, you should consume as few calories as possible while fasting.
For instance, lattés, cappuccinos, and other high-calorie or sweetened coffee drinks should be off-limits during your fasting windows.
While black coffee is the best choice, if you have to add something, 1 teaspoon of heavy cream or coconut oil would be good options, as theyre unlikely to significantly alter your blood sugar levels or total calorie intake.
Can Coffee Boost The Effects Of Intermittent Fasting
The good news is that drinking coffee can actually help you with your fast! One study found that coffee promotes good health by stimulating autophagy, which is the bodys process of clearing damaged cells and regenerating healthy new cells.
If you use intermittent fasting as a method of weight loss, coffee might also help boost the effects of the fasting. A study demonstrated that weight, BMI, and body fat reduction might be promoted by caffeine intake.
Additionally, studies have found a correlation that supports a cause and effect between habitual coffee consumption and a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. So, if intermittent fasting is done with the goal of preventing diabetes, coffee supports that goal.
Now that you know you can drink coffee while fasting and that it supports your fast, you may wonder about how typical coffee add-ins factor into your fast.
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Can You Drink Coffee While Doing Intermittent Fasting
Heres what happens when you sip.
Plenty of people don’t seem to have a hard time with the idea of not eating when they’re doing intermittent fastingthe trendy diet in which you eat only during certain time-restricted windows. Popular variations of intermittent fasting include the 16:8 fast and the 5:2 fast .
Sounds simple enoughwhich is part of the appealbut questions inevitably arise about what technically constitutes a fast: Can I have water? Protein? Twinkies? .
But what aboutgasp, twitch, shuddercan I have coffee while doing intermittent fasting? Surely you can have a cup of Joe without breaking your fastc-cant you?
Relax: Theres no caloric load in black coffee, says Angelo Poli, ISSN, creator of the MetPro training and nutrition app. So it doesnt break your fast.
If youre fasting to purify the body, or as part of a religious practice, then coffee might not be allowed, says Poli. But it wont stop you from losing weight.
It should go without sayingthough for fasters who are looking for a loophole, it often doesntthat sweeteners like sugar and honey, dairy products like milk and cream, and other delicious treats that coffee-drinkers often add to their daily cups do have calories, and are therefore officially verboten when youre fasting.
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Intermittent fasting involves eating all your calories in a shortened eating window say, between the hours of noon and 6 PM and eating nothing for the rest of the day.
There are many health benefits of fasting, ranging from weight loss and lower blood pressure to increased insulin sensitivity.
But do you get those benefits if you drink coffee during your fasting period?
Or will a cup of coffee break your fast and leave you without the many benefits of intermittent fasting?
Heres a look at the benefits of fasting, how coffee affects your fast, and why you may want to combine coffee with fasting.
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Our Final Thoughts On Religious Fasting
Many mainstream religions around the world practice fasting as a means to clean the body and soul, it is clear that some allow some foods or drinks while others completely ban them.
Coffee or tea is allowed sometimes in some faiths while others like Judaism or Islam completely ban on consuming anything at all. Most have time periods from sunrise till sunset.
It is important that we keep ourselves hydrated during fasting. This means the intake of water and liquids before fasting is highly recommended especially during summers. Also, eating healthy is required during fasting.
Coffee is good as long as it is allowed in the respective religion. Avoiding fatty foods or dairy is generally a good idea. Fruits are also generally great during fasting and can be taken after breaking the fast, too. And same is the case with coffee consumption.
If your religious fasting does not allow you to have your cup of Joe during a fast, you can always have it before or after breaking your fast after having your nutritious meal to make sure you stay healthy and stay caffeinated as well!
Can I Drink Coffee Without Breaking My Fast
Fasting comes up a lot in modern culture whether it be due to religious or health reasons.
People know that fasting means not eating as much as usual and that there are both strict fasts and more lenient fasts. What does this mean for coffee? Does fasting mean that you have to abstain from coffee altogether?
Are there ways to fast correctly as well as get your regular coffee fix? The answer is varied. Depending on which fasting regime you follow the answer could be yes, no or maybe.
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Coffee And Fasting The Gritty Details
If you welcome nuance, there is a vast, complicated system of physiological, cellular signaling and metabolic responses to coffee intake to explore. Weve highlighted some of them below.
Just want the takeaways? Click here!
Some metabolic processes and signaling pathways are activated or increase in the presence of coffee or caffeine, while others are blocked or decrease. To make it more complicated, these effects vary from individual to individual and also from tissue to tissue, cell type to cell type.
