Green Tea Fasting
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated July 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
Fasting and drinking green tea pair together exceptionally well. Fasting (aka not eating food) activates the protective healing state of autophagy throughout the body, increasing cellular breakdown of old and dying cell while simultaneously repairing cellular structures and creating the conditions for the growth of new healthy cells. Activating autophagy is a key step in healing from many illness and diseases.
Meanwhile green tea decreases appetite while increasing fat metabolism. Simultaneously green tea fasting burns body fat, heals the gut, resets the microbiome, and lowers inflammation throughout the body. Drinking green tea while fasting is a very effective way to synergize the health effects of both for maximum healing and restorative potential.
In this article I discuss the health benefits of fasting and green tea independently, the science of how each works, how they can be combined together for maximum effect, and my experience in performing a 48 hour green tea fast.
Together the digestive system and microbiome are the foundation of health from which everything else is dependent on.
The Holistic Gut Health Guide contains all the information you need to identify and understand the gastrointestinal and microbiome problems you may have while also providing you the most effective natural methods you can use to heal your gut. No gut health problems are unsolvable, give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Some of the information in the Holistic Gut Health Guide isn’t common knowledge but when implemented it is highly effective in healing the gut and shifting the microbiome towards symbiosis. Give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
What is Fasting?
Fasting is abstinence from food and drinks. Most fasting is done wet, whereas dry fasting is done without even drinking water. In the absence of nutrients from food, fasting triggers a large metabolic shift, dramatically increasing fatty acid oxidation from body fat as muscle and liver glycogen becomes depleted, and after 48 to 72 hours ketones are produced to keep the brain running happily. In this catabolic zero-calorie state, fasting activates protective cellular mechanisms which safeguard lean body mass while preferentially burning visceral body fat (1). By mildly stressing the body via nutrient deprivation, fasting slows the process of aging, can heal chronic disease, and heals the digestive system (2) all because of the increased level of autophagy (3).
Autophagy is the cellular process in which unnecessary or dysfunctional cellular components are removed and possibly recycled. Autophagy is always happening throughout the body, but during a fast it ramps up dramatically in scale and scope, akin to a deep spring cleaning. The protective cellular mechanisms of autophagy is one of the main reasons fasting has such powerful therapeutic effects on human metabolism, the immune system, disease, and healthspan.
Fasting can be done for various lengths of time and to different degrees of restriction. Fasting is most commonly practiced intermittently, on alternate days, or over longer durations. It is really important with fasting that adequate water is consumed everyday; 1 gallon a day being recommended. A lot of water that our body uses comes from the food we eat, so with the removal of food, if water intake is kept the same, then dehydration will occur.
While fasting only drink pure spring water or water that is filtered of all contaminates like chlorine and fluoride. Again the goal with fasting is to be extremely discretionary with the chemicals entering into the body, as every chemical has an impact on metabolism and will be used or filtered in some way.
Health Benefits of Green Tea
Green tea is a liquid beverage created from the leaves and leaf buds of Camellia sinensis, a small evergreen tree native to East Asia. Tea leaves can be processed differently to create green, black, yellow, white, oolong, and fermented teas. Green tea is made from tea leaves that haven’t undergone heavy oxidation like with black tea, and because of this the caffeine levels are lower in green tea and the polyphenol count is higher.
Freshly collected green tea leaves
Polyphenols are plant compounds that have many health benefits, and there are thousands of different types of polyphenols. In tea the dominant polyphenols are catechins, the most abundant being epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Other beneficial flavonoids such as quercetin are also present in green tea leaves. Green tea antioxidants like EGCG are anti-inflammatory and activate metabolism.
Green Tea Health Benefits:
Green tea can reduce belly fat (4)
Green tea can lower blood pressure (5)
Green tea can help with acne (6)
Green tea is good for skin (7)
Green tea can normalize blood glucose (8)
Acutely experiencing these health benefits from tea drinking is dose dependent, requiring quite a few cups to notice. Over time with consistent green tea consumption as part of a healthy diet, these health effects will holistically manifest.
