When Lenore first came in, she was 56 and her only exercise was a walk after dinner.
A long walk most nights, and nothing else.
Menopause was part of what brought her here.
She came to us wanting to build muscle, and wanting to learn how.
She told us she’d be here a couple of months.
Long enough to learn how to do it properly, and then she’d go and do it herself.
That was a reasonable plan, and she did the first half of it.
Four months in, she knows the movements and she knows what she should be doing.
Knowing that and getting yourself to do it alone turned out to be two different problems.
She stayed anyway.
What she says she’d miss is not having to decide.
She turns up, somebody else has already decided what she’s doing that day, and she does it.
Somewhere in there she went from two days a week to three.
The weight she pulls off the floor has nearly doubled, and she’s the one asking to go heavier now.
That is the thing worth having in menopause, because bone and muscle are what this stage takes and lifting heavy is what puts them back.
When we asked her what she was most proud of, she wrote:
“Starting a workout routine & keeping with it. And adding a third weekly workout.”
That’s what she’s proud of.
The strength happened while she did it.
She still jokes about leaving eventually.
She hasn’t.
