Intermittent fasting is a popular and relatively easy way to lose weight that has caught on a lot more in recent years. In this post, I will discuss intermittent fasting for women and how you can pick out the ideal plan for yourself. Before beginning any fasting regimen, discuss it with your doctor, especially those that are on medications.
What Is Intermittent Fasting?
If you want to start intermittent fasting, it's a pretty easy thing to do. All you have to do is eat during specific times, and not eat during specific times. The part that takes a little bit of planning is the part where you figure out which hours you will fast/eat. This is all an individual choice, and you should take into consideration your work schedule, daily activities, and lifestyle.
If you want to be able to sit down and have a meal with your family at the end of the day, then choosing an eating window that includes dinner hours would be a good idea. If you don't mind skipping dinner, and lunch or breakfast are your big meals, then choosing those hours to eat would be beneficial.
Which Eating Window To Choose
The next step is to choose how big of an eating window you would like. There are a few popular styles of intermittent fasting and these include 16/8, 18/6, 20/4, and OMAD (one meal a day). Women need less calories than men on average, so if you are hoping to do intermittent fasting to lose weight and you do not want to end up counting calories, then a smaller eating window may be right for you. A shorter or more sedentary woman may only lose weight if her ratio is closer to 22/2 or 23/1, which is essentially enough time to only eat one meal and we call this One Meal a Day (OMAD).
OMAD
As stated, OMAD refers to when you consume one meal a day. This is one big meal that contains all of your daily calories to lose weight. It's very popular among those who have a hard time losing weight. If you are short or sedentary, this may be the intermittent fasting option for you.
This diet is a bit extreme and can be hard to handle for days on end. Some people will widen the eating window to be 2 or 3 hours per day instead of just 1 hour. I personally have a hard time eating a large amount of food in one sitting. A lot of people report feeling very tired after their one meal.
16/8
This is when you fast for 16 hours and have an 8 hour eating window. So you day may look like the following:
Day 1: 8 p.m. (stop eating)
Day 2: 12 p.m. (noon) (eat your first meal)
Day 2: 8 p.m. (stop eating)
and repeat.
This type of fasting is basically skipping breakfast and not snacking late at night. The rest of the day is pretty normal. That is why this is a really poplar form of intermittent fasting, because it's pretty easy to start and stick to this diet.
ADF
Alternate day fasting is where you fast for 24 hours and eat normally for 24 hours. This type of fasting goes by various names, but it's also a pretty popular one among weight lifters. It can be hard for a beginner to complete a 24 hour fast, so if you are just starting out, this may not be the right plan for you. If, however, you enjoy challenges then you may enjoy trying this.
5:2
The 5:2 diet is a diet based on fasting 2 non-consecutive days of the week and eating normally for the other 5 days of the week. It yields slow but steady weight loss for those who follow it. Don't expect to lose quickly. You have to be in it for the long haul. Be patient with this diet. It does work and has been proven to work in studies.
In some cases this diet was found to be easier to stick to long term than calorie restriction. That is because you are essentially only restricting or dieting for 2 days of the week. The other 5 days are lived normally, so people tend to be more satisfied with this diet over all.
19/5
I have the most personal experience with this eating window. I was able to maintain my weight at 115 lbs and eat whatever I wanted to while I was doing 19/5 intermittent fasting. This is what personally worked for me in the past. It may not be for everyone. That's why I suggest playing around with the schedule and trying different ones before settling into an intermittent fasting schedule.
Which Intermittent Fasting Schedule To Choose?
My suggestion is to play around with the larger eating windows for some weeks. If you aren't losing weight or just not losing as quickly as you deem necessary, then just play with tightening the eating window until you reach a good place where you are losing weight in a consistent manner.
A typical schedule for a woman who wants to eat dinner with her family might be fasting from 8pm to 4 pm the next day, and then having a 4 hour eating window from 4pm to 8pm where she may be able to fit in a meal and a couple of snacks, or 2 meals. If you work a night shift job, intermittent fasting can be even more confusing, but just figure out when's the time that you would most like to eat and then have your eating window during that time.
What Can You Eat/Drink While Fasting?
What can I eat/drink during the fasting window? People ask this all the time, and the simple answer is just water. Don't consume anything but pure water. Fasting is an exercise of will power. It's not supposed to be comfortable. We live in a society that is in the habit of ridding themselves of discomfort as soon as they feel it. Get used to the discomfort and soon enough it will not be so hard for you.
I will tell you this: Hunger pangs do come and go. They don't just continue to intensify. You may be ravenously hungry for 30 minutes to an hour at some point in your fast, but then the hunger subsides and you don't really feel hungry for the next few hours. It's typical for people to believe that once you feel hunger start up during a fast, that it will continue to get worse and hurt worse but that is not the case at all. Hunger is largely a mental game.
So I hope this article has inspired women out there and let you know that intermittent fasting isn't just for men trying to bulk up, but intermittent fasting for women can be a great way to slim down.
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