[spoiler title=’Click for video transcript’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’] okay men clear the room this one’s for ladies only we’re gonna talk about how intermittent fasting affects your period so I wanted to do this video because this is certainly something I was worried about or concerned about when I was considering doing intermittent fasting I was afraid it was really gonna mess with my cycle and unfortunately back at that time there really wasn’t a whole lot of information about intermittent fasting just in general that I could find and especially when it came to women and how it’s gonna affect things and of course I want to start off by saying I am NOT a doctor this is not medical advice this is more like just a case study in how it has affected me because I’ve been doing intermittent fasting now for several years and so and I’m a numbers nerd and so I’ve kept track of all this stuff since like May of or April of 2015 so I was actually able to run the numbers and really look and see how this has affected me and basically it really hasn’t my cycle has averaged about 25 days long with the lowest number being 21 days and that was kind of an outlier it was just a one-time deal and the highest being 28 which isn’t a big spread in month over month it’s only ever varied by as much as four days which to me is pretty regular and is certainly normal for me and so you know I started fasting I really I kind of heard about it in 2014 towards the very end of 2014 but I didn’t do a whole lot with it and so then in 2015 I was doing shorter fasts in day so I’ve been able to compare those numbers to see if anything has changed and really it just hasn’t and even you know losing that weight I think because I lost it so slowly and gradually again it never affected my cycle but now a better question might be how does your period affect intermittent fasting because that is where there can be a little bit of a difference uh what I noticed especially when I really started being consistent with intermittent fasting because you know for a while there I was kind of doing it and I wasn’t doing it but when I really became consistent with it I started to notice that a couple of days before before I started my period it would be a lot of hunger and it’s so noticeable in fact that my husband would literally say please eat something so I guess I was getting hangry and so how did I handle that so what I decided to do and this was this was a hard decision for me because I really loved the idea of being super duper consistent having clear rules and never violating them but I learned you know through this weight loss journey that I’ve been on I don’t have to be perfect my perfectionist tendencies tend to be the thing that are my downfall when it comes to not sticking with something so I decided to say okay when I really need the snack and we basically called this my emergency chocolate when I really needed it I would do it and so what that generally looked like was generally it was one day out of a month usually a couple of days before my period and I would eat that Snickers bar usually that’s what my husband would bring me as like a peace offering or something but I decided to do that because really it was more important to me to you know be able to calm down and have my emergency chocolate and know that I would get right back on plan the next day what I didn’t do I didn’t take the whole period off you know like I allowed myself that one little snack usually you know it was for one day and it was one snack you know a couple of days before so that’s what it looked like for me having said that because now it is such a well-worn habit and it’s just normal for me I’m used to fasting I can’t remember the last time I needed emergency chocolate it’s been a long time so my encouragement to you would be if you find that you know and really this is like with any any kind of diet you know you may find that that you know a couple days right before is when you’re gonna have that like I need this and I would encourage you take that thing that you need but don’t let it get you too far off track so again that’s been my experience I am NOT a doctor this is not medical advice but I just wanted to share my experiences as a woman with intermittent fasting so if you have experiences that you’d like to share please leave them in the comments below thanks for watching be sure to LIKE comment and subscribe down below [/spoiler]
Video Recap
I was afraid that such a change in my eating, going from eating 5-6 times a day, to eventually down to one meal a day, would cause my period to go haywire. Fortunately, I found that not to be the case. I forgot to mention in the video, but the average number of days my cycled varied has been 1.35 days, since I started tracking all this in my google calendar.
If you’d like to view the spreadsheet where I made these calculations, you can do so here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v4Y2SnERfpMKusOpajy0BMUoW6LrI8glxZ3snr7j4Fs/edit?usp=sharing
I found that my period affect intermittent fasting more than the other way round. I did use my emergency chocolate when I truly needed it, but I haven’t needed it for a long time.
If you’ve had experiences about your period and dieting that you’d like to share, leave it in the comments below!
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ALL THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS VIDEO IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. IT IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS CONSULT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL BEFORE GOING ON ANY DIET OR EXERCISE PROGRAM.