When you're doing everything right and nothing is working
In more than 25 years as a clinical dietician, there is one sentence I hear from women in midlife more than any other, and it is often expressed with a mixture of frustration and disbelief.
"I'm doing everything right, and nothing is working."
She is often the most organised person I'll speak to all week. She has read so many articles, listened to the podcasts and could probably explain blood sugar better than some of the people giving her advice. She's eating less than she ever has and moving more. She's tried the 16:8 fasting window, pushing breakfast later and later until she's running on coffee for most of the morning. She's downloaded the app, logged every meal, and ordered the big salad at lunch even on the days she really wanted something warm and filling.
And still her rings feel tight. Her skirts feel tight. There is a softness around the middle that wasn't there a few years ago, her energy disappears somewhere around 3pm, and she lies awake at night wondering where she's going wrong when she is trying so hard.
If any of that sounds familiar, you haven't lost your discipline or your common sense. Your body has changed the rules, and once you understand what has changed, the way forward becomes so much clearer.
What changes in your body in perimenopause?
In perimenopause, oestrogen starts to rise and fall less predictably, sleep often becomes lighter and muscle is harder to hold on to. Together, these make your body more sensitive to how and when you eat, and it becomes easier for weight to settle around the middle.
Perimenopause can begin years before your last period, often in your early to mid 40s, while you are still having a normal menstrual cycle. So many women tell me, "I can't be in menopause, I still have my period," and they're right. And yet, they may already be in perimenopause, with a body that is quietly shifting.
Three things tend to change at once.
Your hormones are shifting. As oestrogen rises and falls less predictably, your body becomes more sensitive to how and when you eat, and it becomes easier for weight to settle around the middle.
Your sleep becomes lighter. Night waking, early waking and night sweats all chip away at rest, and a tired body finds it harder to keep blood sugar steady the next day. This is part of why the cravings feel louder than they used to.
Your muscle is harder to hold on to. Muscle is one of the body's best supports for metabolism, blood sugar and bones, and from midlife it needs more deliberate looking after.
None of this is random, and none of it is a sign that you're doing something wrong. The body is very clever. It is responding to new conditions and protecting you in the way it was designed to, and it is communicating with you about what it needs now.
Why does eating less stop working in perimenopause?
In perimenopause, long gaps without food and smaller portions in an attempt to reduce your weight registers as one more stress on your body that is already carrying a lot. This is why I am openly challenging the idea that the answer is to try harder.
When you are stressed, your body thinks there is a wild animal chasing you. It doesn't know the difference between a real threat and an overflowing inbox, a family WhatsApp group or a sleepless night. Cortisol rises, and your body makes its own glucose so you have fuel to run away from the perceived danger. To get that glucose into your muscles where it is needed, insulin rises too.
That system is brilliant for a short burst of danger. The trouble in midlife is that the danger rarely switches off.
You have work, family, ageing parents, children who still need you, the news, the elections, all of that stress stays on in the background, so blood sugar and insulin stay a little higher than they should.
And insulin is a storage hormone, so the body becomes very good at holding on, especially around the middle.
So, if you now add long gaps between meals and reduced portions on top of all of that, for your body, this is interpreted as one more threat. Cortisol rises again. Blood sugar follows. Insulin follows that. Instead of letting go, your body holds on even tighter, and the cravings that arrive at 4pm or late in the evening are its very loud way of asking for the fuel it missed earlier.
This is why so many women feel their effort has stopped paying off. Eating less and pushing harder are adding to the very load the body is struggling with. This is the time of life for you to eat smarter, not less.
Can perimenopause affect your focus and confidence at work?
The effects of hormonal changes and stress is rarely only about whether you are eating enough or not.
The same blood sugar swings and broken sleep play a big part in the brain fog so many women describe.
This is about the word that eludes you in the middle of a sentence, the email you read three times before it sinks in, and the afternoon slump that makes focusing feel like wading through mud. I know that the more stressed I am, the more I find myself losing my own train of thought mid-sentence. This can be so frustrating when I am consulting with clients or just having a normal conversation with my daughter.
At the same time, feeling uncomfortable in your own body quietly wears away at your confidence. It seems to always be there in the background, the constant thinking about what to eat, what not to eat and why nothing is shifting. It all takes up headspace you would far rather give to your family, your work and yourself. Women who have spent years being the capable one, at home and at work, start to second-guess themselves, and so many of them carry it silently, truly feeling that they are the only ones experiencing this.
Another space this occupies is around family meals. Every week we are blessed to have Shabbat, but with it comes cooking for a full house, the challah and the kiddush, the second helpings because everyone is having seconds and often if the food is right there in front of you, you are having it without even thinking. One of the hardest times can be the cake with Shabbat afternoon tea and of course the leftovers on Sunday so nothing goes to waste.
It is so easy to feel that one weekend, or one day alone has undone all your effort and that Sunday (or Monday) is the day to start again.
Honestly though one Shabbat doesn't undo six days of consistent mindful choices. The meals you share with the people you love are part of a nourished life, and the way forward has to make room for them.
It's time to ask a different question
When a client sits down with me for the first time, the shift doesn't start with a new set of rules. This would just add to her already heavy load.
Instead we start with a different question. It's the reframe of asking "what is my body asking for right now?" rather than "where am I going wrong?".
This question and the shift in thinking it brings is the heart of how I work. My focus is always about helping you to feel you are working in partnership with your body, learning to tune in to what it is telling you and giving it what it needs in a way that fits your real life, your family meals, Shabbat, your work demands and your week.
You never need to change everything at once. Here are three small places you can start, and I encourage you to choose just one.
1. Eat before you're ravenous. If you find yourself in the pantry at 4pm, reflect back on your morning before you look at what you ate in the afternoon. Were you running on coffee? Too busy to notice you were hungry? A balanced breakfast and an easy-to-prepare lunch, eaten before you're starving, steadies blood sugar and quietens the afternoon cravings far more than holding on until dinner ever will.
2. Pair rather than cut. You don't need to take away the foods you love. When something sweet or starchy sits alongside a little protein, some vegetables or a healthy fat, your body absorbs the sugar more slowly and has time to process it. A few almonds with the dates, yoghurt with the fruit, the sweet potato with your chicken and salad helps your body to have more sustained energy and balanced blood sugar levels.
3. Give your nervous system a moment. Before you eat, take three to five slow breaths. I enjoy stepping outside for five minutes in the sun with my phone in my pocket. These small pauses help your body move out of "running from danger" and into rest and digest, which is where it is willing to let go.
Try one of these for a week. Notice, without judging, how you feel like your energy in the afternoon, how you sleep, how your clothes sit. Those are often the first signals that your body is responding, long before anything changes on the scale.
You don't have to work it out alone
When it feels as though nothing is working, your body is trying to tell you something, so instead of feeling frustrated (which is totally normal) use this information that it is giving you to learn how to tune in. This doesn't happen overnight but like anything worth investing in progress is built one small choice at a time, and it starts with understanding what has changed rather than pushing harder against it.
If you'd like help connecting the dots between what you're feeling and what your body needs, I offer a free 15-minute call. You can tell me what you've tried, what's changed and what you'd most like to feel different, and either way you'll come away with a practical next step.
Book your free 15-minute call
Justine
