Fasting refers to a designated period of abstaining from eating for religious, health, or other reasons.
When fasting, hydration is particularly important due to electrolyte shifts in your body.
While water is the gold standard when it comes to staying hydrated, some people prefer alternatives like lemon water. That said, you may wonder whether lemon water can break a fast.
Although lemon water is generally safe to drink during a fast, this guidance may depend on whether it contains any added ingredients, as well as the purpose of your fast.
This article covers the details of whether lemon water breaks your fast.
Lemon water contains minimal calories and nutrients. A 16-ounce (470-mL) glass provides (1Trusted Source):
Fat: 0 grams
Calories: 9
Carbs: 3 grams
Sugar: 1 gram
Fiber: 1 gram
Protein: 0 grams
Is lemon water safe to drink while fasting?
In strict terms, consuming any number of calories will break a fast. That said, human metabolism is complex and doesn’t operate like an on-and-off switch.
In reality, drinking plain lemon water, which contains minimal calories, is unlikely to affect your fast.
In fact, a large study in 1,422 fasting individuals permitted herbal tea with honey and freshly squeezed fruit or vegetable juice. The participants maintained ketosis — a common indicator of a fasting state — while consuming these beverages.
That said, if you add calorie-containing ingredients like sugar to lemon water, it will kick you out of your fast.
Reasons for fasting
When deciding whether to drink lemon water, consider the reason for your fast.
If you’re fasting for weight loss, your allowance for small numbers of calories throughout the day is fairly high.
You should still achieve sizable weight loss even while consuming very few calories during a fasting period. In fact, some fasting diets allow up to 800 calories per day.
Yet, if you’re fasting for medical or religious purposes, the calorie tolerance may be much lower. Sometimes these fasts call for little to no calorie intake.