Midlife weight gain, hormone shifts & burnout? Discover how to balance metabolism, mindset & faith without white-knuckling your way through life.

🌿 Full Description:

If you've hit 40 and suddenly feel like everything's changed—your body, sleep, mood, energy, and weight—you're not alone. In this Saddle Up segment of Doing Life Different, Lesa Koski shares her personal, honest journey through hormone changes, breast cancer, metabolic confusion, and how she’s learning to stop white-knuckling life and start loving her body again.

From fasting to functional medicine, cortisol to clean protein, Lesa covers it all—with grace, wisdom, and a whole lot of humor. This solo episode offers actionable midlife health advice and real-life encouragement for women navigating perimenopause, menopause, and metabolic mayhem.

🎧 Your body isn’t broken. It’s talking to you.

Let’s learn how to listen—with compassion, curiosity, and Christ at the center.

⏱️ Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction: Midlife metabolism & the moment things changed

(02:43) Breast cancer, food freedom & healing after trauma

(05:10) Why your old habits stop working in your 40s and 50s

(08:32) Fasting fatigue: Why long fasts might hurt your hormones

(12:14) Joy, movement & midlife weight loss without punishment

(16:40) Alcohol, estrogen, and breast cancer awareness

(20:28) Protein overload? Why 100g isn’t always the answer

(23:03) Sleep, cortisol & the power of rest as hormone therapy

(26:15) Lesa’s 7 Steps to Metabolic Balance (without HRT)

(30:41) Final encouragement: You’re not failing, you’re evolving

🔑 Key Takeaways:

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• Nourish, don’t punish. Eat to feel good—not to atone.
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• Sleep is hormonal therapy. Prioritize bedtime like medicine.
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• Stress sabotages results. Joy is part of the prescription.
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• Fast with wisdom. Fasting works—but not for everyone, every time.
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• Protein matters—but so does peace. More isn’t always better.
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👤 Guest Bio:

Lesa Koski is a mediator, life coach, podcast host, and breast cancer survivor helping women over 40 navigate midlife with faith, mindset, and grace. Host of Doing Life Different, she empowers listeners to transform hardship into healing through God’s guidance and real-life tools.

🔗 Resource Links:

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• 💌 Sign up for Lesa’s newsletter lesakoski.com
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• 📲 Follow Lesa on Instagram: @livebetterwithlesa
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• 🎧 Listen to the main episode with Marie Simpson (Functional Medicine Expert):
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🔍 Tags/Keywords:

midlife metabolism, perimenopause, menopause, hormone balance, metabolic health, fasting for women, weight loss over 40, functional medicine, breast cancer survivor, clean protein, midlife wellness, cortisol and stress, women’s health podcast, doing life different, lesa koski, christian women health, mindset and hormones