#shorts

These last two weeks on the Better! Podcast I take you on a deep dive into fasting for women -should we, shouldn’t we, and how should we.
Last week we went over some basic differences between the response to fasting between men & women. The cliff notes summary is that it can be a useful tool (among many other tools like nutrition, exercise and stress management) to help regulate metabolic or hormonal dysfunction.
The other high level take ways is fasting often over used (in terms of frequency, duration and length) as a tool for weight loss, and can lead to detrimental outcomes in metabolic and reproductive function. I’ve seen it too many times where women take this tool to the extreme.
In this week’s episode we take a deep dive into specific hormonal patterns and how fasting might impact them. We cover fasting for women with PCOS, estrogen dominance & thyroid health.
So here is what you need to know:
Women with PCOS typically respond beautifully to fasting (largely in her follicular phase) until we get normalize ratios like FSH:LH, and help clamp down on hyperinsulinemia. Obviously type, duration, frequency of fasting will change for each woman.
Women with Estrogen Dominance in Luteal Phase - Consideration for gut and liver function is in order here, with a keen eye to help improve estrogen metabolism. I usually opt for a gentler calorie liquid fast in the luteal phase of your cycle (soups, broth, with some protein in it, so this is more of a caloric restriction model rather than a pure fast). Gentle is key here.
Women with a Low Functioning Thyroid: As a general rule, fasting is not the place I like to start. In fact, it is usually the last place that we tweak if all the other variables that we’ve manipulated have not been working. With my thyroid patients, it is food and consideration for hormone conversion issues (inactive to active thyroid hormones) are where we start with first - not fasting.
All this to say….it depends!! The above are general decision trees I follow when thinking about how to solve these particular issues.
If you want to find out more, click the link in the bio to listen to the full episode!