INFLAMMATION, THE FIRE FUELLING YOUR MENOPAUSE SYMPTOMS

Ladies, your body isn’t just tired, bloated, or moody for no reason. You’re not crazy, lazy, or just “getting old.” You’re likely inflamed and the fire is burning under every plate you’re trying to spin. Inflammation is sneaky. It doesn’t announce itself with a flashing neon sign, rather quietly disrupts everything from your metabolism to your sleep, making every menopause symptom feel ten times worse.

Inflammation isn’t always the bad guy. In fact it's actually good in small doses to help heal from a cut or fight off an infection. But just like anything, too much of a good thing is never a good thing. When it sticks around long after the threat is gone, it turns into chronic inflammation. Like if you were to scratch off the scab on that cut and keep scratching it. It doesn't take long before that cut is nasty, infected and needs medical attention. Think of that going on inside your body.

It’s like having a slow-burning kitchen fire behind the walls. You don’t see it at first. You might just notice your energy is lower than usual, you’re more reactive, your joints feel a little stiffer, your digestion is off, and the weight just won’t budge no matter how “good” you are. But meanwhile, the structure of your health is getting damaged. Hormones go haywire, your gut gets compromised, your nervous system stays stuck in stress mode, and your body starts hoarding fat and burning through muscle. Sound familiar?

When you’re in perimenopause or menopause, your body is already navigating a shifting hormonal landscape. Estrogen is dropping, cortisol is climbing, and progesterone - the calming, balancing hormone - is packing her bags and heading for the exit. Add chronic inflammation to the mix, and it’s like pouring gasoline on a campfire. Hot flashes get hotter. Sleep becomes elusive. Brain fog thickens. The scale creeps up even when you’re eating less. Your body feels foreign, unpredictable, and frustrating.

Nothing thrives in a deficit, and that includes your ability to handle inflammation. Women often respond to these symptoms by doubling down—eating less, working out harder, cutting carbs, pushing through exhaustion, but that only adds more fuel to the fire. Diets lie. They don’t teach you how to nourish your body, they teach you how to ignore its signals. Weight is a symptom of health and hormones. If your internal terrain is inflamed, no diet, workout, or supplement in the world will work the way it’s supposed to.

Every area of your health, what I call your six wellness plates, is impacted by inflammation. Your nutrition, movement, water intake and how well you're hydrated, your sleep, stress levels, and how you fill your nutritional gaps all affect, and are affected by inflammation. And here’s the kicker: you get them all up and spinning, but if some of those plates start to wobble or drop and it's not addressed, it makes the others wobble too. If you’re dehydrated, your digestion slows and your joints ache. If you’re not sleeping, your blood sugar spikes and your cravings skyrocket. If you’re chronically stressed, your metabolism tanks and your workouts stop working. And if you’re inflamed? All of that gets worse.

Inflammation is at the root of all disease, including so many common menopause symptoms. That unexplained weight gain around your midsection? Inflammation. That brain fog that makes you walk into a room and forget why you’re there? Inflammation. That joint pain, puffiness, and stubborn fatigue that coffee doesn’t touch? Inflammation. It creates a hostile environment in your body, and healing can’t happen in a hostile environment.

This is why addressing inflammation is the first step to actually getting results that last. Not forcing your body to behave, but helping it feel safe enough to heal. And that doesn’t come from deprivation. It comes from nourishment. From using food as your foundation, from training smarter not harder, from restoring the gut instead of wrecking it with more stress, and from learning to fill your gaps without adding more guesswork.

You can’t pour from an empty cup. And your body can’t show up for you if you’re constantly asking it to perform without giving it the basics it needs. Midlife is not a downhill slide. It’s a reset point, a wake-up call, and an opportunity to get stronger, healthier, and more energized than ever before. But only if you start treating inflammation like the enemy it is.

You don’t need to be perfect, but you do need to be consistent. You need to eat in a way that supports your hormones and calms the inflammation, not feeds it. You need to move in ways that build muscle without spiking cortisol. You need to hydrate, rest, and manage stress like your life depends on it, because it does. And you need to heal your gut microbiome and support your overall health with supplements that actually fill the gaps, not just add expensive urine to the mix.

Over the next six articles, I’m going to break down exactly how inflammation impacts each wellness plate—and what to do about it. Because your symptoms aren’t random, they’re information. And the more you understand what your body is trying to tell you, the more empowered you are to change the story.

You don’t have to live in survival mode. You don’t have to accept that this is “just how it is now.” Strong is the new sexy, healthy is happy, and your next chapter can feel better than your last.

You just need to start with the root.

Watch my free video to learn how to start calming inflammation and balancing your hormones without dieting or depriving yourself.