Maybe your sample size of one in perimenopause is the strongest evidence there is

[Lemonthyme]

I am going to preface this thread with an apology. This thought was based on an article I happened across on my google feed and now can't find. But I still think it's interesting.

So the article was talking about exercise and how the perceived wisdom on perimenopause on what exercise you should and shouldn't do is not based on strong data. I think, from memory, it said something like >90% of exercise science data is based on men. So not just it's not based on perimenopausal women, it's not based on women. So I often read for example, "women shouldn't do lots of cardio after 40-45".

And this got me thinking. About all of the times people (probably including me) have written a comment about "you shouldn't do X diet or Y exercise because it raises cortisol".

What if that's utter BS? What if it doesn't raise cortisol, or what if, even if it does, that doesn't matter? Or is even a good thing? When research is this weak, how do we know?

It started to make me wonder. Everything we're told about what you can and can't do tends to restrict what is available for women, then restrict even more for perimenopausal women.

Is this not in itself a form of misogyny?

Here we are with women achieving amazing feats like winning ultra marathons against men and yet some of the advice feels a little bit like those who banned women from entering long distance races*.

So anyway. Not sure where I'm going with this apart from to say, perhaps what works for you is actually working. Even if some very educated person on the internet says otherwise because even their advice is based on very weak foundations. And perhaps, we are our own test subjects when it comes to diet and exercise because, and please excuse my language, no other fuckers are bothered are they?

(*Because their womb would fall out or something stupid?!)

I don't think there's much exercise advice in general that's based on proper science whether that's for women or men. The vast majority seems based on the preferences (and/or financial interests) of the person giving that advice. And that goes double if that advice is primarily being spread on TikTok, Instragram, Twitter or Facebook.

As you say, do what works for you.

You have Science and then you have social media science. You don’t really break any algorithm with Science so influencers, podcasters, or anyone trying to make money, attract followers, subscribers will just say something that goes against science. And it works, since you are here, spreading it further.

There is plenty of sport science on women, peri and post menopause. It is just bait to yell, you haven’t been told the truth, be it on exercise, diet and whatnot.

Sorry @oberuber not sure I understand what you're saying?

I see where you’re coming from and I agree we should listen to our own bodies, but I haven’t read anything negative about any type of exercise that perimenopausal women can do. All the running information has been positive.That running will reduce blood pressure, increase cardio health, increase muscle mass, reduce cholesterol etc. My local parkrun is full of women in their 40s and upwards.

In a society where everyone is moving less and gaining weight I get the impression that all and any exercise is encouraged.

I've read loads of stuff @Bushyfox about how cardio raises cortisol in PM.

Things like these. All of them propose changing, limiting or excluding cardio exercise in some way or restricting exercise entirely.

https://takemicropause.com/blogs/blog/the-problem-with-too-much-cardio-in-perimenopause

https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/the-health-hub/conditions/womens-health/ways-to-exercise-smart-during-perimenopause/

https://trinitytransformation.co.uk/why-running-doesnt-work-for-menopause-weight-loss/

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/collective/ask/a44157235/perimenopause-exercise/

https://thisisperimenopause.com/lifestyle/best-exercises-heart-health-perimenopause/

https://womenshealth.com.au/cardio-exercises-for-women-in-perimenopause/

https://www.avogel.co.uk/health/menopause/less-is-more-when-it-comes-to-exercise/

https://www.getyourtrimon.com/blog/burn-fat-in-menopause

You can find LOADS more. And problem is in PM because GPs are crap inevitably you end up doing some googling which ends up with stuff like this in your feed.

This was the article I saw responding to the warnings on cardio that I couldn't find earlier.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/may/07/do-women-need-to-exercise-differently-from-men-and-ease-up-on-cardio-after-40

Wow that’s a lot. I’m glad I didn’t know, it might have put me off! I started running in perimenopause and have never felt better so I think that helps your argument.

Yeah I stupidly listened to it for a while. I've run for about 15 years but have gradually reduced a bit of distance and replaced with weights. But feeling guilty about it because I run for my sanity. It was really annoying to then realise how little evidence it's based on and in reputable places too.

I should also say @Bushyfox I get a lot of people questioning the fact I fast for 24 hours once a week because it's bad for cortisol in PM. Again. No bloody evidence at all but google it and you'll find official sounding sources for this. But for me it's the only thing I've found that's worked.

