The Upvas journal
Notes on the nri suite.
Field notes, guides, and the thinking behind Upvas.
Latest · 6 min read
Why Your Fasting Blood Sugar Is Higher in the Morning — Even After a Clean Night
High fasting blood sugar in the morning isn't a fasting failure — it's the dawn phenomenon. Here's what your liver is doing at 4 a.m. and how to read the number honestly.
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More from the journal
- 02
Intermittent Fasting and Constipation: Why Fewer Meals Mean Fewer 'Go' Signals
Intermittent fasting constipation is real — fewer meals mean fewer 'go' signals to your colon. Here's the gastrocolic reflex explained, and five fixes that restore your rhythm.
2026-07-12
6 min read
- 03
Intermittent Fasting for Night Shift Workers: How to Set an Eating Window When Your Day Starts at Sunset
Intermittent fasting for night shift workers is possible — once you stop anchoring your eating window to the clock and start anchoring it to your sleep.
2026-07-11
7 min read
- 04
Intermittent Fasting and Your Menstrual Cycle: Why the Same Window Feels Harder Before Your Period
Struggling with intermittent fasting before your period isn't weak willpower — it's luteal-phase biology. Learn why hunger rises and how to flex your window.
2026-07-11
7 min read
- 05
Working Out While Fasting: How to Time Exercise Around Your Eating Window
Working out while fasting isn't a moral test. Here's what your body actually does mid-fast during exercise — and how to time training so hard sessions don't wreck your window.
2026-07-10
7 min read
- 06
Why Intermittent Fasting Gives You Bad Breath — and What That Smell Is Actually Telling You
Intermittent fasting bad breath isn't a hygiene problem — it's a metabolic signal. Here's what that fruity, metallic smell means and how to manage keto breath while fasting.
2026-07-10
7 min read
- 07
Intermittent Fasting While Traveling Across Time Zones: How to Reset Your Eating Window
Intermittent fasting while traveling across time zones works — if you move your eating window, not just your watch. Here's what your gut clock actually listens to.
2026-07-10
7 min read
- 08
Intermittent Fasting and Alcohol: What One Drink Really Does to Your Fasting Window
Intermittent fasting and alcohol don't fail on calories. A drink hijacks the four hours after it — fat burning, appetite, sleep. Here's what actually happens, and how to drink without wrecking your window.
2026-07-09
7 min read
- 09
Why You Feel Dizzy When You Stand Up While Fasting — and the Salt Fix
Feeling lightheaded when you stand up while fasting? It's rarely low blood sugar. Here's the sodium-and-water mechanism behind dizzy spells while intermittent fasting — and how a pinch of salt fixes it.
2026-07-08
6 min read
- 10
Why Intermittent Fasting Makes You Irritable — and How to Stop Being Hangry
If intermittent fasting makes you irritable, it's not a willpower problem — it's a blood-sugar and stress-hormone problem. Here's the real mechanism and how to fix it.
2026-07-08
7 min read
- 11
Why You Lose Weight Fast Then Stall on Intermittent Fasting
Why you lose weight fast then stall on intermittent fasting has a physiological answer: the first drop is water, not fat. Here's how to read the scale honestly.
2026-07-07
6 min read
- 12
Why the Smell of Food Makes You Hungrier While Fasting — and How to Outsmart It
Why smelling food makes you hungry while fasting isn't weakness — it's a conditioned reflex called the cephalic phase. Here's how to see it coming and let it ride out.
2026-07-07
6 min read
- 13
Why a Short Walk Quiets Hunger While Fasting — and How to Use It
Feeling hungry mid-fast? Walking to curb hunger while fasting works for a real reason — light movement lowers ghrelin and lifts your body's satiety signals.
2026-07-07
6 min read
- 14
Why a High-Fiber Dinner Makes Your Morning Fast Easier
The link between fiber and intermittent fasting is quiet but real: a high-fiber dinner steadies overnight blood sugar and makes the next morning's hunger far easier to ride out.
