How to Beat Menopause Setbacks and Tone (Without Endless Cardio)

If you’re already putting in your gym time, you don’t need more — it’s what you do WITH that time that matters, and tons of cardio isn’t the answer. Let’s break this down with practical tips for toning through menopause!

1. Spot reduction is a myth

Let’s get this out of the way: You can’t specifically target belly fat with crunches or waist trainers. Fat loss happens systemically, and for women over 40, hormonal changes can direct more fat cells everywhere you don’t want it to go! That doesn’t mean you’re doomed, though — you just need a targeted approach that tackles overall body composition. And the simplest way to do that is with...

2. Shorter, more focused workouts

Steady-state cardio can be counterproductive if it drags on for long stretches, spiking cortisol and nudging your body toward belly fat storage. Instead, aim for brief, intentional workout sessions that emphasize muscle-building moves — which are far more effective at revving your metabolism than hours on the treadmill. By keeping workouts short and focused, you send your muscles a strong signal to grow while avoiding the hormone-fueled “fat-lockdown” state that endless cardio favors.

3. Track your macros (especially protein!)

To shift that stubborn belly fat and replace it with lean muscle, you need enough protein for muscle repair and growth. When in doubt, aim for 1 gram per pound of body weight. Don’t underestimate the power of carbs and healthy fats, either; the right ratio of macros (for you, in menopause) is crucial — generic calculators often miss the mark because they don’t account for changing hormone profiles.

If you want personalized 1:1 help with eating & exercising for your unique body and building a toned body composition through menopause, apply to become a WarriorBabe here!

Sustainable, Actionable Steps You Can Take To Get In Control Of Your Body Composition

Higher fat, lower carbs

A quick word of warning: This means a slight increase in fats and corresponding decrease in carbs. I’m not saying to start a ketogenic diet — far from it! But this does mean your numbers will change, and macro calculators won’t take into account those types of details despite how important they are. That’s in our flagship program, the WarriorBabe VIP, we designed a specialized macro calculator that will tell you exactly how to shift your macros to maintain and improve your results!

Pull back on caffeine

This might sting a bit if you depend on your morning coffee to help get you going, but stimulants become harder on our bodies over time. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy an occasional cup — just know that excessive caffeine usage can be a stress trigger. As a result, our hormones are easily thrown off balance, which is one of the quickest paths to regressing even when we do everything else right. Speaking of stress triggers, there’s another big one to be wary of...

Less cardio

Starting during menopause, our bodies create more cortisol (a “fight or flight” hormone) in response to stress, including physical stress. More cortisol means we hold onto more fat stores, which is the opposite of what we want! This is why we need less exercise over time, and our workouts need to do more in less time (i.e. NOT intense, sustained cardio — walking is great though 👍). To maximize your time in the gym and see the results you want without falling victim to this, read on...

Strength training becomes MORE important

After reading the tip above, it’s easy to think that it’s a bad idea to push yourself with resistance in the gym, but nothing could be further from the truth. As we age, our skeleto-muscular strength naturally decreases, which is why falls and other injuries have a harder time healing. If you want to feel and look younger, proper strength training will help you build the bed of lean muscle you need to make it happen!To get and stay in control of your body composition, getting the correct type of exercise in the optimal amount, while reducing your stressors, is a necessary but difficult balance to achieve. There’s a solution that has helped tens of thousands of women do this sustainably and consistently — to secure your spot and finally start down the right path…

A Straightforward Path To Building A Toned, Healthy Body You Love

Prioritize building muscle

After around the age of 30, our bodies have a harder time of building and maintaining muscle, which is only exacerbated by the hormonal changes present during menopause.It becomes more important than ever to focus on strength / resistance training to elevate and preserve your bed of muscle tissue…Not only for building the physique you want, but also to make your body more resilient against injuries.

Manage your cardio carefully

Cardio can knock you off balance by introducing greater physical stress…Causing increased inflammation and overproduction of stress hormones like cortisol that cause you to hold onto more fat stores.Too much cardio can create the exact effect you want to avoid, so don’t go crazy with it!

Additive movements

Combating stiffness has a wide range of benefits that go beyond simply feeling good when you move.Being more limber can even help you get more juice out of your resistance training since you’re able to use smoother motions!You can support your tendon and ligament health and feel great by doing more mobility work, foam rolling, and dynamic stretching.

