Can you drink celery juice while intermittent fasting or will it break your fast? It can be confusing knowing exactly what you can and can’t have during your fasting window. And the last thing you want to do is ruin your fast and lose your results.
Celery juice is quite healthy, and more people should be drinking it for its health benefits. It’s been found to help enhance weight loss, lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and can help flush out toxins. But will it or won’t it break a fast?
Fasting isn’t totally like an on/off light switch, and there is some gray area that celery juice falls in. But if you drink celery juice under certain circumstances, you could ruin your fast and thus throw off your progress. So the last thing you want is all your hard work during your fast to be thrown out the window.
Here you’ll discover if drinking celery juice will break a fast and how you can drink it to maximize your results. So be sure to keep reading to ensure celery juice isn’t breaking your fast and how to use celery juice to take your results up to the next level.
Celery Juice and Intermittent Fasting
Drinking celery juice can provide many health benefits, including reducing inflammation, aiding weight loss, and flushing out toxins. It’s a very healthy beverage that more should be drinking, and it’s a much better option than other sugary fruit juices like apple juice and orange juice.
An 8-ounce serving of celery juice has about 30-40 calories with 7g of carbs, 2g of protein, 7g of carbohydrates, and 3g of sugars. This is a much better nutritional profile than orange juice, which can have 29g and 27g of sugar in the same 8-ounce serving size.
Many also take celery juice for its gut health-boosting benefits. It can improve digestion and relieve bloating and constipation. But some have harmful gut side effects from celery juice as it can temporarily worsen symptoms of IBS. So if you have gut health issues, slowly introduce celery juice before drinking too much, especially on an empty stomach.
Celery juice has long been used medicinally by healers as a way to detoxify the body. It can help heal the gut and lower blood sugar levels, blood pressure, and adrenal stress. Plus, it’ll hydrate your body with electrolytes such as potassium and sodium. It’s alkalinizing and can help your body find relief from a myriad of health issues and disorders.
But will celery juice break a fast? Let’s dive into it…
Can You Drink Celery Juice on a Fast
In the last section, you saw celery juice contains calories that can break your fast. But celery juice falls into the “gray area” of fasting that is much more complicated if you’re not doing a pure water fast.
Fasting purists believe anything other than water will break your fast. This even includes black coffee and tea, as they’re xenobiotics that cause a metabolic response in your body. So a pure water fast is ideal if you’re fasting for autophagy that kills off dangerous bad cells in your body.
But if you’re fasting for weight loss in particular, then fasting isn’t like a total on/off light switch. A “50-calorie rule” allows you to have a drink that contains less than 50 calories and won’t effectively break your fast. This is especially true if having that drink increases your metabolism and helps you to keep fasting for longer.
Pure celery juice is so low in calories that your body will burn through them, and you shouldn’t worry about it causing weight gain. All of the benefits of celery juice will far outweigh any possible weight gain. Celery juice easily contains less than 50 calories, so it’s allowed under this rule.
But the problem is the carbohydrate content found in the celery juice. The main goal of fasting is to keep your body from releasing insulin which can kick you out of the fasting benefits. Celery juice contains 3g of sugar and 7g of carbs which isn’t ideal during your fasting window. Celery juice can spike your insulin depending on how insulin sensitive/resistant you are.
So even though celery juice is under 50 calories it doesn’t mean it’s the best choice while fasting due to its carb/sugar content. With that said, the carbs/sugars are minimal, so if you have good insulin sensitivity and like having celery juice when fasting, you should be ok.
Celery Juice and Ketosis
Many like combining intermittent fasting and ketosis to maximize their diet’s health and weight loss benefits. Now that you discovered in the last section that a small 8-ounce serving of celery juice is acceptable when fasting, does that make it good for keto?
Since celery juice only contains less than 10g of carbs, it’ll be acceptable for the keto diet and won’t kick you out of ketosis. Also, the carb content in celery juice is partly fiber, so the net carbs will be even lower. Celery juice contains some sugars but a tiny amount in an 8-ounce serving size.
