16 Jun
Sixty. Postmenopausal. Staring at a YouTube video called "Beginner Strength for Women Over 50" and feeling like an absolute fraud. I used to be fit. Properly fit. Ran half marathons in my forties, did classes, the lot. Then everything sort of... stopped. The joints started complaining, the fatigue moved in like a lodger who never leaves, and somehow five years passed. I tried to do a squat last Tuesday and my knees had opinions. Loud ones. What I've landed on, very tentatively, is just doing some gentle mobility stuff before bed. Not a workout. Not even close. Just moving the bits that feel seized up. It's taken the edge off the morning stiffness a little, I think? Hard to tell yet. But it's the one thing I've actually kept doing so far without talking myself out of it at 9pm. The strength training still terrifies me. Not the gym exactly, more the idea of doing it wrong and wrecking something. And I'm genuinely not sure where fatigue ends and "you need to rest" begins versus "you need to push through". That's actually what I want to ask my GP about. Whether there's a sensible way back in when your energy is so unpredictable. One thing I did notice: I had a proper bit of protein after the last two sessions (even though the sessions were basically nothing, twenty minutes of very undramatic movement). Felt less wiped out the next morning. Could be coincidence. Anyone else navigating the return-to-movement thing after a long gap? Not looking for a bootcamp, just... reassurance that slow and uncertain counts. x