Ep. 7 - What Actually Happens to Your Metabolism After 50 (And What Really Helps)

If you’ve been feeling like something has shifted in your body after 50 — your energy, your weight, or your metabolism — you’re not imagining it.

But it’s also not as simple as “your metabolism slowing down.”

In this episode of Tea with Sophie, we gently unpack what metabolism actually is, what really changes in midlife, and why your body may feel like it’s no longer responding in the same way.

This isn’t about doing more, eating less, or trying harder.

It’s about understanding your body at a deeper level — and learning how to support it in a way that feels sustainable, intelligent, and kind.

You’ll also walk away with one simple, practical place to begin.

Pop the kettle on… and let’s begin.

In this episode, we explore:

• What metabolism actually is (and what it isn’t)
• Whether metabolism really slows down after menopause
• Why your body can feel different even if you’re doing the same things
• The role of muscle, stress, and inflammation in metabolic health
• How your body adapts — rather than “breaks” — over time
• Why metabolism is about your whole internal environment, not just food

A simple place to begin:

Start with one meal.

Build a meal around:

• fiber
• color
• whole foods

For example:

• vegetables
• beans or lentils
• whole grains
• nuts or seeds

This helps support:

• gut health
• energy production
• inflammation balance

You don’t need to do everything.

Just begin with one meal.

A question to reflect on:

What feels like it’s changed most in your body in this stage of life?

