Fasting for non-religious causes – and whether or not it’s good or dangerous for you – has grow to be a sizzling subject within the well being and health area. Everybody has an opinion and so they appear to be getting increasingly keen about it by the day.
Leap into the feedback part of an Instagram submit of fasting and also you’ll see what I imply.
Personally, I get up HUNGRY.
My sister can’t take a look at meals earlier than midday.
I really feel like crap if I don’t eat earlier than figuring out.
My good friend Jules seems like crap if she does eat earlier than figuring out.
Way back to 2019, “intermittent fasting” was some of the searched diet-related phrases on Google and the subject solely appears to have heated up since then.
With all of the hype round fasting, particularly for girls, it’s simple to get caught up within the development. However right here’s the factor: fasting for girls isn’t so simple as it might appear.
After diving into the analysis, my largest takeaway is that this: Regardless of your opinion on fasting, you’ll possible discover analysis to assist your standpoint. However relating to fasting for girls, we have to contemplate some necessary elements, from the analysis gaps to how fasting impacts lively girls’s wants for power, muscle restoration, and hormonal stability. Right here’s what you need to know.
What Is Fasting, Actually?
Fasting merely means taking a break from consuming (and typically ingesting) for a set time frame.
Technically, all of us quick in a single day whereas we sleep—and that fasting window is definitely necessary! It provides our our bodies time to relaxation, restore, and faucet into saved power as a substitute of continually processing new meals. And breakfast is actually the meal after we break the in a single day quick.
This pure “pause” requires that our our bodies dissipate glucose and fatty acids circulating in our blood and faucet into power shops. It trains our our bodies to get higher at processing power.
However What About Longer Fasts?
Some folks deliberately stretch that in a single day quick into an extended break, a apply referred to as intermittent fasting (IF). One of the crucial widespread variations is known as time-restricted consuming (TRE), the place you restrict your consuming to a selected window – typically round 8 hours (or much less) – and quick the opposite 16 hours of the day.
For instance, you would possibly eat dinner at 6 p.m. after which not have any extra energy till 10 a.m. the following day—so that you just’re fasting in periods of low or lowered exercise.
There’s a Lack of Analysis on Fasting for Ladies
A lot of the analysis on fasting has been achieved on males and lots of have solely been achieved on animals. Individuals who assist fasting typically make the leap that findings of these research apply to girls as properly, however that’s a reasonably large leap as a result of girls’s our bodies reply otherwise than males’s (or mice)—particularly relating to lowered calorie consumption, our hormonal cycles, and train.
The huge majority of research on fasting for girls concentrate on sedentary girls and people contemplateed chubby or overweight. However with small pattern sizes it’s exhausting to generalize the findings to lively girls and those that usually are not thought-about chubby or overweight.
We do see that for individuals who are inactive or sedentary, research have proven fasting could be a useful stressor on the system that helps enhance insulin sensitivity, glucose metabolism, amongst different issues.
However in case you are an exerciser or an lively girls or in perimenopause, there’s a main hole within the analysis that makes it even tougher to use the present fasting analysis to your life—particularly relating to understanding how fasting impacts train efficiency and restoration.
Fasting for Weight Loss
The analysis on fasting and weight reduction is kind of clear: on the finish of the day, relating to weight reduction, fasting is actually only a methodology of calorie restriction. Whereas proponents declare fasting has particular metabolic advantages, there’s no stable proof displaying that it’s any more practical than different types of calorie management, like portion management, monitoring your meals consumption, or balanced consuming.
Fasting is only a methodology of lowering your calorie consumption by utilizing the clock to restrict your consumption. And when calorie consumption is managed for, fasting isn’t higher than different “diets” for reaching long-term weight reduction or well being enhancements.
Fasting and Train
Combining fasting and train is the place it will get difficult—particularly for girls. Primarily, it is because fasting and train do comparable issues—they each lower your blood glucose and different necessary molecules circulating in your blood.
So once you mix them and train whereas fasted, you would possibly find yourself with some points.
First, for each women and men, exercising fasted may make your blood sugar ranges go too low and go away you making an attempt to actually run on an empty tank. No gasoline makes it actually exhausting to work out or work out exhausting sufficient to get the outcomes you’re after. It may additionally make you dizzy and cross out.
Second, fasted train is related to decreased efficiency, elevated fatigue, lowered ability, impaired focus, and an elevated notion of effort (so train feels tougher than it ought to). This makes it much less possible that you just’ll have good coaching classes and even need to work out.
Moreover, muscle preservation is crucial for total well being and metabolism, and fasting alone could not do the job in addition to different consuming methods that prioritize protein and carbohydrates for muscle restoration and progress.
For girls who do select to quick or exercise fasted, it’s necessary that they proceed to concentrate on consuming ample meals – particularly protein and carbs – all through the day throughout their feeding window to reduce the danger of low power availability and forestall muscle breakdown and loss.
