Midlife Memoirs #1: Lupe — She Couldn't Do One Pushup, Now She Does 57

Welcome to Midlife Memoirs

This is the very first Midlife Memoirs.

The idea is simple. Real people, real midlife journeys, shared out loud.

So we can share stories, help others, maybe laugh a little, and realise how far we have come.

My first guest is Lupe, a dear friend I have known for close to 30 years.

We first met at Gold's Gym Venice in the late 1990s.

How Lupe and I Met

Lupe was a flight attendant on a layover.

She saw a fitness competition, looked it up, and came to find me because I was training Monica Brant at the time.

She sat down with me outside Gold's Gym Venice and said she wanted to do a fitness competition.

In eight weeks.

I asked how much training she had done. How much dancing.

Zero. Zero.

So I asked her to do a pushup.

She couldn't do one. On her toes. At 26 years old.

We trained together for almost five years after that. She would drive from Hermosa Beach, then Huntington Beach, to Venice to train with me.

And now, at 57, she can do at least 57 pushups in one go.

57 at 57. That says everything.

The Kindergarten Lesson

Lupe's analogy for walking into Gold's Gym Venice is perfect.

She was entering kindergarten. She didn't even know how to do a pushup.

I already had my masters, so to speak. I had competed and done it all.

Her point, and mine: everybody wants to start at the end.

Nobody wants to do the dirty work at the beginning. Everybody gets frustrated because they start and they are not already good at it.

If you accept you are starting at the beginning, you can actually enjoy all the progress.

And a good trainer at the very start can save you decades. YouTube and apps are fine. But a good coach for even a few months can save you from years of doing it wrong and then having to unravel it.

When Midlife Crept In

For Lupe, menopause did not arrive with a big announcement.

It crept in, bit by bit, at around 51.

She was flying back and forth to Sacramento caring for her mum, who had suffered a stroke and had aphasia. Life was full: a window cleaning business with her husband, a dog, all of it.

One day she noticed she didn't think she had had her period that month. She put it to one side.

Then came the hot flashes. Lupe had always been cold. Suddenly she was hot, and she didn't understand what was happening.

Nobody had warned her, in any detail, what to expect.

Her two older sisters, 18 and 20 years older, had completely different experiences. One, with poor eating and exercise habits, had terrible hot flashes. The other, with great habits, barely felt it.

That contrast is the whole lesson.

The Window Before It Starts

Women who go into perimenopause insulin resistant get slammed. Women who go in healthy get through it far easier.

That is why the late 30s and early 40s matter so much.

Get your fasted insulin checked. Eat better. Watch your carbohydrate intake. Get your protein up.

You don't have to be perfect. But if those habits are in place before things start changing, the experience is completely different.

Once the weight is gained and the issues have piled up, it is much harder to undo. Like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.

There are six hormones that change your body composition with age, but the two big ones are insulin and cortisol, and you can control both of those.

Grief, Anxiety, and Thoughts That Weren't Hers

Lupe's mum passed away five years ago. A year later, her husband's mum passed. Then his dad, about a year ago.

Grief on top of hormones was, in her words, a recipe for havoc.

Her superpower used to be sleep. Then she was waking at 2am, night after night.

She started having anxious thoughts that had never been hers. Walking the dog and imagining another dog attacking it. Freaking out going through a tunnel on the freeway. Uneasy in an elevator if it stopped for a second.

She didn't tell anyone. She thought people would think she was crazy.

Estrogen keeps a lid on cortisol. When estrogen goes away, cortisol can rise, and worry rushes into the gap.

That is why women can suddenly start worrying about things that never once entered their minds before.

My own embarrassing moment: I lit a neighbour up over her dogs attacking ours. The old me would have had a calm conversation. That day, I went off like a flare. Afterwards I thought, who was that?

Awareness is a huge part of it. The moment you recognise what is happening, it drops from a 10 to a 2.

The Turtleneck Story

✓ Lupe's funniest symptom story: a turtleneck on a plane to Mexico, a hot flash closing in, and her ready to cut the thing off with scissors.

