Which foods break your fast?
Foods and drinks that break your fast (for time restricted eating and intermittent fasting) can differ based on your goals. If you are a purist, anything other than water breaks your fast.
In brief, anything that is not water or salted water breaks your fast. See, easy. Done. But what you consider a fast is determined by your goals for that fast.
If you are fasting to maximize Autophagy, whatever your fasting window: 16, 20, 40+ hours, you really want to keep insulin out of the game. Water-only is the way to go. For practical reasons you may want to add salt to the water. #NoDizzies
The salt probably will not stop the autophagic processes – though there seems to be debate about that.
Slightly more murky but also not likely to interrupt your max autophagy: a little bit of cream. Maybe you can get away with 1/2 oz at a time once or twice a day. Your liver (and kidneys) are already breaking down fat molecules so a little bit of cream which is pdc to 100% fat will look just like everything else cycling through. You’re sneaking it in. When there are (17) tickets for a group of 8-year olds jamming in to see the latest movie and you’re taking tickets, can you really tell if it’s 17 or 18 kids in front of you? Same idea. Your liver and kidney (as needed) don’t really care. The job is to pull apart those molecules whether from your existing fat stores or from a tiny bit of cream you snuck in.
But the hotly debated super food that almost certainly WILL BREAK your autophagically focused fast is bone broth. Seems like it’s mostly water, but there’s a lot to process in the bone broth: vitamins, minerals, amino acids (proteins), etc. While homemade bone broth can be great for you, it requires organ processing which stimulates several internal processes and will pull away from your maximum autophagy.
SIDE NOTE: Are you fasting for more than 7 days? Perhaps due to very serious illness? You may be able to maximize your fast by taking very tiny breaks. One cancer patient swears by her 1/4c of bone broth each day to keep her sane. Staying sane when on such an arduous journey is one of the keys to keeping you on that journey. One might reasonably argue that the tiny bit of break in max autophagy that consuming 1/4c of broth might cause is worth it because she could last for 30+ days on a water fast. She had had significant trouble getting past 72 hours of water fasting before she started experimenting with the bone broth.
There’s a lot we don’t understand about autophagy. Our autophagic measure (GKI) is at best an approximation.
What about if you are fasting to get your head clear and improve your athletic performance? What breaks that kind of fast?
This can be determined by your practice with food testing. If you can keep your GKI under 3, there is reason to believe you are in the mid-range autophagic process. It’s not the cancer clearing stage (GKI < 1.0), but it is considered therapeutic ketosis which more than simply nutritional ketosis (GKI < 6).
You may need to restrict coffee while your spouse can have bone broth without dropping ketones or increasing blood glucose.
Have questions about GKI? Definitely hit me up. You must have a blood glucose/ketone meter to figure out your GKI. There is no way to estimate it. It is not a feeling. It is a physiological process.
So is there one answer to the what breaks my fast question? Yes. Anything other than water.
BUT. Less strict fasts can include the foods and drinks that keep your endogenous ketones elevated and your blood glucose low.
Again, you have to measure to know. And how great is it that can actually measure both ketones and glucose. Great!