78: 5 Simple Ways to Boost Energy in Midlife

Do you feel like you're exhausted and dragging through every single day? Between the invisible load of managing a career, a family, aging parents, and shifting hormones, it’s no wonder you feel like you’re running on empty.

In this episode of The Family Fork, I’m getting real about why you lose energy in perimenopause and how to get it back without spending a fortune (like a week at the spa!)

We’re talking about simple, low-friction shifts that turn into habits—habits that quickly give you energy back!

I'll walk you through the biological "why" behind your fatigue, from the way stress locks your body in fight-or-flight mode, to how hidden inflammatory ingredients make your exhaustion worse.

Midlife or not, you deserve to feel vibrant, excited about your life, and powerful enough to handle whatever the day throws at you.

In this episode:

📌 Discover why your body holds onto fat when you’re stuck in high alert, plus three tools to signal "safety" to your nervous system.

📌 Why systemic inflammation makes you feel heavy and foggy, plus simple food swaps that can clear brain fog in just three days.

📌 Why eating more frequently (but strategically!) stops the blood sugar roller coaster and banishes "hangry" afternoons.

📌 My favorite trick to help you drink water faster

More Support For You

✅ Download your FREE 21-Day Anti-Inflammatory Meal Plan
✅ My go-to online workout library (Use code ASHLEYS1BODI for an extra 15% off!)
🙋‍♀️ Work with Me
⭐️ Connect on Social
🥑 How I Cook Just 3 Nights/Week
🧠 Mindset Framework to Stop Relying On Willpower or Motivation 

Transcript

Hello there, my sweet friend. And thank you for joining me for this episode of The Family Fork. So we actually have a lot of new listeners recently. So whether you are an OG and you've been here for a long time, or this is your first episode, today's topic is one that I promise you definitely need. Now, as we get started today, I just want you to take a deep breath. Every day, you have to make millions of decisions. You balance a hundred different tasks.

And it's no wonder then that you might be feeling a little bit low on energy.

Plus during this particular stage of life, perimenopause or menopause, your hormones are shifting and your metabolism is constantly recalibrating. So you naturally have less pep in your step than you did probably in your twenties. But it's probably not just the biology of it all, is it?

Also at this stage of life, you are likely carrying what we now term the invisible load. You're managing a career that's probably more demanding than ever. And maybe you're like, I'm an ex big promotion or you're leading a team that really relies on you to make decisions. You're also balancing the needs of your family. And let's face it, those decisions don't get smaller as your kids get older. They actually just get more complex.

you're dealing with college applications and sports schedules,

Or on the other end of the spectrum, maybe you're also helping your own parents to navigate their health. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you are trying to plug into your own health and wellness. You're trying to remember that you should eat those anti-inflammatory foods that we talk about. Or maybe you're trying to squeeze in a workout when you can, and you're trying to do all of this without falling apart. It is a really

heavy and stressful load. And when you have that much on your plate, you don't just want energy, you actually need more energy. You need it not only to survive what's going on at work and in your own home and the gym, but you actually just need it to thrive.

I don't want you to live a life where you just check the boxes and collapse into bed every night. I want you to feel vibrant. I want you to feel excited about your life. And I want you to feel like you truly have a high quality life.

I hear from so many of you who say, know what, Ashley, I've tried the supplements. I've tried different diets. I've tried sleeping more whenever your brain actually lets you sleep, but I'm still just out of energy. I hear you. I get it. I have been there. I remember having those days where my alarm would go off at five in the morning and I would just stare at the ceiling wondering how I was going to find enough energy to make it till noon.

let alone go through a full work day plus after school activities and then dinner, it was too much.

But here's the good news. To feel more energetic, it does not require this overwhelming overhaul. You don't need a week at the spa or a $500 protocol to start feeling better.

Today, I'm gonna walk you through five really simple, super practical things that you can start doing today, like right now, to increase your energy every single day.

These are really low friction, but high impact shifts And what's so cool is that the more you practice these five different things, the more that they are just going to become part of your day. They'll become habits.

And once they are habits, they stop taking energy to do and it actually starts giving you your energy back. So if you are ready to stop feeling like you're running on fumes and to start feeling like the powerful, capable woman that I know you are, let's dive in.

All right, we are going to start with the biggest energy sink of all, which is stress. Now, you probably just like me, are probably rolling your eyes and saying, you know what, Ashley, I have a career, I have a kids, I have a mortgage, I have this like never ending to-do list. My life is stressful. Telling me to just reduce stress, that's just not even possible. And I hear you, I do, because I feel the same way, but.

