The Overwhelmed Woman

The Exhausting Reality For Many Women After 40

You feel annoyed, even bitter, stressed, overwhelmed, unhappy, and unsupported over the bare basics of "adulting". And to top it off, you've gained weight - even though you're doing nothing any differently to how you've always done things.

Much as it's exhausting to think about, you know deep down that something has to change. The worst part about it is that, as usual like with everything else, that change is on you. Nobody else ever seems to have to edit themselves, improve themselves, get therapy, focus on their development, read a self-help book, apologise, pick up the slack, nor instigate any change whatsoever. They always plod along, same old same old, and any improvements are always down to you.

You're putting out one fire after another from the moment you open your eyes until you shut them at night; it never stops and you're sick of it. You were sick of it a long time ago, actually.

It's not that you physically do all that much - certainly not any more than ever before - but you're emotionally exhausted. You regularly say to yourself in the mirror, "I can't take any more of this. I just can't do this anymore." You even once sat down on the floor of the shower while the water washed over you, just glad of a momentary break from anything being required of you. Well, it probably was, but the door was locked and so you could pretend it was just you and the water and everything else could wait.

What You'd Like To Do But Can't

You'd like to go out for a drink with the girls but hate getting dressed because clothes don't fit right, and that "half tuck" that all the influencers do makes you look as shapely as a Tellytubby. So you don't go.

You feel desperate for a holiday but even the thought of having to organise it all is too much - too many loose ends to tie up at work before you go plus the stress of coming back to the stockpile of tasks AFTER your holiday, all the research into deciding where to go, where to stay, booking it, organising tours and activities, the laundry and packing, clearing out the fridge, snacks for the journey, how to get to the airport... Even a nice holiday makes you want to cry with frustration.

You feel like booking yourself onto a retreat but who's going to take care of EVERYTHING while you're off "pampering" yourself? And where's the money coming from to pay for that anyway, even if it were possible?

Been there, done that, got the black T-shirt covered in dog hair.

So What's Going On?

It's not our fault. We're lied to, relentlessly and from every direction, about how we should do it all, be everything to everyone, cut out meat and fat and go vegetarian, drink the diet drinks but also the wine, eat the granola but also skip breakfast, blah blah, you know the rest... All the while having it persistently drummed into us that the way to cope with stress is a huge glass of alcohol and a Netflix series.

If we can just plonk our expanding derriere onto the sofa with the latest episode of - what do people watch nowadays - Bridgerton? The Crown? - and a ginormous goldfish bowl of wine, that's a day well-finished. Isn't it?

Yeah, all that does is numb the pain temporarily. Push it to the back of your mind. It's still there, the knowledge that your heart hurts, your joints are starting to ache, it's becoming less easy to pick something up off the floor, you wake up exhausted, you feel like you're in charge of literally everything on the planet and you're getting no help from anyone.

Let's Take A Moment And Take Stock

Alright, let's breathe. Breathe in. Pause. Breathe out... breathe out a bit more. Stay in the out breath a moment.

Again. In. Pause. Out. Out more. Wait in that space a few seconds.

Turn your head fully to the right and then back to the screen. Then fully to the left and back to the screen. Shrug your shoulders and drop them back down.

OK. First of all, I want you to know that you are SO not alone. Feeling this way is more common than you'd imagine. I've put this article together based on myself (in the recent past), plus FIVE other women who've told me this is how they feel. Single, married, divorced, with or without kids or pets - it's irrelevant, believe it or not. Because it's not about anyone else nor our circumstances.

And secondly, we're not going to tackle anything hard or complex in this piece of writing. It's just to help you understand that everything that causes us physical or mental stress is depleting our energy resources and, as a woman of a certain age (as my sister likes to put it), our capacity for stressors is not at all what it was when we were younger. It naturally decreases as our hormones shift, and we therefore have to learn a few simple tricks so that we're not running on empty.

What Can We Do About It?

As a very important note: did you know that your "middle-age spread" is very probably caused (in the main) by hormonal changes increasing your stress load, pushing up cortisol, and your body responding by piling on weight around your middle, and that if you reduce stressors of all types, your waistline follows? Read on, petal; read on..!

Trick 1 - Lighten your toxic load

Chemical perfumes in our everyday products wreak havoc with our health and therefore, whether we're aware of it or not, every non-organic, perfumed product kicks off an internal process to rid it from our system. While you may enjoy the smell of "spring blossom" (hint: it's not made from spring blossom) in your laundry conditioner, your body is working hard to fight it off.

The same goes for that apple spice candle, vanilla air freshener, pine floor cleaner, lemon bathroom wipes, magnolia handwash, peppermint shower gel, red fruits body spray (you get the picture)... those chemicals threaten our health, our body knows it and so it sets off a process to clear it out of our system, and we're exhausted just by sitting still.

