Your Body Is Not Failing You, It Is Responding To Stress

Hustle can look like competence, but it often feels like being exhausted and unable to stop. We’re Amy (Whole Body Harmony) and Heather (Embodied Rejuvenation), and we’re naming the pattern we see constantly in midlife women: constant pushing, performing, overfunctioning, and ignoring the signals your body is sending. If you’re dealing with stubborn weight gain, low energy, mood swings, anxiety, or poor sleep, we want you to hear this clearly: you’re not imagining it, and you’re not alone.

We connect the dots between hustle culture and real physiology. Chronic stress pushes the nervous system toward survival mode, and when survival is the priority, healing gets deprioritised. That can show up as hormone dysregulation, cortisol issues, blood sugar swings, sleep disruption, slower digestion, increased inflammation, and weight loss resistance. We also share a simple framework we use with clients, the four legged chair model of health: sex hormones, thyroid, metabolism and insulin, and cortisol. When you only “fix” one leg, the whole chair still wobbles, especially if gut health is shaky and daily toxin exposure adds more load.

Then we talk about what healing actually looks like in perimenopause and menopause. It is not laziness and it is not doing nothing. It is learning to fuel your body well, stabilise blood sugar, support minerals, prioritise quality sleep, choose gentle movement over punishing workouts when you are already stressed, and set boundaries so you can hear your body again. We also name the grief that can come with changing the routines that used to work, and why asking for help is strength, not weakness.

If this resonates, subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation, share this with a woman who’s carrying too much, and leave a review so more midlife women can find the support they’ve been told they don’t need.

The image presented in the video version of this episode can be found here:

http://bit.ly/3PpMkBg

Connect with Amy Wilford on social media at @amywilfordhealth, or on her website at wholebodyharmonycoach.com

Connect with Heather Fontenot on social media at @embodiedrejuvenation, or on her website at embodiedrejuvenation.com

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Message

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Body Drama Shift, where we move from confusion to clarity without guessing. Because your body isn't broken, it's communicating. If you're a woman in midlife dealing with stubborn weight, low energy, mood swings, or poor sleep, you're not imagining it, and you're not alone. I'm Amy, creator of Whole Body Harmony.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And I'm Heather, creator of Embodied Rejuvenation. Together we help you decode your symptoms by addressing both biology and the nervous system. Because real change happens when both are in alignment. Let's shift.

Why Hustle Hits Women Hard

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Hello, and welcome to the next episode of the Body Drama Shift. Today we're talking about something that so many women don't even realize is impacting their health. And something that Heather and I have had a really deep conversation about, and that is hustle. I'm sure that all of you are familiar with that. The constant pushing, performing, overfunctioning, and doing all the things for everyone else while we're ignoring the signals that our own body is sending. So we have this really powerful conversation and we both wish that we would have recorded it. Unfortunately, we didn't, but we thought that we needed to make this our second episode because we know how important of a discussion

Amy’s High Stress Hustle Story

SPEAKER_01 1:20

it is. And I just want to share a little bit about my own hustle story. So several years ago, I was working in a really high stress job. I was running on adrenaline all day long at my school, putting out fires, dealing with behaviors, holding meetings, all while trying to get paperwork done. But that paperwork wasn't happening at school because I didn't have time for it. So then I was coming home and I was writing reports at home and taking time away from my family. In addition to that, I was also getting up before 5 a.m. and getting in a workout because I thought it was my stress relief when really I was just depleting myself further. So I was not serving myself by getting up early and working out. I was making it harder. And then on top of that, I was trying to build a business so I could escape that day job that I was so miserable in.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

And the tricky part is a lot of us were praised for that, for being prov productive, being dependable, being the one who can handle everything. But eventually our body says, I can't keep compensating. So I'll talk a little bit about my story on the next episode when we talk about the nervous system and hustling.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So I work

The Symptoms That Feel Mysterious

SPEAKER_01 2:34

with so many women, and you all can probably relate to this. And I bet some of these are going to sound really familiar. So things like I'm exhausted, but I can't slow down. I'm wired at night, but dragging all day. I'm eating healthy and working out, but nothing is changing. I feel anxious all the time. And this one is one of my favorites. My body just feels off. And what I like to say with that one is it's kind of like your check engine light is flashing. And you know how sometimes your check engine lights flashing in your car and you see it, and then you tell your husband something's wrong, and he goes and checks and everything looks fine. That's what we go through as women is that we tell our doctors things are not looking right. You know, your check engine light is flashing, and the doctor says, Oh, your labs are fine, there's nothing wrong. So these are things I hear from women all the time. And part of that feeling is because of the hustle that we put ourselves through.

