Fasting With Matcha Tea
Over the last few years, matcha green tea has been gaining the spotlight with its antioxidant properties that can enhance the bodys cholecystokinin levels.
CCK hormones can suppress hunger and activate the digestion of fats and proteins you consume. Consuming matcha green tea during intermittent fasting can promote healthy weight loss and help control your appetite. It has been known to boost your immunity and energy levels.
While matcha tea encourages fasting metabolism, it also increases the bodys ability to recycle resources and heal them, akin to autophagy. So, if you are practicing intermittent fasting and drink matcha tea free of additives, you may benefit from ketogenesis and insulin sensitivity. Matcha is almost calorie-free and rich in most fasting-friendly compounds. Fasting with matcha tea can enhance the bodys natural ability to detox and eliminate toxins while safeguarding it from oxidative stress.
Tea And Intermittent Fasting: The Perfect Match
If youre trying to stick to a new intermittent fasting plan, youre going to want to see what weve learned about tea.
Spoiler: tea can actually make your fasting experience more enjoyable and manageable.
Yes really, tea! Considered to be a health elixir in many ancient cultures, this simple drink is a powerhouse enhancer for your intermittent fasting lifestyle.
Read on to discover the documented benefits that drinking tea can unlock for you, which teas you should be drinking, and also how many cups of tea are recommended. Cheers!
Eating For Heart Health
For example, if your aim is to improve your heart health, consider including plenty of healthy fats and fiber, and monitor your salt intake. Some options include:
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vegetable oils such as canola, olive, or sunflower
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brown rice, whole wheat bread, and other whole grains
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whole fruits and vegetables
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fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids and other protein sources such as beans and legumes
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salt-free seasonings such as herbs and spices
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Benefits Of Drinking Green Tea While Fasting
During fasting, swapping a glass of water with a full-flavored drink like green tea could be enough of a benefit already. But green tea has more benefits that intermittent fasting fans will particularly appreciate.
Lets take a look at how green tea could help with reaching your weight loss goals and combating fasting fatigue.
Tea Supports Calmness And Relaxation
If youre feeling a little stressed, green tea can help calm you down. Its also been shown to improve your mood. This is because it helps to reduce anxiety, which is a common stressor in the fast.
Another benefit of drinking green tea during the fast is that it can help relieve tension and decreases stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Green tea has also been found to support autophagy, soothe an upset stomach, and increase clean energy levels, which makes it a great choice for the fast.
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Is Black Tea Good For Those Who Fast
Black tea is a perfect beverage for people who fast, as it has a low calorie content. Thus, substituting sweetened, high-calorie beverages with it will reduce your calorie intake and should help you lose weight . In comparison, 12 oz. of the Pepsi soda contains 150 mg of calories, which is about twice more than in a cup of black tea . Accordingly, in no way does black tea break a fast or make you gain weight. On the contrary, it is an integral part of the weight loss process.
Intermittent Fasting: What You Can Drink During Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is not a diet, its a pattern of eating. More importantly, its a way of life. It really has nothing to do with the foods you can eat, but when you eat them.
Relatively simple and straightforward, the most popular way to intermittent fast is the 16/8 Method. This involves skipping breakfast and eating only within an 8-hour period of the day while fasting for the other 16. But the question we often get asked, is what are you allowed to drink during those other 16 hours, in order to not break your fast and lose weight more effectively?
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What Breaks An Intermittent Fast
If youre new to intermittent fasting, you may have a lot of questions about what to do while fasting1. Does coffee break a fast? What about diet soda, or tea? Can I eat a banana? Or a handful of almonds? What if Im really, really hungry? Read on to discover what really breaks a fast, and how to curb hunger while intermittent fasting for greater success.
Stalling On The Warrior Diet
Dear Dr. Fung,
I lost 21 lbs over several months doing 1, 2 and 3 day fasts. I hit resistance at that point and for the last month have been doing IF by skipping breakfast lunch and dinner only. I find this is good for maintenance, but my body seems to have become used to it. Im therefore thinking of going Warrior eating every day in a 4-hour window, say 5 pm to 9 pm. Would appreciate your thoughts, and also whether any of your T2D patients have had success with the Warrior method. Thank you.
Jeff
My experience is that people who eat the same way daily eventually hit a plateau, and usually at a level higher than they wish. I think the intermittency of the diet is important to keep weight loss moving. That is, I think doing Warrior, or 16:8 or 24-hour fasts every single day eventually leads to a plateau. I usually recommend my patients mix it up and monitor their progress.
