Dr Natalie Fox

I listened to a podcast recently that talked about how people’s perception of you can be a reflection of their own insecurities, experiences and expectations.

And wow. Something about that changed things for me.

I used to feel an almost compulsive need to explain myself. If someone misunderstood my intentions, my choices or my boundaries, I wanted to fix it.

I don’t anymore.

Sometimes what people see in you has far more to do with them than it does with you.

Let people misunderstand you.

The people meant to really know you will get curious instead of creating a story about you.

The more I dig into the research on women, muscle, and aging, the more I think we’ve made this unnecessarily complicated.

There isn’t one magical workout for women.

The fundamentals still work:

Progressive resistance training.

Adequate protein and energy.

Cardiovascular fitness.

Recovery.

And movement that helps you actually use the strength you’re building.

What changes in our 40s isn’t that our bodies suddenly stop responding.

It’s that we need to become more intentional about the stimulus we’re giving them—and whether we’re actually recovering enough to adapt to it.

That’s the philosophy behind how I think women 40+ should train.

Not smaller.

Not skinnier.

Stronger.

I hear this ALL the time from women:

“I was told I need to eat more protein.”

And they’re not wrong.

But I think we’re missing a pretty important part of the message.

Eating more protein alone isn’t enough to protect your muscle as you age.

A systematic review and meta-analysis in postmenopausal women found that whey protein supplementation without resistance training did not significantly improve lean mass or strength.

But when protein was paired with resistance training? That’s where researchers found improvements in lower-limb lean mass and some measures of strength.

And a larger meta-analysis of 49 studies found that adding protein to resistance training produced additional gains in muscle and strength, with gains in fat-free mass leveling off around ~1.6 g/kg/day on average.

So yes — eat your protein.

But remember:

Resistance training creates the stimulus.
Protein helps support the adaptation.

Protein matters. A lot.

But if maintaining muscle as we age is the goal, we still have to give that muscle a reason to stay. 💪

I make my living treating people, but I also want you to know how much you can do for yourself between appointments.

I think a lot of high-achieving women have been taught to wear burnout like a badge of honour.

Being booked solid.
Being needed by everyone.
Always having something on the go.
Running a business, raising a family, working out, keeping the house together — and somehow making it all look manageable.

We put an incredible amount of pressure on ourselves, and somewhere along the way, being exhausted became proof that we were doing enough.

For a long time, I bought into that too.

But I’m realizing burnout isn’t the flex I once thought it was.

The flex is having space in my schedule and not immediately filling it.
Having energy left for my family at the end of the day.
Not feeling like everyone needs access to me.
Having a quieter mind.
Sleeping better.
Feeling present in my own life.

I still care about my work. I’m still ambitious. I still have goals.

I just don’t think running myself into the ground is the price I need to pay for them anymore.

These are 5 small things that helped me start choosing a different version of success. 🤍