Menopause Is Real. So Is Personal Responsibility.
Menopause gets blamed for a lot.
Some of it is fair. Our hormones change, our sleep can change, our body composition can change, and things that used to feel easy may not anymore.
But I also think there comes a point where we have to ask whether menopause is really the whole problem.
Because if we are barely strength training, not paying much attention to what we’re eating, sitting most of the day, sleeping poorly, drinking more than we know is helping us, and being inconsistent for weeks at a time, then hormones aren’t the only thing affecting the result.
That doesn’t mean menopause isn’t real.
It means our habits are real too. And those are the part we can actually do something about.
Menopause Does Change Things
Declining estrogen affects the body. Women can experience changes in body composition, including carrying more fat around the abdomen, and we naturally become more at risk of losing muscle as we get older.
Sleep can become harder too, especially when hot flashes, night sweats, or other menopause symptoms are involved. Poor sleep can affect your energy, recovery, food choices, and how much you feel like moving throughout the day.
Those things are real and they shouldn’t be dismissed.
But they also don’t mean there is nothing we can do.
The way we took care of ourselves in our 30s may not be enough anymore. We may need to be more intentional about strength training, nutrition, movement, and recovery than we used to be.
We Have to Look at Our Habits Too
This is where a little tough love comes in.
You can’t expect your body to change if your habits aren’t consistent enough to create that change.
Strength training once in a while isn’t the same as following a structured program. Eating well for a few days and then completely changing course every weekend makes progress much harder. Starting something, giving it two weeks, and deciding it doesn’t work isn’t really giving it a chance.
Progress still takes work in midlife.
That doesn’t mean eating as little as possible, adding endless cardio, or trying to burn as many calories as you can every day. It means finding the habits that support your health and your goals and doing them consistently enough to make a difference.
Strength Training Needs to Be Part of the Plan
One of the most important things we can do in midlife is strength train.
Muscle matters for so much more than how our body looks. It supports strength, bone health, metabolism, mobility, and our ability to keep doing the things we want to do as we get older.
Walking is great, but it doesn’t replace resistance training. Your muscles need enough resistance to actually challenge them.
That doesn’t require living in the gym. A well-structured strength program a few times a week can go a long way when you’re consistent and gradually increasing the challenge over time.
The goal of strength training also isn’t to see how many calories you can burn in an hour. We’re lifting to build and maintain muscle.
There are plenty of other hours in the day for movement.
Your Nutrition Needs to Support
What You’re Asking Your Body to Do
Nutrition is another area where many women need to make some changes in midlife.
Protein is important, especially when we’re trying to maintain or build muscle, but it isn’t the only thing that matters. We need carbohydrates for energy and fats for overall health too.
Carbs in particular still make a lot of women nervous because we’ve spent years hearing that bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes need to go if we want to lose weight.
They don’t.
If you’re strength training, trying to build muscle, and staying active, carbohydrates help give you the energy to do those things.
Instead of cutting out food groups, I would much rather see women focus on balanced meals with a good source of protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats, fruits, and vegetables.
You also need to have some idea of how much you’re eating. For some women, tracking macros is helpful because it takes away the guessing and shows you whether your nutrition is actually lining up with your goals.
Eating well in midlife isn’t about eating as little as possible. It’s about giving your body what it needs while keeping your overall intake appropriate for what you’re trying to achieve.
Your Workout Is Only a Small Part of Your Day
This is one piece that gets overlooked a lot.
You can have a great workout and still spend most of the rest of your day sitting.
The calories you burn during that workout are only one small part of your total daily energy expenditure. Your body is burning calories around the clock just keeping you alive, and your everyday movement also contributes to how much energy you use.
That includes walking the dog, cleaning, gardening, running errands, taking the stairs, standing more, and generally being on your feet.
This type of movement is called NEAT, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis. You don’t need to remember the term, but you do need to understand that what you do during the other 23 hours of your day matters.
A lot of us naturally moved more when we were younger. Maybe we had more active jobs, younger kids, busier schedules, or simply spent less time sitting. Over the years, that can change without us really noticing.
Sometimes what feels like our metabolism suddenly stopped working is also partly a change in how much we move.
This is why I like to separate strength training from daily movement. Lift to build and maintain muscle, then make an effort to stay active throughout the rest of your day.
Sleep, Hydration, and Alcohol Matter Too
Sleep can be one of the harder habits to manage during menopause because sometimes you can be doing everything right and still wake up several times during the night.
There are still things worth looking at, including caffeine, your bedtime routine, room temperature, screen time, and alcohol. When symptoms are significantly affecting your sleep or quality of life, talking to your healthcare provider is part of taking care of yourself too.
Hydration is another basic habit that is easy to overlook. Being well hydrated supports your training, energy, and how you feel throughout the day.
Alcohol was a big one for me.
Cutting it out became a game changer, and it wasn’t only because of the calories. I started paying attention to how I felt the next day and how easily one night of drinking could affect my sleep, energy, food choices, workouts, and movement.
It could push several of the habits I was trying to build right to the sidelines.
Once I understood that, drinking stopped feeling worth it to me.
That doesn’t mean every woman has to make the same choice I did. But I do think it’s worth looking honestly at how alcohol affects you rather than only thinking about the calories in the drink itself.
I Had to Make These Changes Too
When I owned my CrossFit gym, I didn’t have to think about my nutrition or movement nearly as much. I was training regularly, on my feet all day, and naturally very active. I had never tracked macros because, at that point, I really didn’t need to.
Then a lot changed at once. I was moving into perimenopause, had recently had a hysterectomy, sold our gym during COVID, and wasn’t training or moving nearly as much. I was also feeling pretty low, gained quite a bit of belly fat, and stopped feeling like myself.
Eventually, I knew I had to change what I was doing.
That was when I leaned into tracking macros, became consistent with lifting, made daily movement a non negotiable, and cut out alcohol.
The change in my body was much more about body recomposition than a huge amount of weight loss. I lost around 15 pounds, but I lost 23 inches across my measurements and built a ton of muscle. The difference in how my body looked and felt was huge.
It taught me that I couldn’t control what menopause was changing, but I could control a lot of the habits that affected it.
I’m not as lean today as I was during that particular time, but I know what happens when those habits start slipping and, more importantly, I know what to do about it. I never want to get back to the point where I felt that miserable in my own body.
The Basics Still Work
The things that help us in midlife aren’t particularly complicated.
Strength train consistently. Eat balanced meals with enough protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats. Move throughout the day. Drink enough water. Work on your sleep and recovery. Look honestly at how alcohol and other habits may be affecting the things you’re trying to accomplish.
Then stick with it.
You don’t have to do everything perfectly, but you do have to be consistent enough to give your body a chance to respond. Changing your habits takes determination, and sometimes it means doing things you don’t particularly feel like doing that day.
Menopause may mean we need to approach our health differently than we did ten or twenty years ago.
It doesn’t mean we have no control over what happens next.
Need Help Figuring Out What Needs to Change?
Sometimes you know your habits need to change, but figuring out what to focus on and how to make it all fit into your life is the harder part.
That’s what we work on inside my Strong & Balanced 1:1 Online Coaching.
We look at your nutrition, strength training, and daily habits, figure out where you’re getting stuck, and build a realistic plan around your life.