A lot of women do this each morning - but it's likely causing more stress than we realise
If you're a woman and you regularly skip breakfast, Dr Stacy Sims wants you to reconsider.
Sims, a world-renowned exercise physiologist, nutrition scientist and author, says in a culture where we are taught to value thinness and weight loss, women have learnt to ignore their hunger cues in the morning.
"We've been conditioned to think, 'Let's conserve calories, let's not eat in the morning," she tells nine.com.au.
Physiology expert Dr Stacy Sims says skipping breakfast can be detrimental for women. Getty
But according to Sims, who has dedicated her career to understanding women's physiology, this is a terrible idea as skipping breakfast can cause women's bodies to hold on to stress.
She explains the active form of the hunger hormone, acylated grehlin, is higher in women at baseline than it is in men. It also has a direct relationship with the body's stress hormone,known as cortisol.
Essentially, if a woman doesn't eat in the morning her hunger hormone will rise, bringing her stress hormone up with it, and Sims says the two will "stay elevated".
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Eating first thing in the morning or within an hour of waking up will cause stress and hunger hormones to drop, Sims explains. Getty
On the other hand, if a woman eats "first thing or within half an hour of waking up", both of those hormones will drop.
"So over the course of time [of consistently eating in the morning], we end up with good cortisol responses," she says.
Sims adds that it's important for our stress hormones to naturally oscillate and "when women hold their fast for a long period of time", that rhythm is interrupted.
It means "we don't have the appropriate cortisol responses," Sims explains.
It could be causing "undue" stress" Getty Images/iStockphoto
"We'll find that in women who don't eat first thing in the morning and hold their fast, they end up moving less during the day and craving more simple carbohydrates."
It can also wreak havoc on your ability to handle everyday stresses, she says, explaining that it can cause "undue responses to stresses during the day" like a "work email" or "road rage".
The answer to preventing this "stress load", Sims says, "starts with eating".
But why is this specific to women? Sims says due to the "really robust endocrine system", women, or people assigned female at birth, are much more sensitive to nutrient density.
She says men, or people assigned male at birth, can function just fine on an extended fast, and doing things like fasted training, but a woman's body will respond differently.
It's one of the reasons Sims says it's so important to consider the differences between men's and women's physiology when it comes to fitness and nutrition more generally.
She explains that much of the general nutrition and fitness advice you may hear or find online has been based in research focussed on men, meaning how it affects women can often be left out of the conversation.
Another example she points out is the widely popular trend of ice baths.
Sims says ice baths are another example of something that may work for men but not for women. Getty
The benefits of ice baths have been widely-touted and, while they may be accurate for men, Sims says it's a different story for women.
Sims says a cold plunge that is below 10 degrees celsius "can be very dangerous for women because it is such a severe stress response".
"[Women] don't get any of the benefits that you read about," she adds.
Water that is "around 14 degrees celcius", on the other hand, can be beneficial for women, she explains, but those benefits are still "not as strong or as robust as male responses".
Dr Stacy Sims has dedicated her career to understanding women's physiology. Supplied
These are just some of the findings that Sims has made throughout her career.
After learning just how little scientific understanding there is about women's bodies, Sims has dedicated her career to pursuing further research into women's health and physiology and advocating for athletes, coaches and health professionals to reshape the way they approach female-specific training and nutrition.
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