Are you a frustrated female who has tried everything to lose weight but can't seem to get the scale to budge? If so, you're not alone. And if there's a male friend, family member, or significant other in your life who seems to drop pounds with ease, it can be quite disheartening.

Menopause can be both an empowering and challenging time. While new opportunities and life paths open up at midlife, hormonal changes can also bring a range of uncomfortable symptoms. Thanks to these hormonal changes, women's health risks go up sharply after menopause.

Back in the day, you could eat whatever you wanted, not think about it, and not worry about weight gain or any health effects, or at least that's how it seemed. But today, it's a different story. You're a little older, perhaps less active than you'd like, and now, eating whatever you want means your jeans aren't as comfortable anymore.

Your body is incredible. It works constantly to keep you alive and functioning. Your hormones — chemical messengers that coordinate bodily functions by carrying signals through the blood to the organs, muscles, tissues, and cells — play a huge role in this. There are over 50 different hormones in the human body, and in the context of weight loss or gain, insulin is thought to be one of the most significant.

Thousands of people trying to lose weight are frustrated by traditional diets that don't work — or work only for a short time before the weight comes back. Health blogs and magazines tell us to cut calories and watch what we eat.

Our bodies, being the wonderfully efficient machines that they are, have a kind of self-cleaning function called autophagy. The research is still very new, but there are some promising results that point to intermittent fasting and autophagy being a sort of health and wellness dream team. Intermittent fasting may trigger the process of autophagy. And the intermittent fasting benefits we know and love (listed below) may actually be due to their connection with autophagy. Some of these fasting benefits are: weight loss, specifically from fat loss, improved cognitive function, reduced inflammation, lower risk of metabolic syndrome, improved heart health, reduced risk of diabetes.

If you've been in the diet world long enough, you might have heard about the concept of a cheat day. This is typically considered a day off from your diet. On the so-called cheat day, you can eat whatever and whenever you want, then you'll return to your regular menu the following day.

If you're a guy who's having a rough time losing body fat, you're not alone. Whether it's a packed schedule, work, family, travel, getting older, or any number of other life demands, finding time for healthy habits can be hard. Plus, food tastes good.

Ready to start your intermittent fasting lifestyle? Great! Intermittent fasting can be just what the doctor ordered for you to start shedding excess body fat and improve your health. It's normal to make lots of mistakes as we learn.

Since intermittent fasting is about when you eat rather than what you eat — and you get to customize the experience according to your needs, goals, lifestyle, and preferences — it can be an ideal food routine for people who don't love complicated shopping lists and micromanaging calories, nutrients, and ingredients.