Caffeine and other compounds in coffee have one effect on brain cells and another effect entirely on immune cells, for example, even when acting on the same receptors or cellular signaling targets. This is partly because caffeine is a non-selective antagonist or blocker of adenosine receptor activity. Adenosine receptors are extremely common they are found on cells throughout the human body. They have many functions that vary by cell type, playing a role in biological processes as diverse cardiac rhythm and circulation, lipolysis , renal blood flow, immune function, sleep regulation, angiogenesis, inflammation and neurodegenerative disorders.
It can be calculated that the daily consumption of three to four regular cups of coffee results in approximately 50% A1 and A2A receptor occupancy for several hours. Adenosine Receptors as Drug Targets
Explore more of the nitty gritty details of the impacts of coffee on your fasting body below!
What Else Can You Drink While Fasting
While fasting, you should only consume 0-calorie drinks. Therefore, this excludes all foods.
I cover this in-depth, including the best ways to break your fast, inside my eBook, Intermittent Fasting For Women.
Inside youll find a complete guide to intermittent fasting, food lists, and a meal plan to jumpstart your fasting journey.
Intermittent Fasting for Women
If you want to dive deeper, Ive created a book with everything you need to know about intermittent fasting & a 1-week meal plan so you know exactly what to eat during your eating windows. Check out my Intermittent Fasting Guide here.
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This Is Your Fasted Body On Coffee
Does coffee break my fast? This is one of the questions we get most frequently from our readers and LIFE Fasting Tracker users. The simplest answer is, probably not. In fact, coffee may boost many of the physiological impacts of fasting.
But because all of us here are into exploring, tracking and measuring the impacts of our lifestyles and interventions like intermittent fasting on our bodies and our health, lets dive deeper into this story of coffee and fasting. Because the real answer to Does coffee break my fast? is, as always, more complicated than yes or no!
Can I Have Cream In My Coffee While Intermittent Fasting
100g heavy cream contains about 3g milk sugar and milk protein. Although some heavy cream does not necessarily inhibit fat burning, it will negatively affect autophagy.
Thus cream breaks a fast. However, that doesnt mean that a splash of cream destroys all the benefits. Fasting benefits such as autophagy do not have a binary switch. Nevertheless, heavy cream will inhibit results.
Nonetheless, heavy cream can be a welcome ingredient in a ketogenic diet since it helps to promote autophagy in the long run.
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Short Facts About Intermittent Fasting
Despite the popular belief, intermittent fasting is not a diet because there is no list of foods that you can or can not eat. Instead, it is more of a lifestyle change. Whether you decide to fast for 12, 14, 16 or 24 hours, you are simply managing the energy intake and teaching your body to burn your own fat for energy. Well, trust me, your body is well familiar with this technique, it just needs to be reminded!
Follow Your Doctor’s Orders
To fast effectively and provide the best possible blood sample, simply follow the instructions provided by your doctor or the testing laboratory to the letter. Check the time of your appointment and count backward to the appropriate start time.
In a water-only fast, do not consume any solid or liquid food and do not drink any coffee, soda or other beverages. End the fast when directed by eating another nutritious meal with your beverage of choice.
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One Final Suggestion And Its Up To You
Believe it or not, the Leangains protocol says its OK to drink diet soda while fasting. Yes, diet soda. What is this heresy?
Other IF plans call for clean eating with a complete ban on processed foods. Diet soda is about as processed as these trap vocals.
Lets put diet soda in the maybe column. One every now and then wont kill you or mess with your diet too much.
Can You Drink Water Before A Blood Test
Registered nurse Kathy Reutter writing at One Medical, says many people mistakenly think they need to avoid water during fasts. Not so, she says. In fact, drinking enough water may help you feel better during a fast and also plump the veins for an easier blood draw by the phlebotomist. She states that blood is about 50 percent water.
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Side Effects Of Flavored Coffee While Intermittent Fasting
Whatever type of coffee youre drinking, you need to remember it is a stimulant. The goal of fasting is to allow your body and your digestive tract to rest. Stimulating it too much isnt recommended, so try to drink at most 1-2 cups during a fast.
Coffee and flavored coffee especially can also stimulate the digestive tract. For some, that might be a good thing for others, it may result in issues such as diarrhea or bloating.
After suppressing your appetite and your sweet tooth for a while, flavored coffee might actually make you feel hungrier. After all, the flavors will make your brain think of various foods and they may also tell it to expect some energy, carbs, as it normally would happen if you were eating those foods. Since the drink has no calories or carbs, you may soon find yourself with more cravings than before.
Theres also another issue. Some people warn that the coffee beans used in flavored coffee arent always of the best quality. The logic is fairly simple. Good quality coffee beans are sold without any flavor enhancements because they taste amazing on their own. Low quality coffee beans can benefit from a lengthier process and even natural flavors. While this wont immediately hurt your health, it might not be the type of coffee you want to drink long-term.