Balance exercises

One of the most common causes of injuries as we age is a reduction in our balance.This doesn’t only imply falls and more extreme injuries — I’m talking about regular minor issues that come up.By working on your balance, you can spend less time in pain and move more effectively, so be sure to work balance movements into your daily routine.Even a few times a week is enough!

Get feedback

Menopause comes with unique challenges that many fitness coaches aren’t equipped to address, especially not specifically with macronutrient-based plans…Which are the most effective approach for toning consistently without the draconian diet restrictions you’ll find in many mainstream programs.But with the right feedback, you can spot the holes in your current approach and get recommendations customized to what you need based on your goals, age, and what’s most important to YOU.WarriorBabe has a growing roster of certified fitness coaches trained in macronutrients who can do just that, and if you want to get in control of your body composition and health sustainably…

1. You’re hitting your cardio too hard

Running. Cycling. Swimming. They’re all great for your heart, and they work wonders for knocking off a few pounds in your 20s... but cardio has a nasty side effect that intensifies as we age:Cortisol.This hormone is responsible for stress, anxiety, and all sorts of other fun negative emotions... and it also reinvests your muscle tissue into fat stores, secretly undoing your hard work while you run away the calories.And that stress response? It grows more intense over time, especially through menopause. So the harder you work, the clearer your body hears the message that it’s time to hunker down and store those calories for a rainy day.Exercise is key for transforming your body composition — just back off the cardio and put that hard work into building strength.

2. You don’t eat enough

Speaking of strength, you know what the #1 factor behind muscle growth is outside of the gym?Your total calorie intake.If you don’t meet your calorie needs, good luck building definition. Your body simply isn’t getting the energy it craves to build lean muscle. You can break down all the muscle you want (strength training is just a bunch of micro-tears in your body), but to build it back up, you’ve GOT to have fuel.So if your body needs 1700+ calories a day (very common for women who lift) and you’re eating 1200? Less lean definition it’s that simple.BUT — even if your basic calorie needs get met, that’s not the end of the story on food...

3. Your macros are wrong

The energy from calories alone won’t get you toned. Your body needs specific nutrients to build lean muscle definition, and they come in the form of macros: protein, carbs, and fats.First off, you need enough protein to get toned — about 1 gram per pound of body weight. If that sounds like a lot, you’re right! When you want definition, your body DOES want a lot of protein. It goes directly into repairing the muscle you break down in the gym and building up new definition.Then you have carbs... and if you want to have energy throughout the day and gas your body up for a great workout, then carbs are an absolute MUST. Your body uses them to make glycogen, your body’s preferred source of fuel — and if it doesn’t get glycogen, it uses muscle tissue for fuel. And that cuts directly into the results you’re trying so hard to achieve!Don’t sleep on fats, either. You need a healthy amount of estrogen, progesterone, and even testosterone to build muscle, and your body uses fat to produce those hormones! While you don’t want to go overboard (keto focuses WAY too much on fat), it has its place in your macro numbers.Be warned, though: Your macros change during menopause, and there’s no getting around it. What does this mean? That your body has different nutritional needs to support healthy hormone production, and that’s half the game once the change hits! All else being equal, healthy hormone production is what gets you toned once perimenopause sets in. Sadly, no generic macro calculator can help you with that.But if you want to know what and when to eat to tone your unique body, we have programs for exactly that right here. Good luck!

Your metabolism isn’t fixed — and a faster metabolism often comes with more energy, better relaxation, and of course, more lean muscle tone! But you need to retrain it first, and that’s what we’ll cover in this article.

1. Start with protein

The first ingredient in a successful metabolism retrain is protein — if you don’t get enough, you’ll struggle to speed up your metabolism no matter what else you do! Combined with strength training, protein helps build active muscle tissue, burning more calories at rest and kicking your metabolism into high gear.All your macros matter, of course... but before you nail your carbs and fats, take care of your protein. When in doubt, eating 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day is a good standard to follow.For help finding the right number for your goals, check out our program here!

2. Don’t skip steps!

You’ll be tempted to jump right to your “ideal” macros right away. To imagine your target physique and immediately start eating the recommended amount of protein, carbs, and fats.That’s a mistake.In a retrain, you’re not eating for the body you want... You’re eating for the one you have right now, the one you’ve built over the course of YEARS. It’s impossible to turn all that momentum around all at once! That’s why retraining your metabolism is so important — it prepares your body for the path you’re about to set on. You wouldn’t exercise hard without a warmup period, right?A metabolism retrain IS that warmup.