Self-Consciousness: The Key to Making Sensible Fueling Decisions
Whether or not you’re fasting or following one other consuming plan, self-awareness is crucial. Everybody’s physique is totally different, and which means tuning into your private wants and the way your eating regimen (and train) impacts your power, temper, and efficiency.
And context issues—so do not forget that it’s not nearly skipping that one meal, it’s about the way you’re balancing your wants throughout the day as properly. So what works for one individual, could not be just right for you. And what used to be just right for you, could someday not be acceptable or efficient.
Some girls thrive on fasting, however many others discover that under-eating or fasting interferes with their exercises and restoration.
Everybody’s physique has distinctive wants, and there’s no one-size-fits-all method.
After I introduced up the subject of fasting to my colleague, Jules Mitchell, writer of Yoga Biomechanics: Stretching Redefined, she shared how difficult it may be for individuals who weren’t athletes rising as much as acknowledge their physique’s alerts.
“The older I get, the extra privileged I really feel for having performed sports activities as a child and spent my childhood operating races. At eight years outdated, I realized {that a} half banana earlier than a 10k would make me sick. I’ve been being attentive to my physique’s alerts my entire life. However for those who’re simply now in perimenopause and entering into train, all of the blended messaging should be so complicated.”
Her expertise reminds us that self-awareness isn’t nearly noticing what we really feel in the present day—it’s about understanding how our our bodies reply over time, by way of totally different phases of life and exercise.
If you happen to’re continuously feeling drained, weak, or sluggish throughout your exercises, it is likely to be an indication that you just’re not fueling your physique correctly.
Self-awareness is about listening to your physique and making changes based mostly on how you are feeling, not simply following the most recent development.
Many Lively Ladies Are Usually Below-fueled
One of many key factors that always will get ignored relating to fasting for girls is the problem of under-fueling.
Many lively girls underestimate their complete each day power expenditure (due to all these foolish 1200-1500 calorie eating regimen suggestions that we grew up with) and find yourself consuming too little to satisfy their power calls for. That is very true for girls who do common energy coaching, high-intensity exercises, or endurance coaching.
A 2016 research carried out on 109 feminine leisure exercisers discovered that 45% had been in danger for low power availability – that’s almost half of the ladies recruited from native gyms and health facilities had been in danger on account of under-fueling.
So under-fueling and low power availability aren’t only a concern for “high-level” athletes, any exercising lady could be in danger.
Below-fueling can result in poor restoration, decreased efficiency, and even hormonal imbalances. Ladies who practice exhausting want to make sure they’re consuming ample carbohydrates and protein to gas their exercises and recuperate successfully. With out the right vitamins, your physique can’t rebuild muscle, and it’s possible you’ll expertise fatigue, temper swings, and hormonal disruptions.
In my work as a private coach serving to girls with osteoporosis construct and preserve bone mass, most of my discussions with purchasers encompass consuming extra, not much less.
Dietary Therapist Michaela Smith agrees. She shared her ideas with me:
“The overwhelming majority of ladies I work with are under-fueling already, even those that need to drop a few pounds! Below-eating is a major stressor that may manifest into hormonal imbalance, weight adjustments, and even cognitive adjustments.”
In her apply, she usually doesn’t suggest intermittent fasting for girls. Right here’s why:
- Many ladies are already under-eating, which might contribute to anxiousness, mind fog, overwhelm, and hormonal imbalances.
- Fasting can negatively have an effect on blood sugar, resulting in:
- Drops in blood glucose
- Launch of stress hormones
- A rebound spike in blood sugar
- A “blood sugar curler coaster” that leaves girls feeling off stability by way of power and meals cravings
- There’s restricted analysis on the consequences of fasting on girls, making lengthy fasts a questionable technique.
As a substitute, Michaela recommends the next method to assist regular power and hormonal well being:
- Eat a balanced breakfast inside 30–60 minutes of waking.
- Gas persistently all through the day with common meals and snacks.
- End dinner early sufficient to permit time to digest and profit from a delicate in a single day quick.
- Purpose for a 12-hour window between dinner and breakfast—this helps power metabolism and intestine well being with out over stressing the physique.
“The long-term outcomes I see with the ladies I work with are extra even power, fewer jittery emotions, improved blood sugar response, and extra secure weight. All wins in my e-book!”
When You Eat Issues, However So Does What You Eat
Whereas timing your meals or solely consuming inside a selected window might sound stylish, it’s extra necessary to concentrate on what you eat and whether or not it meets your physique’s wants. Whether or not you’re consuming earlier than or after your exercise, ensure you’re getting sufficient carbohydrates to gas your train and protein to recuperate.
