i hate being called a midlife woman

do your forties really have to be the worst decade of your life?

It shouldn’t bother me this much, and yet. Every time I see content made for women over 40 with the label “midlife woman” slapped on it, I roll my eyes. The label never travels alone. It comes with its usual entourage: perimenopause, menopause, belly fat, inflammation, cortisol, hormonal chaos. Words the wellness industry has learned to line up like a sales pitch, because that’s exactly what they are. Right behind them, there’s always a cure, a protocol, a miracle solution payable in three easy installments.

I turned 43 this year and I still have trouble believing it when I look in the mirror. It’s hard to explain, but I don’t see a midlife woman in the reflection. Maybe because in my head I’m still a 20-year-old trying to figure out how life works, full of dreams and wanting to live incredible things. Maybe because I was blessed with my family’s genetics and I don’t look my age. But mostly because, health-wise, I’m in the best moment of my life. I’m in my best shape ever. I have endurance, energy and strength I never had before. I feel capable. Which is the complete opposite of my twenties, when I had no confidence, was physically weak, underfed, and constantly sick. Back then, a simple cold could keep me in bed for days. Today I can’t remember the last time I got sick.

So this image of the woman in her forties that lives in the collective imagination doesn’t match anything I know. And I’m certain it doesn’t match the reality of many other women either. Because contrary to what this whole discourse wants us to believe, your forties don’t have to be a decade of pain and decline. This is not the age where you’re supposed to have fragile health, aches everywhere, and a body you don’t recognize anymore.

But that’s the story being sold, and business is good. The moment the algorithm decides you’re over 40, your feed changes. Suddenly it’s full of “coaches” explaining that your metabolism is broken, your hormones are out of control, and your belly fat is a cortisol problem that only their 30-day reset can fix. There are supplements for your hormones, detoxes for your liver, protocols for your inflammation. Everything has a name, a villain and a price tag. And I understand why it works. This marketing targets a painful spot for most women: getting older. It catches us at a vulnerable moment, when the body starts changing, when doctors shrug off our questions, when reliable information is hard to find. Fear sells better than facts. If someone tells you your body is broken and then offers you the solution, you listen. Especially when everything around you keeps repeating that aging, for a woman, is a slow catastrophe you should fight with everything you have.

Don’t get me wrong. The changes are real. Perimenopause is real, and for some women the symptoms are brutal. None of this should be minimized, and I won’t pretend a positive mindset fixes hot flashes. What I refuse to accept is the conclusion the wellness industry draws from it: that your body after 40 is a problem to solve, and that the solution costs 89 euros a month.

Here is what really works: lifting heavy weights, eating enough instead of surviving on 1,200 calories, taking care of your sleep and your mental health. And most importantly, doing all of this for months, then years.

The hard part is that nobody can sell it to you, because you have to do it yourself.

I started lifting seriously at 37. Six years later I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, and I’m not an exception or a genetic miracle. I’m just proof that the timeline they sell us is wrong. The women I see at the gym in their 40s, 50s and 60s are proof too. Maybe my real problem with “midlife woman” is that marketing turned it into a diagnosis. A market segment. A before picture. And I refuse to be a before picture. Lifting not only changed my body, it changed the way I see and treat myself. I’m not a fragile woman, desperate and ready to believe the first person who tells me that at 40 I should stick to gentle movement so I don’t stress my body, eat like a toddler to lose belly fat, and swallow 15 different capsules every morning to regulate my hormones.

I’m doing exactly what I should be doing, and my plan is to spend the second half of my life stronger than the first. Here’s how you can do it, too:

#1. Lift weights, and lift heavy

Two or three sessions a week are enough. Muscle is the closest thing we have to an anti-aging medicine. It protects your bones, your metabolism and your independence later in life.

#2. Eat enough food

Being on a low-calorie diet most of the time is not a health plan, it’s a slow burnout. Prioritize protein at every meal (a portion the size of your palm is a good start) and stop treating carbs like the enemy. If you’re lifting heavy, eating at maintenance will improve your body composition without needing to deprive yourself.

#3. Take your sleep seriously

Seven to nine hours is where your hormones, your recovery and your mood actually get regulated. No supplement can make up for chronic bad sleep.

#4. Move outside the gym

Daily walks, stairs, carrying your own groceries. This kind of low-intensity movement takes care of your heart, your joints and your stress levels without wrecking your recovery.

#5. If you have real symptoms, see a real doctor

Irregular cycles, brutal hot flashes, sleep falling apart, mood swings that scare you. That’s a conversation for a gynecologist or an endocrinologist, with bloodwork on the table, not for a stranger on Instagram selling a hormone-balancing protocol.

before you go…

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See you in the next letter,
—Glicia

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