Besides consistent usage, there are other strategies that can be employed to enjoy the health benefits of green tea more potently. First, using a high quality tea is paramount. Most green tea you buy at the store is heavily oxidized and contaminated with pesticides (11) which negates many of the health benefits you’d drink the tea for. Second, drinking green tea on an empty stomach or while fasting will ensure the green tea EGCG and other catechins won’t be buffered out and can strongly exert their anti-inflammatory effects on the digestive system, liver, kidneys, and throughout the body.
For green tea fasting you’ll want to use a high quality tea free of oxidation and contamination. When fasting and precisely limiting what enters into the body, using a fresh high quality green tea is all the more important. The fresher and more potent the green tea, the stronger the appetite suppression and fat burning effects experienced.
Green Tea Amplifies Fasting
Green tea works synergistically with fasting because it helps reduce appetite, increase fat oxidation, and increases energy expenditure (12). The caffeine, L-theanine, and catechins such as EGCG found in green tea blend to create a unique effect. The caffeine and catechins stimulate the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response), which reduces appetite while increasing thermogenesis in the body. Green tea catechins lower ghrelin (13), a hunger hormone while increasing energy expenditure by up to 4% over a 24 hour period (14). Fat oxidation is also measurably increased by pairing caffeine and green tea catechins together (15). Fasting places the body into a catabolic state of autophagy and fat burning, and green tea amplifies this effect while also making the fast easier to adhere to by reducing appetite and hunger.
Fasting is a parasympathic activity which relaxes the body, whereas green tea activates the sympathetic nervous system which is stimulatory. This apparent mismatch is brought into harmony by L-theanine, an amino acid naturally found in green tea. L-theanine noticeably reduces stress and anxiety (16) and increases relaxation via stronger alpha brain wave activity (17, 18). It is for these reasons that green tea fasting is such a powerful therapeutic technique. The L-theanine is also what makes green tea a great meditation and sleep aid.
Green Tea for Gut Health
One of the main reasons to perform a green tea fast is to improve your gut health. Fasting heals the tissues of the gut and resets the immune system located there, and green tea boosts these effects thanks to its high concentrations of polyphenols. Polyphenols strengthen tight junctions (19), diversify the microbiome (20), and function as a digestive aid (21). Green tea polyphenols are responsible for these benefits, and through these cellular effects green tea can reduce bloating, constipation, IBS, leaky gut, and other gut maladies. Drinking a peppermint green tea blend is especially effective in helping to restore normal gut function during or outside of a fast.
Fasting can be used to reset the digestive system and microbiome, and green tea will amplify the effects of this by supporting healthy gut flora like Lactobacillus spp and Bifidobacterium spp while having antimicrobial effects on microorganisms considered harmful (22). A well diversified and balanced microbiome reduces bloating, calms the digestive system, and ensures good motility (aka regular bowel movements), factors which translate to real world benefits such as better energy and more stable emotional well being.
I have a lot of experience with fasting for digestive health and detoxing, and I wanted to see if adding green tea to a longer fast would synergistically aid the fasting process by:
Smoothing out the energy swings of fasting
Act as an appetite suppressant
Exerting anti-inflammatory gut healing and detoxifying effects
At the end of the article I share my experience performing a 2 day green tea fast, but before that let’s learn about the different types of fasting and how to choose a good green tea.
Types of Fasting
Many different fasting protocols exists, each having their own unique benefits. Shorter fasts are easier to complete than longer fast, and because they are shorter in duration their effect on health will be less than that of a longer fast. We’ll start with the easiest type of fast to complete, the 16 hour intermittent fast.
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting (IF) is a 16:8 protocol where on some schedule, typically everyday, fasting is done for 16 hours followed by an 8 hour window where eating is permitted. Intermittent fasting is a good protocol for improving body composition (23) as it can make sticking with a lower calorie diet easier while simultaneously improving nutrient partitioning. If resistance training, eating in a caloric surplus while intermittently fasting will improve build muscle, keep fat accumulation low, and optimize hormones.