The solution? Clean yourself and your home with unperfumed products. Remember that chemical scents do NOT equal clean - just the opposite, in fact. Where possible, get rid of unwanted smells with hot water, bicarbonate of soda, and fresh air. If you find it difficult to let go of scented items in the beginning, use organic products with pure, natural essential oils.

Trick 2 - Reduce manufactured drama

Last year I accidentally watched an episide of Happy Valley (spoiler alert: it's not happy). I was staying with my parents and walked through the lounge and was suddenly intrigued by what was on the telly. (I don't have a telly for the reasons I'm about to explain.) "Sit down," my mom said. "It's good. It's set in Halifax." So I sat on the edge of the couch, gripped by the storyline of terrible parenting, kidnapping, attempted murder - it was intriguing stuff!

While watching I felt stressed - there was a noise in the cellar; a mad scramble; will she get out in time or get clobbered over the head?! My cortisol levels skyrocketed (more fat stored round my middle), my heartbeat quickened, and my body set in motion a process to try to keep me safe from what it perceived as a threat to my safety - because the body doesn't distinguish between real life and manufactured input.

After that was over I took the dog out for his bedtime walk, but knowing this drama series was set in my hometown made it so realistic that I was fearful to go further than halfway up the street and definitely not round the corner! You may think that you're immune to this type of input. You're not. It's an addiction.

The solution is to find something more wholesome to occupy your time. Learn a language or a musical instrument or, heck, watch some comedy or do a sudoku puzzle, especially right before bed when your brainwaves are in theta state which is when you're extremely susceptible to external input.

Trick 3 - Get yourself fat adapted

I used to be a food grazer - I was almost never full. The only thing that could stop me stuffing food in my cakehole all my waking hours was sheer will-power. I would pop a slice of toast in while cooking dinner, AND eat crackers and cheese while waiting for the toast! It was relentless my entire life.

This is because I was a carb addict. I felt HUNGRY, physically and mentally. I'd believed the "eat less move more" theory of getting slim and although that could kind of work, it was a constant uphill battle of forcing myself away from the kitchen and exercising A LOT. It was hard and unsustainable, especially when I reached a certain age and my hormones changed and everything became hard.

Adopting a version of the keto diet led me to realise I'd suffered the will-power battle for 5 decades for nothing! But I had been hungry - for protein and animal fats, as it turns out! Once I cut out carbohydrates and at the same time increased all animal protein and fat into my diet, the life-long hunger just went away. It. Went. Away. Hear me - this is HUGE! I stopped the constant grazing because I just didn't need it. I now don't eat morning, noon, and night anymore, because I just don't want to. Hard to imagine, isn't it.

The magic pill is a keto or ketogenic diet. It switches the body from using carbs as fuel to using fat (or ketones, hence the name) - this is called getting into ketosis or getting fat-adapted. When you cut carbs right down while increasing animal fats the body says, "Oh, we're using this for fuel now - OK!" And the best thing is that when you stop eating, if your body gets hungry, it eats your stored fat, and there's a lot of nutrition in that fat! It literally begins using the fat off your body for fuel so you don't feel starving. It also goes round looking for damaged proteins in your system and it recycles them into healthy proteins - this is called autophagy which heals inflammation.

With a meat- and animal fat-based, very low-carb diet, I'm slimmer without trying, it's got rid of my life-long underlying depression, I'm calmer, and feel comfortable in my skin. Getting dressed doesn't annoy me anymore. I'm not sweaty and red all the time. Life is easier. I highly recommend it.

In Summary

At a certain stage in life, a woman usually discovers that her energy levels aren't what they were, and needs to make a few changes to accommodate her changing hormones. The 3 tricks detailed above help women to retain some of that youthful energy in order to feel a lot less stressed, overwhelmed, angry, and unsupported. Here they are again:

Switch to organic and perfume-free household cleaners and toiletries so that your body isn't fighting off the chemicals and tiring you out.

Switch to drama-free input, especially around bedtime, so your body isn't in fight or flight mode and causing you unnecessary stress.

Switch to a low-carb, high animal protein and animal fat diet to get into ketosis so that you're more relaxed, and not hangry and chasing carbs.

Please Share & Stay In Touch!

If you resonate with this article, please go here to pick up your free keto recipe cards. You can buy the whole cookbook there if you'd like, but you're welcome to just get the free recipe cards which you'll see halfway down the page. This will also add you to my forthcoming weekly newsletter - opt out in one click anytime - so that you don't miss any future articles.

And please help out your female friends and family members who might be going through similar by sharing this article with them privately and/or on your social media so that they might learn some simple tricks to have an easier life.

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