Is it your energy… your sleep… your metabolism… or something else?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi, Sophie here, and welcome to Tea with Sophie. This is a place for us to have honest, grounded conversations for women in midlife and beyond. I'm so excited that you are here. And today we're going to be talking about a topic that, oh my goodness, a lot of women ask me about, which is metabolism. A lot of women think that their metabolism is basically broken or has slowed down. And they think that that is the reason why they can't eat what they used to, that they're gaining all this belly fat, and that things are just basically going downhill from this moment on in. And I want to assure you that that is not the case. So I'm going to unpack what metabolism actually is today in our little conversation. I'm going to do a little bit of myth busting. I am going to tell you what you can do to support your metabolism and give you a really lovely takeaway that you can get going with straight away. All right, let's dive in. So what is metabolism? Metabolism basically means how you burn energy. That's it. It's so simple. Um, how your body effectively burns the energy in the form of the food that you're putting into it, and you have a resting metabolic rate. And when we're younger, our metabolism tends to be very efficient. Just you think of a brand new machine, it's firing on all cylinders. And then as we get older, there can be certain things and influences that I'll talk about in a minute that can cause our metabolism to slow down a little bit. All right, so the first myth that I want to bust is that metabolism completely breaks, it either breaks down or it falls off a precipitous, precipitous cliff when you're in your 50s. And it really doesn't. The science does not bear that out. What we now know to be true is that your metabolism can shift a little bit, um, slow down a little bit as you get older. And this can start in perimenopause, and then in your 50s, your metabolism can slow down a little bit, and then when you're about 50, it can slow down a little bit more. So that's the first myth that I wanted to bust. Don't let anybody tell you, oh, no, no, no, no, you're in postmenopause or you're in menopause. Watch out because your metabolism is really going to slow down. That is not actually true. There's other things that happen, but your metabolism doesn't just crank to a halt or dramatically slow down. Now, let's talk about what does happen, what how you might be feeling it, what will have changed for you. So you might just slow down in your life a little bit. We tend to not notice that we have slowed down a little bit in terms of how we burn energy throughout the day. We're more sedentary than we used to be when we're in our 40s, 30s, 40s, running around after kids, doing this, that, the other, never still figuring things out. And then as we get older, our movement patterns begin to change a little bit, and we do slow down quite a lot. So that can affect things. Other things that can affect your metabolism can be hormones, a little bit, um, inflammation, 100%, sleep, and these different environmental factors, inflammation can affect your metabolism or affect it can affect your ability to uh to burn energy, to metabolize energy as we get older. So let's get to the root of your metabolism. This is really what I want to get to, because if you understand where the root of your metabolism is, then you're going to understand what you can do to support your metabolism as you get older. So you have these little mitochondria in every single cell in your body. It's almost like they are the power packs, the furnaces, the little energy furnaces. You probably remember this from science classes back in biology. And when we're young, we the mitochondria are plentiful and they work very, very well. As we get older, and this is independent of menopause and women, this can be for anybody, but as we get older, the mitochondria diminish. There aren't as many of them, they die off, and those that are there are in uh they sometimes are not dysregulated, but they're in disrepair, that they don't function as well. There's problems within each little mitochondria. So that's the root, that is the root of your metabolism. So then the question becomes okay, so if my the mitochondria in the cells of my body are not as plentiful and they are um sort of for want of a better word, they are sort of breaking down. Those that are there aren't as healthy, they're not working as efficiently. What, if anything, can I actually do to remedy this situation? Aha, there actually is something that you can do, and that is what you are going to walk away with at the end of the day. The good news is that there is something that you can do. So first off, let's talk about what does happen independent of your metabolism after the age of 50. Because when a lot of women talk about metabolism, they're talking about Sophie, I've got belly fat and I can't lose weight anymore. So I want to make sure that we were sort of on the same page that we're talking about these things independently, and then they'll go, well, that's my metabolism. But let's pull back a little bit and look at actually what happens after menopause. And this is very much driven by your hormones. So you're in perimenopause and your hormones are chaotic and you're not feeling as good as you were, and maybe you're starting to gain a little bit of weight, or the weight that you are gaining is gaining in places that you don't want it. There's areas of your body, and you're like, oh, wait a minute, that's what happened to me when I went into perimenopause. It's like, wait, wait a minute, I never saw this belly fat before beginning, growing. And so that can happen. Then when you go when you turn 50, everything really changes because your estrogen drops, and it's the drop of estrogen that causes your body to preferentially store excess energy in your midsection, visceral fat. It's