Hi everyone.
I’m 2 months into fasting. 20lbs down so far (slow due to me having underlying health conditions which make weight loss harder)
My husband and I are trying to conceive our third baby, but I’ve noticed in the past 2 months I’ve not been ovulating at all. Before this my cycles were occasionally very long but mostly normal. I’m not panicking and heading to see a doctor as for one I’m in the UK and it isn’t easy for us just to casually visit the doctor and secondly there’s really no point as in the past I have suffered from PCOS which means my ovulation/cycles can be up and down.
I have briefly googled it and have seen some people saying fasting delays ovulation/can negatively impact a woman’s cycle. I don’t intend to stop fasting due to this, but just wondered if anyone else has similar experiences? Did your cycles come back to normal eventually if so? I can’t find much helpful on Google other than people just ranting about how bad fasting is.
I have a lot of weight to lose. I’m currently 215lbs down from over 236lbs (I haven’t got an exact figure as I didn’t weigh myself for the first 2 weeks of fasting) so I don’t want to quit fasting, nor do I intend to, for the sole purpose of ovulation alone. The comments I have seen made by people on other forums on Google are not encouraging at all and I keep saying stuff about how fasting is really dangerous to a woman’s menstrual cycle. Obviously when I do get pregnant I won’t be fasting any more but for now I want to continue. I am making sure I still take a high dose of folic acid daily in case we do conceive in the next few months, aswell as a multi vitamin.
Thanks in advance.
Fasting can definitely mess with your hormones. It can release hormones stored in fat. Also extended fasting can decrease gonadotropin release hormone and leutenizing Hormone which can lead to things getting pretty whacky for a few months. As someone suggested earlier there are times during the cycle when it is best to do a fast. I would look into that.Another suggestion is to try intermittent fasting and sprinkle in a few longer fasts throughout the month. During your feeding window you might try high fat high protein to make sure you body gets what it needs to repair itself, and make hormones. Good luck!