The Truth About Weight Loss After 40 (You're Not Broken)

Are you doing everything "right" but your body stopped responding? You're not broken—the rules just changed.

If you've found yourself wondering "What's wrong with me?" or "Why can't I do this anymore?"—this episode is your permission slip to stop blaming yourself.

Dr. Orlena reveals why weight loss and energy management feel so much harder after 40, and spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with willpower, discipline, or laziness. Through her own transformation from a sports-phobic teenager to someone who craves daily movement, she illustrates how our bodies' needs evolve over decades—and why the strategies that worked in your twenties simply can't work the same way now.

In this episode, you'll discover why your body changed even though you "didn't change anything," why previous diet tactics suddenly stopped working, and most importantly, how to release the shame and guilt that's been holding you back.

Three insights that will shift your perspective:

• Your changing body isn't a personal failure—it's a natural biological shift that requires different support
• Exercise evolves from optional to essential for energy, pain management, and feeling vibrant (not just weight loss)
• Shame and self-blame actually make things worse—removing them from the equation is crucial for lasting change

This isn't another episode about tips and tricks. It's about understanding what's really happening in your body so you can finally stop fighting against yourself and start working with your biology. Because you deserve to feel energetic, healthy, and vibrant—at any age.

Watch Stop Dieting Start Thriving: https://go.drorlena.com/video 

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Transcript

 Hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena. Happy New Year. I hope that you had an amazing holiday and that you are keen and excited to get back to normality, to whatever that looks like for you. Whether that means getting back to work or getting back to routine, getting back to you leading your amazing retirement.

I am certainly looking forward to getting back to exercising. I'll tell you about that in a minute. Today, I thought that we would start at the beginning New year. Start at the beginning of the story. If you have found yourself thinking, what is wrong with me? I don't know what to do, so why can't I do this anymore?

Then this episode is. For you because the women that I work with, they're not lazy, they're not undisciplined, and they're definitely not broken. They are capable, intelligent women who have handled careers and families and [00:01:00] stress and responsibility, and yet when it comes to their body after 40, nothing seems to respond in the way that it used to Today.

I want to say this very clearly. If weight loss or looking after yourself in terms of energy and knowing that you are doing the right things to lead a long and healthy and vibrant, life feels harder. Now, that doesn't mean you failed. It means that the rules have changed and nobody has told you. And today we are gonna talk a little bit about why.

Now in this episode, I'm not gonna give you tips or a plan or explain things that's gonna come in the next few episodes. I don't really want to add more to your full plate at this time of the beginning of the year. But first of all, what I think is more important is to take blame off the table, [00:02:00] because I see so many people who look at their body, they look at their life and they think.

It's all my fault. And this leads to shame and it leads to guilt, excuse me. And this actually makes things worse. And here's the reality. At 40 and beyond 40. So whether you are in your forties, your fifties, your sixties, or even in your seventies, things are different than when you were in your twenties and your thirties.

And there's lots of reasons why. There are hormonal reasons why, but there are also just life reasons why. So I'm gonna tell you my first story. Remember I promised I was gonna try and practice telling stories, here's my story about exercise and how my view on exercise has really evolved over the last [00:03:00] decades.

So I went to a school, it was a small school. It was a very academic school. It was actually an all girls school. It was a fabulous school. It did obviously have sports departments, but because it was such a small school, the people who were in, for example, the hockey team and the netball team, they were in all of the teams.

So it was basically one team for the whole school. There were a few girls, say two or three in each year. Who were really good at sports and they made the entire team for every sport. And really the message that we were given was that basically sport is something to excel at, and if you are not any good at it, this is what I took from my time as a teenager.

There really wasn't any point in you. Doing it. Obviously we were expected to join in, but I never excelled at sport and I couldn't really see the point of sport. I was young, I was fit, I was healthy. This whole idea [00:04:00] of moving my body, it didn't really mean anything to me. And I remember I was such a. A sports phobic person.

I remember playing tennis with one of my friends who didn't go to the same school as me, and he laughed and he was like you do realize that you are supposed to run after the ball rather than stand there and wait for the ball to come to you. That was how uns sporty I was. I just didn't get sport.

I was good at maths, I was good at physics, all of those kind of things. I was actually even good at art, but sport not so much. Now when I went to university. And I was in my twenties. I had what I called fitness of youth. Obviously I didn't think of it like that at the time. I was just young and my body was healthy and strong because it was young.

