Perimenopause Fatigue? Feel Strong and Energised Again

You wake up tired. You push through the day tired. You go to bed tired. And everyone tells you to rest more — but that's not actually helping, is it?

In this episode, I'm sharing what's really behind perimenopause fatigue, why it's not about willpower or age, and the four shifts that help women feel strong and energised again. We go all the way down to the cellular level — don't worry, I'll keep it simple — and come back up with practical steps you can actually use.

Perimenopause isn't a sentence to feeling exhausted. Your body knows how to feel strong. Let me show you how to work with it.

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Transcript

You wake up tired, you push through the day tired, you go to bed tired. And nobody tells you this, but perimenopause fatigue isn't just being a bit run down. It's actually your biology shifting underneath you. And the advice that most women get, which is rest more, do less, that's actually the wrong approach.

Over the next few minutes, I am going to show you the four things that actually rebuild your energy from the inside out, because the goal isn't just to survive perimenopause, it's to feel strong and energized again. Here's the biology that you haven't been told. Here's what's actually happening. During perimenopause, your estrogen and progesterone, they don't just decline, they swing unpredictably.

And one of the things that estrogen does is help your cells produce energy. So when it drops, your mitochondria, the tiny power plants inside every cell, they stop working as efficiently. So every dip [00:01:00] in estrogen is a signal to your cells to produce less energy, and in perimenopause, those dips just keep coming.

So it's not that you're lazy, it's not that you just need more sleep, although sleep is very important, which we'll find out in a mi- minute. It's that your body's energy production system has changed. Like most things in menopause, there's been this really seismic change in what's happening in your body.

So if you've just been pushing harder and feeling worse, that makes complete sense. You've been fighting your biology. Quick reminder, if you want to see what's possible for you when you work with your biology instead of against it, go and watch my video, Stop Dieting and Start Thriving. The link to sign up is below.

So big question: What are mitochondria? Think of mitochondria as tiny power stations inside every single one of [00:02:00] your cells. Yes, every single one. That means we have trillions of them. Their job is to take what you eat and turn it into stable energy, the fuel that runs everything from your muscles to your brain.

Now, when they're working, you feel it. When they're not, you feel that, too. So how does perimenopause affect them? So estrogen doesn't just affect your reproductive system. It actually supports so many more things, including your cell's ability to produce energy. And it does this by stimulating the creation of new mitochondria.

So when your estrogen levels start swinging and dropping, your cells literally make less energy than they used to. That's why the fatigue, the brain fog, the stubborn weight gain, it's not in your head. It's happening at a cellular level, and this can show up in several ways. Fatigue and energy crashes. The root cause here isn't [00:03:00] laziness or age, although that can be a contributing factor.

It's also that your cells are producing less fuel. Brain fog. Your brain is one of the most energy-hungry organs in the body, so it hits hard when mitochondrial function drops. Weight gain. Okay, so there's so many things going on with weight gain, and a contributing factor is that your cells aren't producing energy efficiently.

Cardiovascular health. Mitochondria change, sorry, the mitochondrial changes affect how your heart muscle produces fuel as well. And cognitive health, and researchers are increasingly linking mitochondrial function to long-term brain health in post-menopausal women. So what can we do to fix this? You can signal those mitochondria to work harder.

You can rebuild your energy at a cellular level, and it doesn't have to [00:04:00] involve more and more coffee or forcing yourself through workouts that leave you wiped out for a day or two. So here's what actually works. The first thing to fix is what I call pillar three. I know, it's all backwards, but this surprises most women.

It's not the gym, and it's not your diet, it's actually your sleep. Not necessarily more of it, but better quality. I know that can be difficult in menopause, thanks to night sweats, and often people in perimenopause don't sleep as well. Side note, if that is happening to you, it is worth going and chatting to your family doctor about starting hormone replacement therapy.

So better quality sleep. Mitochondrial repair happens overnight, so if your cells can't get that essential maintenance whilst you s- whilst you sleep, nothing else that you do during the day is going to work as well as it should do. So we are talking about [00:05:00] sleep quality, not just hours and hours, but the kind of sleep that actually restores you.

Now, pillar number one, which in this case is point number two, but it's my pillar number one, I have what I call the menopause thrive code, and this is pillar number one: eat to fuel your mitochondria. We're talking about protein, and we're talking about anti-inflammatory foods. So we're thinking about fiber and healthy carbohydrates, AKA fruits and vegetables.

So what we don't want is ultra-processed foods, skipping meals, loads and loads of caffeine. I'm not saying you can't have some caffeine, but what you really want is to fuel your body. In a nutshell, what I recommend is 30 grams of protein per meal. Now, that is just a rough estimate, but it's a good starting point.

30 grams of [00:06:00] fiber per day and 30 different plant sources, which is really gonna help your biome during the week. Point number three, key three. The way that you mil- move builds energy, not depleted, depletes it. And I think this is where loads of people get it a little bit backwards. People think that exercise makes you tired, but actually, the right exercise creates energy.

