I Didn’t Wake Up Fit One Day — I Woke Up F*cking Tired of Failing
Hi, I’m Rachel. I’m 46. And let me be blunt:
I didn’t wake up motivated. I woke up FED. THE. FUCK. UP.
Not just with my weight.
With everything.
With my body.
With diets.
With fake-ass Instagram coaches in their size 2 leggings telling me to “just push through.”
With doctors who said “it’s just part of aging.”
And worst of all?
I was tired of myself.
Let me take you back.
It was a Tuesday.
I remember because it was trash day — the kind of day that’s supposed to be routine.
Except I stood in the bathroom, holding a pair of jeans I hadn’t worn in two years.
I slid one leg in. The other.
And when I pulled them up, they stopped mid-thigh.
I didn’t cry. I laughed. A sick, bitter kind of laugh.
And then I sat on the edge of my bathtub, in the same hoodie I’d worn three days in a row, and stared at the floor.
I felt heavy. Not just physically. Emotionally. Mentally. Hormonal as fuck.
I had done “everything right” — at least that’s what every diet had promised.
Let’s rewind a little further.
I’m a nurse. I work nights.
I’ve raised two kids. One’s in college, one’s addicted to TikTok and refuses to eat anything green.
I’ve done intermittent fasting.
Keto.
WW (don’t even get me started).
I bought a $1,200 elliptical that became a coat rack.
I even tried one of those “accountability apps” where you pay to have a stranger guilt-trip you.
None of it stuck. None of it made me feel strong, or sane, or sexy.
Worse: none of it was designed for a woman in her 40s going through perimenopause, raising a family, juggling night shifts, and feeling like a damn failure every time she looked in the mirror.
I wasn’t lazy.
I wasn’t undisciplined.
I wasn’t broken.
I was misinformed.
No one told me that my metabolism after 40 would basically go “fuck this, I’m out.”
No one told me that cortisol, stress, sleep-deprivation, and hormonal chaos were sabotaging my efforts silently every single day.
No one told me that my body wasn’t betraying me.
It was just reacting to a world that doesn’t support women like me.
So I stopped.
I stopped listening to skinny twenty-somethings selling detox tea on TikTok.
I stopped doing workouts that felt like punishment.
I stopped starving myself at lunch and binge-eating protein bars in my car after work.
I stopped trusting every “new method” and started learning how my body actually worked.
And then... I rebuilt everything.
Here’s what changed.
I started eating more, not less.
But the right things for a 46-year-old woman with hormone shifts.
I moved in ways that felt sustainable, not extreme.
I slept better. I reduced bloat.
And slowly, steadily — I lost 22 pounds.
I didn’t become shredded.
I became free.
Free from the guilt.
Free from the all-or-nothing mindset.
Free from the idea that my worth was tied to my waistline.
Now here’s where you come in.
If you’re here, reading this, I know something about you.
You’re tired too.
You’ve been through the same bullshit.
You’ve done the diet dance.
You’ve cried in a Target dressing room.
You’ve avoided mirrors.
You’ve Googled “why can’t I lose weight after 40” at 2AM with your phone brightness turned all the way down like it’s a secret.
I see you. I am you.
And I built LEAN40s.COM for us.
Not for the gym freaks.
Not for the kale-obsessed or the clean-eating cult.
For the women in the trenches — with bloated bellies, busy lives, and badass hearts.
So what’s this blog about?
It’s about truth.
It’s about breaking diet culture.
It’s about weight loss for the real world — built for the woman you are NOW, not the girl you used to be.
You’ll find:
Food guides that don’t make you hate life
Simple workouts you can do in pajamas
Hormonal tips that actually make sense
Confidence rebuilders — because the scale ain’t the only thing that matters
And yeah… the occasional f-bomb. Because this ain’t your daughter’s wellness blog.