I Sat In My Car And Cried
For 22 Minutes.
August 14th, 2024. Parking garage on Clark Street, Chicago. Engine running. Hands on the wheel. One thought on repeat:
Maybe the best version of Jenny is behind me.
I was 44 years old. I'd gained 27 pounds in 18 months while eating less than I ever had. I was working out 5 days a week. My doctor said my labs were normal. My trainer said to push harder.
I had spent $14,407 trying to fix myself.
- $8,160 on a personal trainer who had me doing fasted HIIT at 6 AM
- $6,247 on functional medicine, DUTCH tests, and 14 supplements a day
- Months tracking 1,200 calories on MyFitnessPal — and gaining weight
Nothing worked. Because I was fighting my hormones instead of working with them.
That night, at 2:11 AM, I found the study that changed everything. A 2022 paper from the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology showed that caloric restriction below 1,400 calories triggers a 23% cortisol spike in perimenopausal women. And cortisol — the stress hormone — is exactly what stores belly fat.
The dieting was causing the belly fat. I had been making it worse for 14 months.
I rebuilt my entire approach from scratch. 21 days later I had lost 10.8 pounds — eating 1,800 calories a day. My 2 AM wake-ups stopped. My husband said: "You seem like yourself again, Jen."
This book is everything I discovered. And it costs $7.