I want you to understand the why behind this because when you can understand what stress is doing to your biology, it is going to change the way you prioritize it. whether you're stressed because you got a kind of heated email from your manager or you just have that like low grade hum that you're constantly worrying about your teenager who's really struggling in school, your body enters what we call fight or flight state.

Now, back in the day, this was really what we needed if we were running away from a bear or a tiger or some sort of threat. But today, that tiger is actually your calendar and your to-do list.

In this state, your body is on high alert. Your nervous system, your brain, they think there's an emergency. And what do you do when you're in an emergency? You conserve resources. So your body does two things that literally suck the energy out of you. It tries to conserve energy by making you feel tired so that you don't actually waste the energy that you have.

and it holds onto fat stores because your body thinks, my gosh, we might need that emergency fuel later on.

So that stress that you're carrying around, it's actually making things worse for your energy. And especially in perimenopause, when your cortisol, which is your stress hormone, it's already a bit dicey. All of this stress, added stress, it becomes a major drain on your energy. So I wanna give you three very specific, very simple tools to help you relieve some of your stress.

First, I want you to make things repeatable. The more decisions that you make in a day, the more decision fatigue you actually have. And that decision fatigue is really stressful to your body. I know on my own health journey, I very quickly realized that I did not have the mental bandwidth to decide what to eat or how to move every single day. So I made those things repeatable. Right now,

I pretty much eat the same thing for breakfast almost every single day. For lunch, I usually just have a salad. It's like protein, veggies, fruit. I'll throw in whatever I have in the fridge. It's super easy. And because I just know I'm having a salad, I don't think twice about it. The same thing goes for my workouts. I use ⁓ online streaming library, and I'll link to it in the show notes for you. But it is absolutely saving my life.

I don't have to stress about getting to the gym early in the morning, especially for those days that I'm running late or maybe the weather or the roads are bad. And with this library, I don't even have to think about what workout I'm going to do. I just open up the app. I follow the program that has been designed by a professional trainer. All I have to do is show up. So

taking the choice out of it actually takes the stress out of it.

The second tool is to give yourself seven minutes in the morning. Now, I know a lot of people talk about gratitude journals and I think that there's something to that. But when you're feeling like in a really stressful season, sometimes that gratitude list just feels like one more thing to do on your to-do list. So instead, I want you to focus on safety. So

For me, every morning, and it's usually while I'm walking my dog, Rajah I spend seven minutes thinking about all of the reasons that I am safe. I like to tell my nervous system, you know what, we're good. I have a warm, cozy house, I have clean water, I have the food that I know fuels me, my family is safe, I'm a good mom.

By taking a few minutes to recognize where you are safe in your life, it actually signals to your brain that it can turn off that fight or flight mechanism. And you signal to your nervous system that, you know what, it's okay to release that stored energy because there is no threat. Doing this practice every morning will lower your cortisol, which that's going to give you...

more energy for the rest of your day for the things that actually matter.

Finally, I want you to try box breathing. So this is actually a tactic that I think Navy SEALs use to stay really calm in high pressure situations. So you got to figure if it works for them, it's going to work for you too. And what's cool about box breathing is you can do this anywhere on the elevator, in the car, while you're waiting for your next meeting. And what you do is you want to choose whatever number you want to count to.

So that doesn't matter as much, but your rhythm needs to be precise. So say we're going to count to the number six. What you'll do is you'll breathe in for a count of six, you'll hold it for a count of six, and then breathe out for a count of six.

What this practice does is physically force your nervous system to regulate or chill out. It tells your body, know what, we're calm. We're in control. Personally, I use this all the time when things feel chaotic with my work or when I'm struggling with my daughter, cause you know, she's in the back talking stage, but just a minute or two of box breathing and

I actually feel ready to come back to whatever situation I was in with clarity instead of exhaustion.

When you use just these three resources to reduce your stress, you're going to notice an almost immediate uptick in your energy. Your body, it will stop trying to protect you by making you tired. And it will start allowing you to use the energy that you actually have. Pretty cool, right?

So now that we've started to calm the nervous system and lower that fight or flight alarm bell, let's talk about the second thing that completely zaps your energy and that's inflammation.

