Intermittent Fasting for Women Over 50

Two of the biggest challenges for women over 50 is weight loss and a hormonal system that's out of balance. Difficulty in weight loss can be attributed to a slower metabolism, significantly lower muscle mass, uneven sleep pattern and aching joints. A hormone system that's out of balance can be attributed to the onset of menopause and an uneven sleep pattern. As you grow older, the risk of disease also increases especially if you can't seem to get rid of belly fat, as this surrounds your most vital organs. Intermittent fasting is a great way to boost metabolism and weight loss. Additionally it promotes longevity as the body is able to focus on other important functions such as normalizing the hormone system, cellular repair and boosting cognitive function aside from digestion. This goes a long way in reducing the chance of developing the typical age-related disease. For the longest of time, many of us believed that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But, turns out skipping your favorite bowl of oats with a side of fruit does more good than harm. While intermittent fasting may seem like a new type of diet, it is perhaps one of the oldest lifestyles. If we go back to the hunter-gatherer era where the next meal wasn't guaranteed, our ancestors would mostly eat one or two meals a day. If we also look at traditional Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, they advocate for regular fasts as a way of promoting general wellness and mental clarity. Fasting is also very common in some religions for spiritual as well as physical benefits. Intermittent fasting describes an interval of time where you do not eat or drink. Water, coffee and tea with no sugar or sweetener and bone broth are however allowed during the fasting period. An important point to note is that intermittent fasting is by no way similar to a calorie restrictive diet or starvation as it simply reduces your eating time window. A better way to describe intermittent fasting is that it is a pattern of eating and not a diet. When you eat, your brain triggers the pancreas to produce insulin which it uses to store glucose from the carbs you consumed, for later use. With the ready availability of food and eating about 3-6 times a day, your body finds itself in a situation where it is storing more food than it is using for energy, putting your body in an anabolic state. When glucose is stored in your body, it is stored as fat and with constant storing, you start noticing yourself gaining weight. What intermittent fasting does is to reverse this process of fat storage by triggering your cells to release the stored fat and use it for energy, especially during the fasting window. This process is referred to as a catabolic state, which simply means to break down and with continued intermittent fasting, you start noticing weight loss.