Last Updated on November 9, 2023 by Fasting Planet
You’ve gone a little over 24 hours of your intermittent fast so far, and you’re already getting tired of drinking water. You can’t eat until your fast is over, so you wish you could at least change up your beverage options. Can you drink something like tea while intermittent fasting, or is that not allowed?
You can drink tea during an intermittent fast. You’re consuming moderate calories when you do, but not enough to significantly interrupt fasting processes. The best teas to drink on an intermittent fast are:
- Green tea
- Black tea
- Herbal tea
In this article, we’ll explain why these three types of tea should be your preferred options when fasting, which health benefits you can derive from them, and their nutritional information so you can continue to control calories. Keep reading!
Which Teas Can You Drink on an Intermittent Fast?
Tea has long since been the beverage we reach for when we have a sore throat or other symptoms of the cold and flu. A warm cup of tea with chamomile or lavender can also be a great way to relax and unwind at the end of a long day.
On your intermittent fast, you can enjoy health benefits and comfort through a good cup of tea as well. Let’s talk more about green tea, black tea, and herbal tea and why you should drink them when fasting.
Green Tea
Green tea has such a delicious taste that its coveted flavor has become popularized in sweet drinks and desserts. This Chinese tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant, but some varieties of green tea are sourced elsewhere.
As the name implies, green tea is often some variation of green in color, but it may take on a more yellow hue if you brew it for a while.
By consuming a single cup or 245 grams of green tea, you ingest only 2.5 calories. The tea is sugar-free, fat-free, and carb-free, but it does contain 2.5 grams of sodium. Interestingly, you get 0.5 grams of protein per cup.
So why do intermittent fasters love green tea so much? As a trusted choice in herbal medicine for generations and generations, green tea can improve your health in many ways. Here’s how.
- May lessen Alzheimer’s risk: When the Alzheimer’s Society did a study on the effects of green tea on memory, they found that it’s possible that active green tea chemicals may be able to lower one’s chances of getting Alzheimer’s. As a caveat, overly generous doses of green tea were used on study subjects, so it’s not clear if that benefit would persist with a regular amount of daily green tea consumption.
- Can enhance working memory: A 2014 report published in Psychopharmacology found that our working memory and possibly other cognitive functions of the brain receive a boost when we drink green tea.
- Could treat inflammatory skin diseases: If you have such skin conditions as dandruff or psoriasis, you might want to start drinking more green tea. When in 2007, Experimental Dermatology looked at what role green tea played on inflammatory skin diseases through animal studies, the beverage’s phenols were found to alter the skin cell lifecycle gene. Green tea may even be able to decelerate skin cell growth.
- May contribute to weight loss: If you’re trying to lose weight, green tea is a good beverage to sip on. The weight loss on its own won’t be significant, but when combined with intermittent fasting, that might change.
- Could prevent stroke: A Japanese study published in the journal Stroke in 2013 found that regular green tea drinkers lowered their chances of having a stroke with their beverage habits.
- May reduce cholesterol to some degree: Modifying your diet is still one of the best ways to control your cholesterol, but green tea consumption could possibly lower cholesterol as well. So found a 2011 report from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Don’t expect huge cholesterol decreases, though.
- Safeguards your heart: A classic study from the Journal of the American Medical Association is the most definitive one on the effects of green tea on heart health. The study involved more than 40,000 participants, all of who lived in Japan. This was a long-term study too that lasted 11 years. Those who consumed green tea plentifully (five daily cups or more) had a lower chance of cardiovascular disease death. That was especially true when compared to the participants who drank at least one cup of green tea every day.
Black Tea
Black tea earns its distinct dark hue due to its oxidation time. Most teas are oxidized, which means their leaves are browned to bring out their aroma and flavor. Compared to green tea, black tea goes through much longer oxidation periods. That gives it a different flavor from green tea even though they both are made from the same plant.
Hailing from China, black tea was once known as red tea in that country since the tea can take on a red hue if you carefully process and oxidize it.
One cup of black tea, or 237 grams, contains 2 calories. You’re also ingesting 7 milligrams of sodium, 88 grams of potassium, 0.7 grams of total carbohydrates, and 47 milligrams of caffeine.
You can reap a whole heaping of health benefits by incorporating black tea into your diet on a fast (and during non-fasting times as well). Let’s take a closer look at these perks now:
- Can help with focus: If you’re struggling to focus, the L-theanine in black tea could help. This amino acid, when combined with caffeine, also makes you feel more alert.
- Could lower cancer risk: In 2006, the journal Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry found that black tea’s polyphenols can impact how well cancer cells can live in the body. Green tea may possibly have a similar role in inhibiting the growth of cancer cells.
- May lessen your risk of stroke: Black tea is also a useful beverage to drink for lower stroke risk. A 2013 study in the Annals of Epidemiology included nearly 195,000 participants. The group that consumed three cups of green or black tea every day lowered their chances of stroke by around 21 percent.
- Could enhance gut health: Not only does a healthier gut keep your digestion on track, but you could avoid developing cancer, obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and inflammatory bowel disease, says the Journal of Translational Medicine. Black tea is rich in polyphenols that may prevent unhealthy bacteria from propagating but encourage good bacteria to grow.
- May combat heart disease: Black tea has plenty of flavonoids, a type of antioxidant group that can control obesity, triglycerides, high cholesterol, and blood pressure. This could ward off heart disease according to a 2007 study in the American Journal of Medicine. You do have to drink black tea often to keep your heart in tip-top shape though.
Herbal Tea
Another great type of tea to drink on an intermittent fast is herbal tea. In some parts of the world, this tea goes by the name tisane. It’s made by boiling water until it’s hot, then steeping plant materials like spices and herbs into the water. For that reason, some people consider black and green teas as true teas and herbal teas not so because they’re not sourced from the Camellia sinensis plant.
Depending on the type of herbal tea you drink, its nutritional profile is different. Most herbal teas contain zero to 2 calories while others may have 1 gram or fewer carbohydrates.
Herbal tea can still benefit your health in a multitude of ways, just as green or black tea could. Let’s take a closer look at how:
- Lessens stress: By mixing chamomile and other soothing herbs in your tea, you can eliminate the day’s daily stresses. Even better, herbal tea may be able to alleviate depression naturally and help you fall asleep. Both those benefits will certainly keep your stress down.
- Could reduce nausea: If your stomach is upset, brew a cup of herbal tea. You might not feel much like drinking, but the tea can calm your stomach so you feel better faster. Drink licorice, peppermint, fennel, honey lemon, chamomile, or ginger tea for this purpose specifically.
- May strengthen your immune system: Fasting already bolsters your immune system, and drinking herbal tea on top of that can make it even stronger. Most varieties of herbal teas are loaded with vitamins and antioxidants for keeping your immune system running its best. These include licorice root, ginger, echinacea, and elderberry teas.
- Could help you lose weight: Since herbal tea has so few calories, if any, it’s a much smarter beverage to drink when fasting and not fasting alike. By adding ingredients like lemongrass, fennel, and psyllium husk to your herbal tea, you can aide your metabolism and even activate fat burning.
- May turn back the hands of time: Everyone wants to look younger. With herbal tea, it may be possible. The antioxidants in the tea can stop damage from free radicals and improve cell function so your skin has that youthful glow.
Conclusion
Feeling thirsty on your intermittent fast but you don’t want to drink another cup of water? Whether you prefer green tea, black tea, herbal tea, or even all three, you can stay in a fasted state, burn fat, and enjoy a whole host of other health benefits with these great teas. Happy sipping!