almost a protective adaptation. So a lot of women say to me, why is it in the mainly in this area? And that is why. And it is the change in hormones. Now, does it mean that you just take hormone replacement therapy and belly fat goes? No, it's so much more complicated that and then that, and there is so many other mechanisms that come into play. I'm just trying to keep this really simple for you in terms of why suddenly have I got this expanding midsection. It is not your fault. It is that you, the excess energy that you have, and a lot of us do have access excess energy, um, because we're we just do because of our diet, and because of our diet maybe has stayed the same, but our maybe our exercise level, we become a little bit more sedentary. It's all these really subtle little things that can happen as we get older that we don't even realize in real time. So these little incremental uh changes of less expenditure of energy and a little bit more energy going into the system, well, that has to be stored somewhere. And there's something called the fat threshold, which is you can there's a certain threshold that our bodies have, that our fat stores have. And if you go over that threshold, that excess fat spills over. And instead of being the benign subcutaneous fat, which is the nice juicy padding underneath your skin, which is beautiful, and and there's not absolutely nothing wrong with that. We're all different shapes and sizes when we're younger. But then what can go wrong is that when we're in menopause and postmenopause, because that extra energy is spilling over, it's got to go somewhere. And where it goes is it's stored as visceral fat, which is belly fat. Um, and the dangerous thing about belly fat, it's not just in your belly. Um, if you've got significant belly fat, then you may have belly fat, um, intra abdominals, so in and around your organs, in your liver, in your muscles, in your pancreas. And that gives rise to a whole lot of other problems. It's not only highly inflammatory, but it can lead to insulin, insensitivity, and a lot of other issues. So those are the mechanisms by which we might slow down our lifestyle a little bit. We may be taking in more energy than we need for our lifestyle. The fat reaches a certain fat threshold, it spills over, it's got to get stored somewhere. Your body is a postmenopausal woman because if your hormones is gonna go, hey, let's just store it around here. It's protective, you know, uh, it's an adaptation that we have. Plus, now I want to add one more thing that can make matters even worse is that most of the women I work with are in stress. They're in chronic stress. So they're emotionally dysregulated. What does that mean when you're emotionally dysregulated? It means that you are probably going to eat maybe a little bit more, or you might even comfort eat. Maybe not in acute stress, we tend to eat less, but just that chronic stress we tend to comfort or with either alcohol or we're eating a little bit more. So we've got those extra calories going on. Um, but on a physiological level, when you're in chronic stress, your body holds on and it holds on really, really tight because it's stress. You don't know when those predators are coming across the plains to get you. You do not know when a famine is around the corner. So your body is going to, it's a we're adapted as adaptation to hold on to every bit of fat it possibly can. But unfortunately, well, fortunately, actually, we're not living, we're not having to walk, you know, 50 miles a day, every single day, to forage for nuts and seeds and the odd little bit of wild boar that we might get. Now we're sitting around most of the day, sedentary, sitting watching hours of Netflix at night. And still we have that stress response. And not only just when there's an acute stressor, but we have it when an email comes in, when a text comes in, when we're scrolling on our phone, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling on our phone. So that happening all the time, flooding your body with cortisol, which is a stress hormone. That stress hormone puts glucose, releases glucose into your bloodstream. Okay, so there's now we've got the stress response here. That extra glucose has to be stored somewhere. Where is it going to get stored? Yeah, I'm sorry, ladies. Belly, we're ready for you. Visceral fat. So joking aside, there are all these different things that can happen over the age of 50. And that's why it's never just one thing. And I never want to ever reduce anything down to it's just this one thing. Oh, oh, my metabolism, something over there is broken, or it's my hormones over here, or it's that I'm comfort eating, or I'm not exercising enough. I promise you, it's all these different things that come into play that are so normal and so not your fault after the age of 50. It can be earlier, it can be over the age of 45 or 50. So that's what's going on, my friends. All right. So I'm just going to recap what's going on so that we know your metabolism doesn't precipitously just go off a slow down or crank down to a halt. It just doesn't. It's a very, very, very, very slow slowing down between the ages of sort of 45 and 65. So it's a 20-year period. It's very, very slow. So don't blame it on your metabolism. Hormones play a big part on where we store our fat. And so its fat storage is different as time goes along. We can, it's called weight creep. We can gain and gain a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. That's why it seems like, well, I just gained a couple of pounds this year, just a couple of pounds the next year. But over time, what happens is your body will reach its fat threshold. Then that will spill over into your blood. That's when you see your triglycerides go up. That is when you might see your cholesterol glow glow up, glow up, grow, go up. And that's when you're going to see a lot of things that you don't love in your blood work and in your body. And then on top of