40+: Things We Blame on Age That We Can Actually Fix
You turned 40. You did not suddenly become a delicate Victorian woman who needs to lie down after carrying the washing basket.
Something fairly annoying happens once you're a woman over 40.
You mention being tired.
“Well, you're getting older.”
Your jeans get tighter.
“That's middle age.”
You feel weaker.
“Muscle loss.”
You're stiff when you get off the floor.
“Wait until you're 50.”
You can't sleep.
“Hormones.”
Apparently the moment we blow out 40 candles we're expected to accept a slow descent into exhaustion, expanding waistbands and making involuntary noises every time we stand up.
No thanks.
Some things do change with age.
Perimenopause is real. Hormones change. Body composition can change. Muscle mass and strength tend to decline as we get older if we do nothing to preserve them, and menopause can influence where fat is stored, particularly around the abdomen. The Menopause Society
But there's a big difference between:
This becomes more likely with age
and
There is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Those two ideas have somehow become muddled together.
So let's unmuddle them.
“I'm just tired because I'm getting older.”
Maybe.
But first I'd like to know:
How are you sleeping?
Are you waking through the night?
Are hot flushes disturbing your sleep?
Are you eating enough?
Have you eaten breakfast?
Are you attempting to live on 1,300 calories and determination?
Are you drinking enough?
Are you low in iron?
How stressed are you?
How much are you moving?
Perimenopause absolutely can disrupt sleep, and poor sleep can then amplify fatigue, irritability, anxiety and brain fog. nhs.uk
But exhaustion shouldn't automatically be filed under:
OLD NOW. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.
Persistent fatigue can also be related to under-fuelling, iron deficiency, thyroid problems, medication, sleep disorders and plenty of other things worth investigating.
What can we actually do?
Feed ourselves properly.
Protect sleep where possible.
Get daylight.
Move.
Recover.
And if you're still completely bloody exhausted?
See your GP and investigate it.
Age is context.
It is not a diagnosis.
“Of course I'm getting weaker. I'm over 40.”
Now this one really gets me.
Yes, muscle and strength tend to decline with ageing.
But do you know one of the most effective things we can do about that?
Use the muscle.
Strength training.
Actual resistance.
Challenge the muscle and give your body a reason to maintain it.
Resistance training can significantly improve strength and physical function even in much older women, and major physical-activity guidelines recommend muscle-strengthening work at least twice a week for adults. PubMed
Forty is not the age where we shrug and begin gently fading into the couch.
It's probably the age where muscle becomes more important, not less.
I want us building bodies capable of carrying shopping, lifting kids, moving furniture, getting off the floor and travelling when we're 70.
Not because we want to look twenty-five.
Because we want to remain capable.
“My metabolism has packed up.”
Your metabolism did not receive a notification about your 40th birthday and clock off.
Midlife weight gain is real, but it's usually considerably less dramatic than:
MY METABOLISM IS BROKEN.
Ageing can reduce energy needs, partly because we tend to lose muscle and often become less active.
Menopause also appears to influence body-fat distribution, making increased abdominal fat more common. The Menopause Society
Then real life joins the party.
We're sitting more.
Sleeping worse.
Working more.
Walking less.
Kids no longer require us to chase them around a playground.
Wine portions have become optimistic.
Our “little handful” of nuts is apparently being measured with a shovel.
It can be a lot of small things.
Which is good news.
Because small things are workable.
Build and preserve muscle.
Walk.
Eat enough protein.
Get fibre in.
Look at portions honestly.
Create a modest calorie deficit if fat loss is the goal.
Don't panic and slash your food down to survival rations.
Your body hasn't stopped responding to energy balance because you're 43.
We may just need to adjust the strategy.
“I'm stiff because I'm getting old.”
Maybe we're also stiff because we've spent the last ten years sitting.
Desk.
Car.
Couch.
Repeat.
Then suddenly we decide the reason touching our toes feels like an extreme sport is because we've crossed some invisible age threshold.
Bodies adapt to what we repeatedly ask them to do.
If we rarely rotate, squat, bend, reach, extend or load ourselves through decent ranges of motion...
why would we expect those movements to remain effortless?
The answer isn't necessarily an elaborate mobility routine performed beside a Himalayan salt lamp.
Move more.
Use your joints.
Strength train through useful ranges.
Do Pilates.
Squat.
Reach.
Walk.
Get on the floor occasionally.
And, importantly:
keep doing the things you want to keep being able to do.
“I have no energy to exercise anymore.”
This one's a horrible little loop.
We're tired, so we move less.
Because we move less, our fitness declines.
Then ordinary activity requires more effort.
So we're more tired.
So we move even less.
Rude.
Regular physical activity improves cardiovascular fitness and health, while strength work helps preserve function; importantly, the WHO emphasises that some movement is better than none. World Health Organization
You don't need to start training six days a week.