2026-07-06
6 min read
- 15
Real Hunger vs. Habit Hunger: How to Tell Them Apart While Intermittent Fasting
Learn how to tell real hunger from habit hunger while intermittent fasting — the science of homeostatic vs. hedonic appetite, and how to read your body's true signals.
2026-07-06
6 min read
- 16
Why Fasting Makes You Feel Cold — and When It's Nothing to Worry About
Feeling cold when fasting is common and usually harmless. Here's the real reason your hands go chilly in the fasting window — and the signs worth watching.
2026-07-04
6 min read
- 17
Intermittent Fasting on Weekends: How to Keep Your Window When the Routine Disappears
Intermittent fasting on weekends collapses for a predictable reason: the cues that held your window all week disappear. Here's how to bend the window without breaking it.
2026-07-04
6 min read
- 18
16:8 vs 14:10 Intermittent Fasting: How to Choose a Window You'll Actually Keep
16:8 vs 14:10 intermittent fasting: what research really says about window length, why adherence beats ambition, and how to pick a fasting schedule that lasts.
2026-07-04
7 min read
- 19
What to Do When You Break Your Fast Early (Hint: Don't Start Over on Monday)
Broke your fast early? What to do when you break your fast early: the psychology of the slip, why one lapse costs almost nothing, and how to resume tonight.
2026-07-03
7 min read
- 20
How to Stop Late-Night Snacking: Give Your Kitchen a Closing Time
How to stop late night snacking without white-knuckle willpower: why appetite peaks after dark, and how giving your kitchen a closing time ends the 10pm fridge raid.
2026-07-03
6 min read
- 21
Why Fasting Gives You Brain Fog Before It Gives You Focus
Brain fog when fasting isn't a warning sign — it's your brain switching fuel. Here's why the fog comes first, when clarity arrives, and how to ride out the middle.
2026-07-02
6 min read
- 22
Why You Get a Headache When You Fast — and How to Stop It
A headache while intermittent fasting is rarely about food. Learn the real causes — sodium loss and caffeine timing — and how to prevent the fasting headache.
2026-06-27
6 min read
- 23
How Much Protein to Eat When Intermittent Fasting (And Why Hunger Lingers Without It)
How much protein to eat when intermittent fasting, explained through the protein leverage hypothesis — the real reason your eating window feels endlessly hungry, and how one fix quiets it.
2026-06-27
7 min read
- 24
How Long It Takes to Adjust to Intermittent Fasting (And Why the First Week Feels Worst)
How long to adjust to intermittent fasting? Usually a couple of weeks—and the early hunger is a metabolic switch in progress, not a sign you're failing.
2026-06-26
7 min read
- 25
Does Coffee Break a Fast? What You Can Actually Drink in Your Fasting Window
Does coffee break a fast? Here's what black coffee, tea, and zero-calorie drinks really do to insulin and autophagy — and where the line between clean and dirty fasting actually falls.
2026-06-26
7 min read
- 26
How to Do Intermittent Fasting Without Giving Up Family Dinner
Worried intermittent fasting will cost you the family meal? Here's the behavioral science of shared eating—and how to build a fasting window that protects dinner instead of skipping it.
2026-06-24
6 min read
- 27
Why Your Stomach Growls When You Fast (It's Cleaning, Not Starving)
Why does my stomach growl when fasting? Often it isn't hunger at all — it's the migrating motor complex, your gut's built-in housekeeping wave. Here's what that rumble means.
2026-06-23
7 min read
- 28
Why Intermittent Fasting Is Easier Than Dieting: The Power of One Clear Rule
Wondering why intermittent fasting is easier than dieting? It replaces a hundred daily food decisions with one bright-line rule — and that's why it sticks.
2026-06-23
6 min read
- 29
Why Eating at the Same Time Every Day Matters More Than Eating Less
Why eating at the same time every day steadies your metabolism: how regular meal timing entrains your body clock, and how a fixed fasting window makes it automatic.
2026-06-23
7 min read
- 30
Why You Feel Hungry at the Same Time Every Day (And How to Use It While Fasting)
Why am I hungry at the same time every day? Because your body learns your meal schedule. Here's the science of anticipatory hunger—and how to use it to fast without the fight.
