Fruit juice for breakfast on the No-Breakfast Plan? Or even whole fruit? Since fruits and fruit juices are full of (natural) sugars, and in the case of juice, fast-acting sugars, it’s fairly plain that they will stimulate your insulin response and your hunger.
But it’s understandable that some people think that fruit juice is allowed on the No-Breakfast Plan. Paul C. Bragg, in ‘The Miracle of Fasting,’ speaks of the No-Breakfast Plan but then says it allows fruit. The Diamonds in ‘Fit for Life’ say the body isn’t ready for food in the mornings, but allow fruit (which is a food) during breakfast hours. Ori Hofmekler in ‘The Warrior Diet’ wants you to divide up your day into fasting and feasting periods— but allows juices, fruit and vegetable, during ‘fasting.’
This is wrong. Fasting is not eating, though drinking water is allowed. Some fasting experts also allow certain calorie/carb-free beverages, like tea, coffee, and herbal tisanes (‘herb tea.’) But others reject that. And adding food— especially a carb-filled food that diabetics should not be having— to a fast is breaking the fast.
There is no such thing as juice fasting. “Health nuts” and the manufacturers of high-end juicing machines have been talking about ‘juice fasting’ for years, but a juice diet is not fasting. It does not have the benefits of true fasting. There are people who because of health issues (like diabetes) cannot go on a juice diet, but who can fast (once a doctor adjusts their medications.)
The No-Breakfast Plan is about fasting. It’s beginner-level fasting for just a short time during the day. Since daily hormonal changes make people the least hungry at breakfast time, and the most hungry in the evenings at supper time, the No-Breakfast Plan takes advantage of this to let you fast at the easiest time of day.
Fruit is a problem. Early humans didn’t have the kind of specially bred, sweet and tasty fruits available. They certainly didn’t have them year-round at the grocery store. So humans are not adapted to be fruit eaters or fruitarians. Dr. Richard K. Bernstein, author of ‘Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution’ and ‘The Diabetes Diet’, who is a Type 1 diabetic, has not eaten any fruit for decades. He eats a low-carb diet, which along with his insulin controls his diabetes. His example shows that you don’t need fruit to live.
Fasting, including the No-Breakfast Plan, gives your body a break. When you are eating, your body has to produce insulin— maybe too much insulin, if you have Insulin Resistance as so many of us do. Your body has to digest the food— three times a day, or more if you eat snacks. And your mind has to plan meals, and perhaps cook and clean up after them. On the No-Breakfast Plan, your body gets a daily break from these things in the morning.
Fruit eating is not fasting. Eating fruit breaks your fast, and takes you off the true No-Breakfast Plan into some fruit-eating plan. Now, your body may be in good enough shape that you can eat a little fruit from your own garden, in season. But not while you are fasting! Eating while fasting is like having sex during celibacy or committing murders while ‘respecting all life.’ A contradiction in terms.
What the No-Breakfast Plan is. It is extending the natural fasting we do every night while we are asleep. There is no law that compels us to start eating at 7 or 8 in the morning. There is no law that insists that you must have 3 large meals every day. At some periods of history two meals were the norm, anyway. When you are on the No-Breakfast Plan, in the mornings you drink water. Perhaps pure distilled water. And you may have certain calorie/carb-free beverages such as tea, coffee and herbal tisanes.
On longer fasts many people need a little home-made bone broth to help them through it. Dr. Jason Fung even allows people to add a bit of cream or MCT oil to a beverage to help them get through. But on the No-Breakfast Plan, it’s best not to make use of the broth unless you have persistent hunger that will drive you to eat before the appropriate time. (If you are very new to the No-Breakfast Plan, you might plan on consuming broth in the mornings at first, and stopping it when you are used to morning fasting.)
The No-Breakfast Plan can help you get started doing longer, more intense fasts, and has benefits of its own when you don’t do longer fasting, but it’s important to gain real fasting knowledge to do it correctly. The Complete Guide to Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore is perhaps the best source of information— please consider reading it.
Recommended books for the No-Breakfast Plan:
Note that the Dewey book is very old-fashioned and not up-to-date or based on modern research. But it's interesting from a historical perspective.
