break fasting plateaus

How Do We Break a Fast and Fasting Plateaus?

How Do I Break a Fast?

The word breakfast literally means the first meal of the day that “breaks” your fasting period. In the 15th century it came to mean the meal consumed soon after waking up. However, you may break your fast at 6 pm just as easily as at 6pm.

When we fast, our bodies don’t produce digestive enzymes and fluids. If you eat too large a meal to break your fast, you can experience a dull stomach-ache. It’s not serious, and it’s a mistake that most of us have made at some point. In some cases, people experience diarrhea, gas pains and bloating. To ensure you do not experience these problems, there are some simple guidelines you can implement for breaking a fast.

Generally, the longer you fast, the more carefully you should break that fast. It is usually not an issue if you are fasting under 24 hours. Eat and behave as normally as possible after fasting. If you usually eat one serving at each meal, keep to that one serving at dinner when you’re breaking your fast. You may think you think to compensate for all those hours you went without food by taking a second helping of food but you won’t need it. Think about it this way: in the time you were fasting, your body was “eating” food. It was just food in the form of stored body fat. Therefore, you don’t need to eat more food at your break-fast to compensate. Another thing you may feel when you are breaking your fast is a need to quench certain cravings you had during your fast. Depending on where you are in your fasting journey, some people report having cravings for pasta, breads, and chocolate. If you break-fast meal is taking long to prepare, you may be tempted to the foods you are craving. It is very important to try you best to stick to your meal plan. If after having your meal you still feel the craving, try satisfying it with a dark chocolate or berries and fresh cream!

After a fast, the most common foods people report difficulty digesting are: raw vegetables, eggs, and nuts, nut butters, seeds and seed butters and dairy products. This is not to say you shouldn’t have any of these ingredients in your break-fast meal. I just personally wouldn’t “start” with it.

I have also worked with clients who when they do short fasts like 20-24 hours, they feel like it is ok to have alcohol. When you are fasting (whether short or long), I would avoid excessive consumption of alcohol. It affects your results, visceral fat, and can also lead to an unhealthy habit of rewarding staring yourself with the relief from alcohol.

If you are having trouble breaking a fast try the following tips.

Add One tablespoon of psyllium husk to one cup of water and let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Drink this before you eat.
Start your meal with a cup of tomato, cucumber and parsley salad with extra virgin olive oil.
For protein, choose a small portion of chicken about the size and the thickness of the palm of your hand.
Fill the rest of your plate with non-starchy vegetables cooked in a natural fat (like butter). Finish with an avocado if you’re still feeling hungry.

Breaking a Fasting Plateau:

The next thing is breaking plateaus. It’s important to know how to recognize if you’ve hit a plateau on your fasting journey for the goal of weight loss, how to adjust your regimen to continue getting results. For starters, you would have hit a plateau if your body total weight, body fat percentage or waist circumference has ricocheted between the same 3-4 numbers over the past 2-3 weeks. Another way to know is if your clothes fit the same way. Although the scale is a pretty useless way to measure progress, you should also be taking progress pictures and measurements because that is a more accurate measure of real results.

Now let’s say you have in fact hit a consistent weight, does that mean your body is broken or that fasting doesn’t work for you anymore? Not true! All this means is that your body has more likely adapted to the new way you are eating. If you have consistently eaten the same foods, or eaten at the same timings, these variables are what need to be tweaked. The most effective way to do this is to add variety to your meals – perhaps learn 1-3 new recipes a week. Another option is to change up your fasting routine. Now that change can be you make it more intense or less too! The importance is “to change”, the type of change doesn’t matter as much.

Changes in your diet and fasting schedule also do not need to be permanent. You can add a few changes just to break up your current structure and go back to what you were previously comfortable doing. A few other things that may also help troubleshoot your plateau are:

Reducing the number of net carbohydrates to under 30 total grams per day keeping protein intake sufficient. This type of diet is called a ketogenic diet. I wouldn’t recommend doing a keto diet long-term, however, for a few days or a week it may help you get back on track.
If you are already following a keto diet, try a high-protein, moderate-fat, and low-carb diet for a few weeks to mix it up. This works very well for many post-menopausal women, and vegetarians who have plateaued.
Another common change is to try carb cycling with natural, starches for a few weeks. Add some sweet potatoes, steel cut oats, or other natural starches during one or two meals.
Try a carnivore diet – that is, eating animal products only – like meat, seafood, shellfish, eggs and butter. You can eat a carnivore diet through the weekdays but add vegetables on the weekends. A trial period of four to six weeks can be very beneficial getting through stubborn plateaus.