10 Intermittent Fasting Tips For Women
Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that switches between eating and fasting periods.
There are many health benefits of intermittent fasting. It can help you lose weight, help with your blood pressure and heart health, help your brain health, help lose fat and gain muscle mass if you exercise, and so much more.
It has been around for many years, but it has become especially popular with people who are trying to lose weight, in the previous years.
As I said - it’s a cycle of eating and fasting for a certain period. It’s super simple, and there isn’t anything complicated about it. There’s no calorie restriction or certain foods you can’t eat.
However, you can take certain steps and strategies to get the optimal benefits of intermittent fasting.
Female and male bodies have different needs, compositions, rates of metabolism, and so on. So, there are some specific tips for women vs tips for men, to get the best results based on your bodies.
In this post, I’m writing practical and effective intermittent fasting tips specifically for women. These tips will help you with losing weight and staying healthy.
10 Intermittent Fasting Tips For Women
Ease Into The Diet Plan
Some women often do intermittent fasting without even realizing it. For them, starting a full-on intermittent fasting diet will probably come easily and naturally.
However, for those that never do it, it’s better to take things slow.
Ease into the diet plan, and don’t just shock your body at once.
That definitely won’t be good for you.
Instead, try doing it for a few days before you jump in fully.
Start With A Modified Schedule
The most common way of intermittent fasting is when you fast for 16 hours, and eat for 8 hours.
That means that the fasting period in which you don’t eat anything lasts for 16 hours, and your eating window (in which you do eat) lasts for 8 hours.
However, you can start with a modified schedule, to make things easier for yourself. You can start with a 15/9 plan, and then switch to the 16/8 one.
Or you can start with the 16/8 one, but only do it for a couple of days a week in the beginning.
Decide what works best for you, start with that, and then switch to the regular intermittent fasting plan.
Eat When Necessary
If you’re having a hard time, you’re feeling dizzy, can’t handle it - eat. When you’re on the 16/8 diet, you shouldn’t feel unbearable hunger (or hunger at all), but if you do feel it sometimes, your body might be trying to tell you something, and you don’t want to ignore it.
Your blood sugar might be low, or your iron, so don’t torture yourself if you see you need the food.
Stay Hydrated
Staying hydrated, both in your fasting period and your eating period is crucial.
Especially during the fasting period - since you aren’t eating, sometimes it’s easy to forget to drink as well.
So, if you keep forgetting to drink, set a reminder on your phone.
Break The Fast Slowly And Steadily
When you’re breaking the bast, do it slowly and steadily - don’t shock your body with a whole tone of heavy food all at once.
Clean foods like fruits and veggies are always great, and if you want to break your fast super slowly, bone broth or soup works great as well.
Also, eat slowly, that’s always recommended.
Maintain Balanced Meals
Intermittent Fasting helps you lose weight, by improving your insulin sensitivity and burning your stored fat. However, that doesn’t mean that in your eating window, you should eat junk food and unbalanced meals.
You need to eat lean protein, healthy fats, veggies, fruits, and healthy carbs, if you want to be healthy and lose weight. Don’t start intermittent fasting if you’re going to keep eating unhealthy foods, because it won’t give you the results you want to see.
IF involves eating in a specific time window, but that doesn’t mean you should eat bad foods.
Plan Nutritious Meals Ahead Of Time
Without a proper plan, intermittent fasting can be a bit difficult sometimes. Sometimes you might need to eat earlier in the morning because you won’t have time later, or if you get home too late you will have to eat later than you should.
That’s why having a plan of all of your meals can help you so much.
By knowing what you’ll eat and when, you can prepare the food and take it with you, or create your schedule around the times you should eat.
When you’re planning your meals, make sure they’re nutritious and have all of the vitamins you need. Include lean proteins, healthy fats, lots of veggies, fruits, and healthy carbs.
Do Meal Prep
Another useful advice for doing IF successfully, is doing meal prep.
By preparing nutritious meals in advance, you can make sure you have something to eat when it’s time to eat.
For example, if you stop eating at 9pm, and one day you get home late, let’s say at 8pm, you might not have time to make a meal and eat it, all before 9pm. But if you have a meal already ready for you, you’ll have time to eat it on time.
It will also help you eat healthy and nutritious foods.
When we don’t have time to cook, or we’re feeling lazy, or we need an ingredient and don’t want to go to the store, we end up ordering food. And it’s rarely something healthy.
So, by having healthy and nutritious foods ready to eat, you’re making sure you’re fueling your body with the good stuff.
Create A Plan That Works For You
Depending on when you wake up and go to bed, decide when you’ll be eating vs fasting. Some eat between 10 am and 6 pm, some between 11 am and 7 pm, and some between 12 pm and 8 pm - it all depends on your schedule. You can choose whatever times work for you, so you make it as easy as possible for yourself.
Don’t Torture Yourself
If for some reason you see you have to eat, please do. If you see you can’t have too many hours between your dinner and going to bed, have the breakfast later and move the eating window to a bit later.
Do what works for you and your body, but don’t torture yourself! Weight loss is not as important as your health, and you can still lose weight without torturing yourself.