Calling all females...working out fasted may be doing you more harm than good!

Health and NutritionPersonal Training
Written By Megan Cooper

I recently enrolled in a course Women Are Not Small Men by Dr. Stacy Sims so I could learn more about how to train women specifically in the peri-menopause and post menopausal periods of life.


What I learn was more than I could have expected and that we have been training women wrong…all wrong. That majority of research studies are men or women not during their cycle so it doesn’t take into account any hormone changes in our bodies. When women are more prone to injury. How our pre and post workout nutrition needs are different. That women SHOULD NOT be doing intermittent fasting or fasting for workouts and SO MUCH MORE all backed by science!


Women, if you want to read more about this I highly recommend purchasing ROAR By Dr. Stacy Simms. This will give you an introduction to what I am talking about and what I recently dove so deep into the science of.

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Women are not men and we should not be training like them either. Men can follow a simple progressive overload training program no problem. They do can intermittent fasting without issues. They can train fasted. They can wait for up to 2 hours to refuel their bodies. They don’t need to worry about hormonal changes based on where they are in their cycle, nutrition needs, how the body works during the high hormone and low hormone phases.

We see this often with women, under-eating which can sometimes be diagnosed as over training. Under-eating and under fueling our bodies for the amount of work we do puts us into an LEA or low energy availability state. After just four days of being in this state our bodies start to respond and not in a good way! it can start to impact your thyroid function, your metabolic activity, bone formation, and hormones to name a few. What does this mean? Gaining weight in your midsection, weak performance in workouts, not building lean mass, fatigue, sleep disturbances, bone loss and menstrual disorders. (1)

I just thew a bunch of stuff at you and some alarming and maybe even against what you thought to be true.

Where should you start?


If you are pre-menopause, try downloading and app to help you track your cycles there are a couple FitrWomen and Wild AI. I personally like Wild Ai and have been using it. Track for three months and learn from it. Pay attention to your workouts. When you can go hard and when you may need to back off because it feels hard.

If you are post menopausal focus on your nutrition around your workouts. I’ll get into the post workout nutrition in another post but If you aren’t fueling pre workout, start there.


Pre-Workout Nutrition

Focus on your nutrient timing. We aren’t professional endurance athletes but if you are female you should not, I repeat SHOULD NOT go into your workout fasted.

  • Training fasted increases cortisol which promotes fat storage and can decrease the available building blocks needed for your other hormones, like progesterone.

  • Have something to eat 30-45 mins before training, especially if before a heavy training session

  • Fast releasing carbohydrates and some protein (15-20g of protein)

    • Slice of toast with natural peanut butter/nut butter protein mix

    • Banana with natural peanut butter/nut butter protein mix

    • Homemade energy protein balls

We’re not talking a huge meal here but if you want to get the results and avoid getting into that LEA state then you must eat something pre-workout.

Think of this as putting fuel in the tank for what you are about to do. If you give your body energy, it will be able to work harder, get more out of a session, get more results.

Of course, your exact amount of fuel depends on what intensity and type of workout you’re doing, but in general we want a predominately carb based snack before a workout with a little bit of protein. My go-to in has been 1/2-1 banana and a little bit of peanut butter (this is a tad low in protein, but I just went with it) about 30 minutes before my workout. For upper body workouts I did half a banana and for lower body or higher intensity days I did a whole banana.

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If you aren’t fueling pre-workout, have plateaued, workouts feel. “hard” all the time, you may want to reconsider.

Don’t believe me? Check out these additional resources.

ADDITIONAL READING/LISTENING:


I would highly recommend reading Dr. Stacy Sims' book 'Roar' and downloading the FitrWoman app or Wild AI to track your menstrual cycle a. Both are incredible sources and would have informed a lot of my initial learning of the topic.



SOURCES




Megan Cooper
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