Green tea intermittent fasting is one way to boost the metabolism while simultaneously helping to heal the digestive system. If starting an intermittent fast at 6 pm, the addition of green tea in the morning around 8 am further boosts fat oxidation and keeps appetite low until lunch time.
24 Hour Fasting
A 24 hour fast is eight hours longer than an intermittent fast, and in my experience is best scheduled from dinner to dinner. With the last meal before the fast at 6 PM, by 6 AM the next day the fast is already halfway completed. All the benefits of IF are observed with a 24 hour fast, with the added benefit that the digestive system has more time to heal before the next meal. When food is constantly being consumed, the gut is under stress to digest. Digesting food 24/7 and keeping the immune system on high alert for pathogenic organisms constantly allows for no time to rest and repair the digestive system. A twenty four hour fast is long enough for the digestive system to heal and partially regenerate up to 20% with new epithelial cells.
A 24 hour fast is a short enough time period that anyone can easily survive it with few if any complications, but 24 hours is a long enough period of time without nutrients for microorganisms. When the microbiome needs a quick reset and balance, fasting for 24 hours is an easy way to do so, and drinking green tea throughout makes it even easier.
A 24 hour fast is also a great experiment to perform if wondering how food cravings and physiological hunger differ in their psychological effects. A microbiome used to feeding on quick digesting junk food will release neurotransmitters causing food cravings once it begins to experience starvation. Except for rare situations, the human body easily carries enough bodyfat to stay energized for 24 hours without food, and therefore physiological hunger shouldn’t be experienced during that time window, so a 24 hour fast is a good way to learn how to identify and curb food cravings.
48 Hour Fasting
A 48 hour fast is two 24 hour fasts done back to back. A 48 hour fast isn’t much harder than a 24 hour fast and the reward is worth the extra effort. After about 36 to 48 hours liver glycogen becomes completed depleted and ketosis begins. Ketosis is a metabolic state that occurs in response to low glucose availability, such as during fasting or with a very low carbohydrate diet. During ketosis, ketones are produced from fat and used as an energy source for the brain. A 48 hour fast takes you right to the edge of ketosis and will better adapt the metabolism to the use of both dietary fat and body fat for energy which is highly desirable.
Without any food, from the 24 to 48 hour mark the microbiome will experience a significant die off. Pathogenic and commensal microbes which don’t work synergistically with their human host are most affected, whereas symbiotic microorganisms survive in greater numbers during this period of nutrient depletion. Upon re-feeding with healthy food, the microbiome with bounce back quickly, now containing a greater diversity and percentage of symbiotic microorganisms. 48 hours is also a longer time for the gut to be undisturbed with digestion, and more cellular healing can take place, up to 40%.
72 Hours or Longer Fasting
Longer periods of fasting like a 72 hour fast, seven day fast, and multi-week fasts all have their own unique benefits. A 72 hour fast will take you 1+ days into ketosis and body fat will begin to be used as the primary fuel source of the body.
It’s here that I must mention what may happen once body fat becomes a primary fuel source. One reason many people accumulate excess body fat is because they are ingesting too many environmental toxins from the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe. The body already being overly stressed from other lifestyle factors decides to delay the processing of these toxins by sequestering them in body fat. Though the toxins accumulated in body fat will slowly cause chronic health problems, their immediate effects aren’t experienced. When body fat begins to be burned due to fasting, if toxins have accumulated in this body fat due to lifestyle and environmental factors, then flu-like symptoms might be experienced as the toxins are processed and expelled from the body.
Because of this, depending on your state of health, fasting for longer than 48 hours can cause you to begin experiencing the effects of eliminating accumulated toxins from your body, leaving you temporarily feeling sick. While feeling sick is never fun, this is fundamentally a good thing because when locked in body fat these toxins can cause chronic health issues over time, and when processed during fasting, autophagy helps to mitigate the acute damage toxins cause during release and expulsion. If toxins have accumulated in the body, there is no easy way around the problem, fasting being the safest way possible to eliminate them from the body. If experiencing any odd flu-like symptoms during a longer fast, heat therapy like sauna usage will help to protect the body from the toxins being expelled from the body and hasten their exit.
