The Snake Diet is an extreme intermittent fasting diet founded by self-described fasting coach Cole Robinson. It promotes fasting and then eating in a brief one- to two-hour window. While the Snake Diet website makes numerous claims, including tighter, clearer skin, a revved-up metabolism, and reversal of type 2 diabetes, the diet’s founder is not a qualified healthcare professional (there’s no designated fasting coach credential), and these claims aren’t based in scientific evidence.
The Snake Diet’s claims of health transformations and six-pack abs are alluring, but there are a lot of red flags. So, let’s unpack what the Snake Diet is, what it can (or can’t) help with, and how it’s different from other forms of fasting.
What is the Snake Diet?
Simply put, the Snake Diet promotes prolonged fasting periods. Among other studied forms of fasting, people typically have a 16-hour fasting window, or they fast (or eat very lightly) for two non-consecutive days per week. The Snake Diet, on the other hand, suggests fasting for days at a time. The number of days depends on the individual; the website claims that obese individuals can fast longer than lean ones.
When you start the Snake Diet, you’ll fast for 48 hours. During this period, you may have Snake Juice (more on this below) but nothing else except water. After that, fasting periods vary depending on the person.
When it’s time to eat, you have just one to two hours to do so, which is a much shorter window than the eight-hour refeeding window typical of many intermittent fasting protocols.
Other than that, the main refeeding guideline is not to gorge. And truthfully, this may be hard after fasting for at least 22 hours.
What is Snake Juice?
Snake Juice is designed to provide electrolytes to keep you sufficiently hydrated during your fast. However, each packet of the commercial product has 1,045 mg of sodium, or almost half of the 2,300 mg per day upper limit recommended by our Dietary Guidelines. The…
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