Top 10 Best Foods To Break A Fast

Hello Health Champions. Intermittent fasting  can be a very powerful tool to reduce insulin  

and to kick-start weight loss and fat burning  but it may be just as important to understand  

what kind of food to eat when we break  the fast so that we maximize the benefits  

or at least we don't undo the benefits of  the fast that we just did. The very word  

breakfast of course does not actually refer to  the meal that we eat in the morning it refers to  

eating something after a period of not eating.  And if we have a strategy to what to eat after  

we have been fasting for a while then we can  add to the benefit of that fasting but in order  

to have that strategy we first need to remember  why are we doing the fasting in the first place  

so the vast majority of people are going to do  it for weight loss to reduce insulin resistance  

which of course is related to weight loss because  when we're insulin resistant that's what puts  

on the weight so we want to reverse that and also  the advanced stage of insulin resistance called  

type 2 diabetes. So this is where most people are  going to do it but there's many other benefits  

a second benefit would be that we're giving  our digestive tract a break now there's a huge  

turnover of cells of our gut lining we get  a new gut lining basically every three days  

and if there's irritation and we keep putting  food in there it can be difficult for that gut  

to regenerate properly but if we give it a break  through fasting now we give it a chance for gut  

healing. We can reverse some leaky gut and we  also have a chance to reset the biome or bacterial  

flora. Because if we eat a bunch of carbs and  sugar then we tend to unbalance the flora so if we  

stop eating for a while then we have a chance  for that to reset itself. And a third reason  

would be for general health benefits because we're  getting something called autophagy which is a form  

of upgraded recycling when we don't eat when  the resources that we're adding are scarce the  

body gets better and better at recycling and using  the resources we already have which means that we  

clean up we improve our immunity and we have all  sorts of different health benefits. It can be very  

powerful to reverse disease but of course if we're  reasonably healthy then we might want to use it to  

prevent disease and if we're concerned with immune  system like a lot of people are then we can use it  

to get an immune boost or simply just to maintain  immunity and health. And even if you personally  

started intermittent fasting for primarily one  of these reasons it doesn't hurt to understand  

the whole picture and the other benefits so that  you can optimize all of these while you're at it,  

right? And make sure that after we talk about  how to break a fast and the best foods to do that  

that you stay tuned to the end for a really  cool fasting bonus. The fasting duration is  

going to have a lot to do with how careful you  have to be and how strategic you have to be  

in your planning so if you're just doing regular  intermittent fasting and what i mean by that is  

you're doing 16 to 24 hours of not eating on an  average day then you just do the usual you don't  

really have to plan around that whatever you do to  get the results you keep learning about good foods  

if you're eating low carb high fat if you're  eating keto if you're eating paleo or maybe if  

you're into the autoimmune protocol then you don't  have to change anything up you just eat your usual  

stuff but if you go a little bit longer than this  like 36 hours now you want to start exercising  

just a little bit of caution because the longer  you go without food like I said the gut lining  

is regenerating and you have a whole machinery of  digestion down there so when you don't eat for a  

while all those processes get put on the back  burner they down regulate their function they  

back off a little bit and you don't want to shock  the system too much when you start eating again  

so the longer you go the more careful you want  to be if you're fasting for three to five days  

now it's even more important that you have a plan  and a strategy when you get back into it a general  

rule of thumb is going to be that the longer you  go you want to be gentle and you want to introduce  

food gradually you want to start with things  that are easier to digest and then move on  

to heavier foods and the longer you go  the more gradual you want to be the more  

time you want to give for your digestive tract to  sort of warm up and get back into action so for  

most of those benefits that we talked about it's  a really good idea to start with fat first so a  

really good one is going to be an mct oil and you  just need a little bit of that you can also start  

with butter and ghee you can put these in a tea or  a coffee you can use olive oil you can use avocado  

which is a little more substantial but it's  still a fairly gentle food and it's high in fat  

and you can also use nut butters now that's going  to be a little different because it's going to  

be a little higher in protein so if we start with  the mcts they're going to give you a quick energy  

boost and it doesn't take much so I would just  start with a teaspoon or maybe two and I've talked  

about that in another video what this is going to  do it's going to provide some satiety but you've  

gone all this time without food so your insulin  has been dropping and now you can have a little  

energy you can boost your satiety feel a little  full without jeopardizing your insulin you're  

going to get with mostly fat you get a minimal  insulin response and what this does it basically  

extends the benefits of the fasting because all  while you're eating you're reducing insulin and  

now you're still reducing insulin even though you  ate a little bit one more huge benefit of doing it  

