Guest Post: Introducing Lolly Steuart — trail runner, skier, mountain athlete and Kate’s Real Food Ambassador
Lolly Steuart is a local mountain athlete in the process of applying to graduate school to pursue a Master’s Degree in Nutrition & Dietetics with the ultimate goal of becoming a sports dietitian who works with fellow mountain athletes and ski teams. I am so excited to have Lolly assist me with nutrition education content, recipe testing (I know for a fact she’s better in the kitchen than me), and other upcoming projects.
Lolly and I have very similar nutrition philosophies, both majored in Psychology in undergrad, love being outside, and supporting our bodies by fueling them in ways that will promote recovery and prevent injury.
Some of Lolly’s favs:
Backcountry skiing snack: Pocket Pancakes with almond butter
Kate’s Real Food flavor: TIKI bar (mango & coconut), but her preference changes depending on the season/her mood
Local spots: Handfire Pizza, Hatch Taqueria (she loves a well-made marg)
I let Lolly choose the first topic she’d like to research as her introductory blog post, and she wrote an awesome review about the current literature surrounding Intermittent Fasting and its potential impact on hormones, specifically in women. Keep reading below for her take on this current health trend:
Intermittent Fasting & Hormones
Intermittent fasting (IF) is becoming a trend. What is it? Why is it becoming popular? What are the health implications? I'm going to try and answer some common questions as well as bust some myths about it here. To begin with, let's define it. IF can be practiced in various ways. It is eating within an 8 hour window and fasting for 16 hours (most common), but it can also be practiced with 18hr or 24hr fasts. If you think about it, IF is something we as humans have always practiced (sleep, hunting and foraging cycles), but now it is being given a trendy name.
Health implications
IF has been reported to promote autophagy. Autophagy is cellular cleansing to maintain homeostasis. It can be upregulated under certain stressful situations, like nutritional deprivation (Antunes, 2018). Short term studies have indicated that IF can promote weight loss. Additionally, a systematic review found that weight loss occurred in all 5 of the studies conducted. Other sources say that IF can possibly improve brain function and help with diseases such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, as well as diabetes (Research on Intermittent Fasting Shows Health Benefits, 2020). However, the long term implications still need to be studied (Welton, 2020).
Problems with the studies
I haven't been able to find a study that researches the long term health benefits of an already healthy BMI young woman. Most of the study's populations are cancer, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease patients. There doesn’t seem to be reputable studies published on healthy, young individuals and many of these studies are self reported, which more often than not, are biased. We need more information on the long term health effects with a greater variety of populations.
Hormones
The literature on hormones and IF is hard to find. One MD in particular, Dr. Amy Shah, advocates IF for women and sells courses on it. Without access to these courses, it is challenging to find out her approach. Additionally, Alisa Vitti HHP, argues against IF for healthy menstruating women. She describes how it can disrupt your estrogen balance, causing all sorts of physiological issues. Alisa states that "estrogen helps us with metabolism, weight loss, mood, anxiety and stress, energy, bone density, and cognitive function, to name just a few". When one hormone system is out of balance, other hormonal systems, such as cortisol regulation and thyroid function, can go out the window as well (Vitti, 2020). These imbalanced systems can appear as low energy, insomnia, irregular periods, trouble regulating body temperature, weight gain, brain fog, decreased bone density and poorer cardiovascular heath to name a few (Vitti, 2020). Finally, a woman’s body will prioritize survival over reproduction. When stress on the body is heightened (like from IF), the body can put reproductive health on hold to maintain weight and increases ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and leptin so that she consumes more the next time food is available (from a physiological functioning stand point) (Vitti, 2020).
Main Take Away
It is important to start easy with IF. Begin with 12-13hr fasts and discover what works best for your body and creates the least amount of physiological stress. There are certain phases within a woman’s cycle where IF can be done in a healthy and beneficial way, but that is worthy of a whole other post. Do your research and find what works best for you.
Sources:
Antunes F, Erustes AG, Costa AJ, et al. Autophagy and intermittent fasting: the connection for cancer therapy?. Clinics (Sao Paulo). 2018;73(suppl 1):e814s. Published 2018 Dec 10. doi:10.6061/clinics/2018/e814s
Research on intermittent fasting shows health benefits. (2020, February 27). National Institute on Aging. https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/research-intermittent-fasting-shows-health-benefits
Vitti, A. (2020, January 16). Intermittent Fasting and Hormonal Health: What You Need to Know. Flo Living. https://www.floliving.com/intermittent-fasting/
Welton, S., Minty, R., O'Driscoll, T., Willms, H., Poirier, D., Madden, S., & Kelly, L. (2020). Intermittent fasting and weight loss: Systematic review. Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien, 66(2), 117–125.
— Lolly Steuart
Make sure to follow Lolly on Instagram to see what mountain adventures she’s getting into and for delicious homemade recipes.
