Intermittent fasting for females?

[ShagsJX]

Hey everybody few questions, Im posting this for my girlfriend as she does not get into forums so I figured id ask.

Have any females tried IF? I know I have but I couldn't stick with it long enough to see any results but im about to try it again and she might be on board with me.

Is the female and male body any different when it comes to IF? if so how.

Been with my girl for 9 years now and we got together when she was 120, and over the years we both got out of shape, she got to around 170 and over the past year she is down to 135 (5'2) but she is sort of plateauing for the past 2 months. Both our diets arnt perfect but hoping to change this.

Pretty much know all about IF I just dont know if its different for males and females due to test levels and what not.

she also pretty much just does cardio and squats but ive been pushing her to try more work outs but we goto different gyms so its hard to keep an eye on her and guide her in the right direction.

[kimm4]

I've been using IF for a few years now and it's great for me. I prefer using 17-18 hr fasts with a 6-7 hr eating window. I've always trained fasted even before using IF...just my personal preference.

[ShagsJX]

Ty. Any other success stories? Due to our work schedule training fasted is t an option.

[Miranda]

what do you mean by 'success stories'? IF may help with diet adherence, but it has no other benefits. fat loss is about eating less calories than you burn, not how you spread them.

and there's some data that indicates fasting might impair glucose tolerance in women (but not in men).

[juliabogg]

I did it, it worked for me, but I found eating that much at once didn't agree with my digestion, and I also found it tedious to plan ahead and bring all that stuff to work. I will still do it now if my day allows it, especially when cutting and there isn't much food to be eaten, but I focus more on overall macros for the day. Anyway, it work, no harm!

[RandomMisc]

Makes diet compliance a lot easier, and if I'm eating out, makes it MUCH easier to stay within my caloric limits. If you're eating 3-5 times a day, you need to be darn careful when you go out to dinner in the evening. When that dinner is your first meal of the day, however, you can eat nearly anything and make it work.

[CaitlinElise10]

Obviously everyone is different and some women do have success with/like IF. I loved it at first and then had to stop because I began having some of the symptoms that this article details: civilizedcavemancooking.com/reviews/how-intermittent-fasting-saved-mewhile-slowly-killing-me

There's some good info about the studies that have been conducted on IF, and what little research there's been on how females react to IF.

[IronRoots]

This is my first post, but I have been lurking on BB.com for several years now & spontaneously decided to join last night.

IF can work. It does work. I have had some good success with it but was never consistent enough to see major results from it. Fasting periodically is beneficial as it increases HGH, increases auto****y (ability to kill off the bad cells) and etc. HEck, I believe in the past it helped me increase a lot of strength of my lifts (well also due to newbie gains).

For women, due to their hormones and a higher chance of becoming hypoglycemic, I believe it is recommended to only fast for 14-16 hours. When I used to fast, I would do 20hrs a couple days of the week. I would experience headaches, mental confusion and other hypoglycemic symptoms. Read Martin Berkhams leangains website, he does have a few ideal protocols if your schedule is pretty wonky.

As a college student who gets so tired that they do not feel like cooking and thus has a tendency to consume fast food for meals, this method helped me stay within my allotted caloric range.

But then I stopped being consistent with with diet/exercise so I am starting all over again.

[minthai]

I'm another one who uses IF and I also think it helps with compliance. I am the type who likes to feel full after eating, so spreading out calories throughout the day does not work for me. I skip breakfast, and I have a big lunch and a big dinner, and maybe a snack in between. It's a lot easier for me to stick to my caloric allowance if I divide it by 2, rather than by 3 meals.

So, if I want to eat 1300 calories a day (which I am trying to do now to lose weight), I'll have coffee in the morning, have lunch around noon and try to keep it at 400-500 calories, maybe have a 100 or 200 calorie snack, then I can have a somewhat large dinner of 600-800 calories and be happily full all evening long. If I know I'm having a burger and fries for dinner, I will just eat a 300 calorie lunch. Gotta plan for the burger and fries.

[Running2live]

I'm another one who uses IF and I also think it helps with compliance. I am the type who likes to feel full after eating, so spreading out calories throughout the day does not work for me. I skip breakfast, and I have a big lunch and a big dinner, and maybe a snack in between. It's a lot easier for me to stick to my caloric allowance if I divide it by 2, rather than by 3 meals.

So, if I want to eat 1300 calories a day (which I am trying to do now to lose weight), I'll have coffee in the morning, have lunch around noon and try to keep it at 400-500 calories, maybe have a 100 or 200 calorie snack, then I can have a somewhat large dinner of 600-800 calories and be happily full all evening long. If I know I'm having a burger and fries for dinner, I will just eat a 300 calorie lunch. Gotta plan for the burger and fries.

I have started IF about a week ago. So far, it's easier for me to feel satisfied. I have coffee in AM (around 5-6 am), then start eating with a protein shake around 11 after my workout. I stop eating around 8-9 pm. I am cutting at 14-1500 calories a day. So far, so good. 1.5 pounds lost last week. 8.5 to go.

[Chalky13]

ShagsJX, Intermittent Fasting, or IF, does effect women more adversely than men. It's good that you were questioning the side effects. Here is just one article that shows the differences between men and women from the IF: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/women...#axzz2Tne8Mj9d

Good luck to you two on your progress.

[fitnessfreak88]

A good read:

http://www.paleoforwomen.com/shatter...he-literature/

[litttlemiss]

ive looked into if. I decided not to do it, because it seems like it could cause you to develope an eating disorder or at least incourage binging, and when I dont eat every 3-4 hours i get light headed and feel slow in the head

[Lammerchops]

I do it because I prefer eating a bigger-sized meal at dinner. So in the morning (8:15am), I just have a cup of skim milk in my latte, take a vegetable supplement powder, and don't eat until 11am. Lunch is at 1, post-w/o meal is at 3:30, dinner at 6, last meal at 8:45-ish, the end.

I used to eat a meal at 8:15am, but I didn't like how it impacted the size and macro breakdown of my subsequent meals, so I tossed it. Haven't noticed a difference. On the wknds, I follow the same schedule, except I w/o after my latte (technically fasted I guess), and noticed no ill effects.

As per Miranda's post, I did it for diet-adherence purposes, so I can feel full after every meal and not experience any hunger at night before bed.

[mhc20]

I've been doing IF for a good 6 months or so in conjunction with flexible dieting and it helps me enormously with diet compliance. It works very well with my schedule because I'm always running around busy with no time and I personally don't like taking around tupperware (did it for a while). It's just awesome to be able to come home and make a huge meal and eat the whole thing without worrying about going over my macros. Then I just eat what I want to meet the rest of my macros throughout the night.

[azyzzam]

Yup I did it when I hit a plateau and it really helped. Usually ate from 12-8am but 2-3 meals