You Can’t Out-Discipline Your Hormones

A woman I was coaching started missing lifts she ‘knew she could make’.  Same training program.  Same effort.  Same 6am alarm.  Different results.

She did what strong women generally do – she doubled down with more discipline, less food, extra conditioning.  It got worse.  By the time we spoke about it, she’d quietly decided the problem was there was something wrong with her.

There wasn’t.  She was 44.

Perimenopause can start in your late 30s, & it doesn’t send a calendar invite.  Oestrogen & progesterone – the hormones that have been backing your recovery, your sleep, your tendons & your appetite for three decades, stop being steady & start swinging week to week.  

Her training was solid.  Her physiology was changing.

Nobody told her that.  Not her doctor, not her watch, not an industry that’s spent fifty years writing programs for bodies that aren’t hers.. Generally focused on making women smaller, thinner, weaker.

You can’t out-discipline your endocrine system.

The women grinding themselves into the floor over “lost” fitness in their 40s aren’t failing the standard.  They’re holding the wrong one.

What actually works through this window is almost annoyingly familiar: lift heavy, eat enough protein, sleep like it’s your job, & measure instead of guess.  Strength training is the single best lever a woman has through perimenopause – muscle, bone density, insulin sensitivity, & the not-small matter of feeling like yourself again.  But the program has to work with you & your body as it’s changing.  Some weeks the bar moves like it used to.  Some weeks it doesn’t.  Both are data.  Neither is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. You are changing & evolving, exactly as you are supposed to.

If training has felt different lately & you’ve been blaming your character, or lack of willpower, stop beating yourself up.  Get yourself a coach who can work with you & help you control the controllables during this transition – how you’re sleeping, how you’re fueling your body, how you’re speaking to yourself, how you’re nourishing yourself, the support & community you have around you.  

Work with the evolving body you’re in, instead of punishing it for not being the one you had at 28.

Strength doesn’t end at 40.  Like everything in this world, it simply takes intention, effort & adaptability to change.  

If you need help, come see us at DEUCE.  We’ve got your back.