A friend of mine is planning a 6-day fast a month from now and asked which supplements could either seriously enhance or completely ruin the fasting effects.
He specifically asked about creatine, wondering if this guy messes with fasting.
A 6-day fast isn’t something you do lightly, so it probably isn’t his first time, right?
Don’t end up hurting yourself and thinking, “Ah, fasting sucks,” for no reason.
And if you do feel unwell, it’s likely not because of the fast itself but rather due to some underlying virus or inflammation your body was hiding, so don’t panic in advance.
Alright, let’s start by breaking down creatine.
Absolutely do not let any creatine touch your mouth during a fast.
Creatine is a nutrient, a guy that supplies energy to the body.
What’s the core principle of fasting?
It’s making your body realize, “Oh crap, nutrients are gone! It’s an emergency!” Only when that happens does a real fast truly begin.
But if you shove something like creatine in there, you’re tricking your body into thinking it has more nutrients than it actually does.
Whether it’s the mTOR switch turning on or AMPK turning off, the fasting effects get cut in half right away.
Anything that makes the body’s nutrient sensors think, “Huh? Something came in?” is a total no-go.
Basically, consider anything that sends a signal to the body saying, “Hey body, nutrients are here!” as something that can potentially wreck your fasting effects.
But then, there’s this.
There’s this guy named Valter Longo, a department head at the University of Southern California or something, who created something called the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD).
What is it? It’s roughly a plan where you consume under 1,000 calories per day, focused on fats, a tiny bit of complex carbs, absolutely no protein, for 5 days, followed by 2 days of recovery eating.
This guy tested it on mice and humans, and the funny thing is, most of the pathways activated during a real fast seemed to still work with this diet.
In other words, it means that even though they ate some nuts and stuff, a significant portion of the fasting benefits were maintained.
This guy, Valter Longo, even started a company called ProLon selling the ingredients for this diet, claiming they don’t make a profit or something – you can look it up online.
They deliver the food ingredients, or you can just follow his guidelines and make it yourself.
The important point is, his diet has absolutely no protein, why?
Because even a tiny amount of protein immediately turns on the mTOR and IGF-1 switches.
Think of protein as a giant signal flare.
What about creatine then?
It’s not protein, but isn’t it an energy source like fat or complex carbs?
So you might think, maybe it’s okay? But no matter how young and brave you are, if it were me, I’d cut it out completely.
There’s no reason to take it.
Of course, you should take salt and magnesium.
Especially salt.
Second question, what about coffee and tea?
This is a very frequent question.
Let me get straight to the point: I’m hooked on coffee and tea throughout my fasts.
Before this guy Valter Longo came out with the FMD, there was a lot of talk like, “Doesn’t drinking coffee or tea break your fast?”
But in reality, it doesn’t.
Sure, sticking purely to plain water might be better, but if the Fasting Mimicking Diet doesn’t break a fast, then coffee and tea surely won’t break it either.
I actually think coffee and tea might even slightly boost the fasting effects.
Why?
Because caffeine stimulates norepinephrine secretion, which can act as a booster for burning visceral fat, meaning it promotes visceral fat breakdown, especially during the first 2-3 days of the fast.
It gives your hormones a little nudge.
Of course, it probably raises cortisol too, but I don’t know if that’s good or not.
Also, coffee and tea contain little phytochemicals like antioxidants.
These might help reduce the stress your body feels during the fast.
But at the same time, your body needs to feel a little bit of the heat during a fast, right?
So whether these antioxidants reducing the perceived stress is entirely good is something I honestly can’t say for sure.
We still know jack shit about biological factors and fasting, so nobody really knows the exact impact, and there’s no research on it either.
But if you want my personal reference, I drink them.
To be perfectly honest, enduring with just plain water is mentally tough, to say the least.
You need something to go in your mouth, to taste something, to live like a human, right?
Otherwise, you’ll just end up eagerly waiting for tooth-brushing time every night.
That’s just not it, man.
So in my opinion, coffee and tea – I mainly drink green tea and hibiscus tea, and I have coffee very occasionally.
Some guys really love coffee, but I don’t particularly like it, and it doesn’t have a big psychological effect on me.
And the crucial point is: it must be plain black coffee, straight tea, with absolutely no sugar.
The moment you add cream or sugar, that’s not fasting; that’s just a self-destructive act of downing sugar water.
Remember that, because it’s a fucking terrible solution.
Reference
Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
Wei, M., Brandhorst, S., Shelehchi, M., Longo, V.D. et al.
(Dr. Valter Longo is among the authors here)
These guys gathered people and had them periodically follow a 5-day Fasting Mimicking Diet.
They found that, on top of basic weight loss and abdominal fat reduction, markers directly linked to aging and disease – like blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and inflammation levels (CRP) – improved.
In other words, they showed with data that just eating a bit less for a few days, in a specific way, tricks the body into thinking, “Ah, entering fast mode!” and it starts its own system maintenance.
They also confirmed a reduction in signals related to growth, like IGF-1 levels, which means the body switches its focus from crazy cell growth to resting, cleaning house internally, and regeneration.
Doesn’t that connect to the answer for “What shouldn’t you eat during a fast?”
Think of the FMD as one attempt to find that minimal allowable threshold.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28202779/
Besides this one, if you look up papers from Longo’s team, you’ll find a bunch more.
But this paper is more relatable because it’s the result of applying it to actual people.
Ultimately, the core of fasting is a battle of how to trick the body’s nutrient-sensing pathways.