Dr. Jason Fung
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Mineral Water Or Water With Salt/electrolytes
Minerals help your cells to absorb all the vital nutrients they need, and it is also required for healthy muscle and nerve activity. Balanced minerals levels are necessary for the health of the heart, liver, and kidneys. They regulate blood fluids and help to maintain a healthy blood pressure.
To prevent problems, caused by a lack of minerals such as headaches, tiredness, and low blood pressure, add a pinch of sea salt to your water in the morning, have a glass of mineral water or even better order yourself electrolytes .
A deficit of electrolytes is dangerous for the body, and when you’re fasting, you tend to get less of them .
What Is Intermittent Fasting
This eating plan is all about the when rather than the what. So unlike diets such as Atkins or IIFYM , intermittent fasting is less about the foods and drinks you choose to consume and more about the times that you do so.
The most frequently-followed intermittent fasting schedules include:
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Time-Restricted Eating. Often deemed the easiest to follow of all of the various intermittent fasting plans, this generally takes the form of the 16:8 method, or the 14:10 method .
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Eat Stop Eat. Fast for 24 hours once or twice a week. On the other days, eat normally.
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Alternate-Day Fasting. Consume about 500 calories every other day, then eat normally on the alternate days.
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5:2 Fasting. Eat normally for five days of the week and fast for two non-consecutive days .
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The Warrior Diet. Pack all of your desired calorie consumption into a four-hour window each day.
During regular eating windows or days, there are usually no calorie or food restrictions. However, during fasting days or windows, the calorie range is often between zero and about 500 calories. You get to decide how to allocate those calories on food and/or drink.
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Benefits Of Drinking Tea
Plain tea is actually quite beneficial to your fast as it oftentimes helps distract you from hunger. It offers many of the same benefits that water provides but with an added flavor that helps curb cravings. Plain tea is the perfect drink for anyone struggling with bouts of hunger throughout their intermittent fasting process.
Benefits of drinking tea include:
- Fewer hunger pangs
- A sense of relaxation
/6why Go For Intermittent Fasting
Theres no denying that staying in shape is a universal desire and most of us try everything to lose weight and stay fit. Offlate, health experts have been vouching for Intermittent fasting, which is believed to treat chronic ailments like Diabetes, Alzheimers disease and Cardiovascular diseases to name a few.
Apart from that, following Intermittent fasting also helps in effective weight loss, better insulin management. However, what you eat between the fasting window can make or break the weight loss plan.
Most people stick to juices, water, caffeine based drinks like black tea or coffee. You will be surprised to know that a cup of black coffee has only 2kcal whereas black tea has around 1kcal, which can effectively help in weight management. But still drinking these caffeine blends may impact your health. Here’s how!
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Best Intermittent Fasting Schedules
If you want to lose weight, build muscle, and improve your health in general, then intermittent fasting is an option worth considering. Intermittent fasting is simply the practice of not eating for a set period, typically between 12 and 16 hours, with the occasional 6-hour break to eat. This type of fasting has been shown to increase metabolic rate, reduce body fat, and help control blood sugar.
Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting With Tea
While intermittent fasting involves cycling between fasting and eating windows, you can always soothe yourself with tea while practicing any such diet plan. Just make sure to not add calories to the beverage through sugar, milk, or artificial sweeteners. Here are some ways in which your body can benefit from drinking tear while fasting:
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Can You Drink Alcohol While Intermittent Fasting
Because its effect is more intense on an empty stomach, you should not drink alcohol during intermittent fasting.
Moreover, alcohol is a source of calories that breaks a fast anyway.
Alcohol is also not a great idea during eating periods. Cocktails, mixed drinks, and especially beer are full of carbohydrates, stimulate insulin and appetite.
The exception is red wine, which can be drunk about glass size with dinner .
When drunk with meals, red wine positively affects blood pressure, glucose, and insulin levels .
If you take a dry red wine like Pinot Noir, it can generally improve insulin sensitivity .
Can You Chew Gum While Fasting
When asked about chewing gum during a fasting window, Dr. Fung told POPSUGAR, “Yes, sweeteners can certainly produce an insulin response, but generally for gum, the effect is so small that there is likely no problem from it. So yes, technically it does break the fast, but no, it usually doesn’t matter.”
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Purified Water Or Electrolyte Water
If its hard for you to drink water, then mix it up. You can have carbonated water, or water with electrolytes, to help fight increased fatigue.
Our recommendation, add pink Himalayan salt or rock salt to prevent hyperthyroidism. Including salt and potassium could bring your energy back and reduce fatigue levels. Drink bottled, distilled, or filtered water for added minerals.