✓ Her rule now: wear something underneath you can strip down to, and only wear tops you can get off fast. Zip-ups, not pullovers.

✓ Costume changes, ladies. That is part of this journey too.

The Worst Advice She Was Given

A friend, a breast cancer survivor, told Lupe how terrible HRT was.

It wasn't intentional. But Lupe trusted her, didn't do her own research, and it put her off even considering it.

There is a stigma around the word menopause itself. Lupe felt her body was betraying her, and even telling her husband felt like admitting it out loud.

Sharing it with him was hard. Intimacy became painful, and that was devastating for both of them.

The reframe that changed it for her: HRT is not a drug foreign to your body. It is replacing what your body already makes.

Optimise, not turn back the clock. Nobody is trying to be 20 again.

And order matters. Usually progesterone first, to help mood and sleep, then estrogen, then possibly testosterone, in the dose you actually need.

Lupe's doctors at her yearly exams never once suggested testing her hormones. Nobody said, at 40, heads up, this decade is when things change.

If your symptoms are changing your life experience, that is a conversation worth having with your doctor. This episode is information and conversation, not medical advice for anyone else. Your blood work and your doctor decide what is right for you.

Finding Herself Again

Lupe tried HRT, stopped, then restarted about a year ago after doing the research and getting tested.

Now she is on testosterone, progesterone, and estradiol, with levels rechecked in three months.

She is sleeping through the night again. She feels like herself again.

As she put it, and as I felt it myself: she didn't become someone different. She got herself back.

At 57, she feels better about herself than she did going through it. She is thankful to be 57. Thankful she can walk her dogs and work out and share this, so the next generation laughs and says, wait, you guys didn't know all this?

The Coping Trick Worth Stealing

Brain fog was a real problem at work. She would start a task, five other thoughts would ping in, and the original thought would vanish.

Her fix: write every single thought down on paper, even one word. Laundry. Groceries. Whatever it is.

Once it is parked somewhere, you can forget it for the moment and focus.

She does the same with her phone. Siri, remind me about that appointment at 4pm. Alarms everywhere.

Park it, then focus. Otherwise the mental list just builds until you are overwhelmed and can't even remember what overwhelmed you.

What She Would Tell Her Younger Self

Pay attention. Stop long enough to notice what is happening.

Lupe realised she would rush her three Rottweilers to the vet within 24 hours if anything was wrong, but she wasn't doing the same for herself.

Put your own oxygen mask on first. You can't help anyone else if you have no oxygen.

And get the data. Her first blood test showed her testosterone at minus 10. No wonder she felt the way she did.

There is nothing scary about numbers. Numbers are just data.

What She Would Tell a 45-Year-Old

Pay attention to your body. It is so easy to take care of everybody else first.

Resistance training and nutrition are the foundation. Good, stable habits. Water. Protein. The simple things, done consistently, are a game changer.

Self-care is the first chapter. HRT, if you want it and if you are symptomatic, is the second chapter, not the first.

And don't do it alone. Hearing other women talk about what is actually happening, instead of suffering in silence, is huge.

And For the Guys

Guys go through their own journey, and it is subtler. Easier to dismiss as just aging.

A bit sadder. A bit more anxious. A bit isolated. Losing hair here, growing it somewhere else.

Guys, check your numbers too. Don't just pay attention to the obvious stuff.

The Cost Surprise

When Lupe first looked into it, it was going to be around $400 a month.

Now it is $75 for her progesterone, estrogen, and estradiol, and much of it is covered.

Joanne's experience was the same. Over $400 a month at first, compounded everything. Now progesterone and estrogen are covered, and she only pays for testosterone.

That matters. $400 a month is not doable for a lot of people.

Coming Next Year

Joanne's membership program is coming in the new year, with live coaching twice a month, working through topics from all her programs, topic by topic.

Watch for that.

Your Turn — We Want Your Story

If you have an interesting journey, please email me at hello@joannelee.com.

Guys, I would love to hear from you too. Midlife Memoirs is for men as well as women.

Everybody's journey is different, and yours might be exactly the one somebody else needs to hear.

Watch and Listen

For those listening, the video version of this episode is available on YouTube and Spotify.

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