A seven day fast will burn a lot of body fat, and if done safely, longer fasts are an excellent way to rapidly experience body recomposition and reduce the health risks from being overweight or obese. With a seven day fast, major organs of the body like the liver will be deep into autophagy cleaning up cellular damage, and the size of these organs will actually reduce. Upon refeeding, cellular proliferation in these tissues skyrockets from the replenishment of growth factors. A 72 hour fast will also trigger stem cell regeneration of an old damaged immune system (24), which has wide implications for the treatment of immune system disorders. With long fasts it is important to be especially mindful of how you feel and implement the necessary recovery practices as needed.
After having gone though a large detoxification process, it is very important to break a fast with high quality food free of chemical contaminants like dangerous pesticides.
How to Break a Fast
The length of the fast determines how mindful you should be of your first meal after the fast. I recommend breaking a fast with a small salad (zero dressing) with a side of lightly roasted squash like zucchini These vegetables will be easy on the stomach and feeds the microbiome in a helpful way. With a 24 hour dinner to dinner fast, after this meal you can have breakfast like normal the next day, or perhaps a small snack of pumpkin seeds or walnuts later in the night.
For a 48 hour fast, break the fast with the same salad and zucchini meal, and after 1-2 hours either have another light meal, having a healthy breakfast the next morning. A 72 hour fast can be broken the same as a 48 hour fast, and fasts longer than 3 days will require 1-3 days of mindful eating to ease the gut back into digestion. After the first refeed meal, drink 24-32 oz of water to flush the digestive system with liquid again and to prevent any possible dehydration post-fast.
As touched on, food quality is paramount, especially after a fast. Use every green tea fast as a catalyst to increase the overall quality of your diet. To reduce your exposure to chemicals and low nutrient quality foods, shop for the following:
Non-gmo and organic. Ideally biodynamically grown
Whole and unprocessed
Grass-fed, pasture raised (for meat and eggs)
Not packaged in plastic
These recommendations hold true for the green tea you’ll use during a green tea fast. Since most store bought green tea is of low quality, you want to nourish your body during a fast with only the best green tea.
Choosing the right Green Tea
The biggest recommendations I can give regarding green tea usage are as follows:
Be mindful of total caffeine intake. While green tea doesn’t contain as much caffeine as coffee (40-60 mg vs 100mg per cup), after a few cups of tea it does begin to add up. Caffeine is a stimulant and exerts changes on adenosine receptors in the brain and is best used responsibly. To learn more about caffeine read my Caffeine Usage and Tolerance Reset Guide.
Pesticide exposure. Tea is a very popular beverage, and most tea is grown the same way much of the world’s food supply is, with mass amounts of chemical pesticides. While green tea polyphenols help heal the gut and diversify the microbiome, pesticides like glyphosate do the opposite, degrading the barriers of the gut and killing the microbiome indiscriminately. It is important for this reason to only use high-quality tea grown without pesticides, which has the added benefit of supporting growers who use regenerative organic farming practices.
Oxidation. Depending on how tea is processed, distributed, and stored, the level of oxidation it has experienced can vary dramatically. Minced tea leaves in breathable tea bags which were exposed to variable temperatures and light end up at the store heavily oxidized. These tea products are also typically the most contaminated with pesticides too as the overall food quality standards followed are poor. Once green tea polyphenols become oxidized, they exert little to zero beneficial effects on the body.
Those usage recommendations narrow the selection of desirable green teas by a lot unfortunately. Most tea products available at a grocery store are of low quality.
Luckily there exist many different tea suppliers online who sell regenerative organic green tea free of pesticide exposure. My favorite supplier is Mountain Rose Herbs. Simply bring water to 170 F (75) and steep the green tea leaves for 5-8 minutes and enjoy a cup of perfection.
When time is short or hot water isn’t available then I recommend the use of cold-brew extracted tea crystals. Pique Tea sells green tea crystals in small convenient packets which easily dissolve into hot or cold water. Pique tea sources from regenerative organic green tea farmers throughout Asia to make their tea crystals.
