When I first started running as a menopausal athlete, and then technically became a masters athlete later (yes, I was in surgical menopause before I ever qualified by age), I ran straight into one of the most frustrating parts of endurance culture: weight management advice that completely ignored physiology.
I heard all the classics. Eat less. Run more. Cut carbs. Track everything. Be disciplined. Try harder.
And yet, I was doing everything right and watching my body respond with a hard no.
That disconnect is where a lot of masters and menopausal athletes get stuck. You follow the rules, the rules stop working, and instead of questioning the rules, you start questioning yourself.
That’s the myth we’re breaking here.
The Standard Narrative Is Loud, Simple, and Often Wrong
The fitness world loves a clean storyline. If you want to lose weight and perform better, just run more and eat less. Simple. Marketable. Wrong for a lot of athletes past midlife.
As we age, metabolism changes. Recovery changes. Hormones change. Nervous system load changes. And if you’re menopausal, especially surgically menopausal, those changes aren’t subtle.
You can be training harder than ever and fueling less than ever, and instead of leaning out and feeling fast, you end up tired, inflamed, hungry, flat, and frustrated. That’s not a discipline issue. That’s a mismatch between advice and reality.
More Work Isn’t Always the Answer
This is where the advice really goes off the rails.
Endurance athletes are very good at doing more. More miles. More intensity. More restriction. But without enough fuel, strength work, and recovery, that approach backfires hard for masters and menopausal athletes.
Running alone is not a metabolism strategy.
Muscle mass matters more with age, not less. Strength training isn’t optional anymore, it’s protective. It supports metabolic health, insulin sensitivity, bone density, and the ability to actually use the fuel you eat instead of storing it out of stress.
When I stopped trying to “earn” food with mileage and started prioritizing strength, fueling, and recovery, everything shifted. Performance improved. Energy stabilized. My body composition changed, not because I chased weight loss, but because I stopped fighting my physiology.
Hormones Change the Equation (But They’re Not the Villain)
Menopause, whether natural or surgical, changes how your body handles stress, fuel, and recovery. Estrogen plays a role in fat metabolism, muscle repair, and carbohydrate utilization. When it declines or disappears, the old playbook stops working.
That doesn’t mean progress is off the table. It means the strategy has to change.
Fueling becomes more important, not less. Protein intake matters. Carbohydrates matter. Minerals and hydration matter. Recovery matters. Strength training matters. And chronically underfueling while increasing training load is one of the fastest ways to stall progress and convince yourself your body is “broken.”
This is exactly why I created Fuel Like You Mean It, because fueling isn’t about eating less, it’s about eating enough of the right things to support training, recovery, and hormonal reality.
And if you’ve spent years unintentionally underfueling in the name of weight control, The LEA Protocol is often the missing reset. It helps athletes rebuild trust with food, normalize energy availability, and get out of the constant stress-response loop that keeps weight stubbornly stuck.
“But Isn’t Running Supposed to Help Me Lose Weight?”
This is the objection everyone has, and it makes sense.
Yes, running burns calories. It also increases appetite, raises stress hormones when underfueled, and can push your nervous system into conservation mode if recovery and nutrition don’t match the workload.
That’s why so many athletes run more, eat less, and somehow feel worse while the scale refuses to budge.
Weight management for masters and menopausal athletes works best when running is supported by strength training, adequate fueling, and realistic expectations. Protein supports muscle. Carbohydrates support training quality. Fats support hormones and satiety. Recovery allows adaptation to actually happen.
Weight loss is not the same thing as performance optimization, and chasing one often undermines the other.
The Goal Isn’t to Be Lighter. It’s to Be Stronger and More Stable
At some point, the most powerful shift is letting go of the idea that lower weight automatically means better running.
What if the goal was feeling strong on long runs, recovering faster, sleeping better, and having steady energy instead of white-knuckling hunger and fatigue? What if success looked like a body that adapts instead of resists?
For masters and menopausal athletes, that shift is often the difference between years of frustration and a season of real progress.
You’re not failing because the old rules stopped working.
The old rules were never designed for this stage of life.
If you’re tired of fighting your body and ready to work with it, start with fueling education that actually reflects your physiology. Fuel Like You Mean It gives you the framework. The LEA Protocol helps undo years of underfueling. And from there, everything else gets easier.
Weight management doesn’t require punishment.
It requires alignment.
And you’re allowed to demand that.