Intermittent fasting is one of the most popular ways to lose weight and improve overall health right now. It involves skipping food for the majority of the day and eating all your meals in a shortened time frame. Beyond weight loss, it comes with a variety of benefits ranging from healthy aging to increased mental clarity.

As an integrative physician, I’ve spent the last decade working with thousands of patients, many of whom were women going through menopause. Here’s a brief look at how menopause changes your body and how intermittent fasting might help with many of the common symptoms. 

And, most notable for many, menopause also causes changes to the metabolism. Typically, the metabolism slows down during menopause because estrogen and progesterone levels fall out of balance. The sudden hormonal shift causes many women to gain weight. 

Menopause can be a scary time. You may feel like you don’t understand your body as well as you used to, and symptoms, like sudden weight gain, can cause you to feel anxious and depressed. 

The good news is that intermittent fasting is an ideal tool to help you through menopause. If you’re struggling with weight gain, fatigue, and/or insulin resistance during menopause, you may want to give it a try. 

In short: yes. Intermittent fasting can help with several symptoms of menopause, including:

Weight gain. Studies have found that intermittent fasting helps with fat loss, and many people find it’s a good long-term strategy for staying slim.

Mental health changes. Menopause often causes anxiety, depression, fatigue, brain fog, mood swings, and psychological stress. Studies have found that fasting improves self-esteem, eases depression and stress levels, and encourages overall positive psychological shifts. 

Brain fog. Studies in animals have found that fasting protects brain cells from stress, helps them clear out waste materials, repair themselves, and makes them more efficient. There are not studies on how fasting affects the human brain yet, but one of the most common things people report while fasting is increased mental clarity. The evidence isn’t all in on this benefit, but you can give fasting a try and see if you notice a difference. 

Intermittent fasting is quite simple to do. You pick an eating window that works for you—say, from 12:00 PM to 8:00 PM—and you eat all your calories in that time frame. Outside of your eating window, you fast—just water and non-caloric drinks like coffee or tea. In other words, you’re fasting for 16 hours every day, and eating for 8 hours every day. That’s called a 16:8 fast and it is one of the most basic intermittent fasting structures.

The nice thing about intermittent fasting is that it’s flexible. Many people start with shorter fasts (14:10 fasts are popular, 14 hours fasting, 10 eating) and gradually increase their fast length. Some people go all the way to only eating one meal a day. You can play with different fasting schedules and see what feels best for you. 

Intermittent fasting is a great tool for managing weight gain, insulin resistance, and other common symptoms of menopause. 

That said, there are some people who may not want to try intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting puts mild stress on your body, and if you have adrenal fatigue or a chronic illness, you may not want to incorporate intermittent fasting into your daily routine. 

If you decide to give intermittent fasting a try, pay attention to how you feel. If fasting makes you feel too stressed, or if you feel weak or ill during fasting, you may want to either shorten your fast or skip intermittent fasting entirely. Keep in mind that you don’t have to fast every day, either. You can always fast every other day, or even just a couple times a week. 

Menopause can be a challenging time, but with the right diet and lifestyle changes, you can stay fit, happy, and healthy, even as your hormones change. Read up on common myths about menopause and blood sugar balance during menopause for more tools to help you look and feel your best.