HSOS #24: The Real Reason Women Struggle to Stay Consistent

Motivation gets all the credit, but accountability and support do the real work. This episode explains why willpower fades, why women over 40 are not failing, and how structure and community make consistency feel possible instead of exhausting. Real research, real life examples, and a refreshing reminder that you do not have to do this alone.

Let’s talk.

Welcome to Her Season of Strength—where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy—registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman when it comes to aging like you mean it.

This show isn’t about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles. It’s about building real strength—physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I’ll share straight-talking nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies, and conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin once again.

Menopause is not an ending, it is only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

What I covered:

• No more New Year resets or detox drama
• Building foundations instead of starting over
• Why willpower runs out by Tuesday
• Accountability that helps, not shames
• Support vs doing everything solo
• Community, consistency, and belonging
• Strong in 21 as a momentum builder (click the underlined text to learn more about the Strong in 21 program)

Links & resources for this episode:

Fit After 50+ Program: 8-Week Nutrition Coaching & Strength Program for menopausal women.  Join the interest list today for the best discounts, bonuses and updates about the next program coming Fall of 2026!

Free cheat sheet: "20 Tips to Crushing Menopause"

Join my free weekly newsletter list and get a new high protein recipe sent to your inbox every Thursday. 

Find me on social media: Instagram I Facebook I Tiktok

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi there, and welcome to Her Season of Strength, where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy, registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman. When it comes to aging like you mean it, this show isn't about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles.

[00:00:20] It's about building real strength, physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I'll share straight talking, nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies. And conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin. Once again, menopause isn't an ending. It's only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

[00:00:39] Wowee, it's 2026, can you believe it? We made it through another holiday season and our starting another year, fresh and new, and it's full of possibilities. In the last episode, number 23 of this podcast, I talked about how we don't need the New Year's resolutions, or the resets, or the detoxes, or the cleanses.

[00:00:57] We need to build that [00:01:00] foundation of consistent exercise and nutrition so that we never again need to reset. We just go back to our usual, to our routine after the little bumps in the roads from, Christmas or from Thanksgiving, or from parties or barbecues or whatever. And I mentioned last week my brand new program called Strong in 21, which is gonna start here in just a few weeks on January 26th.

[00:01:23] And it's a 21 day program that does just that. It just helps us to build those foundations. Without that all or nothing thinking, without the deprivation, without the restriction of all the other New Year's programs, which are. Aren't sustainable for the long term and why we quit them after one or two weeks, even if we make it that long.

[00:01:41] So today I wanna talk about something that's so important but doesn't get enough attention in the health and wellness space. Something that research actually supports, but it really gets marketed because it's not sexy or flashy. And that's accountability and support and why women are far more successful when they [00:02:00] stop trying to do everything alone.

[00:02:02] Because here's the thing, if motivation information or just wanting it badly enough if that were the answer, most of us wouldn't still be struggling. And if I can be totally honest with you, even as someone who's been a dietician for over 30 years and a personal trainer for the past four plus, I don't wake up every day excited to meal prep or lift weights.

[00:02:22] There are days where I know exactly what would support my body and what would make me feel good. And I still feel resistance. I'm just too busy or I'm too tired, or I'm just not motivated. And the difference between me staying consistent versus just. Completely falling off the wagon.

[00:02:39] It's rarely motivation. What it is structure. It's accountability. It's knowing someone else is paying attention. And I see this so often with women. I work with the ones who say, I've tried everything. I know what to do, but I just can't seem to stick with it. And that's not a character flaw.

[00:02:58] There's a, it's a [00:03:00] systems problem. So as you listen today, I want you to gently ask yourself, how often have I tried to make changes by relying only on myself? So let's just talk for just a second about science, but in plain English. So research consistently shows that willpower is a finite resource, and other means the more in, sorry.

[00:03:21] In other words, the more decisions you make in a day, the harder it becomes to make aligned choices later on. By midlife, most women were, we're juggling careers, we're juggling our family and family responsibilities. Maybe aging parents, maybe we're becoming caretakers. And then we have all these hormonal changes that actually impact our energy, our sleep, and our mood.

[00:03:44] So when someone says, you just need more discipline, that advice completely ignores physiology and real life studies on behavior change show that people who rely solely on internal motivation. Are far less [00:04:00] consistent than those who have external accountability and structure. So one large analysis published in the American Society of Training and Development found that people are up to 65% more likely to meet a goal when they commit to someone else.

[00:04:18] And that number jumps even higher when regular check-ins are involved. And here's another important one, research on exercise. Adherence shows that social support is one of the strongest predictors of long-term consistency, especially for women, not intensity, not perfection support. So if you've ever felt like, why can't I just stick with this?

[00:04:40] There's a reason. And it's not because you're weak or you're lazy. So let's clear something up because accountability has a bad reputation. It's not shame. It's not guilt, and it's not someone policing your choices. I know there's a lot of trainers out there that may use these kind of [00:05:00] methods to, push their clients to lift heavier or to, be more restrictive with what they're eating and I think, trainers can get a bad reputation for this, but research actually shows that punitive or shame-based accountability actually backfires. It just increases stress and it can decrease adherence from their clients. Whereas supportive accountability, on the other hand, it does the opposite.

