WOMEN’S GUIDE TO FASTING AFTER 40

Fasting is a hot topic right now, but should you be doing it? In this post, I explain the pros and cons of fasting and give you a guide to fasting success (if you decide it’s right for you).

What is fasting?

Fasting simply describes a period of time when we’re not eating. It’s an ancient practice and we all do it every day. We fast while we sleep, ending the overnight fast when we eat break-fast.

Fasting is well-known to have many health benefits, but much of its appeal comes from its role in weight loss. As many women over 40 struggle with weight gain and find their old diets less effective, they wonder if fasting is the answer. In this article, I explain the different modes of fasting as well as the pros and cons to help you decide if fasting is right for you.

Time Restricted Eating vs Intermittent Fasting

Time Restricted Eating (TRE) is the practice of eating the day’s meals within a set time window. For example, breakfast eaten at 8am, lunch at 1pm and dinner at 6pm. In this scenario, the eating window is 10 hours, meaning the fasting window is 14 hours.

TRE doesn’t involve reducing your normal calorie level. Instead you are eating the same amount of food within a shorter time period. Making this simple change has several important health benefits including weight loss, and improved sleep, gut health, and glucose regulation.

There are several popular eating windows:

12:12 (12 hours fasting, meals eaten within 12 hours)

14:10 (14 hours fasting, meals eaten within 10 hours)

16:8 (16 hours fasting, meals eaten within 8 hours)

Intermittent Fasting (IF) differs from Time Restricted Eating because fewer calories are eaten on fast days. Dr Michael Mosely popularised IF with the 5:2 diet. Dieters eat their usual meals 5 days a week, and 2 days a week they eat a very low-calorie diet of around 500 calories.

There are many variations of Intermittent Fasting for example:

The 4:3 diet 4-days of usual meals, 3 very-low-calorie days, circa 500

24 hour fasts Eating a normal evening meal then fasting until the following day’s evening meal

Alternate-day fasts Alternating days eating usual meals with very low-calorie days

Longer fasts e.g. 48-72 hour fasts with no food only water

Health Benefits of Fasting

The appeal of fasting goes beyond weight loss thanks to the myriad health benefits associated with it, from improvements in glucose regulation, sleep and gut health, to a reduced risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and cancer, and even the reversal of type 2 diabetes.

Despite these impressive health benefits, fasting isn’t an easy option. Simply not eating sounds simple, yet in practice, many people find it very hard to do, especially for the long-term.

WHAT MAKES FASTING SO DIFFICULT?

We eat for many reasons other than hunger and as a response to stress, anxiety, low mood, boredom and loneliness. Taking away food and snacking as a coping mechanism, without tackling the underlying reasons behind eating habits, will only be short-lived because the discomfort of not eating comfort foods becomes too difficult to resist.

People who eat a diet high in refined carbohydrates and sugar and who snack throughout the day will find it very hard to jump straight to fasting. The sugar highs and lows will lead to cravings that require huge reserves of willpower to ignore, and cravings usually win out in the end.

Then, for many, eating is a highly social event and being unable to eat with family and friends doesn’t suit everyone.

Finally, peri and post-menopausal women can find it very hard to cope with feeling hungry and deprived. Motivation to diet can be hard to find when everyday life feels challenging enough already.

FASTING FOR WOMEN WHO EXERCISE

Fasted exercise is also a popular concept. The idea being that if you work out before eating, you will burn more fat. Studies do show that men burn more fat when they exercise fasted, but this isn’t true for women, so there’s no fat-burning benefit to working out hungry. In addition, studies have shown that women can experience greater hunger after exercising fasted, whereas men don’t experience this.

Excessive hunger after exercise leads to eating more, further negating any ‘calories burned’ during exercise. It’s also well-known that people tend to overestimate how many calories they’ve burned during exercise while underestimating how many they are eating, which is one of the reasons why exercise without dieting isn’t an effective method of weight control.

Active women who do a lot of exercise also shouldn’t fast. Long-term fasting in female athletes has been linked to hormonal imbalances, increased abdominal fat and low mood. Whilst many women wouldn’t describe themselves as athletes, this advice holds true for anyone who exercises regularly.

MAKING WORKOUTS COUNT

If you have exercise-based goals like muscle growth, improved cardiovascular fitness or metabolic fitness, your workouts really need to count if you’re a menopausal woman, to put sufficient external stress on the body to force it to adapt.

Exercising while hungry can lead to reduced performance. In my work as a PT, I’ve trained many women who haven’t eaten before a session and there are many occasions when I’ve had to stop because the client felt shaky and unwell.

