Intermittent Fasting has become popular in recent years.  

It’s simply the practice of restricting your calorie intake to limited hours. For example, some people like the 8:16 window – you have 8 hours to eat and fast for 16 hours. Some people prefer longer windows and some shorter.

So should midlife women adopt intermittent fasting?

Let’s take a look at the research:

Research over the years has shown:

🔸Improved insulin sensitivity
🔸Lower risk of diabetes
🔸Lower LDL/triglycerides
🔸Better autophagy
🔸Lower levels of oxidative stress
🔸Higher scores on memory tests

The evidence is quite remarkable -except one thing . . .All this research was done on MEN!

So what about women in midlife?

What they’ve found is that pretty much every benefit listed above for men is opposite for women!

❌No benefit with insulin sensitivity
❌Those women on the cusp of diabetes actually got worse
❌No change in LDL or triglyceride levels
❌Little to no improvement in autophagy
❌Increased oxidative stress AND AS AN ADDED BONUS –
❌Thyroid function and metabolism SLOWED DOWN!

And for women who exercised, all of the above was even worse!

So the bottom line:

Let’s leave IF to the guys!

Remember, the key to fat loss isn’t WHEN you eat your food. It’s how much you eat.  It requires a calorie deficit (eating less than you burn in a day) to lose body fat. That is optimized by the quality of the food you eat, exercising in a hormone-friendly way, getting adequate sleep and managing stress, especially once you hit midlife!

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Source: Next Level by Stacy T. Sims, PhD