How does it always feel like I should be doing more?

Somewhere in your 40s taking care of yourself can start to feel like a list that only gets longer.  You haven't stopped doing the things you've always done to stay healthy.

At the same time, your body is changing. Your energy may feel different. Your weight may be creeping up. Sleep can change.  Perimenopause enters the picture. Maintaining muscle and strength starts to deserve more attention.

So you learn. You adjust. You add. That is where something interesting happens. Most of us add new health priorities without ever deciding what can move down the list. It is no wonder taking care of yourself can begin to feel like there's always something else you should be doing.

What's behind it

Your health priorities aren't supposed to remain exactly the same throughout your life.

Think about exercise.  In your 20s and 30s, you may have focused mostly on getting enough of it, burning calories, or fitting in a run or fitness class. Beginning in your 40s, maintaining muscle and strength begins to deserve more attention.

We gradually lose muscle as we age, and the hormonal changes surrounding menopause can accelerate that loss.  Muscle helps you stay strong and capable, supports bone health and balance, and plays an important role in how your body manages blood sugar and weight. Preserving it now helps protect your strength and independence later.

Walking, running, yoga, and other activities you enjoy still matter. Strength training may simply deserve a more intentional place alongside them than it did before.

Nutrition priorities can shift too. Iron may have deserved considerable attention during the years of menstruation or pregnancy. As you move through perimenopause and eventually menopause, that picture can change while protein, fiber, bone health and cardiovascular health may deserve a different share of your attention.

Even sleep can become something you think about differently when falling asleep is easy but staying asleep suddenly isn't.

These are shifts in what may deserve your attention, not simply new assignments to add to everything you are already doing.

When we hear that something is important for our health, it's easy to turn it into one more thing we should be doing.  Within an already full-life that growing less can make us feel like we're never doing enough.

That is where clarity creates relief.

You can decide that strength deserves more attention without creating an entirely new exercise routine. You can improve the protein at breakfast without tracking protein all day. You can know sleep matters without making it your current focus when you're already sleeping well.

Knowing something matters and deciding it needs your attention now are two different decisions When you make that distinction something else is allowed to ask less of you.

One Useful Rhythm

This week when you hear another health recommendation and think, I should probably be doing that too, pause and give yourself a minute before deciding hat you're going to do about it.

Ask yourself:

• What am I feeling?
• What happened before this?
• What deserves my attention?

Use those answers to decide what deserves your attention now. As your body and health needs change your priorities should change with them.

Every healthy recommendation does not need a place on today's list. Clarity means knowing where to put your effort and being confident about what can wait.

Warmly,

Kim Stitzel, MS, RD
Founder, The Fuel Queen
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist

Helping women discover what deserves their attention and build rhythms that fit real life.

P.S. Knowing your priorities need to change is one thing. Figuring out what deserves your attention now is harder. That's what we will work through at the first Fuel Queen Live! — Why does healthy eating feel so much harder in midlife? Join me Wednesday September 2nd at 5:00 PM CT to understand what's changing in your 40s and how to get clearer about where to put your effort.  Save your seat here.