Now, inflammation is kind of a quiet energy drain in that it's not always obvious that you have it, but if you know the symptoms to look for, then you can support your body to reduce that inflammation. Now, in your body, inflammation is essentially your immune system's response to what is a perceived threat. And when you have systemic inflammation, whether it's from the high

stress you know, that we just talked about, or maybe from the foods that you're eating, or inflammation can even come from like underlying gut health or hormonal shifts, which of course, we're seeing those in perimenopause. Your body is fighting a battle that you didn't even sign up for. It's working overtime to protect and to heal you. And that work, it takes a lot of energy.

So when your body is busy fighting that internal fire, it's just not gonna give you that like, hey, let's get up and go energy that you need for a two o'clock in the afternoon presentation or for your daughter's soccer game. It actually makes you feel heavy and foggy and just plain tired. Now, reducing your stress, that is going to help. But one of the fastest ways to lower inflammation is by changing up what you eat.

If you've listened to me before, you know this is where my heart lives in anti-inflammatory nutrition.

I hear it all the time from women just like you. You know what, Ashley? I know about anti-inflammatory diet, but it's so restrictive. And I don't want to just end up eating a bunch of steamed veggies while my family gets to eat pizza. My sweet friend. I hope you know by now, this is not how I roll. I am a mom of two. I'm a grandma. My life is super busy. And I actually will only eat food that tastes delicious.

anti-inflammatory eating, it is not about deprivation. It's actually about making some smart swaps. So choosing foods that are going to love your body back. It's moving away from processed foods like artificial colors and flavorings, hidden sugars, all of these things that are like lighter fluid for the inflammation in your body. And instead moving towards fresh, delicious,

Whole Foods.

So let me give you a quick real life example. There was a client that I worked with, her name was Michelle, and she was a high level manager and her work days were really, really busy. Now you'd look at her and by most standards she was really healthy, but she was feeling less energetic by the day and it started shortly after she turned 44. So for lunch, she would typically just grab like a low calorie, but high protein bar.

And she would just really hope that that would tide her over for dinner. And sometimes she'd grab a diet Coke in the mid afternoon, because that would give her that like extra boost of energy to finish out her day.

When we looked at what she was eating, it was clear that those protein bars were full of inflammatory oils and artificial sweeteners.

and her body was struggling to fight against that inflammation that was caused by the processed ingredients, which was making her even more tired. So we made one simple swap, actually two. We traded that bar, that like protein bar for a salad, which she would make at home and bring it to work. And then she swapped out the diet Coke for a sparkling water with wine. Well, within just three days, literally just three days.

She sent me a message and she was like, Ashley, I feel so much better. I am finding that I'm not completely wiped out in the afternoons anymore. This is the power of food. When you can fuel up with anti-inflammatory food, you aren't just like losing weight or eating well or being good. You're actually freeing up a huge energy reserve that was previously being spent on like damage control.

So if you're sitting there and you're thinking, ⁓ that's great, but how do I even get started on that? I have got you. I have a free anti-inflammatory meal plan linked in the show notes. And it is designed specifically for busy women who do not have hours to spend in the kitchen. It helps you save time because with this plan, you only have to cook three nights a week, yet you're still eating.

really delicious family-friendly meals like tacos and burgers. Yes, you can actually eat a burger and it can still be anti-inflammatory. It's just all about the quality of ingredients and the way that you prepare them. And the best part? Your family, they're not even going to know that they're eating healthy. They'll just know that the food tastes really good and you will know that you're fueling your body in a way that really allows you to have so much more energy.

When you stop pouring more inflammatory ingredients into your body, your body can turn around and finally start fueling your life.

Alright, let's move on to number three. Now this one might be a little counterintuitive, especially if you still hold to that belief that the only way to lose weight or stay healthy is to eat less and move more. If you want sustained all day energy, I actually want you to eat more frequently.

I don't want you thinking, you know what, Ashley, I'm trying to lose weight and perimenopause. I don't actually need more food. Here's the secret. It's actually not about eating more food total, but it's about distributing that fuel all day to keep your blood sugar steady. So think about your typical day. Like maybe you're really rushed in the morning and so you just grab a yogurt or a gluten-free bagel on your way out the door.

and you end up in these like back-to-back meetings and phone calls and so you skip lunch but then you just grab something quick at two o'clock in the afternoon. By the time four p.m rolls around you are starving and cranky which I think that's the definition of hangry right and then you get home and while you're making dinner you just want to eat everything in sight. Fueling yourself this way is contributing to internal stress

and inflammation and you're going to have a biological response to a blood sugar crash. So when you go too long without food, your blood sugar is going to drop and your body sends out this white flag saying, hey, I need some quick energy, which that's exactly why you start craving sugar and like simple carbs. So then you eat something and your blood sugar spikes again, you feel good for 20 minutes and then then you crash again.

