With busy work days, it’s great to wake up early and get our day started with a workout. Doing this exercise fasted has been a hot topic as of late. Promoting that it has greater benefits like fat-burning. As women working out fasted can come at a cost, causing imbalances to our hormones and reducing our performance and adding unneeded stress to the body. Let’s look further into the effects fasted exercise has on the womens body and ways to implement proper nutrition before an early morning workout!
The impact on women’s health
Women participating in fasted exercise allow for unneeded stress to the body. Due to ever changing hormone and reproductive needs, fasted exercise results in disruption of these important functions. One being Kisspeptin, a neuropeptide that regulated reproductive hormones, metabolism and appetite in women. After prolonged fasting and added stress from exercise a women’s hormone balance becomes thrown off. Women have much more sensitive bodies compared to men and need to be cared for to support regular cycles.
Exercising elevated the stress hormone, cortisol. As this hormone is raised and paired with increased physical demand of working out it can throw a woman’s body out of balance, and result in undesired functioning and health concerns. Women risk more fatigue and disrupted menstrual cycles which can overtime lead to health risks.
Instead do this:
Many struggle to eat before an early morning workout, as they feel they will get sick or can;t stomach anything at that hour of the day. Start with something small and work your way up to a meal prior to working out to support your body functions. Its important to eat carbohydrates to prevent a mid workout crash. Giving your body fuel prior to a workout allows for enhanced performance. Some snacks to start incorporating should be mainly carbs with moderate amounts of protein like peanut butter and toast, a fruit bar, or apples and nut butter.
Last thing to consider:
Working out fasted might seem like the best way to get a workout in and burn the most calories, but in reality you are causing more harm than good. As women we require balanced nutrition before and after working out to support our hormonal needs while prioritizing performance during our workouts.
Written by GUADS intern Emma with contributions from jilliangreaves.com
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