For many years I assumed there was merit to training fasted. I would add the calories I was burning to the calories I wasn’t eating and the bigger the deficit, the better I would feel about my workout. Now I have a different approach and prioritise effort over ‘calories burned.’ For this, I need energy and stamina to work hard during training sessions, which means eating a snack 30-60 minutes before.

Putting more effort into my strength and HIIT sessions means I’m more likely to see improvements in strength, stamina and power, and be able to use fat and glucose more efficiently as fuel, which in turn leads to improved body composition (more muscle, less fat.)

WHEN TO AVOID FASTING

Fasting is not recommended for anyone who has ever had an eating disorder as it can trigger relapses. It’s also not recommended for people who are ill, pregnant or underweight.

As women, we’re always looking for ways to do more and work harder with diet and exercise, especially when experiencing changes to body composition and the sense that you’re losing control of your body. But if you are going through a lot of stress, and are feeling more anxious and overwhelmed than usual, fasting will be counterproductive, because it will increase your stress load. Chronic stress is so bad for health - and leads to increased abdominal fat - that the priority in these circumstances should always be to reduce stress first.

WHAT FASTING FANS THINK

Now let's turn to the positives because there are many people who are huge advocates of fasting for menopausal women, such as Dr Mindy Pelz, author of Fast Like A Girl. They cite the well-known health benefits that we discussed earlier, and in particular fasting’s ability to improve insulin sensitivity, which helps counter menopause weight gain.

Many people, men and women alike, have impressive results from fasting; weight loss and long-term maintenance, better sleep and the reversal of metabolic conditions like type 2 diabetes.

Time Restricted Eating and Intermittent Fasting can also be effective tools for women who suffer from powerful cravings and a constant desire to eat. By shortening their eating window they can stop thinking about food all the time and find much-needed peace from fighting cravings. The simplicity of eating less frequently makes preparing food easier and frees up their time and brain power for other things.

WANT TO TRY FASTING? TRY THIS APPROACH

If you’re still curious and want to try fasting, then here’s my guide to easing yourself into it. But first, I want to stress that fasting is not the only way to lose weight. Remember we are all individuals and should pay attention to what we need and what works for us, rather than jumping on bandwagons and putting ourselves under extra pressure because we’ve read that some fabulous-looking celebrity is a fasting advocate.

We need to stop looking for quick results through desperation to change our bodies. You won’t find success or make peace with yourself by doing that. So I encourage you to break the cycle and play the long game by following this process that is designed to make fasting less stressful and easier to stick with.

When I coach women, I always look for small changes that make improving their diet as easy and stress-free as possible. Jumping straight in and making too big a change is often short-lived. Don’t expect things to be perfect. You will find some days easier than others, but instead of labelling those days as ‘bad days’, simply view them as information and get curious about what’s making things feel hard and look for things you can tweak which make things a bit easier.

Here’s my guide to trying fasting and seeing if it works for you:

Start by being clear about exactly why you’re fasting. Is it to lose weight or are you more interested in the health benefits?

Make sure you’re embarking on this because you really want to (rather than feeling external pressure that you should be doing it), and feel mentally ready to cope with the extra work it entails, and the discomfort and inconvenience you’ll likely experience.

If you’re doing it for the right reasons and feel in a good place, then….

Start by reducing carbs and increasing protein for your normal meals. (For more about this and example meal plans, click here) This is an important first step because it will stabilise your blood sugar so you’ll feel less hungry and have fewer cravings, which will make the transition to fasting much easier. Give yourself time to get into a regular habit of eating like this, say 3-4 weeks then….

Shorten your eating window to 10 hours a day. This means you will fast for 14 hours. This is a good fasting window to aim for as 16-hour fasts may be too stressful for women (remember we respond to fasting differently to men), and keeping stress to a minimum is essential. Once you feel comfortable with this routine and can easily manage the fast without feeling hungry and stressed, you may want to add in the following (but remember, you don’t have to if this way of eating suits you)…..

Try one day a week when you only eat 500-600 calories. Choose a day when you aren’t exercising or doing anything too demanding. However, it can help to keep busy so it’s easier to forget about eating. Decide in advance whether you will have 2 small meals or three small snacks throughout the day. Deciding in advance what and when you will eat will make it easier to stick to your plan. Make these meals high in protein with a small amount of fat so they are more filling, and bulk out with above-ground vegetables. If you find it OK, stick with it for a few weeks and if you want to take things further, add another day.