Please don't.
Walk today.
Strength train twice this week.
Do a class.
Ride your bike.
Start building capacity back.
Fitness isn't something we either possess or lose forever.
It's trainable.
At 40.
At 50.
At 60.
And well beyond.
“I'm constantly hungry now. Bloody hormones.”
Hormonal changes can influence appetite, sleep and body composition.
But before we blame oestrogen for the packet of biscuits disappearing at 4pm, can we look at what we've actually eaten?
Because I've seen this combination approximately eleven billion times:
Coffee.
Tiny breakfast.
Light lunch.
Trying to “be good”.
Afternoon arrives.
Suddenly we could chew through a pantry door.
That's not necessarily hormonal chaos.
Sometimes that's a hungry woman.
Protein helps.
Fibre helps.
Proper carbohydrates help.
Actual meals help.
Breakfast may help if you're consistently under-fuelling early and ravenous later.
Before we try to suppress appetite, let's make sure we aren't creating it.
“My brain just doesn't work anymore.”
Brain fog is a recognised symptom during perimenopause, and poor sleep can make memory and concentration feel even worse. nhs.uk
So no, you're not imagining it.
But again, there may be several layers.
Sleep.
Stress.
Not eating enough.
Dehydration.
Constant notifications.
Twenty-seven browser tabs open in your actual brain.
Trying to remember school dates, work deadlines, what's for dinner and who needs a costume next Thursday.
Sometimes the brain isn't broken.
It's absolutely cooked.
We may not be able to eliminate hormonal changes, but we can stop making the environment around them unnecessarily hostile.
Eat.
Sleep.
Move.
Reduce some of the mental clutter.
And if brain fog is severe, new or concerning, get it assessed rather than automatically chalking it up to menopause.
“I can't lose weight like I used to.”
This one might actually be true.
What worked at 27 may not work exactly the same way at 47.
But that doesn't mean nothing works.
Maybe at 27 you had more muscle.
Walked everywhere.
Slept nine hours.
Went dancing.
Had fewer responsibilities.
Didn't spend ten hours a day at a laptop.
And perhaps your idea of takeaway was once a burger rather than a burger, wine, chips and half the kids' leftovers.
Different body.
Different life.
Different strategy.
Fat loss over 40 does not require:
hormone detoxes,
metabolism resets,
fasting for seventeen hours,
removing carbohydrates,
or eating like a sad woodland animal.
The fundamentals are still remarkably unsexy.
A sustainable calorie deficit.
Enough protein.
Lots of plants and fibre.
Strength training.
Movement.
Sleep.
Time.
The strategy may need tweaking.
Physics did not retire because we entered perimenopause.
Here's what I want us to stop doing
Stop using age as a full stop.
I'm tired because I'm 45.
Full stop.
I'm weaker because I'm older.
Full stop.
I've gained weight because menopause.
Full stop.
Try replacing the full stop with a question mark.
I'm tired. What's contributing to it?
I'm weaker. Have I actually been training strength?
My waist has changed. What has changed hormonally, physically and behaviourally?
I'm stiff. How much have I moved this week?
I'm struggling with my weight. What does my actual food intake look like?
That changes everything.
Because suddenly we're not standing helplessly beside the ageing process yelling:
WELL, THIS IS SHIT.
We've got things to work with.
You are getting older. Good.
That's the goal, isn't it?
I'm not interested in pretending we're 25.
I don't want to “reverse ageing”.
And I certainly don't want women spending the second half of their lives fighting perfectly normal bodies because somebody on Instagram told them their hormones needed fixing.
Ageing comes with changes.
Perimenopause comes with changes.
Some things need medical support.
Some things we may simply have to accommodate.
But an enormous amount of what determines how we feel and function as we age remains trainable, nourishable and influenceable.
Strength.
Fitness.
Mobility.
Nutrition.
Sleep habits.
Body composition.
Confidence.
Skills.
Daily movement.
We have knobs we can turn.
That's the empowering bit.
You're not trying to stop yourself becoming an older woman.
You're building the older woman you're going to become.
And personally, I'd like her to be strong enough to carry her own suitcase, mobile enough to get off the floor, fit enough to go wherever she wants and well-fed enough to actually enjoy herself when she gets there.
Forty isn't the beginning of the decline.
It might just be the age where we stop taking our body for granted and start properly investing in it.
Want help working out what’s actually changeable?
If you’re over 40 and feeling like your body has suddenly become harder to understand, you don’t need another detox, reset or list of things to cut out.
You may just need someone to help you separate what’s normal, what’s worth investigating, and what you can actually do something about.
That’s what we can work through in nutrition coaching — your food, energy, body composition, symptoms, routines and real life, without turning health into another full-time job.