2026-06-22
7 min read
- 31
Why an Earlier Dinner Helps You Sleep — and How a Fasting Window Makes It Automatic
Eating dinner too late quietly wrecks your sleep. Here's the circadian science behind why an earlier dinner helps you sleep deeper — and how closing your fasting window earlier makes it effortless.
2026-06-22
7 min read
- 32
Why Hunger Comes in Waves When You Fast (and What That Tells You)
Why hunger comes and goes when fasting instead of climbing endlessly: how ghrelin's timed pulses work, why the urge fades on its own, and how to ride the waves.
2026-06-21
7 min read
- 33
Staying Hydrated While Fasting: Why the Afternoon Slump Is Often Thirst, Not Hunger
Staying hydrated while fasting is harder than it looks. Here's the real physiology behind the afternoon headache and slump—and why salt, not just water, often fixes it.
2026-06-20
7 min read
- 34
How to Break a Fast Properly: Why the First Meal Matters More Than the Fast Itself
Learn how to break a fast properly without bloating or a sugar crash. A warm, science-grounded guide to the first meal after a vrat — what to eat, in what order, and why.
2026-06-18
7 min read
- 35
Building a Year-Round Vrat Rhythm
Building a sustainable year-round vrat rhythm is less about willpower than design: anchoring Ekadashi and weekly fasts to a life so the days return on their own.
2026-06-11
8 min read
- 36
Nirjala, Phalahar, or Ekbhukt: Choosing How Strictly to Fast
Nirjala, phalahar, or ekbhukt — the three depths of a vrat differ more than people think. A clear guide to choosing how strictly to fast without overreaching or undershooting.
2026-06-09
8 min read
- 37
Navratri Fasting: Nine Nights of Vrat Food
A guide to Navratri fasting and vrat food: what kuttu, singhara, samak and sabudana are for, why sendha namak replaces salt, and how to keep energy across nine nights.
2026-06-05
9 min read
- 38
A Beginner's Map of Hindu Fasts
A beginner's guide to Hindu fasts: how Ekadashi, Pradosh, Purnima, weekly day-fasts and Navratri fit together, and how to choose your first vrat without getting lost.
2026-06-02
8 min read
- 39
Why Your Fast Day Falls Apart by Afternoon
The reasons a vrat falls apart by afternoon are rarely willpower: missed chai, quiet dehydration, and a sugar-heavy morning set up the 3pm crash. Here's how to fix it.
2026-05-28
8 min read
- 40
The Lunar Calendar and the Fasting Body
Why Hindu fasts follow the lunar calendar and what the fasting body actually does on a tithi — a deep look at how the moon's rhythm and your physiology meet on Ekadashi.
2026-05-21
9 min read
- 41
What People Get Wrong About Hindu Fasting
Most assumptions about Hindu fasting are wrong: a vrat is not starvation, sabudana is not light, and fruit is not unlimited. A clearer look at how fasting actually works.
2026-05-14
8 min read
- 42
How to Observe an Ekadashi Fast the Right Way
How to observe an Ekadashi fast properly: the grains you set aside, the phalahar you can eat, and the Dwadashi window that quietly decides whether the fast counted.
2026-05-07
8 min read
- 43
Intermittent Fasting for Indian Dinner Times: The Daily Habit That Finally Sticks
Intermittent fasting for Indian dinner times stops working when the app assumes 7pm. Here's what the habit looks like when it's built around 9pm instead.
2026-04-17
6 min read
- 44
Reading Your Intermittent Fasting Progress Chart Honestly
Your intermittent fasting progress chart probably shows a streak. What it rarely shows is whether you're actually fasting — or just starting timers and calling it close.
2026-03-30
5 min read
- 45
The Fasting Data Your Doctor Actually Wants to See
Most fasting apps give you streaks. But the fasting data your doctor wants is completion rate, weight trend, and why you broke the fast — not just when.
2026-03-12
5 min read