Pique tea packets make sticking with a fast easier because if low energy, nausea, or a food craving hits, at home or on the go, it is very simple to mix a packet into a cup water and enjoy a flavorful zero-calorie beverage, mitigating the issue due to the unique health benefits of green tea.
Matcha Green Fasting Tea Review: 10/10
The matcha green tea has excellent flavor and can be enjoyed as soon as it is stirred in. The polyphenols in the matcha tea are very high, which is great for healing the digestive system, but big gulps can be slightly nauseating for some, so sip slowly.
Ingredients:
Proprietary green tea blend
Ceremonial grade matcha
Organic peppermint
Details:
Caffeine: 48 - 72 mg
Antioxidants: 294 - 441 mg
L-theanine: 27 - 40 mg
Ginger Green Fasting Tea Review: 10/10
The ginger green tea has a unique pleasant flavor thanks to the ginger and other ingredients. The ginger will soothe an upset stomach. The caffeine and L-theanine found in green tea makes it slightly energizing in a calm focused way.
Ingredients:
Proprietary green tea blend
Ginger, orange peel, lemon peel, licorice root, peppermint
Details:
Caffeine: 33 - 39 mg
Antioxidants: 218 - 327 mg
L-theanine: 15 - 23 mg
Use the coupon code WILDFREEORGANIC for 5% off at Pique Tea.
How to Brew tea
For hot tea, bring water to 170 F and either pour over tea leaves for steeping or stir in tea crystals. An easy way to know your water is at 170 F is when small bubbles begin to form at the bottom of the kettle. At 180 F steam begins to form. Using water hotter than 170 F (75 C) is more likely to make the green tea bitter in flavor. Steep for 5-8 minutes.
My Green Tea Fasting Experience
Doing a green tea fast was surprisingly easy. The first 48 hour fast I did as a vegetarian left me a little light headed at times. At the time I wasn’t eating enough fats from sources like avocado, dairy, and olive oil, and my protein intake was lower.
At the time of this 48 hour green tea fast, I was vegetarian already for 4 months. This time with the addition of green tea to the fast I didn’t run into any of the low blood sugar level problems from before. I made sure the last meal I had before the green tea fast contained plenty of fat and fiber, which certainly was a contributing factor to how easy this two day fast was. The last meal was nutrient dense and digested nicely for a long time. The addition of drinking green tea everyday also boosted my morning and afternoon energy levels by increasing usage of body fat for energy.
When fasting for longer there is sometimes a strong desire to eat food at the end of the first day. With this green tea fast I did I noticed this desire was eliminated. The addition of green tea helped to quell my appetite while increasing fat oxidation. It is my experience that when green tea fasting you are less likely to break a fast due to food cravings than if you had been fasting without green tea consumption.
Green Tea Fasting Journal
I started my fast at 7:30 pm after dinner. The meal you have before a fast is important in determining how your fast will play out, so it is very important to eat a healthy meal of unprocessed foods with plenty of satiating fiber and fat. My dinner was a grain bowl consisting of a bed of brown rice, black beans, quinoa, and tempeh, with roasted butternut squash, avocado, chia seeds, and a Lebanese garlic spread on top. In addition to the grain bowl I also had a small salad of homegrown kale and swiss chard drizzled with honey.
A grain and vegetable bowl is a good last meal to eat before starting a fast
Throughout the 48 hour fast my body was digesting the meal above from start to finish, and with no new food coming in, the digestive system and microbiome is encouraged to extract as much out of the meal as possible. If you were to eat a highly processed meal with acellular carbs before a fast (like spaghetti or bread), the fast will be much more difficult as the food will be completely digested much faster. Processed foods digest much faster and will cause greater swings in energy, which can lead to food cravings and unhealthy eating behaviors.
14 hours into my green tea fast (9:30 am) in the morning of the next day, I experienced a bit of stomach growling but no hunger. I brewed a hot cut of matcha that quieted my stomach down and boosted my energy.
20 hours into my fast (3:30 pm) I had yet to experience any energy swings. I had a cup of the ginger green fasting tea at 2:30 pm and everything remained calm and focused.