that, we've got stress. So, what can we do about it? Let's talk about that now. I want to give you some really good takeaway in this conversation. So, the first thing is that we want to deal, go back to our little mitochondria because that's the root. So we want to go, okay, mitochondria, we need more of you, and we need to repair the damaged ones. That's what we got to get busy doing. The really good news is there are two things, two ways that you can do this that are extremely powerful. Number one is nutrition. So, what we now know to be true is that there are phytochemicals in the plant-based kingdom. It's called they're called phytochemicals because phyto means plants. Okay. They're chemicals found in plants, which is basically fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and legumes and whole grains in the plant-based kingdom and spices. There are phytochemicals that can actually not only repair damaged mitochondria, but can also help with mitochondrial biogenesis, which means you can grow more mitochondria. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that good news? So how do we do that? Specifically, yeah, there are these chemicals. So they are only found in plants. So what you want to do is eat a huge variety every single day of every single color that you can think of. You really need to eat the rainbow. You've heard it before. But what I'm talking about is the bright purples, reds, greens, dark leafy greens, um, bell peppers in orange and yellow and and and red and carrots and beets and and every single color that you can think about. I want you to fill your plate with color. Color and spices. Because, and this comes from vegetables and fruits and spices. So those are the big three that I want you to think about. Okay. And the other big three is that I want you to think about is in every meal, fiber, antioxidants, phytonutrients. Now, if you're eating a whole food plant-based dietary pattern, it is so easy to do this. A whole food, they've got to be whole foods, whole food plant-based dietary pattern, then you are going to be over time including all of the above, everything that I've mentioned, into your diet. And the more you include those, not, and variety really is the key, because there are different phytochemicals to grow and repair your mitochondria in different vegetables and fruits and spices. And you need to have all these different ones, things like quasetin, which is in apples, apple skins, and capers, for instance. Then there's certain um uh phytochemicals that are only found in spices and others in dark leafy greens. So there's all of these different foods that we really want to bring in, and we want to be eating a lot of them. It's amazing now with our access, most of us our access to food, there's so much that we can do to really help things out here. And so I want you to think of all your vegetables, all your different vegetables, all your different spices. Do not be frightened of whole fruits. As long as a fruit, people are scared of fruits, but as long as it contains fiber, if it's a whole fruit, it will, and water, if it's a whole fruit, it will, you're good to go. And I want you to eat lots of beautiful fruits and eat the skin, you know, apples eat the skin because that's where the nutrients are. Obviously, things like mangoes, you're gonna peel them and whatnot. But lots of fruits, lots of berries, eat seasonal fruits. I want you to get those colours in. I want you to eat so many different vegetables, not just the same old salad. I'm gonna have a lettuce leaf and a tomato or a cucumber or something. No, eat as many different vegetables as you can. And spices, I mean, spices actually are metabolism boosters. So whether it's you, particularly the hot ones, so it's the cayenne, the chili, but also all of them, whether it's the cardamom, whether it's the cinnamon, just eat spices, try to get spices in every single day. So that's a really big takeaway for you to uh to support, to support and maybe even, I use the word very carefully, boost, because it's such an overused word, but to help really support a very healthy metabolism, okay, through food. The other little addendum that I want to put with food is try and reduce your intake of saturated fat, because saturated fat can sort of dampen, slow down your metabolism. Think of it almost like a machine, and there's all this kind of oil in slowing it down, this oil and thing is just cranking along. But um fat is the hardest food to digest anyway. Uh, fat, whatever kind of fat it is, has nine calories per gram, whereas all the other macronutrients have four calories per gram. But um, studies have shown that saturated fat can slow your metabolism down. And just remember that the main sources of saturated fat in your diet are from meat, dairy, coconut oil and coconut milk and palm oil. So those are the foods that you want to minimize as much as you possibly can to support your metabolism. Now, the final piece, which is very, very important, is exercise. Now, specifically for your metabolism, it's going to be weight training and resistance training because it we now understand that another way, and if you do these two things together, and now it's just like a double whammy of greatness for your mitochondria, but we understand that weight training, resistance training, where you're taking whatever muscle you're working to failure, meaning you're really, really breaking down those muscle fibers, and then it's hypertrophy that they have to repair to grow. That's how we basically grow muscles and grow lean muscle mass. Um, but in order to do that, you are going to have to lift heavy. And the the fact of the matter is that most women over 50 don't lift heavy enough and they can lift so much heavier. Does that mean you have to go into a gym with a big barbell? No. You can lift heavy with bands, with resistance bands, with kettlebells, with machines at a gym or with dumbbells at home. So, whatever way you do it, you need