What Can I Eat or Drink While Fasting?
15 Dec 2025 · 8 min
JJ Virgin and nurse practitioner Cynthia Thurlow answer what you can actually eat or drink during a fast. They cover which beverages and foods won't break your fast, cutting through the confusion around intermittent fasting rules.
Questions this episode answers
November 9, 2020
Plain coffee, bitter (unsweetened) teas, and plain water
Fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), branched-chain amino acids, collagen, peptides, protein powders, and bone broth
Over 5 million views
Chapters
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What Can I Eat or Drink While Fasting? This is jj, Virgin four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions, and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Lori from Twitter asks, what can I eat or drink while fasting? Hey, it's J.J. and I've got the perfect expert to answer this question. Meet nurse practitioner, nutrition and intermittent fasting expert Cynthia Thurlow. Her TEDx talk on intermittent fasting has been viewed over 5 million times. She's a former varsity field hockey player who's been known to read four to.
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Well Lori, the standard response that I usually give when I'm asked this question is plain coffee, bitter teas. Bitter teas mean teas that are not sweet. So green tea, black tea, you know, teas that are not designed to stimulate an insulin response are going to be the ones you're going to focus on. Obviously you want to drink a good amount of hydration, so lots of water really also very, very important. And there appears to be a lot of consensus, slash non consensus about what you can consume without breaking your fast. I tend to be much more of a purist and things that will feed an insulin response you want to avoid. And those kinds of things would be certain types of vitamins. Obviously fat soluble vitamins, vitamin A, vitamin D, E and K, branch chain amount acids, collagen, peptides, protein powders, bone broth will all break your fast. Your body will need to stimulate the secretion of insulin in order to properly assimilate those items. Things like gum and candy and breath mints. But you can brush your teeth safely as long as you're not swallowing your toothpaste and just being mindful of the items that you are putting in your mouth. Because we know this cephalic based insulin response can be evoked by just smelling food. I only share this just to illustrate the point that our bodies are very sensitive and attuned to our surroundings. The things we smell, the things we are exposed to for taste, and the food that we see as our body gets primed to eat food. So you really want to be mindful, but number one is plain coffee, number two are bitter teas, number three is plain water. And then I've illustrated some of the more common questions I get with regard to things that can break your fast. So really focusing in on ensuring that the time that you are fasted is maximized by not consuming fats and not consuming carbs and not consuming protein, but just those things. And the really cool thing about both black coffee and bitter teas is that they actually have components in them that can actually improve autophagy, which is that spring cleaning of the cells, so definitely enjoy the tea, enjoy the coffee while fasted.
This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.
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