This cycle is exhausting and it drains not only your physical but your mental energy. It kind of wreaks havoc on your mood and it makes it nearly impossible for you to stay consistent with your nutrition. Now in perimenopause and menopause, your body is already more sensitive to these fluctuations. Your insulin response, it's just not what it used to be.

So by moving to a model where you can eat four or five times a day, like mini meals, you're going to keep your blood sugar steady all day long. And when your blood sugar is stable, your energy is stable. You're not gonna get brain fog or that hangry feeling at three in the afternoon. You're not gonna feel completely famished when you walk through the door after work. Essentially, you're giving your body a steady drip

of good quality fuel instead of trying to run on an empty tank and then over stuffing it later.

Now keep in mind, it does matter what those frequent meals are. So we're not having five meals of pasta. We're having protein, healthy fats and fiber. And I get it. You don't have time to cook five meals a day. Neither do I. Nobody has time for that. So the trick here is to stock your fridge in your pantry with quick, easy and like packable items. So think grilled chicken, hard boiled eggs, sliced veggies. How about plain?

Greek yogurt, not flavored, ⁓ berries and other fresh fruit.

With these quick and easy anti-inflammatory foods, you are fueling your metabolism, you're supporting your hormones, and most importantly, you are keeping your energy at a high, consistent level from morning until night.

Seriously, try this for just three days. Don't let yourself go more than three, four hours max without a small anti-inflammatory mini meal. And I promise you are gonna be amazed at how much more focused and energized you feel when you stop asking your body to run on fumes or inconsistent eating times.

All right, that takes us to number four. Now you have heard the saying a body in motion stays in motion, right? But in midlife, especially when you hit that wall at three in the afternoon and you would just rather curl up for a nap, moving your body is probably the last thing on your mind. I mean, wouldn't you much rather have a venti latte or a piece or two of chocolate? When your body feels sluggish, this is actually the best time

to move. Now, I'm not talking about like an intense hour long workout unless that's what you want to do, but I'm not asking you to run five miles. No, I'm talking about these small movements that signal your body and your cells that, hello, we need some energy right now. So when you sit for hours on end, like in front of a computer screen, your body enters this low power mode.

So moving your body is gonna be the best way to wake up that system.

It gets your blood flowing. It increases your oxygen that's reaching your brain and it's going to help regulate your blood sugar. All good things, right? Now I get it. get it. The last thing you want to do is like body weight squats at your desk. I totally understand, but you can still get creative.

So if you're working in an office environment, I want you to simply just go to the bathroom and use the larger stall in the restroom so you can do a few squats or better yet, pop on the elevator and get them done in there. Maybe you can do some calf raises if you have an escalator to ride up. And if you're working from home or you're trying this at home, set a timer for 10 minutes.

put on some of your favorite music, something that's like high energy and gets you hyped up and just move, dance, walk fast up and down the stairs, or you could even do some jumping jacks.

Give yourself 10 to 15 minutes of movement when that afternoon wall hits, and I promise you are going to notice an instant increase in energy.

I also find it really helpful to do a little bit of movement right after dinner. So I think that this can be a game changer because after you eat, your blood sugar naturally rises. And if you sit there on the couch to watch a show or to help one of your kids with homework, that blood sugar can stay elevated for a little bit too long. And it's going to give you that like food coma feeling. Have you ever had that? So if you just take 10 minutes to

clear the table and load the dishwasher and put a little extra pep in your step, or maybe just take a quick stroll around the block with your dog. You are helping your body process all of that fuel that you just put in. It's gonna clear your brain fog. It's gonna give you that second wind that you need to finish the entire day strong without feeling like you're dragging this dead weight behind you.

So try it this week. Every time you feel like you have absolutely zero energy, don't reach for something sweet or a soda. I want you to just stand up and stretch. They say that motion is lotion for your joints, but motion is also fuel for the energy that you actually need every day.

Now, last but certainly not least, we have to talk about the simplest, cheapest, and most often overlooked way to boost your energy, and that's hydration.

I know, I know you get it. Like, you know, you're supposed to drink more water, right? But if you are feeling sluggish, or maybe you're kind of getting a dull headache in the afternoon, your body is probably already dehydrated. And this is a fun fact, if you actually feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated. That's your body sending you a signal asking for help because more water is going to increase your energy overall.

