please check out the book “in the flo”!! it’s about living by your hormonal cycle; in it, it talks about how fasting and caloric deficits can actually activate fat storage in women! they’re good for our first half of the cycle, but cause lots of issues on our second half (since our bodies are building tissue to expel, we actually need about 250 more calories during our follicular and menstrual stages)
Discussion
the same is true with exercise, during the first half we should do hiit and cardio, but wane off working out during our second half bc it spikes up our cortisol, messes up with our estrogen, and yes, actually stores fat!! fasted workouts are also insanely bad (i lost a bit more than 5 pounds in like 2 months by eating breakfast before working out)
fasting studies are mainly done on men, and fasting works wonders on them! they are designed for them, but we’re literally designed to store more fat, so if we put our female bodies under unnecessary stresses during its most delicate stages, we can cause lots of hormonal imbalances and store extra fat :(
https://floliving.com/blog/infradian-rhythm
sorry for the rant lol i’ve been studying living by our cycle and it’s so insanely mind opening