3 Ways Intermittent Fasting Can Balance Your Hormones

Updated: May 27, 2020

When utilized correctly, I have seen Intermittent Fasting help reduce insulin resistance, decrease symptoms of chronic fatigue, improve menstrual cycles, and decrease feelings of anxiety. The magic lies in three main factors: autophagy (watch THIS video for more deets), gut healing, and hormone balance. Today, I want to focus specifically on hormone balance, because this is the area that gets most affected if Intermittent Fasting isn't done properly with up-to-date nutrient timing tools.

A bit of background

Intermittent Fasting is an amazing, gut healing, inflammation decreasing, hormone balancing tool that I have successfully used with clients ranging from professional athletes to those suffering from IBS or chronic fatigue. However, with the rise in popularity of this ancient healing technique, there has also been a rise in mis-information. A common misconception is that Intermittent Fasting is simply when you don't eat for a given amount of time. Approaching it with this method will cause the body to get confused, have wild spikes and falls in blood glucose levels, and ultimately mess up the internal hormone balance that your body so tightly tries to regulate.

**IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are interested in trying Intermittent Fasting to help you achieve your wellness goals, I HIGHLY recommend you watch THIS video FIRST so that you can achieve hormone balance and approach Intermittent Fasting properly.

To put it simply, when Intermittent Fasting is properly utilized, you can achieve your wellness and health goals while keeping your body happy and in homeostasis (aka hormone balance).

So what are the hormone balancing benefits?

#1: Decreased Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance is where your body's cells aren't as able to recognize insulin (glucose storing hormone) as efficiently. This can lead to Type 2 Diabetes and fertility conditions such as PCOS. Intermittent Fasting has been found to increase your insulin sensitivity which not only helps to reduce your risk of Type 2 Diabetes and PCOS, it also aids in tapping into fat burning mechanisms that leads to natural weight loss!

#2: Increased Growth Hormone

Growth hormone is necessary to help your body burn fat and repair muscle mass. However, levels of growth hormone are essentially not detectable as soon as you eat. If you are eating as soon as you wake up and snacking until you go to bed, this doesn't allow much opportunity for growth hormone to go up and repair your muscles. Intermittent Fasting, on the other hand, aids in increasing growth hormone by up to 2000%!

#3: Decreased Cortisol + Increased Melatonin

A balance in cortisol (stress hormone) and melatonin (sleep hormone) can occur with proper nutrient timing paired with Intermittent Fasting and a well balanced workout routine. This is one of the major areas that often gets overlooked when it comes to Intermittent Fasting. Melatonin is needed to make you fall and stay asleep in order to feel rested and not groggy or tired the next day. Cortisol is required in the morning to give you the energy and mental awareness to get your day started. However, incorporating nutrient timing with Intermittent Fasting helps you to balance these very important hormones.