Intuitive Thoughts on Intermittent Fasting

Intuition - If we listen the potential is life-altering ✨

When I first began to play around with intermitted fasting, it felt great, until it didn’t. I won’t elapse your valuable time going into the specifics of my fasting trials, yet I think you will benefit from my learnings.

Besides the fact that many of my clients, and many health coaches, believe fasting to be beneficial for health and its wide use all over the world, the physiological and psychological influence of fasting in females is incompletely understood.

I have an innate desire to do things well, and I want to do them in a way that excites and adds to my enduring health. So I ask questions. I often enquire, with the understanding that there might be a better way to do something, especially if there is a shade of grey in understanding the sciences behind the sweeping claims.

Skipping breakfast seems to be the obvious inclination to prolong our fasting from the completion of the previous day’s eating. This is the obvious and perhaps the easiest option as it allows us to get out the door quicker, we believe we can run on a black coffee till lunch, we are often fulled by the body’s natural increase in glucose production in the mornings and it often fits better socially … to skip breakfast and meet or enjoy dinner meals with family and friends.

Personally, I rarely buy into the idea that the easy way is the indubitable way as there is often a catch 🤔

Let me explain … as we get closer to morning waking, our body in its circadian rhythmic pattern, secretes glucagon, adrenaline, cortisol, and growth hormone as counter-regulatory hormones to insulin. If you have healthy insulin sensitivity, your levels will rise to lower your waking blood glucose and you’ll likely get hungry for energy (food). My research and anecdotal theory are that fasting and skipping breakfast doesn’t bestow the same consequences for both sexes, as females, especially those under fifty years of age, tend to have higher waking cortisol levels than males.

High cortisol = Fat storage

Cortisol slows insulin production. This allows blood sugar to be used immediately, cortisol secures quick energy. This is why I salute a brief ten to fifteen-minute exercise bout or shaking and waking up of our female bodies first thing in the morning. Brief is the key to take advantage of cortisol’s quick energy in the form of glucose. On the other hand, cortisol also reduces the effects of insulin. If we blunt our insulin response for too long by exercising for a long duration, stressing the body by withholding food, drinking coffee, rushing about, the body remains in an insulin-resistant state. If you eat food, that will signal to your body that you have sufficient energy, and your insulin may respond appropriately. The ideal result is enough insulin is secreted to bring down your glucose level to a healthy range. If blood sugars remain elevated, you will be putting the body at risk for developing disease. Chronic fatigue, weight gain, insulin resistance, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental health disorders are just a few of the many health problems that can turn up 🙃

You may notice fat loss in the beginning of your morning fasting routine but in time your body will potentially flip, and start storing energy as fat. This is very common. Women are often puzzled why things that have worked for four to six to twenty-four months suddenly non longer work. Several studies have supported the hypotheses that female breakfast skippers have higher cortisol from morning till mid-afternoon and lunchtime-induced cortisol reaction is also larger in the skippers. This initiates larger spikes in glucose, that accelerate ageing and welcome fat storage.

In a nutshell, skipping breakfast for women may be a short-term benefit in terms of fat loss that sets you up for a long-term issue.

Much of the research on fasting benefits including; blood pressure stability, lowered insulin resistance risks, chronic inflammation inhibition, hormonal health & body fat loss has been performed on males. And without research to guide us, we have to use our best reasoning skills to reach a hypothesis. I theorise that in order to benefit from fasting, as females, an early feeding window is required.

Try eating your breakfast within the hour of your waking and moving your dinner, your last eating of the day as far forward as manageable. Experiment with the timing of your fast from twelve to sixteen hours is often the Goldilocks zone. You will feel when you have found the duration that is right for you - it will feel, energising, nourishing, and enriching.

As females, we want to play with intermittent fasting in a way that is safe for our unique female biochemistry. Fasting can be a sharp arrow in your quiver, to raise your health destiny rather than poison it.

Does this clear up some of the confusion around fasting? And, what are your thoughts?