Suppose that you take your supplements at the same time each day. What should you do on your intermittent fasting days with regard to the supplements? Take them anyway without food, with the next available meal, or just skip them?
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I think you need to start with the metabolic goals of intermittent fasting (IF); things like minimizing insulin and blood glucose levels, while also using up at least some of the muscle glycogen stores. Fasting also gives the body's metabolic waste processing systems a little break, since the by-products of digesting food are minimized when you're not eating. With that in mind, the question about supplements is whether they interfere with the goals. Certainly, if you consume fat in any amount to help increase absorption, or if the supplements are contained in a fat carrier, fat is food, so if you take those, you are no longer really fasting. Some vitamins and minerals can also have a significant effect on various aspects of metabolism. Based on the above, it seems to me that to eliminate the possibility of accidentally taking something that defeats the metabolic goals of IF, it's probably a good idea to skip supplements too, and just stick with water. |
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Any supplements that require, say fat, to be absorbed effectively might as well be skipped I'd say. You'd have to go through your list of supplements and decide on that basis whether or not they would be useful without food.
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I take mine regardless of whether I'm fasting or feasting. Then again, I tolerate mine well without food. My wife, on the other hand, needs food in her stomach when she takes them or she'll get nauseous. And, like Anna said, if there are any that require food, fat, etc, in order to be absorbed properly, you'll need to take that into account. I take mine with a lot of fish oil to help with that. |
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Curiously my 2-3 days a week IF has morphed into everyday 24 hour fasts. I started skipping breakfast and eating later in the afternoon and this has slowly moved to eating once every 24 hours so I just take my supplements with my evening meal so no problems. This hasn't been a conscious deliberate thing and some days if I get hungry earlier I eat but not often. The lack of hunger is amazing and a heavy workout seems to help even more with it. |
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In the morning I take COQ10 and Vitamin C and the rest at night. The COQ10 shoots my energy through the roof so something needed during the day and not wanted at night. IDK have been losing weight and getting stronger thats all that matters. Did my first good chin up ever. I couldn't even get them back when I was 25lbs lighter 10 years ago. |
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Taking supplements will not break your fasted state, as long as the supplements you're taking have no caloric density. For example: fish oils and ClA - no Creatine, caffeine tabs, zero cal BCAAs - yes |
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