The FastDay Forum

Good afternoon,

I didn't know where else to post this. I have been doing IF for about a year. I have an eating window every night from about 5PM to 7PM. I've had no problem with this schedule. My wife thought she would give it a try. She is 35 and is on birth control. She has been following this same regimen since the start of the year. She started her menstrual cycle back on the 12th. Than again on the 26th. Has anyone else experienced out of whack menstrual cycles while fasting, or starting to fast? She has a call into the doctor but hasn't heard back from them. I just though that maybe this was a common occurance in women and hormones getting in balance.

hiya and welcome doco!
Hope you can get an answer..being post menopausal for many years, i can't help but wanted to say hello x

post79504.html
Hi here is a thread about periods and fasting. Hope it answers your questions. Doco, did you want to go into your settings and change your sex to male or are you female and I've just put my big foot in it by assuming so.

that's a pretty narrow eating window! Are you sure she is getting enough calories? A drastic reduction in calories could throw things off for sure.

These two links may be useful (or at least descriptive) for a place to start:

http://breakingmuscle.com/nutrition/a-w ... nt-fasting

The above article lists several signs of hormonal imbalance as reasons to stop fasting. Two of these - fatigue and headache - are commonly experienced by first-time fasters (especially if it's also low carb). Both are easily countered by increasing salt intake in the form of a stock cube (bouillon cube) drink once or twice a day, for 2 or more weeks while the body adapts to again being able to utilized fat as an energy source. Also note their subsequent paragraph about gentle fasting.


http://www.marksdailyapple.com/women-an ... z3z2h4HMiC

Thanks Caroline. I wasn't aware I was showing up as female. Much appreciated.

carieoates wrote: https://forum.fastday.com/post79504.html
Hi here is a thread about periods and fasting. Hope it answers your questions. Doco, did you want to go into your settings and change your sex to male or are you female and I've just put my big foot in it by assuming so.

Thank you everyone for replying. I'll have to read through those articles. I was just curious if anyone else had experienced this. My beautiful wife does have a small eating window, but she is also using Myfitnesspal to track calories and she is pretty good about getting enough. She plans on switching to 5:2 sometime, or perhaps 4:3. We both have had really good results thus far and we are in a "Biggest Loser" competition so her competitive side has taken over. We started at the January first. I'm down 15lbs (last time I weighed in) and she has lost about 12lbs as of Friday. We've been tracking our ketones as well. It really sucks having a few beers on the weekend, which leads to high carb snacks when out and blowing yourself out of ketosis. The rest of the week we are usually good. Even though we have the occasional hiccup, I'm currently in first place and she has moved up from sixth place to third place since she has been watching carbs and doing IF. It certainly works if your body can handle it. She has been a carb-a-holic her whole life, so this is really a shock to her system.

Tracieknits wrote: that's a pretty narrow eating window! Are you sure she is getting enough calories? A drastic reduction in calories could throw things off for sure.

A very good point @tracieknits, but believe me if you are not trying to restrict calories it is possible to take in more than enough in two hours or even one hour, as I know to my cost!

However, I too am post-menopausal, so can't answer the question.

doco2279 wrote: Thank you everyone for replying. I'll have to read through those articles. I was just curious if anyone else had experienced this. My beautiful wife does have a small eating window, but she is also using Myfitnesspal to track calories and she is pretty good about getting enough. She plans on switching to 5:2 sometime, or perhaps 4:3. We both have had really good results thus far and we are in a "Biggest Loser" competition so her competitive side has taken over. We started at the January first. I'm down 15lbs (last time I weighed in) and she has lost about 12lbs as of Friday. We've been tracking our ketones as well. It really sucks having a few beers on the weekend, which leads to high carb snacks when out and blowing yourself out of ketosis. The rest of the week we are usually good. Even though we have the occasional hiccup, I'm currently in first place and she has moved up from sixth place to third place since she has been watching carbs and doing IF. It certainly works if your body can handle it. She has been a carb-a-holic her whole life, so this is really a shock to her system.

Unless you both started off as obese, that's a LOT of weight to lose in only one month. If your wife started off with a BMI under 30 and lost 12 pounds in one month, that could be drastic enough of a calorie restriction that it impacted her hormones. If you guys started with BMI's over 35, you're probably fine with that kind of loss in the first month.

Most people can expect to lose a pound a week with 5:2. Going to 4:3 usually results in not much more weight loss (1.3 pounds per week, if I remember correctly), but can be more difficult to sustain.

Tracie,

I started at a BMI of 28.1. My wife started with 36.9. I'm currently down to 25.5 after 4 weeks and she is down to 34.5. I've been doing fine with the way I'm losing. Mostly I cut out beer (carbs and gluten) and all other modified carbs. The only carbs I get now are from vegetables. I've already been doing a form of IF for about a year, since I saw Dr. Mosley's documentary, but I continued to drink a lot of beer and not watch at all what I was eating. Cleaning up my diet has really helped.
My wife, as I stated before, she went all in about 2 weeks ago, IF daily and low carbs. She heard back from the Dr. and of course the Dr. basically said what most of you have said, that changing her diet that drastic has thrown her hormones out of whack. The Dr. said to monitor it for a month and get back to her if things haven't evened out.
We don't plan on continuing on with this drastic diet, but we are both very competitive and for the most part we've both been doing really well. The only issue thus far has been the out of balance menses. Everything I've read discusses missing periods, not having additional ones. There was one page I read that said fasting can cause you to have an early period and than afterwards, you may have a lack of period and this has been documented not only in fasting individuals but also tribal women who subsist on a more natural diet. It was pretty convincing, but if I remember correctly, the study was from 1949, so who the heck knows how accurate it was....although I shouldn't discount it since back than, they built the atom bomb, so I shouldn't be a victim of modern superiority complex
Again, thanks for all the information you guys have offered up. I'll keep everyone updated in case someone has this issue in the future.

Oh cool. Ok, I won't worry about her too much then. That's not an unusual weight loss for someone her size starting this regime. Thanks for letting us know! I'm also glad to hear she's in touch with her doctor about it. As ADFnFuel posted, estrogens can be stored in fat. The release of some of those by burning fat can cause irregularities. Fasting long-term will definitely make menses disappear, which is an entirely different issue. This one is just fat melting away so quickly that the stored hormones are messing things up.

Since the fat loss will slow down as her weigh decreases, the issue should clear itself up as well, hopefully.

Good luck!