In this video, you'll discover the best practices as to what you can and cannot drink while
intermittent fasting.
It's all too often that people tell me about their intermittent fast, and then they begin
to tell me what beverages are having, what they're consuming, and it turns out they're
not intermittent fasting at all. They're unknowingly breaking their fast. Now the unfortunate part
is that they're putting that effort in, but they're not getting the benefit back out.
The good benefit that they could be getting if they were actually doing the fast correctly.
So, I'm going to break down in this video, what you should and shouldn't have. And at
the end of this video, I'm going to talk about ketones - whether you can have those while
fasting, whether they benefit you. Some pretty interesting research has come out on that.
So, stick around to the end. But before we get started, I'm Dr. Zyrowski and welcome
to the channel. If you're new to the channel, it's a pleasure to have you here. Be sure
to subscribe, hit that notification bell, and join our notification community, and I'm
going to help you excel your health and your life.
Now, I also want to say that in this video, I don't want to just tell you don't do this
and do this. I actually want to give you some context and understanding behind it so that
when you have to make the decision, whether you should have something while fasting, you're
able to make that decision intelligently. So, let's go ahead and dive right in.
First on our list here is going to be sugar. Now for a lot of people, this is going to
seem really obvious, but the thing is I actually do come across people who go well, as long
as I have less than 20 calories of sugar in my coffee, it's going to be completely fine
because I was told that anything under 50 doesn't break your fast. Here's the thing.
That's a slippery slope. And the thing is, is that when we talk about sugar in general,
if we want to have a good fast, we do not want to be putting sugar in our beverages
at all or consuming any type of beverage that has sugar in it. No, you shouldn't have 20
calories or less than soda when fasting and think that you're going to still maintain
a fast. So, in general, stay away from sugar. Not good while fasting. So that one's more
on the obvious side of things.
One that's not so obvious is fats. This is one that a lot of people get tripped up on.
Now, the reason they get tripped up on it is because there's a lot of misinformation
out there. And I don't think anybody's trying to misinform you on the topic, it's more just
like people doing different things, different styles of what they would consider fasting.
So, for instance, if you are someone who likes Bulletproof coffee, the Bulletproof company,
they'll do a Bulletproof intermittent fast. Well, they allow you to put 2 to 300 calories
of butter in your coffee, blend it up, and a lot of people love that. Truth is, is that
when you put 2 to 300 calories of anything in your coffee, it is not going to be fasting.
We have to make the distinguishment between fasting and keto. Those are two different
things. And a lot of people actually combine them together as one. The truth is, is that
when you're following a ketogenic diet, you're not just on a permanent fast, are you? No,
you are in the state of ketosis following a ketogenic diet. Now, if we want to get the
benefits of fasting and autophagy, we can't be putting 2 to 300 calories of fats into
our coffee. So that is not fasting. Like I said, if you want to just maintain ketosis
- perfectly fine, but you are going to break your fast. You can't have that many calories
and maintain the fast.
The other thing that people get tripped up is MCTs. We all know that these fats are good
us. They're definitely beneficial. MCTs are excellent for your brain. Now, if you're putting
a hundred calories of MCTs in your coffee, you are still breaking your fast because that
is a hundred calories of fat. You are consuming a food there, your digestion's kicking in.
You’re making your body work. So we want to make sure that we understand that that's
keto, but that's not fasting. Now for some people, that's a judgment call. They go, hey,
I don't care. I'm maintaining a state of ketosis. I enjoy it. It gives me some calories. It
gives me some energy in the morning. That's fine. If that's what you want to do. Like
I said, it's keto - has benefits to it. No doubt. We all know the benefits of MCTs, but
in the same token, it's not fasting. So be aware of that. That's one that trips a lot
of people up.