And at that time I, in my fourth and fifth year, I think it was perhaps my third year, yeah, my third year, or even my second year, I joined the football team. Now I was hopeless at football, [00:05:00] and again, I didn't really make it into the teams. I was allowed to be in the team, but I didn't really play football.

I played on the days that we practiced, so that meant I was running around a little bit once a week, but not really enough to be fit. I could run because I was young and I also. Side note, mostly I think the reason I did the football was it was fun, but also it was a good excuse for partying. Not that we really needed much excuse for partying at that time in my life.

We seem to be very naturally good at partying, and I do remember as well occasionally going to the university gym, so I might do some. Circuit training, or I might do some weights, but I don't remember it being consistent. So what I'm saying to you is that really exercise was a little bit of an extra in my life.

It wasn't something that I focused on. Yes, I walked a reasonable amount, I walked, and in my first year I cycled a little [00:06:00] bit. So I did have movement, but it was not something that I focused on. Now that has all changed for various reasons. And now I find that exercise is something that gives me energy, something that helps me enjoy my day.

So for those of you who are new or dunno, me, I love swimming. Now swimming is not something. That I did very much when I was younger. When I was in like under 10, my dad would take me swimming and my dad was a very good swimmer and so I've always been able to swim, but again, it wasn't anything that I really focused on.

Until I found myself as a mother of four young kids really feeling burnt out and really having this kind of epiphany of, yeah, do you know what? You actually don't do anything to look after yourself. You are just focused on [00:07:00] looking after four kids and you aren't really taking care of yourself. And at that stage, I started to go swimming, partly because my kids were learning to swim.

And I remember this one day. Taking them to the swimming pool and having to watch, and it was hot and really like smelt of chlorine, and I thought I'd be much better off down there. I'd much rather go swimming, and that was really the first step. Now that must have been at least, oh my goodness, 10 years ago now.

It didn't happen overnight, but now I find myself in a place where I go to swimming training three times a week. At eight o'clock in the morning, I do weights. I swim in the sea. I love swimming in the sea. It's winter now. It's a bit difficult to swim in the sea. Now, over the Christmas holidays, the swimming pool has been closed mostly for a couple of weeks.

So here in Spain, we have Christmas, we have New Year's, and then the fifth and 6th of January are actually Kings. They're a national holiday and the swimming pool is closed and over that period of time. The [00:08:00] swimming pool has been open like one or two days on which I have swung, but over that period of two weeks, my exercise routine has been difficult to maintain because I don't have the facilities available to me.

Now I do have what I call plan B, and I do recommend that you all have plan B for exercise because there's always things that happen. So my Plan B has been doing some exercises at home. I have a static bike. I have been to the CA few times. It is very cold. So I have maintained some movement, but not the same amount of movement as I normally would, and what I find is my back is sore.

I have a scoliosis in my back and I get back pain, and if I move and maintain my exercise routine, then I don't notice my back pain. I get my back pain strangely at nighttime when I'm lying in bed. And over the last few days, I have really noticed that I can feel that and I [00:09:00] know that it's because I'm not exercising.

But on top of that. The exercise sets me up for the day. I enjoy swimming. I like putting my body in that position where I'm pushing myself. Now, swimming for me is very comfortable. It feels like walking. It's something that I am so used to doing. It's something that I could almost do in my sleep. So exercise gives me energy.

Exercise makes the difference between a me day and a hooray day. Now, why am I telling you all of this? Because I want you to see that over a period of time. I have had to adapt to my body. In my twenties, my body didn't need exercise. Now I'm not saying if you're in your twenties, you shouldn't exercise.

Actually, you should exercise. It is much better to exercise in your twenties than not exercise, but it isn't until I got to my forties. I'm now 50, soon to be 51 that my body feels like it [00:10:00] needs movement on a daily basis just to maintain. Me feeling healthy and strong and vibrant and energetic. And the reality is, it's not just movement that changes how we eat.

All the other things, which we'll dive into in the next few episodes, or you can go and listen to last year's episodes and I talk about them a lot there. But all of these things change a little bit. So that when we are in our forties, fifties, sixties, we need to be doing things slightly differently. So that is my story and other stories that I hear really frequently from people.

