You turn 40.

Your friends throw you a fab birthday dinner and your kid makes a hilarious speech that she’s planned out, in crayon, on a scrap of paper.

She starts with “I’d like to thank you all for being here on <{{ subscriber.first_name }}>’s special day” and in that moment, glass of champers in hand, photo of you at 8 years old in an especially bad haircut propped up next to a very large cake - your heart swells and you get the unexpected feeling that maybe you’ve done it.

You’ve figured it out.

You've got life, as well as an oversized pour of bubbly, in the palm of your hand.

You care less about what other people think of you. Or, more specifically, you care more about how YOU feel about you, than what others think.

You pay your bills (mostly on time), love your people, and understand the importance of changing your furnace filter. Not that you always do it... but, like, you know it's a thing you should do.

You’re a full-fledged adult human woman and, even though things aren’t perfect, you’re very much looking forward to the decade ahead.

Fuck you 27, 40 is waaaay better.

You’ve got this!

But then, overnight - your face changes shape and hairs start to poke out of your chin. A single glass of wine can keep you up all night with anxiety or take you down for days. And even though you’re eating and moving the same way you always have, you’re putting on weight. A lot of it. Mostly in the dreaded tummy area.

Scary music starts playing in the background and you find yourself screaming into the void:

I WAS JUST KIDDING!!! I DON’T GOT THIS!

I DON'T GOT THIS!!!!

Gwyneth Paltrow told you 40 was going to be the best decade of your life but then she turned 50 and now she keeps blathering on about why 50 is actually the best - and why are you even trusting that woman anyway? She has BLYTHE DANNER's genes for god sake. Of course every decade just keeps getting better for her.

I’ve gotta tell you - I’ve never seen anything turn a highly functional, successful, confident, bad-ass woman to mush like a bit o’peri-menopausal weight gain.

Every woman I know can single handedly cook dinner, while on the phone with the bank, driving a kid to an activity, solving a work crisis, remembering her MILs birthday AND juggling lizards without a moment of self-doubt - but 10lbs of belly weight will derail the whole fucking thing and make her feel like a failure.

There are three reasons why:

It's unexpected: there's no peri-menopause lesson in middle school. No one teaches us that we're going to go through yet another, awkward adolescent-like hormone shift that will affect our weight, health, and mood! - and there's definitely no one around telling us that our bodies might be smart enough to manage it.
It feels out of control: Remember how weird you felt as a teen? Well that, but worse, because you're supposed to have it together and not act like a crazed 13-year old at this point in life.
It prays on your biggest insecurity: that you DO NOT got this. That you're somehow continually failing something or someone. This is DEEP patriarchal conditioning that teaches women to feel like they're failing everything when even one thing in their lives is going perfectly and it's especially strong when it comes to your body.

All the common solutions make it worse. Much, much worse.

Have you tried cutting out all carbs while managing insomnia? I'm actually surprised more women this age don't end up in jail...

I'm here to assure you that you are not, actually, spinning out of control or failing anyone or anything. The shifts you're experiencing in your body are NORMAL - expected - and we can learn to work with our very smart, if not always obedient, bodies and hormones in gentle, kind ways.

These decades of your life should be the best, Gwyneth Paltrow-approved or not. Let's make a blood-pact (all puns intended) to not let mid-life weight mess with that or us, m'kay??

Jill

PS You know I'm always here if you need support, right? You can book in for an initial consultation and full assessment HERE.