Stress Biology And Survival Mode

SPEAKER_01 3:32

And so, what I want you to understand is that these symptoms are not random. It's your body responding to stress. And it's not just emotional stress, it's also physiological stress. And hustle creates stress in every single system of the body. So when we stay in that constant state of go, our body starts reallocating its resources. Your nervous system shifts into survival mode, which Heather's going to talk about in the next episode. And when survival becomes a priority, our healing gets pushed to the back burner. So what happens is that we have hormone dysregulation, our cortisol stays elevated or becomes depleted, blood sugar is unstable, sleep suffers, digestion slows down, the list goes on and on. But this is also where your gut becomes more vulnerable, and that makes weight loss resistance increase. And part of this, too, is that we are constantly hustle, puts us in this constant state of fight or flight. So we always feel like we're being chased by that cyber tooth tiger. Our ancestors got chased by cyber tooth tigers, but once that threat was over, their bodies were able to calm back down. But we're in that fight or flight 24-7. And part of that is due to hustle. And so then also women tend to blame themselves and think, oh, I just need more discipline. I need to try harder. I need more willpower. Those are all false statements. Your body is just overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah, and from the nervous system side, the body literally stops feeling safe. So we're constantly pushing, rushing, multitasking, overcommitting, or emotionally carrying everyone around us. And the nervous the nervous system interprets that as a threat, even if nothing dangerous is happening.

The Four Legged Chair Model

SPEAKER_01 5:21

So one of my favorite ways to look at that is with the analogy of a four-legged chair. And so for those of you that are watching on YouTube, I'm gonna share my screen so that you can see a graphic that I created to help explain what is happening. So I want you to imagine your health as a chair, and the chair has four legs. You've got your sex hormones, your thyroid, your metabolism or blood sugar, which is your insulin, and your cortisol. And a lot of the time, women focus mostly on one leg. So a lot of times it's your hormones, and everyone wants to throw those sex hormones under the bust. I like to say that while they are not innocent, a lot of times there's something else that's going on that is impacting the hormones and making them unhappy. So if you can picture a chair, you can see that if one of the legs isn't functioning properly, your chair can't sit upright. You're gonna fall if one of your legs is weak or broken or any of those things. So any one of these can cause your chair to be dysfunctional. And sometimes there's more than one of those legs that's not working properly. So a lot of times when you focus on one thing, then you're only addressing that one thing and you're not considering the other things. So women often will diet harder, exercise harder, drink more caffeine to stay awake because their cortisol is tanking, or they push more because they think that's what they're supposed to do. And so obviously, if the four-legged chair, if the legs are off, your chair is going to wobble and eventually it's gonna collapse.

Gut Health, Toxins, And Added Load

SPEAKER_01 7:01

And then also, I like to think about um your gut health being the foundation that that chair is sitting on. So if your gut health is off and your chair is essentially sitting on quicksand, it's also not going to be balanced. So we can't ignore the gut in with all of the four legs of our chair as well. And then also we can't forget about toxins because what we put in, on, and around our bodies matters. And I'm not just talking about processed foods, I'm also talking about the things that are in our environment, which some of those we can't control, in all fairness. But then other things like our makeup, our lotions, our deodorant, all those things that we put on our bodies go into our bloodstream and can be toxic. And so when you add hustle on top of all of these other things and stress out your body further, then that four-legged chair suffers even more.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yeah.

Losing Touch With Body Signals

SPEAKER_00 7:55

And when you when your four-legged chair is suffering, that starts to disconnect you from your internal signals. So women become so used to overriding themselves and they stop noticing what the the signals that the body is giving them. So it could be we become disconnected from our hunger, from fatigue, from tension, um, the need to rest, the need for boundaries. And eventually the body turns the volume up. So sometimes through anxiety, sometimes through insomnia, it can be through weight gain or burnout. Um, the body will keep communicating until we listen.

Healing Without Calling It Lazy

SPEAKER_01 8:42

And I want to be really clear that healing is not about becoming lazy. It's not just to sit on the couch and do nothing. People think that if they're not hustling, they're being lazy. And that is not true. I actually hate the word lazy because we are not lazy. We are all just doing the best that we can do with what we have. And none of it is lazy. Life is hard, and we have to find ways to work through it. And being able to let go of that hustle mentality is a huge step in the right direction. So, like I said, it's not about sitting around doing nothing, it's about creating a body that no longer has to survive all day long. It is exhausting to uh fight against that fight or flight feeling in our bodies. It's exhausting. That's part of the reason that we are as tired as we are. So sometimes healing can look like better nourishment. And again, I'm not talking about crazy diets. I'm not talking about starvation. I'm talking about proper fueling of our body and also getting our nervous system back in check. And Heather's gonna talk more thoroughly about this in the next episode. Uh, healing is also about stabilizing your blood sugar, supporting your minerals, getting better, more quality sleep, reducing inflammation, functional lab testing can be a huge part of figuring out the internal hustle in your body so that the external hustle improves. Gentle movement instead of punishing workouts. Those workouts where we're killing ourselves, getting into zone three, pounding out the cardio, they don't serve us as we're going through this phase of life. And if you're already in that hustle mode, the extra workouts are not serving you. Setting boundaries, as Huther mentioned, and slowing down just enough to hear your body again and to recognize that check engine light and figure out how to make it disappear.