But you must be careful with juicing since you can easily kick yourself out of ketosis and break your fast. Juicing fruits will extract their sugars along with their vitamins and minerals. These sugars might be considered “natural sugars,” but they’re still sugar and end up spiking your blood sugar and insulin.
Ideally, you keep the fruits to a minimum when juicing and have more vegetables. Blending them is an even better option since it’ll keep the fiber, which will slow the absorption of the sugar reducing the insulin spike. Plus, the fiber is prebiotic, improving your gut microbiome, and helping flush out waste from your digestive system.
How to Drink Celery Juice When Fasting
Since celery juice does contain some calories, carbs, and sugars, I’d wait to drink it until you’re getting near the end of your fast. In the morning when fasting, I prefer to drink black coffee with C8-MCTs that speed up your metabolism and help fight off the hunger pangs. Then if you really want, you can have some celery juice some hours later when you’re feeling hungry again and nearing the end of your fasting window.
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Drinking the celery juice will be a much better option to keep the rest of your fast going rather than giving up and eating a meal. Celery juice has a lot of health benefits and will help to fight off hunger when you near the end of your fast. You won’t break your fast if your main goal is weight loss, and in the long run, it will allow you to get better results if it lets you keep fasting for longer.
Try to buy organic celery stalks since celery is on the Dirty Dozen list, which makes it higher in pesticides. Then chop the celery stalks into smaller pieces, toss them into a colander, and wash them. If you’re using a juicer, then all you have to do is add the chopped celery. But you can also use a powerful blender to make the celery juice.
Blend the celery on high until it makes a smooth-looking paste. Then the trick is to use a nut milk bag (or fine mess strainer) to squeeze out the juice. Squeeze the juice from the celery into a glass. Then drink up!
Who should not drink celery juice?
Remember that drinking celery juice on an empty stomach can worsen symptoms of IBS. So if you have gut health issues, then celery juice on an empty stomach might not be the greatest idea until you get your gut health issues sorted out. Try taking a greens powder that contains prebiotics, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to strengthen your gut health.
What happens if you drink celery juice every day?
There shouldn’t be any worry about drinking celery juice every day since it’s mostly water and contains lots of vitamins. A small 8 to 16-ounce serving of celery juice won’t cause harm even if drunk daily and give you more benefits. You should feel more energetic, have lower blood pressure and blood sugars, and have better gut health.
Conclusion
Celery juice can be a good choice for intermittent fasting if you’re doing it for weight loss. When you’re intermittent fasting, you’re giving your body a break from constantly digesting food. This allows your body to cleanse and detoxify itself more effectively. Celery juice is perfect for this because it’s high in water content and contains electrolytes that help keep you hydrated. It also contains minerals like potassium and sodium that can help replenish lost electrolytes during fasting.
If your fasting goal is autophagy, then I wouldn’t drink anything other than water. If you’re planning on going on a 3 day celery juice fast, you’re going to have a hard time getting through the hunger pangs but should come out healthier on the other side. I wouldn’t recommend going on a pure celery fast all the time but going on those short bursts can help kickstart your diet.
How long does it take to see results from drinking celery juice?
I wouldn’t expect impressive results for a while since it’ll take some time to reverse any health issues. But within a few weeks or months, you should start noticing at least some of the health benefits of drinking celery juice. Give it a little time and keep your expectations low in the short run, such as the first week. But the health benefits will start to show in the coming weeks.
So you can drink celery juice when fasting as it falls into the “gray area” of fasting and fits under the 50-calorie rule. It’s not the most outstanding choice since it has some sugars but not enough to spike your insulin to the point you lose the weight loss benefits of fasting. And if you like celery juice and fight off the hunger so you keep fasting for longer, then even better.
Josh holds a Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition Science. He’s a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) by the National Strength and Conditioning Association and he’s a Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) by American Council on Exercise. He’s worked as a Strength and Conditioning Coach at the high school and college levels. He has over 15 years of experience as a personal trainer and nutrition coach. He strives to bring inspiration and results for people to live healthier lives through smart diet and exercise.