When you are dehydrated, your blood volume actually drops, which means your heart is working harder to pump oxygen to your brain and your muscles and the rest of your body. So it's no wonder that you don't have any energy. You're asking your body to work double time.

Here's my favorite trick for drinking water. So I used to start the day with really good intentions of having all my water, but I would get caught up in meetings or work on a project with my coworkers. And then I'd run to and from sports practices.

And by seven o'clock, I'd realize, my gosh, I've only had like two glasses of water all day. So then trying to be the high achiever that I am, would drink like 40 or 50 ounces of water kind of close to bedtime just so I could hit my goal. And I'm sure you can imagine what happened. I was up all night long running to the bathroom, which was destroying my sleep, which you know, like it's already hard to come by.

and I was doing this just to stay caught up on my hydration. So I was in a lose lose situation for sure. Here's how you take the stress out of drinking your water and turn it into a consistent energy boosting habit. I know that you have a phone or a smartwatch right next to you right now. I want you to set a timer to go off every hour on the hour during your work day. So from like eight

am to 5 pm and every time you get that little ding you are supposed to drink eight ounces of water. That's it and eight ounces if you if you look at it in a measured cup it's really not that much it's like a few big gulps of water but by doing this you are consistently giving your body that hydration that it needs.

Now let's talk about this when you first start adding this much water to your body you might feel like you're spending a lot of your day in the bathroom.

You might be thinking, you know Ashley, I can't leave my desk this often, but just hang in there. I don't want that to be a deterrent. Within about three to four days, your body and your bladder are going to adjust. Your system is going to realize, hey, I don't need to flush everything immediately because you will show your body more water is coming. So eventually you'll find a rhythm and along with that rhythm is going to come more energy.

So by using that alarm or reminder to encourage you to drink, you're actually removing the task of having to remember one more thing. Because remember we talked about decision fatigue, reducing the number of decisions you have to make saves energy. So setting that alarm or that reminder is going to ensure that you are well hydrated for that late afternoon meeting.

and it's going to prevent you from having to drown yourself in water after dinner so that you can actually get a good night of sleep. It's simple, it's free, and it totally works. Set that alarm, drink your eight ounces, and then watch that energy come flooding in.

My sweet friend, we have covered a lot of ground today. And I know that as a busy woman, sometimes when you hear a list of like, ⁓ five things for this, your brain immediately wants to turn it into a checklist of, my gosh, yet another five things I need to do. But I want you to just take a deep breath and understand that's not what this is. This isn't about perfection. It's about possibility.

I want you to look back at the five simple, easy, and practical shifts that we talked about today. So we talked about reducing your stress by making your life repeatable and teaching your nervous system that you are safe. We discussed inflammation and lowering that by choosing foods that are going to love you back.

We talked about stabilizing your blood sugar by fueling more frequently so that you can hop off that like afternoon roller coaster. And we even talked about moving your body, even if it's squats in your bathroom, so that you can alert yourself, hey, it's time to wake up and have some energy. And finally, we talked about drinking water throughout the day so that you can be sure your entire system keeps running well.

As I said, none of these things requires you to buy a new wardrobe or join an expensive gym or spend hours a day meal prepping. These are solutions that fit into your real life in very practical and sustainable ways.

I want you to remember that you deserve to feel good. You deserve to have that energy to not just lead the team meeting with a lot of confidence, but also to have enough leftover to enjoy your family and to laugh with your partner and just to feel like yourself again. Perimenopause, it can actually feel like a season of loss. You lose sleep.

You lose your metabolism, you lose your identity, but it can also be a season of incredible reclamation.

When you start taking these small steps, you are telling yourself that your health matters. And the more that you practice these habits, the more they are going to reward you with the energy that you need and deserve. So your homework for today is to just pick one thing that we talked about. Maybe it's setting that reminder to drink your water. Maybe it's committing to seven minutes each morning to remind yourself how safe you are.

but whatever it is, just start there. And if you're ready to tackle that inflammation piece, make sure and grab that free meal plan in the show notes. It's my gift to you to make this process as simple and delicious as possible.

If you found this episode helpful, would you do me a favor? Think of one woman in your life, maybe a colleague who also looked a little tired today or a friend who is struggling with the same lack of energy that you are. Share this episode with her. We are so much better when we can go through this together.

We are community of women reclaiming our health, one fork full and one mindset shift at a time. Thank you for being here with me today. I can't wait to see you right back here next week.