Because we all have busy lives, it is hard for people to be informed about everything. This is one of the reasons why it is easy to get away with scamming people. Taking an IV drip to improve your fasting is a waste of time, money, and honestly does not make a difference. (I know your cousin was never able to fast until he started taking IV drips and now he has no problem fasting. Save your breath.)

I am going to leave all the fancy science jargon to the side for now.

What an IV drip does is insert water into your veins through a needle. The reason for taking an IV drip is that when you drink water out of a bottle it has to go through your digestive system first, and this means it takes longer for your body to absorb. When you use an IV drip, you are bypassing the digestive system, so your body absorbs the water faster, hydrating you faster. (IV drips also have nutrients and things like sodium (sodium is salt essentially), which are important for retaining water but you get all of this through the foods you eat every day.)

This is the only difference between the two. An IV drip hydrates you faster. (An argument can be made to use it on a fast day when you cannot drink water or a sports drink, but that is not what we are discussing. This is about using an IV drip 2 days before a fast.))

I know this is going to blow people’s minds, but you can hydrate by drinking actual water. You turn on the sink, fill a glass with water, and drink it. Congratulations, you are now well on your way to being hydrated.

Taking an IV 2 days before a fast is total bullshit and a waste of time and money. There is no magic woofle dust in it that makes you fast better. All the nutrients, as well as electrolytes, that you need to stay hydrated are all found in a regular balanced diet. (Electrolytes are just a fancy way of saying the group of nutrients that keep humans hydrated.) You don’t have to go to the coast of Africa to find these nutrients. It all exists in the food in your fridge that you eat every day. When they advertise that the IV drips contain all these long fancy words with 7 syllables, they are just trying to make it sound complicated so that you think they are gatekeeping some magic pill that you don’t have access to.

The sad part is that the people who are selling IV drips know this and are doing it regardless. This is something that every first-year nursing student knows. (And everyone else who has ever read a single book on anything related to nutrition or sports science.) Anything for a dollar I guess.

Drink water and fast well my people.