Does Vaping Break a Fast?

Whether you’re a Christian or a Buddhist, fasting is a universal concept in religion. It involves giving up the diet you’re used to having to fulfill what your faith tells you to. The purpose of fasting is wide-ranging. 

However, it is interesting to point out that some habits may break your fast, such as using vapes. The rising popularity of inhaling vapes just encourages more people to try it, including you. But what if you are fasting? Can you vape? This RELX guide will tackle the relationship between vaping and fasting. Does vaping really break a fast?

Before heading over to understanding the uncanny relationship between vaping and fasting, let’s check out what fasting is all about.

If you haven’t tried fasting yet, you might want to as its rewards for your life are promising. The Pew Research Center reveals that fasting is quite popular in the United States, and so is in other parts of the globe, such as in India where most believers of Hinduism are. 

Fasting is a Biblical requisite, as with other religious scriptures, that people must commit to in order to get closer to God or what their religion recognizes as a higher being. This life choice is abstinence from eating, or briefly rejecting what you consider as pleasurable.

Generally, fasting falls under the following types:

 Intermittent fasting: Trending in social media circles, intermittent fasting is rejecting food in your body so it can quickly and efficiently utilize its fat stores for energy. This is more of fasting for health than for faith.  

Religious fasting: Several scriptures from various religions require fasting. Otherwise referred to as Biblical fasting, it is also about abstaining from food or drinks but for the purpose of obeying God’s commands. In some religions like Islam, there are particular days in a year that their followers must fast.  

Medical fasting: This type of fasting is done for medical reasons. Doctors may require patients to fast hours before they undergo into a blood test, for example, prior to undergoing colonoscopy or surgery.

Because fasting is rejecting what’s pleasurable in your life for a short while, this moral standard is also correlated with vaping, which is an activity that gives a person satisfaction. Let’s go ahead clarify and debunk popular myths about the two.

Since vaping may suppress appetite, reducing feelings of hunger or satiating hunger altogether, vaping can break your fast. This is because e-juices contain considerable amounts of calories, especially when they have flavours.

Inhaling vapes and fasting are two opposing concepts. Vaping introduces chemicals into your body, interfering with and counteracting your fasting’s natural cleansing benefits.

Since fasting is also a way for your body to look forward to its normal diet once again, you tend to crave more when you fast. Thus, there’s a misconception that vaping can inhibit your cravings while fasting. It doesn’t. Studies show that vaping actually intensifies your craving sensations.

Johns Hopkins Medicine says this works by stretching further the period when your body has burned away the calories it consumed after your last meal before once again beginning to burn fat. 

So, does vaping contribute to your caloric intake? It definitely can. Vaping gives your body calories, but remember that the amount of calories is very negligible, and won’t impact your weight on a great scale. 

Considering those facts, you might arrive at the conclusion that inhaling vapes may interfere, or maybe even break this fast. Interestingly, it does not, provided you only inhale your device’s vapour and do not consume calories from your meals.

Earlier, you were introduced to the concept of religious fasting, or fasting for spiritual purposes. Unless you are fully devoted to every commandment in your faith, such as being a monk, you won’t find yourself actually adhering to them completely. Thus, you may reach out to your vape from time to time when you are also fasting at the moment. 

You should know that vaping may interfere with your religious fasting. In Islam, for instance, their fasting requires their followers to ditch not only food, but anything that can break the fast, including vapes, which have calorie content like your food. Meanwhile, faiths like Christianity have more lenient rules on fasting, as it mostly just focuses on abstaining from indulgences, an opportunity for its believers to still vape while they fast.

Some vapes contain nicotine, so does this affect your body during fasting? Since nicotine intake during a fast stimulates the nervous system, increases your heart rate, and triggers your cravings, you may find fasting more challenging if you choose to vape while in abstinence. 

Is nicotine consumption a way to break your fast? Insights vary. In stricter fasts, such as Ramadan, nicotine can break the fast as substances are introduced into your body, a big no in the fasting doctrines of Islam. This becomes different in non-religious fasts, such as medical fasting.

Suppose you need to fast for several hours as you are about to undergo into a blood test or surgery. But then again, you might also find the urge to vape. How do the two relate? 

Nicotine-containing vapes may interfere with getting accurate results from a blood test and the function of anesthesia during surgery, just as how nicotine from smoking interferes. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you avoid vaping before undergoing a blood test, surgery, or colonoscopy. 

Here are more tips to keep in mind:

• Do not vape for about 12 hours before a blood test to avoid inaccurate readings.
• Avoid vaping a day before your surgery to minimize complications with the anesthesia.
• Always consult with your doctor to keep guided.

For religious fasting events such as Ramadan, vaping is strictly prohibited due to the ingestion of unhealthy substances. However, if your fast is for health or weight-loss reasons, it is possible to vape during your fast with little adverse side effects.

Yes, it can, but depending on the type of fasting you’re undergoing. For religious fasting, nicotine can break the fast, but for medical fasting, it generally doesn’t, except when nicotine is combined with calorie content.

Yes, vapes generally contain calories, but they are mostly minimal and will never interfere with your diet plan.

The relationship between vaping and fasting has many variables. For example, what are the parameters of the fast? What are the reasons for the fast? And does the e-liquid you use include nicotine?

If you are fasting for health reasons or to lose weight, it's possible to continue vaping and potentially experience benefits due to suppressed appetite and increased autophagy. If you are fasting due to a religious event, the chances are that vaping will be prohibited. Always check with religious authorities and doctors.