{"id":1897,"date":"2020-05-13T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T22:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reversingdiabetes.xyz\/blog\/2020\/05\/gi-issues-breaking-a-fast\/"},"modified":"2021-05-07T10:40:59","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T14:40:59","slug":"gi-issues-breaking-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reversingdiabetes.xyz\/blog\/gi-issues-breaking-fast\/","title":{"rendered":"GI issues breaking a fast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My first extended fast, I broke cautiously and everything was fine.<\/p>\n

My second extended fast, the decision to break was more abrupt, so figuring I had an iron stomach, just ate. Turns out this was a bad call.<\/p>\n

I spent many hours in pain, burning through my gut, and running to the john.<\/p>\n

I figured I\u2019d been rather stupid and need to break extended fasts more sensibly. Fung has recommended chia seeds, so I began there.<\/p>\n

I posted about this on the ELAB group:<\/p>\n

Some folks coming off an extended fast have GI issues.<\/p>\n

My first fast, I was very cautious. I had bone broth and a half pack of sugar-free jello, waited a few hours, then had the rest of the jello before eating some eggs.<\/p>\n

My second fast, I threw caution to the wind, ate some sausage and eggs right off the bat, and spent several hours cramping in pain, and much time on the john that evening.<\/p>\n

Normally, when you eat, your stomach has a whole bunch of strong acid that starts to digest food, then the food moves into the small intestine where it gets hit with pancreatic juice, which includes a lot of bicarbonate to buffer down the acid of the stomach. You don\u2019t want the stuff entering your GI tract to burn you; the stomach is built to handle a lot of acid, but the rest of you is not.<\/p>\n

The pancreatic juice also contains enzymes to further break down your food, amylases which digest carbohydrates, proteases which digest proteins and lipases which digest fat. Basically, this juice does most of the digesting of food, extracting useful nutrients, and passing on what is less useful in a benign fashion for your gut microbiome to feed on.<\/p>\n

As far as I can tell, when you don\u2019t eat for a few days, the pancreas gets lazy. It\u2019s \u201cnot ready,\u201d if you put a bunch of food in there suddenly. As it happens, jello is solid enough to wake the pancreas up, but easy enough to be digested without the full dose of pancreatic juice.<\/p>\n

But a bunch of undigested food in acid flowing through your system is damned unpleasant. When I tried to eat with an unprepared pancreas, it hurt rather a lot. So\u2026 don\u2019t do that. I had gotten in the habit of eating jello while preparing my meal, and for me, that\u2019s been enough to prevent further problems.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I\u2019m not terrifically fond of jello, and aside from some gelatin which is good, the flavored boxed stuff is full of chemicals I don\u2019t consider real food. It\u2019s OK now and then, I\u2019m not a food purist, but given I\u2019m fasting pretty much every week, I wanted something better.<\/p>\n

Dr. Fung says to break a fast with soaked chia seeds. Now that\u2019s fine and dandy for him to say, and I realize chia seeds have become somewhat of a trend lately, but I\u2019ve never had any desire to eat them. To me, chia seeds are things you spread on a pet-shaped clay mold \u201cas seen on TV,\u201d not food.<\/p>\n

But this week, I gave it a try. I had bought the smallest possible box of chia seeds, in case I didn\u2019t like them, and made a chia pudding. I read a bunch of recipes and came up with my own adaptation:<\/p>\n

Vanilla Chia Pudding<\/h2>\n

Ingredients<\/h3>\n