Hi all, I have a newbie question. I am a little addicted to chewing-gum and I could hardly do without it. I know that between meals it can decreased feelings of hunger. So, can we chew gum during the fasting period or is it not recommended ?
I’ve read that anything under 25 calories is still fasting. If you’re new, I would do what you need to do right now to stick with it. Over time, you’ll be surprised how your body adjusts. I never thought I could give up coffee creamer but over time I stopped even wanting it. Your body lets go of a lot of food-driven anxieties when you get used to a fasted state.
I think one thing to keep in mind though is to beware of fake sugars. From what I understand, they basically just confuse your body and the result is the same.
From what I understand with fasting is the prolonged period of not eating, triggers your body to use the fat stores since there is a lack of new glucose to use. And I have read/heard that chewing gum, especially one with flavor, can trigger your body out of the fat using mode and back to the glucose mode. Now without calories idk if you would actually put on any weight from it but it would be interesting to find out if it would potentially stall or stunt your weight loss.
I’ve been chewing sugar free gum with xylitol. The calories are negligible (<5) but I have not been able to find any solid evidence one way or the other as to whether the artificial sweetener will affect a fast.
I have two pieces of gum immediately after my final meal in my eating window. Most of the sweetness and flavoring are gone after 5-10 minutes anyway so I don’t think that’s really cutting into my fasting time. After that, I wait until my eating window to have more.
I do find it to be helpful to lessen my hunger between meals during my eating window.
I’m really new to IF- 7 weeks ago I started intermittent fasting, not drinking alcohol and not “chain” chewing sugar-free gum. (I gave up chewing the gum since I didn’t want the alternative sugars to cause any hunger issues and that from a pack a day to none)
On Monday, I had my usual dental cleaning (3x year for years) and the hygienist was done scrapping really quickly - she even commented there was hardly any plague on them. I think it’s the combination of stopping all three. I imagine that my snacking, sipping on wine in the evening and always chewing gum was messing up my saliva’s natural ability to fight off plaque. Sharing in case it interests you as you’re making your decisions around IF