40 y/o female looking to optimize health

aaf2
aaf2 Posts: 4 Member
in Introduce Yourself
I want to optimize my health this year and beyond and am looking for other like-minded individuals. I'd like to lose about 20 pounds to get to my "goal weight". The number isn't important to me, just how I feel and look in my body. I am relatively active and have a pretty healthy diet. Over the last 10 years, chronic stress from a series of horrific events has caused hormone levels in my body to become very out of balance. My estrogen levels are sky high, progesterone low. I have lots of food allergies. I'm looking to make my diet even more healthy and whole-food oriented with an emphasis on animal products and fruits. I just started tracking again after a hiatus of several years. Anyone sort of in the same boat? I want to optimize my health this year and through 2025 and beyond and would love some accountability buddies.

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  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 12,057 Member
    Welcome!

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    Hello, and welcome!

    I'm not in the same boat as you are now, but was in a nearby boat when I was in my 40s, too. Life had been exceedingly stressful, high-stress job, widowhood, advanced-stage cancer diagnosis/treatment, and more. Hormonally, I was kind of the opposite of you, but still not great: I had to take anti-estrogen drugs because of the cancer, so it was instant menopause, kind of menopause-plus, at around age 45.

    I wanted to comment on your thread to say this: I think improvement is possible. That was my experience. I hope you're using whatever relevant medical team you have access to, because they can help. Diverse stress-reduction and health improvement strategies can help, too. I'm thinking diet, manageable exercise and activity, interventions like massage or meditation if those suit you, etc.

    I'd like to say there's a switch someone can flip that will fix everything quickly, but I think it's more likely that there would be a series of incremental improvements from taking positive steps, and that those would add up to a surprisingly good outcome over time . . . at least my experience was like that. Now, around 25 years on, I'm in a different boat on a different body of water, and things are much better. (It didn't take that whole time to see significant improvements, though! There were good things all the way along, and the last 8 or so years have been pretty excellent, far better than I felt in my 40s.)

    I know we're different people, with different circumstances. But I hope and believe you can find a path that will create improvements for you, too. Investing time and effort in that will pay off, IMO. Best wishes!

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