Next on our list is proteins. Proteins is one that trips people up to it typically in
the way of essential amino acids. Now here's what I do personally. Now, if I'm doing one
meal a day and I get an opportunity to go work out and I'm in the fasted state, and
I want to have some energy and I want to also make sure that I'm giving my body the proper
building blocks to build muscle, I will use essential amino acids during my workout. And
that's a judgment call for me. There's five calories in the essential amino acids, but
it is a protein. It will technically break your fast. However, if you're using it, when
working out, you're going to utilize it very quickly. You're going to metabolize it very
quickly. And the truth is, is that your body can really benefit from the energy you can
get from the essential amino acids. And also, if you're trying to build muscle, it’s something
that you can benefit from highly as well. So, for me, that's a judgment call. I utilize
it. But in general, in general, the proteins, the essential amino acids will break your
fast. A lot of people go and do like two scoops of essential amino acids or branch chain amino
acids. And there's some people that believe that you can still maintain the fasted state
while doing that. Well, you can't because it is a protein. So if you're going to make
the judgment call like putting fats in your coffee, or maybe you want a little bit of
essential amino acids to give yourself an exercise boost or have those proper building
blocks as you are trying to build some muscle, that's a judgment call, but in general, we
don't want to be doing that, thinking that we're maintaining fasting. So, I know some
people who basically will go and they're looking for some energy in the morning, they'll go
into a scoop of amino acids and they're not even associating it with a workout. So, that
is going to break your fast. Be careful of that and understand that that's the reality
behind it.
Next is carbs. So, we want to stay away from carbs when we're fasting. And for some people,
like I said, this can be one that's more obvious. But there are also a pretty big group of people
out there that, well, they look at it and go, huh, well, it's 50 calories of carbs or
it's 20 calories of carbs and as long as I'm going 50 or less, I'm still okay and I'm still
in the fasted state. That is not true. You will break your fast. You're not going to
get benefits of autophagy and everything if you were consuming 50 calories of white bread.
It’s just not going to happen. So, stay away from carbs. In general, I find this one
to be more on the obvious side of things, but some people are going to have a problem
with this.
Next is artificial sweeteners. Now this is one that a lot of people will get stumbled
up on as well, because there's a lot of people out there to say, well, you can have artificial
sweeteners. So, people are drinking these energy drinks loaded with artificial sweeteners
because they want all that caffeine while they're fasting. There's a lot of reasons
behind it that is not unhealthy to have all that caffeine in the first place, especially
when fasting, but the artificial sweeteners in general can for one, make you hungry. They
can stimulate a hunger response. The other thing that I don't like about them is that
they have a neurotoxic response on the body as well. One of my patients is a pilot and
one of the things he tells me is the airline company that I work for does not allow me
to have any type of artificial sweeteners, period, because it will delay response time
and it can have a neurological effect making them just not quite as active neurologically.
So, we have to be careful with that. And we understand that that's not a good thing to
have.
And lastly is just calories in general. This is where a lot of people are going wrong.
And like, I've put carbs up here and you're going, oh, come on. This is so obvious. But
for a lot of people, when you are looking at 50 calories or less, well, what does that
mean? You know what I mean? What does that mean for having 50 calories or less? And so,
a lot of people just look at this in a very general way and say, well, I can have 50 calories
of this, I can have 50 calories that, and I'm still maintaining my fast, but we want
to stay away from calories in general.
Let's go ahead and talk about what you can have. We talked about what you can't have.
Now, what can you have? Water. So obviously we can drink an abundance of water. It's very
important to make sure that we're staying hydrated while we are fasting. Some of the
best practices is going to be some sort of mineral water. That's going to be really good.
We want to make sure that we're drinking a purified water. It's important too. If you're
drinking city water, you're getting all that fluoride in it. There's chlorine in it. I
mean, they put the chlorine in it to help kill bacteria. There's a lot of benefit to
that, that we're not drinking water that’s giving us bacterial infections and stuff like
that. But the bad part is, it’s that it's got all those chemicals in it. There's even
pharmaceuticals in water anymore because so many people are taking hormones and it's all
going down into the drain system and coming back through our water. So we gotta be careful
with that. Make sure you're drinking purified water. And it's even more important if you're
doing one meal a day to make sure that you're drinking some sort of mineral water. I know
that with like 16 and 8, it's not that big of a thing for me, but when it pours into
one meal a day, like I have to make sure that I'm drinking something that has minerals in
it, electrolytes in it. Sparkling water is also very beneficial. I talk about that quite
a bit because it helps you feel satiated. What we have to watch out for is we're not
getting a lot of the flavored stuff, getting this sparkling water with the artificial sweeteners
in it. We just want to get good old, plain mineral water here. So, this is a nice thing
that you can drink while fasting.
