When My Body Changed the Rules

I don’t remember the exact moment I gained weight. I wish I did because it would make for a much better story. There would be a dramatic scene where I put on a pair of jeans, hear a suspicious ripping sound, and suddenly realize I’ve entered a new chapter of life. Instead, it happened the way most things seem to happen in your forties. Quietly. Gradually. One day you’re borrowing your teenager’s hoodie because it’s oversized and comfortable, and the next you’re wondering if every clothing company secretly changed their sizing while you weren’t paying attention.

The truth is I can point to a hundred little reasons. Years of raising kids with the palette of a ravenous dog. Stress that sat in my body longer than it should have. Sleep that has been questionable for so many years that I honestly don’t remember what being rested feels like. Working from home after spending years in jobs where movement was simply part of existing. Add in a body that suddenly decided foods I’d eaten happily for decades were no longer welcome, and here we are.

The food thing has been particularly rude.

Not long ago, my optometrist was looking into my eyes during a routine appointment and started talking about inflammation. Apparently your eyes can reveal all sorts of things about your health. As someone who once took college courses in criminal psychology and spent an unhealthy amount of time learning about cults, serial killers, and human behaviour, I naturally went down an internet rabbit hole afterwards. That’s how I learned the body is constantly leaving clues if you’re willing to pay attention. Unfortunately, my body has the communication style of a passive-aggressive coworker. Instead of sending a clear email, it leaves vague hints everywhere and expects me to figure it out.

One of those clues appears to be gluten… I would like the record to show that I object to this.

I have spent forty years building a perfectly healthy relationship with pasta, sandwiches, garlic bread, and basically every food that appears at an Italian family gathering. Now I spend an unreasonable amount of time reading ingredient labels and asking myself whether bloating, itchy skin, headaches, brain fog, or feeling like I’ve been hit by a transport truck could somehow be connected to a piece of warm, buttery piece of sourdough toast.

The answer is apparently yes.

The bigger challenge, though, has been figuring out what exactly is happening inside my head. Not emotionally. (Although that’s a whole separate conversation.)

I mean literally inside my head.

Nobody adequately prepared me for the possibility that perimenopause might arrive carrying a flamethrower. Scientists have found that estrogen doesn’t just influence reproductive health. It affects memory, attention, processing speed, sleep, mood regulation, and how efficiently the brain uses energy. In other words, the very hormone that has spent decades quietly helping things run smoothly can suddenly start freelancing.

This explains why I walk into rooms and immediately forget my mission.

It explains why I can remember every lyric to a Backstreet Boys song from 1999 but can’t remember why I opened the fridge thirty seconds ago. It explains why writing has become slower. That one has bothered me more than I like to admit.

Words have always come easily. Writing has always been where my brain made the most sense. Lately, though, there are moments where I can practically see the word I’m searching for. It’s standing right there on the other side of a foggy window waving at me while I stand there blinking like an idiot. Five minutes later it shows up casually as if it wasn’t just hiding from me for sport.

I have Googled “early onset dementia” more times than any reasonable person should. I suspect I’m not alone.

There is actually a psychological phenomenon called the availability heuristic, which is a fancy way of saying our brains tend to overestimate things we’ve heard about recently. Read three articles about dementia and suddenly every forgotten password feels like a medical emergency. Rationally, I know this. Emotionally, I remain unconvinced every time I lose my phone while holding my phone.

The physical side of things has been equally humbling as I used to be stronger than I am now. Not fitness influencer strong. Not deadlifting tractors for fun strong. Just everyday strong. The kind of strong that comes from moving constantly without thinking about it. Years of teaching dance, running restaurants, chasing children, hauling hockey equipment, carrying groceries, and generally existing in motion built muscles I never appreciated until they quietly disappeared.

Then I started working from home.

I don’t think I fully understood what sitting all day would do to my body until I was living it. I went from averaging an absurd number of steps every day to spending hours planted in front of a screen. It wasn’t laziness. It was work. Real work. But my body didn’t seem interested in that distinction. Bodies are surprisingly practical that way… Use muscles and they stick around. Ignore them and they start packing boxes.

Now I find myself trying to rebuild strength while carrying extra weight, sleeping poorly, and navigating whatever hormonal circus is currently happening behind the scenes. It’s not exactly the ideal training environment.

Last week I bought a five-pound weight. One. A single five-pound weight.

Somewhere an online fitness coach probably just fainted.

But here’s what I’ve learned after forty years, five kids, a divorce, countless hockey seasons, and more life experience than I ever planned on collecting. Most lasting change doesn’t begin with a dramatic declaration. It begins with something almost laughably small. Maybe it’s walk around the block. Or maybe it’s a better breakfast. Perhaps it’s an earlier bedtime. Or maybe, just maybe, its a five pound weight.

The problem with social media is that we’re usually shown the middle of someone else’s story. Nobody posts the day they realize their knees hurt. Nobody posts the months they spent exhausted. Nobody posts themselves standing in the kitchen trying to remember why they walked in there carrying a banana and a phone charger. That’s where most of us actually live. Somewhere in the middle and trying to figure it out.

These days I’m less interested in losing weight than I am in gaining years. I want strength. I want energy. I want to be the woman floating in the pool listening to the Backstreet Boys with a Diet Coke beside her, then getting out and having enough stamina to keep up with six kids, a busy life, and whatever fresh chaos tomorrow brings.

I’m not chasing the body I used to have. What I’m trying to build now is a body capable of carrying me through whatever comes next. Preferably with slightly less brain fog.

And the occasional piece of garlic bread.