like this is that you reduce the risk of a rebound  if you've gone all this time without food and you  

start eating carbs chances are that you'll  go absolutely ravenous that your body starts  

craving things to make up for the time that you  haven't been eating but if you start with fat  

now you get a little bit of satiety but without  the insulin so you're much more likely to if you  

have fat first and then wait an hour that you're  not going to have that crazy rebound eating  

and with all of these five you're basically still  going to be in ketosis and you're going to keep  

reducing insulin the last thing we want to talk  about though is autophagy because autophagy is  

this recycling this immune benefit and all that we  talked about and protein is going to shut off that  

so you want to be careful with protein and that's  why nut butters is basically not going to be great  

for autophagy so if you have some nut butters  that can provide a lot of satiety but you want  

to be careful and maybe just have a tiny little  bit if you're concerned with maintaining autophagy  

otherwise don't worry so much so when we say  feed the gut we're talking about beneficial  

bacteria we're talking about repopulating your  biome when you're fasting you have a chance to  

create a reset and now you want to populate it  with the good stuff so now you start adding in  

fermented things you could take some probiotics  but even better is if you eat natural probiotics  

that are already in the food so sauerkraut  is fermented cabbage but you could also use  

any kind of fermented vegetable it's going to  be great another great source of bacteria is  

yogurt which is fermented dairy you could also  do sour cream which is a little higher in fat  

and then the next step in feeding the gut in  repopulating is to give the bacteria some fuel  

so now we're talking about a wide variety of plant  fiber so steamed vegetables vegetable soup etc  

these are going to provide a lot of raw materials  for these bacteria so first you put in the seed  

and then it's like you put in the fuel and the  fertilizer another very popular thing with fasting  

and breaking a fast is bone broth so what do these  things do like we said you add the bacteria and  

then you add some fiber that's the fuel for the  bacteria and then the bone broth contain a lot of  

good nutrients a lot of gut nutrients that help  heal that help sustain and repair the gut and so  

much have been said about bone broth when it comes  to fasting that there's also a lot of confusion  

about it people think that well it's such a good  thing that it doesn't break the fast that's a  

question i get a lot does bone broth baker  fast yes it absolutely does but the question  

we sometimes want to ask is not does it break  the fast but how much does it break the fast so  

bone broth is very low in carbohydrates so it's  not going to stimulate a whole lot of insulin  

so it depends on how much you have and when you  have it but it absolutely breaks the fast however  

to reintroduce food through bone broth is a great  idea because it has lots of those nutrients for  

gut healing the one thing to keep in mind where  it's different than the other foods we talked  

about is it is higher in protein than the previous  items on the list and therefore it will interrupt  

autophagy more than the other foods if autophagy  is one of your goals so at some point obviously  

you're going to have to start eating protein but  if you're looking to extend autophagy then bone  

broth is not the best thing and next we want to  support growth and here are some good building  

blocks eggs fish meat chicken lamb they're very  powerful building blocks but you don't want to  

add them right away if you've gone for a longer  fast and remember we want to think of fasting as  

cleansing fasting is great but obviously you can't  do it forever it there's a time and a place and  

then you need to do something else so fasting is  cleansing it's a period of rest for the body when  

you give it a rest now it has resources to devote  to other things such as healing and regenerating  

but you can only go so long before you need  some building blocks so you break the fast with  

fat and with gentle food like vegetables and  soups and bone broth and then it's time for  

refeeding and now the purpose is growth you need  the building blocks to rebuild new healthy tissue  

and to complete the healing so the cleansing  fasting that gives you the rest to start the  

healing but you can't complete it unless you start  putting in some building locks so you start with  

some fat to ease into it extend it a little bit  that gives you maybe an hour and then you add  

in maybe some soup or some bone broth or what you  like to feed the gut and then you give it another  

couple of hours and now your gut is a little  bit warmed up and ready and now you can start  

feeding these back in but because you prepped  you're not going to get out of control and be  

voracious now here's the bonus i promised you  and it's about an essential oil that's part of  

a very popular tea let's see if you can figure  out which one it is teal gray hot teal gray hot  

gray hot now what does sean lou picard have to  do with fasting well i don't know if he ever  

engaged in intermittent fasting but his favorite  tea earl grey contains an essential oil called  

bergamot oil and that oil has been shown to have  some benefit in enhancing the effects of autophagy  

during fasting so next time someone offers you  a cup of tea earl grey hot be sure to tell them  

make it so. If you enjoyed this video you're  going to love that one. And if you truly want  

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