[00:05:26] It works because it decreases decision fatigue. It creates consistency just through routine and repetitions, and I'm constantly saying that to my clients. It's like it feels hard now, but just keep putting one foot in front of you over and keep repeating this and I promise it gets becomes more habit and it gets easier.

[00:05:49] Supportive accountability. It also helps women to recover faster. After those disruptions or after the holidays and after something that, that keeps you from [00:06:00] exercising or eating well for some period of time. Surgeries, injuries, because disruptions, they're inevitable. We're never going to get rid of 'em all because vacations happen, our hormones fluctuate.

[00:06:12] Sleep gets funky, can get weird, can get less quality, lower quality, lower quantity. And life is always gonna throw us curve balls. Women who have accountability, they don't avoid these things. They just don't quit because of them. So let me ask you one thing. What happens when you miss a workout or you have an off eating day?

[00:06:32] Do you adjust no big deal, move on? Or do you spiral? Say, screw this, I had Burger King for lunch, now I'm gonna go and eat ice cream for dinner. Who cares? Or is it a matter of, oh, hey, I had Burger King for lunch. Tonight I think I'm gonna have a salad. I'm gonna get in some veggies.

[00:06:49] I'm gonna get in some good fiber. I'm gonna make sure I get a workout. And what accountability helps you to pause, to regroup, and just keep moving forward instead of starting [00:07:00] over every time you feel that you've just messed up or you've done something, quote unquote bad or wrong. The power of community and belonging is huge, especially for women in midlife.

[00:07:12] 'cause research and psychology and behavioral health show that a sense of belonging actually increases our follow through. It increases our confidence and it also increase, increases our resilience. So when women feel understood, they're more likely to stay engaged even when our progress might feel slow.

[00:07:31] Studies on group-based lifestyle programs actually show higher consistency, better long-term outcomes and lower dropout rates compared to solo approaches. Why do you think a lot of these gyms, like these CrossFit gyms or kickboxing gyms. A lot of times people can really feel a sense of belonging. They make friends with other people.

[00:07:53] These other people are keeping them accountable because you miss a class or something and they're saying, Hey, where were you last weekend? [00:08:00] Or, are you okay? Or they're calling you or they're texting you. And that actually, that little bit of kind of peer, I it's not like a negative pressure, but it's a little bit of peer pressure to continue to get those repetitions in.

[00:08:13] Community normalizes the experience, and it reminds you that you're not the only one struggling with energy. You're not the only one frustrated with your body. You are not the only one trying to balance everything. Support doesn't magically make things easy, but it just makes them feel more doable because you have other people who are going through the same thing and it makes you feel a little bit less alone.

[00:08:36] It's exactly why I built the Strong in 21 program just because it's not a Get Results fast program. It's not a January reset, but it's a supported container where women can practice showing up consistently with guidance, with structure, with encouragement, and the goal is not perfection, it's just momentum.

[00:08:56] Right. Research supports this too because short-term structured programs with [00:09:00] accountability often serve as those behavioral on-ramps, helping people just to slowly build habits that extend well beyond the program itself. So if you've been craving that, just some clear weekly focus, some supportive accountability, and more of that realistic approach that fits.

[00:09:20] You know where we are in our midlife bodies and lives. This might be the kind of support you've been missing. Not another plan to try harder, but here's what I'd like for you to take away. If you've struggled to stay consistent, you're not broken, you're not failing, you're likely just unsupported.

[00:09:37] So you can ask yourself, what would change if I didn't have to do this alone? What would consistency look like with structure behind me? What kind of support do I actually need right now? And if Strong in 21 isn't your cup of tea or isn't something you wanna do right now, here's a couple [00:10:00] things that I want you to do is sit down and actually think about what are your goals?

[00:10:05] What would you like to achieve? And let's make them smart goals. Let's actually put some timelines around 'em. Let's make them specific. Let's make them measurable, right? Let's make them achievable. And it might even be helpful to, with these goals, to actually tell someone about 'em.

[00:10:24] Whether that's your spouse, whether that's your friend your child, or another family member. Tell 'em what your goals are. Hey, I'd really like to start strength training twice a week, and I'm just gonna start with 15 or 30 minutes each time. But I'd like to do that, even go one step further and say, I'd like to do these on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at six before I go to work.

[00:10:49] Or maybe when I get off work on, Wednesdays and Fridays or Saturday mornings or something. But actually put. Put these goals into actual concrete [00:11:00] steps and then tell somebody about 'em. It's amazing how just someone else knowing what your goals are can help you to feel like there is somebody who's watching who's giving you that little bit of, peer pressure, that little bit of support that you need so that when you do have those rough days when you're like, I don't really wanna work out, maybe they can give you a little, pick me up.

[00:11:20] Maybe they can say, Hey, let's go together. Let's go to the gym together or let's go down in our home gym and get a workout in. Or, maybe, you can give a friend a call and ask him to join you, even if it's just, getting outside for a walk or doing some kind of, just getting a little bit more movement in.

[00:11:36] But having just a little bit extra support, it helps you to feel a little bit less alone and you're much more likely to follow through with things. Make sense? So if this resin, this episode resonated with you, I'd really love for you to share with a friend who's been quietly struggling. Leave a review if it, it helps more women to find this space.

[00:11:56] And message me if you have any questions or thoughts. I truly love hearing for [00:12:00] you. And remember, this is about progress over perfection. We are in this for the long haul and this is your season of strength. Have a fantastic day.