Grief And Change With Aging Routines

SPEAKER_00 10:36

And Amy, like, can we talk a little bit about um how I think that change that shift for us as we age, like what the workouts used to look like as opposed to now, like how difficult that is for some people to not just workouts, but routines, structures that supported us earlier in life that don't support us now. I think for me that was a big um that was a big shift, like I had to to make. Like, oh, I can I can be more flexible in this. And that came with like a little bit of maybe some grief, like oh, it's you know, nothing not that it's not the same anymore. So I can be more flexible, but how do I allow myself to be more flexible?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah, and that's something I definitely struggled with and something I see my clients struggle with all the time. Like, we don't want to let go of those hardcore workouts because they do feel good. They do like we enjoy them, they can be fun. I loved getting my workouts in at 5 a.m. because then I knew it was done and I wasn't trying to fit it in somewhere else. Like I get it, I've been there, I know how hard it is. And like I said, my clients struggle with that too. And it's a transition. It's again, like you said, there's a grieving process of what you used to know and what used to work for you. But at some point we have to recognize that that's not what our bodies need anymore. And honestly, the mental load of it, we we have to shift. And that's what this whole podcast is about is how we can shift away from that drama and those old patterns that aren't serving us. And yeah, it's hard. It's not easy, but it's possible.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

And we can talk more about this in the next next episode when we talk more in depth about the nervous system. But um, you know, I often tell clients when I work with them, like our body craves. So if we're in a state of balance, our body craves that. And if we're in a state of if we're out of balance, our body craves that. So it might be that like if we are hustling and pushing, um we're craving more of that. So we go to those more intense workouts, and that's just kind of pushing us over the edge. So finding that um, you know, sometimes just stepping back and pausing can be a really productive thing. Also noticing when you need rest um because that regulated energy creates sustainable energy.

Hustle Addiction, Help, And Delegation

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

And I think we get addicted to the hustle.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

We we get addicted to it, we want more of it. And we don't know who we are without the hustle. And we also, I think, tend to feel like if we don't do it, who will? And obviously, the hustle of working out, that's not something anybody else can do for you. I'm talking about the hustle of I have to be the one to take my kids to every single practice and pick them up. And I have to stay at that practice the entire time. I can't ask someone else to take turns with me dropping off and picking up. I have to be the one to pack my kids lunch. I have to be the one who XYZ. Like we take on so much as women and as moms, and we're caregivers. Like that's what we do. And so I think hustle also includes all of those other things that we can delegate. And I'm not saying all the time, but it's okay to let other people take some responsibilities off of our shoulders.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Sometimes that's hard to like to allow people to help us, to allow 100%, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

100%. And I think we we view asking for help as a sign of weakness when actually it's a sign of strength. Because if you can recognize where you need help and you can be strong enough to ask for it, that's huge. And that's a sign of strength. It's not weakness to ask for help. Everybody needs help, and it's okay to need help. But that's another, another shift that we need to make in our, you know, to relieve our mental load and to get out of that hustle mode. And we're not saying that you never work hard. Of course you do. We all work hard, we have high standards and we want to perform well. But there's a way to do it without depleting your body and your nervous system and everything else. Do you have anything else you wanted to add, Heather?

SPEAKER_00 15:14

No, I think I do want to add, but I think um I I think I'm gonna add it in the next episode because I want to talk more about that with in relationship to the nervous system.

unknown 15:25

Okay.

Closing Reframe And Share Request

SPEAKER_01 15:26

So then I just want to close by saying that if you feel like your body's fighting against you, maybe it's actually not fighting you at all. Maybe what's really happening is that your body is protecting you because all of your health goals, if your body doesn't feel safe, it's not gonna happen. You don't need to work harder. You need to find, and we're gonna help you with this, find ways to support your body more so that it feels safe and that you can get to those goals that you want to. Because your symptoms are clues that your bodies need support. They don't need more pressure. We beat ourselves up enough that we don't need more pressure. So if this episode resonated with you or you know of other women who could benefit from these messages, please share it with someone else who's tired of carrying everything alone because you are not alone. If you are on this podcast, we are here for you. You are not alone. And I want you to remember that your body isn't broken, it's communicating. If we can remember that, that is going to help you make a huge shift. Behavior is communication. Your body is trying to communicate with you, and you just need to find a way to listen. And that's not an easy, it takes practice and time, but it is possible. So we will see you on the next body drama shift. Please check out the show notes for a link to the four legged chair model and also how you can connect with us. Thank you for listening.