Ditto though diet and exercise advice that's one size fits all because it is true that a lot stops working so the advice online "feels" like it could be true. I'm now almost back to normal weight but I went to my GP a few months back saying I'm overweight yet my diet is brilliant, I exercise 5-7 days a week. Why? I was given the eatwell guide and told to exercise 150 minutes a week. 🙄

Cortisol sounds like bad science, kind of like adrenal burnout, or whatever the hell that is called and whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.

I suspect it's one of those things - like following the latest everchanging advice on how to look after your baby - that doesn't actually matter that much. Even if doing X is positive on average it interacts with so many other factors that you just can't predict the outcome for a given individual. But most people get through it all OK regardless.

I’ve never seen advice not to do cardio post-menopause. What I have seen lots of is advice to do strength work post-menopause, as there is a tendency to lose muscle mass after menopause. This makes sense to me but I’ve not taken this to mean “ditch the cardio”. I’m not one to just follow blindly though…

Isn’t the best exercise just the exercise you actually keep up?

Yes, this is an issue and so the advice tends to be based on what limited research there is and experience working with women. That's obviously far from ideal but that doesn't mean we can't try to build on the little we know and experiment on ourselves.

Stacey Sims often gets misquoted as saying don't do low cardio, her advice is more don't /just/ do low cardio but make sure you get high intensity work and strength training as well to maintain strength and power. If you can't fit the strength and intervals on top of your cardio, then cut back on the easy cardio to make room, not because it's bad but because strength and power gets lost so quickly.

Chronically high cortisol seems to be clearly bad for us and is often due to the stress lots of women carry in mid life. Focusing on sleep, healthy diet and reducing stress is important to tackle this. Exercise does spike cortisol but it comes back down again quickly, and that process is actually helpful because it helps the body deal with cortisol.

I do avoid exercising fasted as I think that does stress the body unnecessarily and makes it harder to exercise well or reap full benefit from the exercise, but it may work for some people.

You might find this podcast interesting - a conversation between Stacey Sims and Mindy Pelz. They're supposed to be on opposite sides of the fast/don't fast debate but agree on quite a lot!

www.drmindypelz.com/ep317

I don’t think any of the stuff posted here is anything other than one person on the internet’s shouty opinion.

Heart disease is still (I think) the number one killer of women, and the evidence around the protective effects of heart rate raising exercise is clear (as is that of weight bearing exercise on bone health).

Interesting book to read - Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. It shows the lack of gender-specific data leads to a world designed primarily for men.

Yeah I've read it and listened to her podcast. It's one of the reasons I was so annoyed with myself for getting sucked in tbh.

That's the point @UnaOfStormhold that incomplete data tells you F all. You can't extrapolate from it. Yet it's presented as fact so it's worse than saying "we don't know". So no thanks to the resource. Because even suggesting making any change is really poorly backed up in science.

We all think instinctively and from personal experience that something is different but by telling you not to do something or even to reduce it, it's still just health misogyny not to say "actually we know what was working at 30 doesn't work so well on weight now but honestly we don't know why or what is best" and that's fundamentally the truth of it.

@Nellodee agree.

This is from the Guardian piece:

"In 2023, a British Medical Journal editorial highlighted a range of studies showing that women are under-represented in exercise research. It found that there are “distinct knowledge gaps in areas such as sport performance, cardiovascular health, musculoskeletal health, postpartum physiology and lactation research”. Another study, from the University of Melbourne, found that sports psychology research is disproportionately focused on men; while another paper highlighted that only 6-9% of reputable sports science studies look exclusively at female athletes. In other words, the research gap is very real."

I think part of the problem is that nuance gets lost - I don't think Sims is saying the science is remotely settled or that women shouldn't do cardio, I know that's the message that gets relayed which is frustrating but at least we are now talking about the gap and have an awareness of different options we can try.

And as far as the evidence goes, I think there's a discussion to be had about how much weight we should place on a large body of evidence based largely on a very different demographic. Is it safer for me to drive a car based on a few tests done with a.crash test dummy my size and modelled on female anatomy than one based on years of testing with a much larger male dummy? I don't know but I don't think the latter should automatically be preferred.