During perimenopause, a woman’s risk of heart disease and a heart attack doubles. The heart is also a muscle. It is the only organ in your body that is also a muscle. Heart attacks evolve in different ways. You can have a sudden one, but for women, because we have smaller vessels, oftentimes it’s something that builds over.

What is the least amount of exercise you can do and still get the results? Well, this is a question that can change everything because the answer is not what most people think. And there’s a new study that proves it.

Cynthia Thurlow is a nurse practitioner, author of the best selling book Intermittent Fasting Transformation, a 2x TEDx speaker, with her second talk having more than 14 million views, and the host of Everyday Wellness podcast. With over 20 years experience in health and wellness, Cynthia is a globally recognized expert in intermittent fasting and women’s health, and has been featured on ABC, FOX5, KTLA, CW, Medium, Entrepreneur, and The Megyn Kelly Show. Her mission is to educate women on the benefits of intermittent fasting and overall holistic health and wellness, so they feel empowered to live their most optimal lives.

Have you been noticing that your workouts feel harder than they used to, even though your training habits haven’t changed in the slightest? Or maybe your endurance drops off sooner, your recovery is taking longer? Or that same effort just feels like it costs more than it once did? Now, most people assume this means they’re losing muscle, but what I see over and over is something different. What changes first isn’t actually the muscle itself, it’s the energy that powers it. That starts in your mitochondria, the energy engines inside your muscle cells, which less efficient with age, often before any visible sign of strength loss occurs.

I’m going to break down what actually changes inside muscles we age how cellular energy influencer performance and recovery, and how I support muscle performance by supporting the energy systems underneath training rather than simply asking my body to work harder.

This big lie that we get sold is that you just have to eat fewer calories. If you can’t, it’s your fault. You didn’t have willpower or you didn’t have discipline. And it’s not true. You don’t get to choose if you’re hungry. You can choose what to eat. You can’t choose to be hungry or not hungry. Right. Perimenopause period is actually one of the highest risk periods of weight gain for women. It’s so clear that it’s a hormonal issue. And as you talk to them, you realize they’re doing exactly the same things that they’ve always done. They’re eating the same things they always did. Obviously it’s hormones.

If you feel like your cravings are out of control after 40 and you think it’s a discipline problem, I need you to stop right there. Because cravings are not about willpower. They are about hormonal signals. And if you don’t fix the signals, you’re going to keep fighting your body and losing.

Here’s something I want you to get. Cravings. They are biological signals. They are not character flaws. They now you’ve probably told yourself, I know I have. I just need more discipline. But you know what? Your body doesn’t run on discipline. It runs on chemistry. So the brain’s reward center survival systems, the hypothalamus and dopamine, these drive food seeking behavior and these signals override conscious control.