How to Break a Fast

Breaking a fast is as important as the actual fast. So here are my tips on breaking a fast.

First, let’s look at the word BREAKFAST, it means to BREAK a FAST. It’s rare that someone will get up in the mid night to eat, no matter which diet plan they are following.  As a matter of fact, we all undergo a mini-fast during the night. Some health rules suggest that we should eat breakfast like a king. But isn’t it really healthy by breaking fast with a big meal? NO.

If you want to eat something in the morning to cheer up your day, you do not need to eat like a king.  I believe only people in the food industry will encourage to eat big breakfast. Eat something light, yet something you love to eat. Of course if your job requires a lot of body energy, then a bigger breakfast may be necessary.  Make your own sensible judgement.

Breaking a fast with care and in a really healthy and safe manner

Though breaking a fast has to be careful, it doesn’t need to be fancy. You may find tons of break fast tips over the internet. What’s the best to do?

Let's talk about how to break your fast in various occasions.

Breaking A Short Fast – 30 hours and below

A typical 30-hour fast would be eating lunch at 1pm – fast – dinner at 7pm on the following day. If you are fasting for 24 hours or so, there is not much you need to do. The process is just like skipping one meal or two. Any normal person can do this without problem. And if you have successfully built a flexible intermittent fasting (IF) habit, you don't really need to care about breaking a fast. As far as you don't overeat in any meal, you are fine. 

Breaking A Longer Fast – 30 hours and beyond

What you would really need to care about breaking a fast is when you fast for 30 hours and beyond. If you fast for two days and beyond, you would need a little more care. The longer the fast is, the more care and time you would need to break your fast. A good rule to follow is that your first meal after any long fast (30 hours and beyond) SHOULD NOT be a heavy full meal.

Break Your Fast With An Appropriate Mindset

Be sure to develop an appropriate mindset in breaking your fast. If you thought that you've been in a 'food prison' and wanted to eat all the best foods on the planet once released, then you will tend to break your fast with a big heavy meal which could be dangerous. I’ve heard of an extreme case that a 40-year old died by breaking his 31-day fast by eating several beef sandwiches. 

If you consider your fast as a project that will help develop a new eating habit or lifestyle, you are likely to break your fast in a more sensible way. Your digestive system is in an inactive mode during fasting. Give it a grace period to wake up and re-perform its digestion work gradually. The longer your fast is, a longer grace period is required.

How I Broke My Six-day Fast 

Browsing through my fasting diary in March 2006, here was how I broke my fast. I remember at that time I had no guidance. However out of common sense, I knew I should go on something light. I had a bowl of congee for lunch and orange juice for dinner and water for the rest of the day. That worked fine for me. For the rest of the month, I continued with light lunch and juice dinner. I had a miracle feeling that I didn’t need three meals a day any more, while still feeling energetic. I then gradually developed my flexible IF lifestyle through now. I was happy to eat in a completely new schedule. 

Eating less has been my health bible, and also part of my simple lifestyle.