Why You’re Gaining Weight (and It’s Nothing to Do with Willpower)

You’ve cut back on wine, started walking more, maybe even downloaded another tracking app. Yet somehow, the scales keep creeping up.

Here’s the truth: it’s not a lack of discipline. It’s perimenopause biology doing its thing.

Your Body’s Hormone Shift

As oestrogen starts to decline, your body gets new marching orders. Fat storage patterns change, metabolism slows, and muscle mass naturally starts to decrease. The result? You burn fewer calories even when you’re doing the same things you always have.

Why Muscle Matters

From your mid-30s onwards, women lose up to 8% of muscle mass per decade. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, meaning it burns calories even when you’re resting. Less muscle means a slower metabolism and a higher chance of weight gain around the middle.

That’s where SheBANG! Peri Protein Powders come in. Each serve gives you over 20g of high-quality protein to help maintain muscle mass, support recovery, and keep you feeling full for longer. They’re blended with KSM-66 Ashwagandha, an ingredient traditionally used to help manage mood, focus, and stress, because building strength in perimenopause isn’t just physical, it’s mental too.

Explore our Protein Blends for Perimenopause, here.

The Stress Connection

Then there’s cortisol, your stress hormone. When your hormones are in flux, your nervous system is more sensitive. Chronic stress can push cortisol levels up, which encourages your body to store more fat, especially around the waist. Combine that with poor sleep and fluctuating blood sugar, and your body feels constantly under siege.

That’s why magnesium is a game changer during perimenopause. It plays a key role in regulating your nervous system, easing tension, and supporting more restful sleep, all of which help your body handle stress better.

Our Superlattes, like the Peri Chai Latte and Peri Rose & Vanilla Latte, are made with magnesium glycinate, one of the most bioavailable forms of magnesium, to help manage those jittery, wired feelings that come with hormone changes.

Explore all our superlattes for perimenopause here.

How to Support Your Body Now

This isn’t a battle to win. It’s a recalibration. Small, consistent shifts make all the difference.

• Eat enough protein to help maintain muscle mass and stabilise blood sugar.

• Move daily, even lightly, to keep metabolism ticking over.

• Prioritise sleep and stress management so cortisol doesn’t stay in overdrive.

• Support your body with nutrients it needs more of right now, like magnesium for calm and collagen for muscle and joint health.

A Note on All This...

Perimenopause is not about fighting your body. It’s about listening to it. These shifts are about your body adapting, recalibrating, and still showing up for you every single day. Strength looks different at this stage, and that’s something to be proud of.

Instead of chasing what once was, think about what your body still does for you: carries you, protects you, and asks for a little extra care. When you stop trying to control it and start working with it, everything changes.

Where SheBANG! Fits In

We created our Superlattes and Peri Protein Powders to make this easier. Each one combines functional ingredients your body actually needs in perimenopause, protein for strength, magnesium for calm, collagen for structure, and ingredients traditionally used to help manage mood, sleep, and cognitive function.