Either I was reasonably healthy and I was just going along in my twenties and thirties, feeling good and healthy. I was thin and healthy and active, and then suddenly menopause hit. Or perimenopause. It's normally perimenopause that people actually put on weight that five years before menopause. That's the danger zone.

I didn't change [00:11:00] anything I was doing and suddenly, wham, I find myself with abdominal fat that like, this doesn't feel like me. I dunno what to do. So that's one story. I was doing everything the same, but my body changed. Now when people say that to me as a doctor, I'm thinking. Something else is going on.

If you genuinely haven't changed anything and your body has changed, that's because there are processes going on underneath that have changed the way your body deals and stores fat and all of those things, which we will talk about in a few episodes. I've got some exciting guests lined up for you, so I'm not sure where my next solo episode will be.

The other story I hear quite a lot is. I have struggled with my weight over the years, but I knew how to deal with it. It might be that you do weight watchers or calorie counting or clean eating. I just cut out desserts and alcohol, or I [00:12:00] do a little bit more exercise. I know what to do. I understand my body, and when I notice that I've got a little bit more wobble than I want.

I make these changes and I know what result I will get, except now that isn't working anymore. My body isn't responding in the same way I used to do this. This no longer has any effect. So like in our twenties, yeah, I used to skip lunch and it was fine. Now I can skip lunch and fast for three days and my body doesn't respond anymore.

The other last thing I think I see is really just sometimes rock bottom doesn't always look dramatic. It doesn't necessarily mean, oh my goodness, I've got an unwell child, an unwell parent. I'm struggling with work and all of these things. It can be, life is just going along. And I'm standing in the [00:13:00] kitchen thinking I can't keep starting over like this.

I have tried this so many times I've tried this and it just feels like I am in the same rut going over and over. And it might be that what you are doing is trying to do stuff that is too difficult for you to do. For example, depriving yourself too much and finding that, yeah, you get to this point where you think I can't keep depriving myself, or that you aren't noticing any changes to motivate you to keep going.

So that is what I wanted to talk about today, this idea that. The reality is our bodies do change for various reasons, and it's not your fault. It is not your body giving up on you. It is just asking for a [00:14:00] different kind of support. And I understand that this can lead to shame, guilt, confusion, frustration, even.

Grief for how it used to be. The reality is we aren't as young as we used to be. We aren't those people in our twenties, and I see a lot of people who think, I want to get back to me. Now. You can totally get back to you, but you in your fifties or sixties is not the same as you in your twenties. Now that does not mean that you don't have to have energy and vitality, but we're just a few decades older and wiser I would say.

Okay. Bottom line, it's not your fault. You can change things. You can lead a vibrant. Healthy, happy life. You can get rid of the wobble. We will talk a little bit more about that in the next [00:15:00] episode. So in the next episode, my next solo episode, I will talk more about the hormonal changes and the impact that it has and why it is that you might be somebody who was doing the same things, you didn't change anything and suddenly you find yourself with this abdominal fact.

And on top of that, I've got some amazing guests. S coming up, including Dr. Stacey Sims. I'm super excited to talk to Dr. Stacey Sims happening in February. Remember, if you would like support or if you'd like a little bit of extra information, I have a video stop dieting, start thriving. I did redo it at the end of last year, so it is now only 10 minutes.

Short and concise. I will leave a link in the show notes to be able to watch that. And if you are somebody who thinks, yeah, I totally get all of this, I really want more support, I recommend you watch that video. Watching the video is totally free and gives you loads of information if you want [00:16:00] support.

After that, you book a free call and the free call, we chat about where you are, how you got there, where you want to get to, and what is stopping you. So that chat itself is really valuable. So many people say to me. It has been so valuable just to take time out of my busy schedule and chat to you and get some clarity on what is going on, and really focus on what are the things that I need to make Now, if you want support, I will also tell you about my program and how I support people really transforming their lives.

So they go from feeling fed up and frustrated and on a path to either putting on extra weight or feeling. That they're not leading their most healthy life to, oh my goodness, this is actually easy. I know what to do. More importantly, I also have the mindset tools to keep going, and that is one of the crucial keys.

Mindset is one of the big keys when it comes to health, [00:17:00] healthy looking after yourself. Have a fabulous week and I will see you in a couple of weeks. Bye-bye.