Now let's talk about apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar in general is going to
be really good to have well fasting. I'm a huge fan of it. I'm a big advocate of it because
it's good for your gut health. It's good for making your stomach more acidic. It's good
for giving you those enzymes and probiotics. But the thing is, is that some people go a
little bit too far with the apple cider vinegar. You start putting in a bunch of additives,
it can actually throw some people out of fast. So, I’m in general, okay with somebody squeezing
a half a lemon into their apple cider vinegar or a half a lime. But what happens is a lot
of people will start putting in a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and it just
kind of spirals out of control. So, one of the things I've done as of lately is I've
just really doubled down and stuck to go to apple cider vinegar with ice water, maybe
a couple of drops of Stevia is something I'm okay with as well. But when it comes to a
lot of the additives, one of the things that gets a little bit of a slippery slope on that
topic is that some people, due to insulin resistance and this insulin response in general
can have a negative one. So they can actually start having their insulin and their blood
sugar start to go up when they start adding some of these things in. So, we have to be
careful with it. And that's why apple cider vinegar and keeping it very simple in general
is going to be one of my favorite ways to do that. It drops your blood sugar down even
further can help you get into the state of autophagy a little bit faster when it starts
acting on these metabolic hormones. And by the way, if you want to learn the best time
to drink apple cider vinegar, I did a real powerful video on that. You can check that
out right up here. I'll also put it in the description below.
Now, herbal tea and coffee. These two right here will do together because a lot of people
have the same problems with them. Now in general, herbal tea and coffee are completely fine,
but when it comes to adding things in, this is where it gets a little bit dicey. So cream
- can you put cream in? Now, I'm not a big fan of adding cream. And I know that there's
all these rules out there where you can add two tablespoons or all these different numbers
out there. But the truth is, is that it really comes down to you as an individual, your insulin
response. Do you have some resistance? What's going on? And a lot of people too, when they
go and add cream to their coffee, they're adding in a very generous amount. A lot of
times they think, oh, two tablespoons, dump. They put half the bottle in. So, we've gotta
be careful with the cream situation here. I'm not a fan of putting cream in. Stevia,
I'm okay with. Butter - we already talked about that topic. When you're putting in too
many calories, you can maintain Keto with that, but you can't maintain a fasted state.
So, I'm not a fan of doing the butter.
Now, the topic of ketones, I really like this here because when I started investigating
ketones with intermittent fasting, I was like, wow, that's really fascinating because you
have these people who can benefit from those ketones in the way of, first of all, they
can give you a good dose of energy. The other thing is, they're really good for your brain
health. I mean, you get these people who have neurological problems, these ketones are pretty
powerful. And so, there's a lot of benefit that you could get and especially when fasting,
because it's not a bunch of calories. It's something it can be highly beneficial. Your
brain's going to use them right away. And so when I saw this totally fascinated on the
topic. Now, one of the things that was pretty interesting about it is that when I dug into
the research, basically what I found is that when you take ketones, when intermittent fasting,
here's what happens. The fatty acid mobilization starts to go down. Your free fatty acids start
to go down. So what does this mean? This essentially means that if we use ketones while, intermittent
fasting, it actually is going to slow down the fat burning process. So that's why I put
choices here. Now, this is all about choices. Everything you do in life is about choices,
right? So, here's the choice that you can make. If you want to get the benefit of the
energy and the brain benefits and the neurological benefits of the ketones, while fasting, you
can do that. But fat burning is going to go - it's going to go down. So ketones, fat burning,
here's what happens. Ketones go up, fat burning goes down. And so, if you're doing intermittent
fasting and your main goal is to really get that fat mobilized, start burning some of
that fat, you don't want to add in ketones. Now, if you're pretty happy with your state
in your body and how it is, and you're not really focused on fat burning, one of the
things that you can do is you can add some ketones in, because it will give you that
brain energy and just good, healthy energy in general and it can be very beneficial.
So anyway, I like the topic of ketones. I think that I would probably go back and forth
personally. Sometimes it's like, I just want that energy. I'm doing one meal a day, maybe
deep into the fast I put in a little bit of ketones, exogenous ketones in order to give
me a boost, but if you want to burn fat, remember it will blunt the fat burning because you're
adding those fats into your system and your body's going to utilize those first versus
using the fat on your body. So, interesting topic. I's all about choices. What choice
would you make there? Which one would you rather have - the ketones or the fat burning?
Because the ketones show enormous amount of benefits to the body. So, it's all about choices.
Put in the comments, what you do. Give this video a thumbs up and if you want to learn
more about intermittent fasting, then watch this video right here where I break down the
best times to fast.
When we look at the best hours for intermittent fasting, 16 and 8 is really powerful simply
because it's for one is very sustainable and it's very easy for people to get into.