Why you’re not doomed by biology—and what actually matters for results

If you’re a woman over 40 and you’ve been told your hormones are preventing you from losing weight, this article is for you.

Maybe you’ve heard it from a friend. Maybe you read it in a blog post. Maybe a supplement company told you your “broken metabolism” needs their special formula to be fixed. And maybe—just maybe—it’s felt so true that you’ve started to believe there’s no point in even trying.

Here’s what we need to talk about: Your subjective experience of hormonal changes is 100% real and valid. But that doesn’t mean you’ve lost control of your body.

This isn’t about invalidating what you’re feeling. It’s about separating what’s actually happening from what you’ve been told is happening—so you can stop feeling helpless and start making changes that work.

Hormones and Weight Loss: What Women Over 40 Need to Know

Why This Conversation Matters (And Why It’s So Hard)

Let’s be honest: two guys talking about female hormones can feel tone-deaf. We get that. Our audience is mostly women. Our clients are mostly women. And we’re not endocrinologists.

But here’s why we’re having this conversation anyway: We’ve worked with thousands of women who were told their hormones made weight loss impossible. And we’ve watched those same women achieve incredible transformations when they understood what hormones actually do versus what they don’t do.

The difference between objective reality and subjective experience changes everything.

What You’re Actually Experiencing

When you say “my hormones are messed up and I can’t lose weight,” what you usually mean is:

• Your energy isn’t what it used to be
• Cravings feel stronger and harder to resist
• Recovery from workouts takes longer
• You look puffier even when the scale hasn’t changed much
• Everything just feels harder

All of that is real. You’re not imagining it. You’re not being dramatic. Your body IS different than it was at 30 or 35.

But here’s what’s also true: Hormones change how you feel and behave. They don’t rewrite the laws of physics.

The Two Things We Need to Separate

When we talk about hormones and weight, we’re actually talking about two completely different things that people often confuse:

1. Scale Weight

This includes water retention, which can change dramatically and quickly due to hormones (especially cortisol). You can gain 5-10 pounds of water weight in a matter of days and lose it just as quickly. This is real weight on the scale, but it’s not fat gain.

2. Body Composition

This is actual fat tissue versus muscle tissue versus bone mass. This changes much more slowly and follows energy balance principles.

When you step on the scale after a high-cortisol week and see a 5-pound jump, you haven’t gained 5 pounds of fat. You’ve retained water. Your clothes feel tighter. You look puffier in the mirror. Your brain says “proof that hormones are making me gain weight!”

But that’s the subjective experience, not the objective reality.

What Happens During Menopause (The Real Story)

Here’s what actually changes hormonally during perimenopause and menopause:

• Estrogen drops
• Progesterone drops
• FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) increases
• Luteinizing hormone increases
• Testosterone production continues at low levels

Basically, you lose the hormonal profile of being a reproductive female.

And here’s what the research shows about how this affects weight loss:

Basal metabolic rate doesn’t change to a meaningful degree.

What DOES change:

• Physical activity levels typically decrease by a couple hundred calories per day
• Sleep quality often suffers
• Energy levels drop
• Training volume and recovery capacity decline
• The body becomes slightly more permissive for storing calories as fat
• Building and maintaining muscle becomes more difficult
• Bone density maintenance becomes more challenging

These changes are real. They matter. But they don’t override energy balance.

Study after study has shown that when lifestyle interventions are controlled—when diet and exercise are actually managed—women lose weight at similar rates before, during, and after menopause.

The problem isn’t that your metabolism is “broken.” The problem is that you don’t feel good, so you move less, sleep worse, and have less energy to stick to your plan.

The Insulin Resistance Myth

This one is everywhere in the “wellness” space: “If you’re insulin resistant, you can’t lose fat.”

Here’s the thing: This has never been supported by research. Ever.

It came from blogs and the wellness industry, not from science.

When researchers actually test this—when they take people with varying levels of insulin resistance and put them on the same calorie deficit—what happens?

They lose the same amount of weight.

One recent study looked at people across the full spectrum of insulin resistance—from very low to very high. They tracked weight loss over time with controlled calorie intake.

The results? Nearly identical weight loss. Nearly identical distribution of results. No meaningful difference based on insulin levels.

Your level of insulin resistance does not meaningfully change your ability to lose weight compared to someone with low or no insulin resistance.

Does insulin resistance affect how you feel? Absolutely. Energy, cravings, how your body partitions nutrients—those things can be influenced. But the fundamental energy balance equation still holds.

What Actually Works: Practical Strategies

If you’re dealing with hormonal changes and feel stuck, here’s what actually moves the needle:

1. Track Lifestyle Behaviors Alongside Weight

Don’t just track the scale. Track:

• Daily steps
• Sleep quality and quantity
• Workout completion and intensity
• How you feel each day

This helps you see the connection between your behaviors and your results—and separates real trends from normal fluctuations.

2. Adjust Your Expectations

This is hard to hear, but critical: You’re not a spring chicken anymore.

That doesn’t mean progress is impossible. It means:

• Recovery takes longer
• Progress may be slower
• You need to be more intentional about protein and strength training
• What worked at 30 might not work now

This isn’t failure. It’s reality. And reality, when you understand it clearly, empowers better decisions.

3. Prioritize Strength Training and Protein

These become NON-NEGOTIABLES as you age:

Strength training helps you:

• Maintain and build muscle tissue
• Preserve bone density
• Improve insulin sensitivity
• Maintain metabolic rate

Adequate protein (aim for 0.8-1.0g per pound of goal body weight) helps you:

• Preserve muscle during weight loss
• Maintain satiety
• Support recovery
• Prevent metabolic slowdown

4. Be Skeptical of Messages That Remove Your Agency

This is perhaps the most important advice we can give:

If someone tells you “This is your situation, this is the only outcome, and you have no control”—they’re almost certainly trying to sell you something.

The fitness and wellness industry profits from your feeling helpless. They want you to believe:

• Your metabolism is “broken”
• You need their special supplement to “reset” your hormones
• Without their program, you’re doomed to gain weight forever

This is manipulative marketing, not science.

A Real Success Story

One of our community members, Sherry, recently shared:

“I went through menopause with no intervention from drugs or supplements. I have lost 110 pounds. Hormones haven’t slowed me down.”

That’s a whole person. That’s 110 pounds.

Think about what that represents:

• Years of consistent effort
• Overcoming countless moments of doubt
• Taking control despite every message telling her it was impossible
• Becoming a completely different person, physically and mentally

That is one of the greatest achievements a human can accomplish. And she did it while going through menopause, which supposedly makes it “impossible.”

The Bottom Line

Your hormonal changes are real. The way you feel is valid. The challenges are legitimate.

But you are not doomed by biology.

The research is clear:

• People with insulin resistance lose weight at the same rate as people without it when calories are controlled
• Women lose weight at similar rates before, during, and after menopause when lifestyle is controlled
• Hormonal changes affect how you feel and behave—which affects your lifestyle—which affects your results
• The solution isn’t fixing your “broken metabolism”—it’s adapting your approach to your current reality

You have more control than you think. You have more agency than you’ve been told. You have more power than the wellness industry wants you to believe.

The question isn’t “Can I still change my body?”

The question is “Am I ready to stop believing the stories that keep me stuck and start doing the work that actually works?”

Because the work does work. You just have to believe you’re capable of doing it.