25 hours into the fast (8:30 pm) I was getting ready for bed and did some meditation beforehand. It was very easy to slip into a calm deep meditative state, and I attribute this to the green tea fasting.
34.5 hours into the green tea fast (6:00 am) I woke up. L-theanine in green tea has been found to improve sleep quality, and I certainly noticed this as I slept better than normal and woke up refreshed. Once up on day two everything felt good even after not eating for over 34 hours.
37 hours into my fast (8:30 am) I had a cup of passion fruit green tea which was delightful and kept my energy levels stable.
45 hours into my fast (4:30 pm) I went for a 3 mile walk which was of no difficulty. A couple hours earlier my energy had started to dip slightly, which I attribute to transitioning away from glucose metabolism to ketosis. By the end of my walk my normal energy levels had resumed, and while I didn’t have a ketosis test on hand to confirm I was in ketosis, having fasted many times I was confident that I was beginning to transition into ketosis.
48 hours after starting the green tea fast I consumed my refeed meal which was a small salad, butternut squash, and some mushroom pho with rice noodles. Once food hit my palate I became really hungry and after the meal pictured below I also had a few tablespoons of cashew, almond, and walnut nut butter. This fast was the easiest and most successful fast I have done to date, and I attribute this to the addition of high quality green tea.
Here is the meal I broke the 48 hour green tea fast with. Mushroom pho, a mixed green salad, and butternut squash
9.5 hours after breaking the green tea fast I woke up with a slight headache, went back to sleep, and when I woke up again later the headache was still lingering. I attribute the headache to two things. First, I did not drink enough water on day 2, and after breaking my fast with a too salty bowl of mushroom pho (which is what made it sooo good), the salt dehydrated me further. I should have consumed on day two before and after the refeed meal. Second, transitioning from carbs to ketosis to carb-based metabolism all in 12 hours might have caused some energy metabolism difficulties for my brain. If I could go back I would have eliminated the carbohydrate-rich mushroom pho from the refeed meal and saved it for breakfast the next day.
A couple of days after the fast everything was normal but digestion and sleep were much improved. I also had less cravings for heavily processed acellular carbs like gluten-free breads and noodles. Now I’m pretty content munching on nuts, seeds, and dried fruit for snacks rather than day dreaming of less healthy options.
Final Recommendations
Based on my experience with both fasting and green tea fasting, I prefer green tea fasting hands down. Drinking green tea throughout the fast made it much easier and improved my digestion and balanced my microbiome to a greater degree than fasting alone would have.
Fasting to activate autophagy and to heal the digestive system are two of the most powerful ways the body can be radically healed and transformed from a state of disease and suffering to one of radiant health. Healing the gut can take time, but with the right fasting protocol like the FoodFast Method, the process can be increased tremendously. Add in supplements like green tea, elderberry, and piperine (from black pepper) and gut health can be improved even faster.
If suffering from chronic inflammation, a weak immune system, constant digestive upset, skin conditions, brain fog, or are overweight or obese, green tea fasting is the fastest way I know of to radically transform health and heal from these maladies. After having done a 38 hour green tea fast, I can confirm it was an easy enjoyable process that improved my digestion, increased my fat metabolism, and even improved my sleep.
IMPORTANT - Please only attempt a fast if you are ready, physically and mentally, to go through a period of no food consumption. If this will be dangerous to you, please do not attempt this. All information, content, and material of this website is for informational purposes only and are not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.
If you read all the way here then it’s clear to me that you’re ready to do what it takes to finally restore your digestive system and gut microbiome back to healthy and optimal function.
I wrote the Holistic Gut Health Guide to help you accomplish exactly this! It contains all the information that you need to understand the gastrointestinal system, gut-brain axis, and microbiome in-depth, and the Holistic Gut Health Guide also educates you on the natural methods you can holistically use together like fasting and herbalism to transform your health from the inside out.
I’m so excited to be able to help you along your gut health and overall wellness journey with the Holistic Gut Health Guide! Please contact me with any questions you have and wishing you the best.
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