Somewhere in your late 30’s to mid 40’s, seemingly overnight, you start suddenly gaining weight. You don’t feel like you recognize your body anymore and all the things you did in the past to slim down and fix it no longer seem to work.

New symptoms creep up on you like night sweats, acne, difficulty sleeping - you are just laying awake at night in your bed…most likely initiated by the increased number of times you have to pee now. And your period that was once clockwork seems to be running on it’s own time now.

Oh, and chin hairs.

And it’s not like there is just some new normal to get used to, these symptoms constantly shift and change.

With perimenopause, it’s almost like the state of transition is the new normal.

I see many women scramble in response to these changes. Desperately trying to get back to what they once knew as normal. Certain that they must be doing something wrong or otherwise they wouldn’t have this weight gain and other symptoms.

Yes, this stage of our lives can require different approaches to taking care of ourselves than years past, but I believe that there are ways to thrive in perimenopause that don’t involve spending your 40’s and 50’s using exhausting measures to be healthy and feel good in your own skin.

The number one reason I love doing what I do is because I love seeing women enjoying life more.

Body insecurity and the usual subsequent food rules and restriction leads to an exhausting and limited existence and I love seeing women feel more freedom. I love to see them stretching out into their life more and enjoying more of it because of a new found confidence in food and their body.

But something else has also been happening with my clients that has been really surprising to me but shouldn’t be.

I am seeing that when women stop endlessly trying to make their bodies smaller, they ALSO start gaining more clarity about what they want and need in other areas of their lives AND they start asking for it and going for it.

In other words, once women start claiming literal space for themselves with their bodies, they start to become boundary setting badasses and claim space for themselves in all areas of their lives.