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Can Tea Help To Curb Hunger During Fasting
Tea absolutely can help to curb hunger when fasting. Tea can take away hunger sensations in a few different ways. It can act as a filler in your stomach and make you feel content. Certain types of tea contain compounds that make you feel more satisfied, and some of them have mild appetite suppressants.
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What You Can Drink During Intermittent Fasting
If you want to skip the details above: Here is the bottom line!
According to science, this is the list of what you can drink while intermittent fasting:
- Diluted apple cider vinegar
What you can drink during intermittent fasting always depends on your goals. If your primary goal is weight loss, go with the list above.
If you aim at prolonged fasting for anti-aging and disease prevention, opinions of researchers and experts differ.
Although numerous animal studies suggest that coffee and green tea support autophagy, the truth is that we dont know for sure.
As there is no data on this in humans yet, many people restrict autophagy fasting too pure water fasting, where you may add only salt or mineral water if necessary.
However, green tea has activated autophagy in human cells, but these were previously implanted into mice .
Why Japanese Green Tea Is Perfect For Intermittent Fasting + How To Guide What To Do & What Not To Do
Intermittent fasting is a popular dieting method right now. Compared to other fad diets, IF does have much research to back up its amazing effects on the body. Civilizations have been fasting for millennia, and this natural eating pattern is becoming more common.Another diet pattern people have been doing historically is drinking tea, particularly Japanese green tea. High-quality green tea has been intertwined with Japanese culture for centuries. Adding Japanese Green tea to your diet can further boost the benefits of IF, while satiating any cravings for your usual beverages.
Before you read onto the contents of the blog, my friend, JC from VideoBlast, created a short 30 seconds teaser video of this blog post. Please check it out!
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Black Tea And Green Tea: The Difference
What you see in the market as black or green tea is derived from the same tea plant. The only difference is in the way they are processed. While black tea leaves are fermented, their green counterparts are not.
The probiotic properties of fermentation make black tea an excellent option for promoting balanced gut health. On the other hand, fermentation decreases the level of antioxidants present in black tea while elevating its caffeine level slightly compared to green tea.
Recent studies indicate that the temperature of tea served is equally essential to derive optimal benefits from it.
While traditionally, brewing tea in hot water was the standard process, recent studies indicate that this can cause oxidation, destroying a substantial amount of the catechins and polyphenols responsible for providing you with the health benefits you seek.
The contemporary school of thought proposes that adding cold water to your tea allows the polyphenols and catechins to maximally extract their properties without destroying them. The crystallization process makes it easier for the tea to dissolve at any water temperature.
Coffee Vs Green Tea With Intermittent Fasting
I once said that the custom of drinking green tea was better for your health than that of coffee drinking, what about it during your intermittent fasting?
One of the reasons I thought the green tea culture was better was that you had tea with pickles while in the coffee culture you had coffee with sweets. However, it doesnt apply if you drink coffee in the morning during your 16-hour fast because you just drink black coffee without sugar or muffins and donuts.
On the other hand, coffee has slightly more calories than green tea, so if you aim to reduce as many calories as you can, switching to green tea may be better as your morning drink. It probably doesnt make much difference, so I wouldnt worry too much about it.
Coffee also has more caffeine than green tea, so if you want to avoid caffeine, green tea is a safer choice.
Green tea has a polyphenol called catechin, and catechin is supposed to be good for autophagy, according to Dr. Tamotsu Yoshimori, the author of Life Science Nagaikisezaruwoenaijidai no Seimeikagakukogi. He was a co-researcher of Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi, the 2016 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, and is one of the prominent experts on autophagy. If you are doing intermittent fasting to activate autophagy, having green tea might increase the effect.
I have coffee in the morning but in the afternoon, I switch to drinking green tea.
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What Can I Drink While Intermittent Fasting
When intermittent fasting, its recommended to avoid beverages that contain calories as well as sugar-free drinks like diet soda. But you can consume water with lemon, black coffee without sweeteners or milk, and tea. You can also enjoy FUL® sparkling spirulina drinks. Plus, some dieticians recommend drinking diluted apple cider vinegar or bone broth during longer fasts.
Why Is Green Tea The Most Useful
Green teas are great for breaking a fast because they are high in fiber, which helps the body break down food and make better energy. Green teas also contain flavonoids and other antioxidants, which may help your body break down food. Green tea also contains vitamin C, which is a powerful antioxidant that helps your body heal itself.
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