3. Pacing

So how long do you need to stay in a metabolism retrain phase? It depends on your age, activity level, current diet, previous diets, muscle mass, and too many other factors to give any blanket recommendations. But I’ll say this:Just like any other warmup, do not rush this one.It may take a couple of weeks to set your metabolism’s new cadence before you can jump into the macros you’ll ultimately settle on... and that’s assuming you do everything right. When you do, your body will let you know. You might be jazzed up, with extra energy to spare. Feeling more rested without spending more time in bed. You may even feel more relaxed throughout the day!My point is, when you do your metabolism retrain right... You’ll feel it.To get personalized support with your metabolism retrain and make it faster, stronger, and more resilient with age, apply to become a WarriorBabe here!

There’s a universal truth of menopausal fitness: If you want to get in control, start with your hormones. With your hormone production locked in, you take advantage of your body’s best aid to toning at any age — and during menopause, those hormones need some extra love!Here’s how:

1. The ‘big 3’

While your body produces many hormones, there are 3 in particular that it uses heavily in creating lean muscle definition and supporting your metabolism: progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. This cocktail forms the building blocks of the body composition you want, enabling you to build strength, add definition, and maintain strong bones and overall health. Once The Change hits, though, levels of these hormones naturally decline... unless you give your body the stuff it needs to kick its hormone production back into gear.And the way to do that is with...

2. Tweaking your macros

Eating a balanced macro profile is no longer enough. During menopause (and long after), your body needs something extra: specifically, more fats. Your protein needs shouldn’t vary much, but it’s time to lower your carbs slightly and eat those calories in fat instead. Don’t worry — you can still enjoy your favorite breads and sweets! Besides, more fats means more room for the rich stuff. 😉 Enjoy those “forbidden foods” in moderation and you’ll do fine!Besides your nutrition, you also need...

3. Different workouts

During menopause, strength training is more important than ever. After all, you’ve got to protect your muscle tissue and bone health! But while lifting heavy is essential, working out too much releases more cortisol through menopause, which signals the body to retain more fat stores. This means every workout needs to be dialed in, to only get done what you need and then stop! Exercise requires more care as we age, and that means getting clear on exactly what lifts to focus on, when to do them, and how much — do that and you can build nearly any body composition you want, because you’re ramping up the toning hormones and lowering stress hormones!If you want personalized 1:1 help with building a toned body composition at any age, apply to become a WarriorBabe here! apply to become a WarriorBabe here!

The idea of superfoods has survived for decades... but what’s the science behind them, and can they really transform our health so dramatically? Most importantly here — if they’re so super, why do so many women who eat them still struggle with their fitness?

1. What superfoods actually do

When you eat superfoods like kale, goji berries, or algaes like spirulina, the idea is that they’ll provide your body with an influx of healthy vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants it can use to create a cleaner, stronger internal environment. This involves detoxifying our bloodstreams, improving our memory & cognitive abilities, keeping us flexible and limber as we age, and so much more.Eating even a modest amount of these foods can help us feel more alert, clear-headed, and generally more at peace throughout the day — all which play a direct role in how well we exercise, rest, and even eat (since healthy eating is all about making better decisions). But the act of toning up is a different discussion.

2. Superfoods & toning up

The benefits of superfoods are hard to overstate, and they absolutely should be part of your nutrition! But what about getting fit — building lean muscle, confidence, and a full life? Superfoods are not the ultimate solution here, and they’re a small part of a much bigger picture.No amount of cacao, maca, or chia seeds on its own can help you build strength and increase your resilience and metabolism. Macros, especially protein, perform this essential role... and if you only focus on getting excellent micronutrients in your food, remember that your macronutrients do the heavy lifting! So don’t forget your protein, carbs, and fats.

3. How much do you need?

Let’s cover the extremes first: Obviously, eating ice cream and potato chips at every meal is a terrible decision. But while eating only salads might clean up your insides, energy dips and spikes will still hit at the worst time — and you’ll slash your gains in the gym. There’s only one valid answer, and it’s balance. Eating a veggie at every meal is great! Replacing other essential foods with veggies is not. When in doubt, check in with how you feel — and stick to your macros!If you want personalized 1:1 help with building a toned body composition using macros, exercise, and superfoods for your unique body, apply to become a WarriorBabe here!