Alright, I’ve been in avoiding confronting this because I love fasting for so many reasons, especially the authophagy and longevity benefits and the sense of discipline it gives me. But, ever since I started doing daily, usually consistent 20 hour fasts, with some rare longer fasts and some cheat days in between, my already thinning hair has not stopped shedding. The shedding amount would be alarming for anybody but I already had thinning hair for other unknown reasons (possibly hormonal or thyroid), so it’s particularly concerning. There is a chance still that my hair loss is not due to fasting but if it is, I think my body might be telling me it’s not enjoying what I’m doing to it. I’m considering pushing through the annoyance of having to give up fasting for a trial run to see if it brings my hair back. If anyone’s experienced hair loss as a result of fasting, how much time passed until you noticed it reversing, if it did? For context I am female
EDIT: I need to clarify. I wish I could change the title, but what I meant by significant is that the amount of hair coming out is excessive and alarming to me, but the diffuse hair loss as a case compared against others who deal with it isn’t as severe. Someone might look at me and notice my hair is thin, but they wouldn’t notice my “hair loss” if that makes sense. Also, the individual hair strands are thinning, they are noticeably narrower near the follicle but I am pretty sure my nutrition is fine, and I don’t have any deficiencies which my blood tests confirm
Ya I noticed it before, losing hair is part of long term fasting whether IF or extended continuous fast. Not sure if everyone experiences it but I remember reading other people’s experiences when I first noticed.
I’ve always associated it with a spike in stress hormones that becomes chronic because other people have attempted to add electrolytes and/or vitamins and hair loss still occurred.