to do it. And I really want you to focus on your lower body because the lower body, I mean, I want you to do your strength training all over, but remember your lower body has really large muscles. Uh, and you've got your uh quadriceps, your hamstrings, and your glutes, massive muscles. So just think the opportunity for growing mitochondria. I almost want you to have this visual of these big muscles, and you want every cell in those big muscles to be growing more mitochondria and repairing those damaged ones. And the way you do that is strength and resistance training. I mean, there are obviously so many other benefits to strength and resistance training, but this is a really big one. So, your takeaway is to support a healthy metabolism going forward. And by the way, if you do these two things, it's going to support so many other things as well in terms of future proofing your body. But specifically, if you're Metabolism is you want to eat as many phytonutrients as you possibly can. Sometimes they're called phytonutrients, sometimes they're called phytochemicals. But you want to get as many in as your diet as you can. And the way to eat them is in their whole food form. Obviously, not ultra-processed foods, sugars, or refined starches. I think we all know that. But filling your plate with as many of these raw and cooked. So raw and cooked, whole food plant-based dietary pattern. It doesn't have to be exclusively that, but go as far in that direction as you possibly can and think about variety. So that is as far as your diet is concerned, there is so much growth there for your mitochondria. And in terms of your exercise and strength training, I've already gone over what you can do and what is going to be massively powerful for you. And I promise you, if you do those two things, you're going to see a huge difference. Now, here's your takeaway, just to go and do right now. So you're going to go away, and your next meal, whether it's today or tomorrow, I want you to really focus on building a meal around fiber that is full, actually, exclusively of fiber, antioxidants, and phytonutrients. So that would be a whole meal. Just try one. Could be lunch, it could be dinner. That it because if it if it is exclusively fiber, which can only be found in plants, antioxidants that can only be found in plants, and phytonutrients that can only be found in plants. I just want you to just see if you can just have a beautiful meal. It could be easy lunch, but dinners are so easy. You could have a beautiful bean pasta with a marinara sauce. You could throw some beans in there, some lentils in there, you could have a big side salad of arugula with some roasted beets or grated beets. It's just so delicious and filling and satisfying this way of eating. So that is your takeaway. Now, also, very quickly, um, studies have shown randomized control crossover trials have shown that those who eat this way, whole food plant-based meal, let's just say, that is low in fat, meaning not healthy fats like nut seeds and avocados, but low in oil. Um, they increase their postprandial burn. And that basically means, which when I heard this, it blew my mind like 10 years ago. I'm like, what? I can eat a huge meal, have all this beautiful volume of food, because eating, by the way, increases your metabolism. Um so I can eat this huge platter or bowl of food, and it increases my metabolism after the meal. If I eat this way, I'd be like, oh my gosh. And then I subsequently found out, and this was when I was on a TV set every day eating with all the craft service for lunch, and the caterers would come in, and my plate would be piled like massively, massively high. And everybody else would have these tiny little portions. I'd be, but Sophie, wait, you're not gaining any weight around your mouth. And I'm like, yeah, this is why. And um and your metabolism, the final little thing that I want to get in just before I say goodbye with this episode, good to you, Sophie, is that the worst thing that you can do, the worst thing is go on any kind of restrictive diet, um, particularly if you're over the age of 50. The worst thing that you can do for your metabolism is that any kind of restriction, because your body reads that restriction as just hold on to every single calorie that I piece of bit of fat that I possibly can. Not only that, but the study show, and Kevin Hall, who's one of the biggest um sort of weight loss researchers, he's he's brilliant and has devoted his career to actually studying the this in clinical settings, but shows that there is a set point and your body will always fight to get back to that set point. So that's why rapid weight loss doesn't work because your body's just gonna go, no, no, we're just gonna fight you on this, we're gonna fight metabolically to get back to that set point. So the only way to do it is very slowly over time, making sure that you fill, you have a lot of volume in your diet. You eat a lot of food, but you eat uh foods that are calorically dilute. That is the magic key, both for weight release and for your metabolism. And remember, for women over 50, we're not talking about weight going down on the scale. We actually need more weight in terms of lean muscle mass because you want to turn your body, do you not, into a fat burning machine even while you're sleeping. The only way you're gonna do that is to build lean muscle. And lean muscle is heavier than fat. So stop obsessing about the number on the scale. Yes, we need to release the visceral fat and we need to support a really healthy metabolism. All right, that's it on metabolism. I hope you found that helpful. And do let me know. Um, I love to know where you're at, what's going on with you, what's slowing down with you, what you are struggling with. And I will see you or be with you on the next episode, our next conversation of T with Sophie, where we gather once a week and have honest, grounded conversations about aging powerfully in midlife and beyond.