My Intermittent Fasting Experiment
If you follow me you might’ve seen that I dipped my toe into a little intermittent fasting experiment. IF has never been something I’ve subscribed to for myself, but since reading ‘how to fast like a girl’ by Dr Mindy Pelz for the first time in my life I was intrigued to experience it and to share my experience with you.
As a nutrition practitioner who actively avoids anything remotely faddy, I put the recent rise /obsession with fasting into this camp even though I am well aware of its benefits (and have covered fasting in great detail at CNM as part of my training) however, feel its important for me to experience popular protocols that my clients and followers ask me about and IF has 100% been one that keeps coming up!! so here we are!…
I genuinely wanted to understand how it could work in reality (not just in theory) and to discover what potential benefits were to be gained for a busy working mum who not only enjoys her food but has worked hard to reverse hormonal imbalances (specifically PCOS) through eating 3 balanced routine meals …..could IF be something that could make me feel better than I already do? as you can imagine I was naturally sceptical and the saying ‘if it ain’t broken’- sprang to mind! but nevertheless I want to give it a go as an experiment.
So after consistently fasting throughout the last month and not eating for 14-16 hours during my fasting days, being regimented with my 8 hour eating window and not fasting the week before my period as per Dr Mindy’s advice, my gut feel on the topic remains pretty much the same as it always has! This might be disappointing to read as i’m not sharing anything new here, but I’m going to give you lots of detail on why I think this after actually experiencing it for myself and giving it a proper go (when I say proper I mean fasting for more than just a few random days- I really stuck with it regardless to the initial migraine and headaches I initially experienced).
First and foremost from a hormonal AND intuitive eating perspective, lets not forget we are unique beings, we need different approaches at different times of lives (not JUST during our cycles) in alignment to the ebbs and flows of our hormonal AND emotional / mental health. Fasting might suit your best friend, your mum or that influencer on instagram, but that doesn’t automatically mean it has to or will work for you and your hormones with where you are at right now in your life/ health journey.
My little experiment was such a welcomed reminder that it really is so essential that we do properly listen to what our bodies are telling us and quite literally asking us to do…..The powerful little signs and signals our body gives cannot be ignored. If we ignore them just because hundreds of testimonials in a book tell us we should be feeling amazing and in reality we don’t, but we stick with it anyway, our hormones will more than likely (I can put money on this!) pay the price later in some way shape or form. Don’t let anyone convince you that we all have to be eating their way in order to achieve ‘health’. This is something I feel passionately about and that I’m personally so conscious of not falling into the trap of as a nutritionist. I see this daily on social media and I think it can be quite damaging as nutrition / health / wellness is NEVER a one-size-fits-all, thats why its nutrition is so fascinating and thats why it needs to be tailored to us as individuals ESPECIALLY when we’re talking about hormones. Hormones are the chemical messengers that control and dictate almost all chemical processes in our body including our appetite, mood, libido, weight and energy to name just a few… we can’t simply apply the same protocol and expect we will all have the same end result, that would just be madness right?!
For a woman who wants to balance her hormones I genuinely believe that fasting for much longer than 12 hours over night (I usually fast overnight from dinner until breakfast to allow my body to stimulate ‘rest & digest’ modes to help with internal regeneration, healing and ‘housekeeping’ as I like to think of it) is simply not built for the sensitive bodies, and very importantly the sensitive minds of women who want to create longterm, sustainable habits and routines in alignment to their intuition when it comes to food to better their hormonal health and/or who have experienced a complicated relationship with food which is over 90% of the women i see in my (remote) practice. Dr Mindy does clearly advise that anyone with ‘eating disorders’ should stay away from fasting anyway, but I would go one step further and say that if you are someone who feels even slightly impacted by negative food behaviours and know you are susceptible even on a subconscious level that fasting is probably not for you.
There are undeniably lots of healing and anti-inflammatory benefits to fasting for specific conditions for example metabolic, cardiovascular, and many other chronic conditions and I personally know lots of people (including some women) who feel great as a result of fasting, especially when it comes to weight loss. It works for them and where they are in their health journeys which is amazing, but of these women I personally know who have found success in fasting, I must point out are not women trying to balance their hormones, they are not trying to fall pregnant or manage endometriosis, reverse PCOS. Fasting goes against creating internal ‘balance’ because its a stressor on the body it restricts food intake which raises cortisol levels and therefore doesn’t create a safe internal nurtured environment for their hormones to thrive from.
How Intermittent fasting impacted my cycle
I’ve been having 30 day cycles the last 5 cycles (the only 30 day cycles i’ve EVER had in my life may i add!!) and interestingly my last cycle the one where i experimented with fasting was 39 days. Yes, this could be a coincidence and other factors could’ve contributed to this longer cycle, but I’m not willing to give it another shot to find out! I’ve spent the last over 5 years of my life working hard to nourish my body to balance my hormones and regulate my cycle through my diet and lifestyle choices, so everything inside me tells me that fasting was not making my hormones happy, so I am listening and honouring them and after giving it multiple goes I can say its not for everyone and its definitely not for me.
