Menopause changes what your routine does for you, and nothing about the routine looks any different.
You’re still walking the dog twice a day.
You’re still careful about what you eat.
You’re still getting to bed at a reasonable hour.
For years that combination did exactly what you expected it to do.
Now it doesn’t.
Same effort, same discipline, and your body is doing something different.
There’s nothing you can point to that you stopped doing.
You assume the problem is you, and you do the responsible thing.
You go easier, because your joints feel older than they did.
You add cardio, because that’s what you’ve always been told to add.
You eat less, because that’s what always used to work.
Every one of those instructions takes something away.
Your body is asking you to build.
Two things carry you through this stage of your life, and they’re bone and muscle.
Bone gets stronger when something heavy asks it to.
Muscle is the same, and eating less takes it off you unless you’re lifting.
Both of them answer to one input.
Heavy weight, two or three times a week, with a coach deciding when it goes up.
That’s the whole prescription.
It’s the opposite of every instruction further up this email.
You’ve had the discipline for years.
It’s been going into the wrong thing.
Keep walking the dog.
Then go and pick up something heavy.