I always think that when I'm feeling down and a little bit sleep-deprived, the best thing I can do is what I call exercise that lights you up, and that is different for everybody. Now, we do also want to include strength training because it plays a really powerful role in metabolic health during menopause.

So gentle walks are a good start, but to be perfectly honest, they're not enough on their own. And it's not that you need to push really [00:07:00] hard so that you're exhausted for a day or two afterwards. There's a sweet spot that you need to get, thinking about things like high-intensity exercises, which high-intensity interval training, you don't have to do that for hours and hours.

So really you want to have an exercise routine that works for you, that works for your body, that is hitting all of these points, thinking about strength training and really pushing your heart rate and your respiratory rate up for short periods of time. This looks different for absolutely everybody because we are all different people.

And if I were to give you my exercise routine, unless you really love swimming in the sea, that's not gonna work for you. Okay, key number three Regulating your nervous sylla- system. Sorry. Key number four, pillar number four is what I call rewire. It's about emotional wellness, and this, in my opinion, is the [00:08:00] unsung hero of how to make consistent changes, how to really make that transformation.

And there's many reasons why this is the most important key. But for the context of this conversation, what we're really looking at is chronic stress, which keeps your cortisol evol- sorry, cortisol levels raised, and that can really impact your energy production. Now, I'm not really talking about bubble baths and scented candles.

I'm talking about tools that really actually help you calm your nervous system and break that stress exhaustion cycle. So you might be thinking, "Okay, what does that look like?" The underneath foundation of what that looks like is understanding that emotions don't just fall from the sky. I used to think they did.

I used to think that if I was miserable, that was it. I was miserable until I stopped being [00:09:00] miserable. But that's not true. We can control our emotions to a certain extent. We can control how we think about things, which really impacts our emotions. So we're thinking about How to change the foundation.

Stress, at the bottom of it, is how we think about things. And what stress really is ... there's two different things that stress can be. Number one, it can be what our brain is thinking. We're essentially thinking what if worst case scenario. We're thinking about the worst possible thing that can happen.

The other big thing that can impact our stress is the people around us, mirror neurons. So for example, if you have four kids who are teenagers and living that life of, "I'm really high on emotions," best day ever, worst day ever, best day ever, worst day ever. You know what kids, particularly teenagers, are like.

That impacts us if we're not aware of [00:10:00] it. So being around other people who are stressed can really impact us. How do we change that? We do this internal work on self-awareness and seeing how we are thinking about things, w- how our emotional landscape is. Now, on top of that, there are lots of other things that you can include in your system, which could be things like meditation.

They could be things like relaxing exercise, things like Tai Chi or yoga or going for a walk, things that light you up, whatever that might be. It might be coloring or knitting or singing, but making sure that you have these things in your routine. And on top of that, you want what I call emergency tools, so that when you see yourself being derailed or triggered or upset, you have the tools to bring yourself back to center and to be able to move forwards.

Now, what I've just described [00:11:00] is a few months of work. Now, it's really exciting work. In my opinion, this pillar is the one that people do not pay any attention to, and it Really has a big impact, and it really is the key to making lasting changes. So what does this all look like in real life?

Let me tell you about Jane, who is a lady that I worked with. She joined my program, which is called Positively Healthy You. Now, she had recently come off HRT because it did not agree with her, and she felt that her body had become a stranger to her. Brain fog, poor sleep, mood swing- swings, constant frustration that no matter what she tried, nothing was working the way it used to.

She was exhausted, and on top of that, she was beating herself up about it all. Sound familiar? Okay. Three months later, Jane told me that she felt like a different person, not because she'd lost a dramatic amount of weight, but because she'd stopped fighting [00:12:00] her body and started working with it. So now she's feeling stronger and more flexible than she's been in years.

She's sleeping better. The brain fog has lifted, and perhaps the biggest change of all, in her own words, "I've stopped beat- beating myself up." She's even gone back to being able to do deep squats, something that she couldn't do since she'd had a hip replacement three years ago. But the real transformation is this.

She went from feeling overwhelmed, out of control, to feeling calm, confident, and like she has a plan that she can do, that she can cons- sustain for the rest of her life, that she enjoys, and she knows that it is gonna get her to where she wants to get to. Feeling vibrant, leading her longest life, and yes, seeing that extra abdominal fat disappear.

So that is what is possible when you stop fighting your biology and start working with it. So we said right at the beginning that you wake up feeling [00:13:00] tired, and you push through the day tired, going to bed tired. That doesn't have to be your story anymore. Your body knows how to feel strong and energized, but you just need to do things slightly differently.

So next steps. What I recommend for you, if you're thinking, "Okay, this just feels a little bit not available for me," I would love to show you what is possible. I recommend watching my video called Stop Dieting, Start Thriving, which explains my system a little bit more. And once you've watched that, if you're thinking, "Yeah, this sounds fabulous.

I want this in my life," then I invite you to book a call, which is called a Menopause Thrive Assessment, so then I can help you figure out which of these pieces of the puzzle you need to focus on first. So go and watch that video, Stop Dieting, Start [00:14:00] Thriving.