In this short blog, I am sharing the 3 Mistakes that I see women over 40 making that wreck their hormones – all of which are more common than you think.
Read on to find out what they are and how to fix them, and improve your menopause symptoms.
Prefer to watch instead? Here’s the full video:
3 Mistakes Women Over 40 Make That Wreck Hormones
When it comes to hormones after 40, everything comes back to blood sugar balance.
That is, we have to be eating to balance our blood sugar because when we don’t, we have energy crashes, fatigue, mood swings, weight issues and hormonal symptoms like anxiety, hot flushes and sleep issues.
This blog is the third in this series on blood sugar. You can read the other two here:
First blog in this series: Why Your Menopause Diet Isn’t Working (And What to Do Instead)
Second blog in this series: 3 Simple Nutrition Habits to Support Hormone Balance in Menopause
Mistake number 1: Drinking coffee first thing in the morning on an empty stomach
When you wake up, your body’s in a naturally fasted, sensitive state. Having caffeine first thing spikes cortisol — your stress hormone — before you’ve even eaten.
That cortisol surge increases blood glucose and makes you more insulin resistant for the rest of the day.
So instead of feeling energised, you get the mid-morning crash, cravings, and eventually — another coffee and maybe some sugar and the cycle repeats.
The simple fix… eat a protein-rich breakfast, followed by your coffee. This slows the impact of coffee on both cortisol and blood sugar — and that one change can help stabilise your energy, without giving up caffeine.
Mistake number 2: Skipping meals
Blood sugar works like a roller coaster — it spikes and then crashes.
When we eat simple carbs or sugary foods, we have a spike, and then we have a crash. What we want is to eat in a way that avoids these highs and lows.
But also, when we skip meals, we end up in the lows. This can create feelings of ‘hangry’, the hungry and angry feeling.
The brain perceives these lows as stress. This means higher cortisol levels, and the dumping of stored sugar into your muscles to try and fight the stress, which, if not burnt off, is stored as fat.
So for blood sugar balance, we want to be eating regular meals ideally every 3-4 hours – and this is where eating protein, as I covered in the last blog (Read Here), is essential so that our hunger hormones are satisfied.
The most important element of not skipping meals is eating breakfast within an hour of waking to ensure better blood sugar balance throughout the day.
Is intermittent fasting good for women over 40?
Intermittent fasting can work for some women — but in perimenopause and menopause, it often needs to be approached carefully. As oestrogen declines, the body becomes more sensitive to blood sugar fluctuations and stress. Skipping meals or fasting for long periods can raise cortisol and destabilise glucose levels, especially if you are already under stress or not eating enough protein. For many women over 40, stabilising blood sugar with regular, balanced meals is more supportive than aggressive fasting. In order to help restore metabolic stability, gentle overnight fasting (12–14 hours) can be beneficial. Anything beyond that, however, can be too aggressive.
Mistake number 3: “Healthy” breakfasts that spike blood glucose
Healthy breakfasts like granola, breakfast bars, porridge with fruit and honey do not have anywhere near enough protein required for women over 40 and some are lacking in protein altogether.
If we take porridge with fruit and honey as an example, Porridge is a carbohydrate, fruit is a carbohydrate and honey is sugar. That combination spikes blood glucose quickly.
So whilst there may be some fat and protein, particularly if this is made with milk, there is nowhere near enough protein.
Yes, you can add nuts and seeds — but they are fats, with only small amounts of protein.
An easy fix is to add either Greek yoghurt or protein powder to the porridge.
And this is not say, that porridge with fruit and honey is a bad meal – it’s got a lot of goodness in terms of nutrients, it’s just lacking in protein.
Eating a protein-rich breakfast is essential for better blood sugar balance, so if you are only going to make one change from this blood sugar series, this is where I recommend you start.
These mistakes are common.
They’re not dramatic.
They don’t look extreme.
But they quietly disrupt blood sugar every single day.
And when blood sugar is unstable, insulin and cortisol stay elevated — which is exactly what makes menopause symptoms harder to manage.
If you’re not sure whether blood sugar imbalance is driving your symptoms, take my free Hormone Health Quiz below.
In just a couple of minutes, you’ll see whether blood sugar is at the root of your symptoms — and exactly where to start.
