Understanding Your Body After 40: Why “Doing Everything Right” Is Often the Problem

There is a particular kind of frustration I see again and again in women over 40.

It's the frustration of doing the research, taking action and getting nowhere.

You’ve read the books.
You’ve cleaned up your diet. Reduce your portions.
You move your body regularly.
You go to bed at a sensible time.
You are, by most definitions, “doing everything right”.

And yet, the scales don’t budge. The weight creeps on around your middle. Sleep doesn’t refresh you. You sleep lighter. You’re irritable with a short fuse. And the harder you try to fix it, the more your body seems to push back.

This is the moment many women quietly conclude that something is wrong with them.

But that conclusion is both unfair and inaccurate.

What’s actually happening is far more interesting, and far more solvable, than that.

The Good Girl Problem (Yes, It’s a Thing)

Many women I work with are exceptionally good at following rules.

They’ve spent decades doing what they were told would keep them healthy:

• Watch their portions.

• Stay active.

• Be disciplined.

• Try harder if it’s not working.

This approach often does work in your 20s and early 30s. Or at least, it works well enough to reinforce the belief that effort equals results.

But biology is not static. And the female body does not politely stay the same simply because we’d prefer it to.

By your late 30s and 40s, the rules you were given are no longer sufficient, and in many cases, they actively backfire.

Not because your body is broken.
But because the terrain has changed.

Your Metabolism Didn’t “Slow Down”... It Adapted

The phrase “metabolism slowing with age” gets thrown around far too casually, usually as a resigned shrug.

What’s actually happening is more nuanced.

Your hormones shift gradually after 35.
Your stress load accumulates (with time typically comes more stressors; kids, career, aging parents, bereavements, divorces etc)
Your nervous system becomes less resilient.
Your muscle mass becomes harder to maintain.
Your blood sugar regulation becomes more fragile.

Your body becomes more sensitive to stress.

And when a body perceives ongoing stress (whether that’s under-eating, over-exercising, poor sleep, emotional load, or all of the above), it does what it is designed to do: it protects you.

Often, that protection looks like:

• Holding onto fat

• Lowering calories burned at rest by downregulating certain processes

Resulting in:

• Increased cravings

• Disrupted sleep

• Weight loss feels inexplicably hard

This is a survival response.

The Missing Conversations No One Had With You

Most mainstream weight loss advice still revolves around calories, willpower, and compliance.

What it universally ignores (and what matters deeply after 40) is how female physiology changes.

Let’s talk about a few of the big pieces that are commonly overlooked.

Insulin resistance
You don’t need to have diabetes for insulin to be part of the problem. Many women develop subtle insulin resistance years before blood tests flag anything as “abnormal”. The result? Fat is stored more readily, energy crashes become common, and hunger feels harder to control.

Cortisol and chronic stress
Cortisol is not the villain it’s often made out to be. You need it. But living in a near-constant state of pressure, like juggling work, family, mental load, and self-expectation, keeps cortisol elevated in ways that directly interfere with fat loss, thyroid function, and sleep.

Thyroid function beyond ‘normal’
Your thyroid is your metabolic regulator, but standard testing often misses functional sluggishness. Many women are told everything is “fine” while feeling anything but; tired, cold, foggy, and stuck.

Gut health and nutrient absorption
You can eat the best diet in the world, but if digestion and absorption aren’t working properly, your body still runs on near-empty. Gut health influences hormones, inflammation, immune function, and even how safe your body feels.

The nervous system piece no one talks about
A body stuck in fight-or-flight does not prioritise fat loss. Or digestion. Or repair. Learning how to shift out of chronic stress is foundational.

None of these ‘metabolism blockers’ are fixed with a bigger calorie deficit, or with random supplements. In fact, that could make them worse.

A Pattern I See Constantly

A client of mine from a few years back always sticks in my mind. She was in her late 40s and, in her words, she’d always stayed fit and healthy; careful eating. Consistent exercise. High levels of self-control.

She was exhausted, gaining weight and, what sticks in my mind was how devastated she felt that she was experiencing these symptoms despite a lifetime of discipline.

And it does feel so unfair. For her and for so many women I work with, it’s not like she was getting takeaways every night and avoiding the gym. She was doing everything she could.

When we stopped treating her body like a problem to be fixed, and started treating it more like a sensitive system under strain, everything changed.

We ate more, not less.
We trained differently.
We addressed stress instead of letting it rule us.
We supported her hormones rather than blaming them.

The weight loss was welcome, but the real shift was how normal her body began to feel again.

That’s what happens when you forcing and punishing your body, and start asking ‘what does my body need to thrive?’

This Is the Work Most Women Were Never Taught

Sustainable change after 40 doesn’t come from tighter control.

It comes from:

• Understanding your personal metabolic bottlenecks

• Supporting your hormones, not suppressing or just blaming them

• Creating safety in the nervous system

• Rebuilding trust with your body instead of forcing it

This is slower than dieting, and far more effective.

It also requires a different kind of support. Not rules. Not meal plans pulled from the internet. But context, interpretation, and individualisation.

If There’s One Thing I Want You to Take From This

You are not a lost cause.

Your body is responding exactly as a wise, adaptive system would under the conditions it’s been given.

When you change the conditions – when you stop demanding and start listening – the body almost always responds.

Not just by releasing stubborn weight, but also more energy, less joint pain, thicker hair, less bloating, less puffiness and so much more good stuff.

If this resonated, I would love to invite you to my upcoming masterclass, Fix Your Hormones & Metabolism To Release Stubborn Weight After 40.

Register for free, here.

P.S. If this didn’t resonate because you’re not ‘doing everything right’ – maybe you’re struggling to do the things you know your ‘should’ be doing, and maybe that’s partly because there’s so much confusing, conflicting information out there, you should definitely still join me for my masterclass because I know it’ll give you so much clarity x