Does Collagen In Your Coffee Break a Fast? [And RUIN Your Results?]

Mar 31, 20212 min read

If you're looking to improve gut health with Intermittent Fasting, you've probably decided to dabble with collagen as well. Collagen is an amazing source of amino acids specifically tailored to gut healing and skin improvements.(1) BUT should you be having collagen during your fasting period or during your eating window for best results? Today, I'm diving into the details of collagen in your coffee!

Does Collagen Break a Fast?

First, it's important to understand what collagen is made of. Collagen is a protein made of amino acids, one third of which comes from the extremely important amino acid called glycine. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body and we naturally produce it ourselves. However, taking collagen, whether it be in the form of bone broth or collagen supplements, has been found to be useful in gut, skin and joint healing.

This aside, when should you be taking collagen while Intermittent Fasting?

If your main goal with fasting is gut healing, it's important to only stick with water during the fasted state. Intermittent Fasting naturally stimulates the gut cleaning process called the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC) and any food or drink (including collagen) will stop this process. There may arguably be some therapeutic perks to taking collagen in a fasted state, however I typically recommend keeping it during the eating window so as not to disrupt the crucial MMC.

If your main goal with Intermittent Fasting is weight loss, you will still want to keep your collagen intake during your eating window. Collagen contains amino acids which can stimulate a small insulin response. One of the main weight loss perks with Intermittent Fasting is that it keeps insulin (our "fat storing hormone") levels naturally low during the fasted state and allows the body to tap into fat burning mechanisms.(2) The small spike of insulin from collagen in your coffee could disrupt this. The spike might be small enough to not be an issue, but since proteins generally cause an insulin response, it's a safe bet to keep your collagen to your break-fast smoothie or stirred into water during your eating window.