Stop Chasing The Last 10 pounds -

Build Your Next 3-5 pounds of Muscle.

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But during perimenopause, there is a far more useful question:‍

How much muscle am I building, or at least preserving?‍

Instead of making your next goal simply losing five to ten pounds, consider making it building your next three to five pounds of muscle. That shift can completely change how you train, how you eat, and how you evaluate your progress.

Weight loss does not tell you what you lost

The scale only tells you that your body became lighter. It cannot tell you whether you lost body fat, muscle,
water, or a combination of all three. And when people lose weight - especially through aggressive dieting, under-eating, or excessive cardio - they often lose muscle along with fat.

That matters because muscle supports your strength, metabolism, blood-sugar regulation, bone health, balance,
and ability to remain active and independent as you age.

Research also suggests that losing lean tissue may increase appetite as the body attempts to restore it. This may help explain why some people feel increasingly hungry after weight loss, regain the weight, and become trapped in a frustrating cycle of losing and starting over.

Your body is not failing you. It is trying to protect valuable tissue.
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Muscle is one of the most important investments you can make during perimenopause

Adults can begin gradually losing muscle as early as their 30s when they are not actively preserving it through resistance training. That decline may accelerate with age and the hormonal changes surrounding menopause.

This is why gaining even a few pounds of muscle can be so meaningful.
It does not literally erase every effect of aging or reverse a specific number of years. But rebuilding muscle can help restore some of the strength, physical capacity, energy, and resilience that may have declined over time.
In that sense, building three to five pounds of muscle is not merely changing your appearance. You are actively rebuilding tissue that helps your body function more youthfully and efficiently.

Muscle supports:
• Strength and physical independence
• Metabolic health and glucose regulation
• Bone and joint support
• Balance and stability
• Greater energy and training capacity
• Long-term mobility and resilience

Strength training has also been associated with improvements in body composition, bone density, cardiovascular risk factors, confidence, and mental well-being.

During perimenopause, muscle is not a vanity goal. It is a health investment.

The goal should not simply be to weigh less

The better goal is to improve your body composition while becoming stronger, healthier, and more capable.

Two women can weigh exactly the same but have very different amounts of muscle, body fat, strength, fitness,
and metabolic health.

You may also see very little change on the scale while:
• Losing body fat
• Building or preserving muscle
• Becoming noticeably stronger
• Improving your energy and endurance
• Changing how your clothes fit
• Moving and performing better

That is progress the scale may completely miss.
A smaller body is not automatically a stronger or healthier body.

Protein helps - but protein alone is not enough

Protein provides the amino acids your body needs to build and repair muscle tissue. But eating more protein without giving your muscles a sufficient training stimulus is not the same as strength training.
Think about it this way:

Protein provides the building materials. Strength training gives your body the signal to use them.

You need both. This is why simply adding a protein shake while relying only on cardio or workouts that never challenge your
muscles may not create the body-composition changes you want.
Your muscles need a reason to adapt.

You cannot tone muscle you have not built

The word toned is everywhere in women’s fitness marketing, but your body does not have a separate toning mechanism.

What most people describe as a toned appearance comes from two things:
1. Having enough muscle to create shape
2. Reducing enough body fat for some of that shape to
become visible

You cannot reveal muscle that does not exist.
Cardio alone will not build meaningful amounts of muscle. Weight loss alone will not build it either. Becoming smaller without protecting your lean tissue may move you further away from the strong, defined result you actually want.

Why the 3–5-pound muscle goal changes everything

Building three to five pounds of muscle is a meaningful long-term goal, not a quick transformation.
But simply changing the goal changes your behavior.
Instead of asking:
“How little can I eat?”
You begin asking:
“How can I fuel my training?”
Instead of asking:
“How many calories did this workout burn?”
You begin asking:
“Did I create an effective muscle-building stimulus?”
You start measuring strength, repetitions, training quality, energy, mobility, endurance, and how capable you feel - not just the number on the scale.

That is a far more complete picture of progress.

You need a plan - not more random workouts

Building muscle requires enough challenging strength sets, smart exercise selection, progressive overload, adequate protein, and recovery.
You do not need to live in a gym.
You do not need to lift maximal weights.
And you do not need to punish your body with exhausting workouts every day.

You need a structured plan that teaches you:
• Which exercises to perform
• How hard your sets should feel
• How to progress safely
• How to combine strength with cardio
• How to include mobility and recovery
• How to adjust for your body, experience, and
limitations

That is what Made4 is designed to provide.

Inside Made4, we teach women how to build muscle effectively at home or anywhere, at every stage. Our
programs remove common obstacles such as not having a gym, not knowing what exercises to choose, or not understanding how hard to train.

You are allowed to want fat loss and aesthetic changes.
But during perimenopause, fat loss should not come at the expense of the tissue your body needs most.

So before you make “lose the last 10 pounds” your next goal, ask yourself:

How can I build my next three to five pounds of muscle?

Because the goal is not simply to become lighter. It is to rebuild strength, restore capacity, improve your body composition, and create a body that feels more energetic, resilient, and prepared for the decades ahead.

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