I’m on day 21 of a 30 day fast. I’ve taken herbal tea and a couple pieces of sugar free gum since I started. I’m also taking electrolyte tablets.
My ketones are 4.5-6.1 by keto mojo.
I did a dexa scan in the beginning and at 18 days.
I’m getting bored of just having tea. What else can I take without breaking the fast? I’ve read that people take pickle juice. Does that break the fast?
5’4” SW 121 CW 105 GW 99
My goals are slimming down and autophagy.
Whenever I finish a fast, I end up gaining back 10 pounds as soon as I refeed, so my goal weight is 99 since I’m sure it’ll be 109 when I start to eat again. That would give me a net loss of 12 pounds.
I’m feeling so good now. My clothes fit so much better and I’m able to see my abdominal muscles.
Almost certainly yes, it will have caloric value and break your fast. Most commercially produced pickles have added sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and other highly refined carbs that severely undermine autophagy and entering a fully fasted metabolic state of endogenous ketosis. Continuing to eat and drink small amounts of food and drink while fasting is also not muscle sparing in the way fasted ketosis is muscle sparing. If you do this regularly, the muscle loss will be significant. Ketosis and fasted ketosis are muscle sparing up to about 72-96 hours. Eating tiny amounts of food or drink with caloric value, and in particular carbohydrates while “fasting” is more like “starvation mode.” Your body continues to expect more food, does not switch into ketosis as deeply, and stays in gluconeogenesis (using fat and protein to produce glucose) while searching for more nutritional glucose from food to switch back to glycolysis. You will lose more muscle this way, experience more cravings, hunger pangs, insomnia, etc.
Just stick with water, sodium, potassium, magnesium, black coffee, green tea. There are a few other drinks like black tea that won’t break your fast, but if you are not doing your own research and still fasting anyway, my suggestion would be to keep it simple.