Carbohydrates are your physique’s essential supply of gas for train, and you must replenish glycogen shops after exercises. The amino acids in protein are the constructing blocks for all tissue and helps rebuild muscle, preserve bone, and assist restoration.
For lively girls, this stability is vital—regardless of once you eat. It’s all about giving your physique the vitamins it must recuperate and carry out at its greatest.
If you happen to’re not used to consuming earlier than you’re employed out, however you need to attempt it, begin small with simply 100 energy of easily-digestible, low-fiber carbs or a sports activities drink to keep away from GI misery. Then, over time steadily enhance the energy to coach your system to tolerate meals at the moment of day.
Fasting and Hormonal Well being: A Advanced Relationship
For girls with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), intermittent fasting has proven some promising advantages in bettering insulin sensitivity, regulating blood sugar ranges, and selling hormonal stability. A number of research have steered that fasting can scale back insulin spikes, a key challenge in PCOS, and will assist alleviate signs like irregular menstrual cycles, weight achieve, and zits.
Nonetheless, it’s necessary to notice that the majority of the analysis on fasting for PCOS has been carried out on chubby or overweight premenopausal girls and the findings are nonetheless rising. Whereas the outcomes are encouraging, extra analysis is required to grasp how intermittent fasting impacts girls with totally different physique sorts and at varied phases of life, together with those that are lively and in perimenopause or past.
For lively girls, particularly these in perimenopause, fasting can affect hormonal stability in ways in which is probably not instantly obvious. Low power consumption, particularly when mixed with a number of train, can result in low power availability and/or finally Relative Vitality Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), a situation that impacts reproductive, metabolic, and bone well being. Indicators of RED-S can embody menstrual irregularities, fatigue, decreased bone density, and poor restoration.
And right here’s the kicker: throughout perimenopause, distinguishing between anticipated hormonal adjustments and the indicators of RED-S could be tough.
If you happen to’re experiencing fatigue, poor restoration, or irregular durations (which many ladies gained’t even be capable of inform in the event that they’re utilizing contraception that alters their interval), it might be an indication that you just’re not fueling sufficient to assist your exercises and total well being.
Satisfactory fueling, particularly with carbohydrates, is very necessary in midlife to assist each coaching and hormonal well being.
Conclusion: Fasting for Ladies—A Personalised Strategy
Fasting may fit for some girls, nevertheless it’s necessary to do not forget that, relating to weight reduction, it’s only one methodology of calorie restriction and it hasn’t been confirmed to be more practical than different dietary methods.
For lively girls, self-awareness and being attentive to how you are feeling throughout exercises and restoration are essential. Earlier than contemplating a fasting routine, be certain that your physique is well-fueled.
A balanced consumption of carbohydrates and protein is crucial—particularly to assist your exercises, restoration, and total well-being. Below-eating could make fasting counterproductive—rising stress on the physique slightly than supporting well being.
And for those who’re very lively or an athlete with targets—working towards a PR in your lifts or coaching for a contest or race—it’s possible you’ll need to go away fasting within the mud as it might probably lower your efficiency and inhibit your restoration.
There’s no one-size-fits-all method. One of the best technique is well-thought-out and helps your power, efficiency, and long-term well being—not one which leaves you depleted.
And remember that there’s a rising variety of “docs” and specialists on the market who’re talking about fasting (and taking advantage of it) although it is extremely a lot out of their very own scope of apply. So earlier than diving in head first, be certain you test what sort of physician they’re and confirm that you just solely take recommendation from certified diet specialists.
If you happen to’re not sure the place to begin, contemplate getting assist from a registered dietitian or nutritionist who specialise in working with girls in your particular inhabitants (lively, endurance athletes, and/or perimenopausal girls) to assist tailor a plan that works for you. —Karin
References
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- Cienfuegos, S., et al. (2022). “Intermittent Fasting and Reproductive Well being: The Potential Results.” Vitamins.
- Correia, M., et al. (2020). “Intermittent Fasting and Cardio Efficiency.” Journal of Sports activities Sciences.
- Batitucci, G., et al. (2022). “The Affect of Fasting on Muscle Mass and Physique Composition.” Frontiers in Vitamin.
- Zouhal, H., et al. (2020). “Results of Fasting on Train Efficiency: A Overview.” Sports activities Medication.
- Mellin, A. (2025). “Carbohydrate Availability and Menstrual Well being in Lively Ladies.” Journal of Sport Vitamin and Train Metabolism.
- Aird, L., et al. (2018). “Fasted vs Fed Train: The Affect on Fats Metabolism and Efficiency.” Worldwide Journal of Sports activities Physiology and Efficiency.
- Slater, J., et al. (2016). “Feminine Leisure Exercisers at Threat for Low Vitality Availability.” Worldwide Journal of Sport Vitamin and Train Metabolism.