What I didn’t like about fasting
I followed the ‘rules’ which is actually something I really, really disliked about it! for me it added an extra complicated layer of thought and boundary setting to a routine that already worked so well for me and that I enjoyed, so it felt like more effort to keep track of timings and making sure I wasn’t doing things like adding milk to my matcha or coffee in the morning, even though it took the joy away from a morning ritual I look forward to.
I love my routine of 3 meals and this experiment made me fall in love with my routine even more and made me crave it! I love how those meals energise me physically and mentally from one meal to the next. I wake up excited for my breakfast, I look forward to lunch and love my dinner. Fasting made me think about food to an extreme level and daydream about the meal I was going to have when i could break my fast, it felt all consuming. I know for sure not everyone feels this way and people kept telling me that it would pass once i adapted to it but I just don’t think I wanted to adapt to it enough and maybe that was the issue. I can’t help but think aside from the specific chronic conditions and weight-loss success stories (of which there are plenty) that the cons outweigh the pros for a woman wanting to sustainably improve her diet, balance her hormones AND have a healthy, happy relationship with food without rules attached to it.
Whichever way IF is packaged-up and marketed to us, it is still a form of restriction. Restriction means less nutrients into our bodies and rules to abide by which means going against our powerful intuition, which is where my biggest issue with it lies. I think anything that goes our true instincts means is not for us, so if you have tried it a few times and its not for you then listen to what your body is telling you. I’ve probably made this topic sound too simplistic or maybe you’re reading this thinking I’m going on a bit now…. but i’m so aware of the many layered complexities to seemingly ‘simple’ nutrition protocols and I feel strongly about this topic because I think lots of people are turning to fasting as a magic way to ‘fix’ their diets but the reality is there is no magic fix.
what I liked about it
The one thing I did like about it, or more accurately the one idea I liked about fasting was that my longer fasts (14hours+) were stimulating a maximised healing process within my body. This is something called autophagy (which means ‘self-eating’) in short this is the accelerated housekeeping for our cells and it essentially rids the body of damaged cells and toxins and recycles others to optimise body functioning and healing. It felt good knowing this was happening internally and on 3 of the 18 days I fasted I genuinely felt energised, had good mental clarity and focus and generally felt pretty good for it compared to the other 15 days where i did not feel good and suffered with headaches, little energy to exercise, low mood and was desperate to have my next meal! Interestingly, these good days also coincided with the days I used Ancient & Brave MCT Oil in my morning herbal tea. MCT stands for medium-chain fatty acids and is a great way to maximise your fasts if you are someone who is fasting, because it passes the blood brain barrier and as MCT’s don’t require digestive enzymes to be absorbed, they turn into ketones where they are effectively used as fuel for your brain and body which is why it increases energy levels so effectively and many people report it stops them from feeling hungry too. For full context, I did have MCT on most (not all) of the other days i fasted too but i doubled the amount on the three days i felt good (x2tsp’s vs x1sp on the other days), again this could be a coincidence but MCT is worth checking out if you are going to regularly fast as a way to give your body and brain extra targeted support.
An alternative to hormone health optimisation
From my perspective, knowledge and experience, the way to enhanced hormonal health (and if you achieve enhanced hormonal health, you will be healthier and happier as a result) is to change what you are eating for the majority of the time and to really, really embrace plant diversity. These are the two key things that I get do not sound the most glamorous or marketable ‘fixes’ to become obsessed with, but they are sustainable and most importantly above all else, they work. I see this everyday in my clients and in myself, it works.
To conclude my thoughts on this essay on IF… our hormones like consistency, being nurtured and don’t like restriction and whilst I totally appreciate the benefits to fasting It still needs to work for YOUR body and your hormones. Only you will know if its right for you, your body will quite literally tell you so listen!
Fasting protocols need to be tailored to the person and where they are at in not just their health journey but their life. Yes its important not to fast during the second part of the luteal phase (the week before your period) because our bodies are prepping for menstruation and hormone levels (progesterone) need extra support at this time, so restricting nutrients is HIGHLY counterproductive, but fasting must also be aligned to your emotional / mental state / stress levels too this is so important and an element that i think is missing from the recent rise in fasting for women’s health. Fasting is a huge stressor on a sensitive body and this needs to be taken into account, plus being sensible and intuitive with it i.e. not pushing fasts when feeling weak just to get to a certain time (I’ve heard people say it almost turns into a challenge).
As always you do what works for you and your hormones, it can be effective (and you will soon find out if its not) BUT if adds more complexity to your life and makes you feel weak even after you have tried it a few times (to allow your body to adapt) or it changes your cycle length like it did for me then why not reframe your nutrition, start focusing on improving your diet generally and the nutrients you can be ADDING to your 3 main meals instead to keep you feeling energised strong and less likely to crave and reach for sugar and unhelpful foods as its these foods that are preventing you from living your healthiest life and feeling your best not the fact you eat 3 meals.
I received close to 100 DM’s on this subject when I was posting about my fasting experiment, so I know this is something you are interested in, If you don’t agree with my viewpoint (I suspect there will be plenty!) as I said you do you, we are all totally unique and experience things differently and I don’t expect you to never try it just because of my experience, but I wanted to give you a proper report on my fasting experiment so hopefully you have found this insightful. Would love to hear from you on this! As always my DM’s and inbox is open :)
Love, Jess x