There comes a point in midlife where the old rules stop working. The diets that once “worked.” The pushing through. The shrinking. The self-neglect dressed up as discipline. And for many women, that moment can feel deeply unsettling, because it’s not just the body that’s changing. It’s identity, energy, confidence, and the way we want to live.

That’s why I was so drawn to this conversation with Terry Tateossian, founder of THOR: The House of Rose, women’s midlife health coach, strength coach, macro-based nutritionist, and host of the podcast How Good Can It Get. Terry’s story is one of profound reinvention. After early perimenopause, serious health struggles, emotional eating, burnout, and decades of pushing herself beyond what her body could sustain, she made a different choice. She stopped fighting herself and started listening.

What followed wasn’t just weight loss. It was a complete transformation in how she lived, trained, nourished herself, and understood what was truly possible in midlife. In this interview, Terry speaks candidly about strength, nervous system support, self-sabotage, body shame, burnout, and why women over 40 don’t need more punishment. They need a different approach entirely.

You went through early perimenopause at 37, multiple health struggles, and a major body transformation in midlife. Looking back, what was the biggest shift, physically or emotionally, that changed everything for you?

The biggest shift for me during this entire transformation was mental and emotional. I hear to rewire my entire identity, retire old beliefs about myself that were simply no longer true and establish myself as someone who intentionally cares about her physical appearance. It wasnt vain or irresponsible to spend time in the gym, eat well and dedicate attention to my appearance and health. The biggest shift happened when I stopped fighting and resisting myself and instead started asking, “What does my body actually need?”

So many women over 40 feel like their bodies have suddenly stopped responding to what used to work. What do you think women most need to understand about why midlife weight loss is different?

As women, we have been fed so many outdated stories. That we need to be small, invisible, thin, young, or we won’t be relevant. And although our traditional approach of eat less, do more cardio may have worked in our 20’s, it starts working against us in peri menopause and menopause. When our bodies start experiencing hormonal rhythm fluctuations, reduction in strength, muscle mass loss, bone density loss, sensitivity to stress, and changes in how our bodies process carbs and recovers, we need a new approach. One that takes all of these factors into account.

You speak openly about outdated advice like extreme diets and excessive cardio backfiring in midlife. Why does that approach so often make things worse for women over 40 rather than better?

When we apply these modalities specifically to women over 40 whose bodies are already going through a transitional period, it increases stress and raises cortisol, it reduces the ability to recover, and we end up in a worse place metabolically than we started out. When we lose muscle mass, fat loss becomes harder.

Your work combines macro-based nutrition, strength training, nervous system support, and identity work. Why is it not enough to focus on food and workouts alone when helping women in midlife truly change?

Because we are not just struggling with weight and food. We are bringing old patterns, stress and identity into the process. Human beings are messy and beautiful. In order to see true lasting change that is sustainable for a lifetime, we need to address the underlying causes, old beliefs and outdated patterns. Maybe someone’s nervous system is systemically dysregulated and they use food to cope. Or maybe they hold a belief that going to gym is vain and a waste of time. Getting to the source of these beliefs is the difference between short term results and lasting transformation.

Many women in midlife are carrying decades of emotional eating, self-sabotage, and body shame. How do you help them break those patterns without turning health into another form of punishment?

First, we remove the shame. Most of us have spent decades in the “all or nothing cycle”, being “good” and then “falling off“. This is usually followed by the punishing phase. And the cycle begins again. If I were to be blunt, emotional eating has nothing to do with food. It presents as an issue with food, but under the surface, it is about regulation and coping skills.

Strength seems to be a huge part of your philosophy. What changes, not just in the body but in a woman’s confidence and self-concept, when she starts training for strength instead of shrinking?

Strength gives women something most of us have never experienced before: proof that we are capable. And that confidence spills over into every other aspect of our lives. We start asking ourselves: “If I can do this: What else can I do?”

You built THOR: The House of Rose as an experiential wellness brand for women over 40. What were women missing from traditional wellness spaces that you knew needed to be created differently?

Most wellness spaces are either too clinical, too performative or completely disconnected from real life. In my opinion, women in midlife need to feel safe, to be seen, and truly reset. Sometimes that means stepping out of our lives long enough to see things clearly, sometimes it means finding like-minded people on the same journey and making new connections.

There’s often grief in midlife, for the years we abandoned ourselves, the body we lost trust in, the dreams we postponed. How do you help women hold that grief while still moving toward possibility and self-acceptance?

Grief is a natural process in this stage, and most women experience it one way or another. So many changes are taking place in midlife. Roles are changing. Relationships are changing. Children are growing up, and our identity as who we believe we are based on those roles is changing.

And so instead of rushing past the grief or avoiding it, we create space for it. Expect it. And in a sense, embrace it. When we give ourselves permission to feel it and heal, it opens up new possibilities for us.

The power we can generate in midlife is not about going backwards or trying to reclaim our “youth”. The power is in realising how much more is available to us that we didn’t have time to pursue in the past.

As a former high-achieving entrepreneur, you know what burnout looks like from the inside. What would you say to the woman who has been successful in life and business, but feels exhausted, disconnected, and unwell in her own body?

Yes, I know that woman well. Successful on paper but exhausted in her body. Disconnected from herself.
I would tell her: “Find real support!” When you start supporting yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally through proper nutrition, strength, recovery, and space, everything will fall into place. I did for me.

If you could leave women over 40 with one truth about midlife, health, and what’s still possible for them, what would you want them to know?

We are in a new era! So much information, new discoveries, new products and new expertise are available to us. There has never been a better time to be a midlife woman! Now that we are in midlife, we get to live life on OUR terms. No more sacrifices, no more obligations! We can build lives that actually work for us! 

What I love about Terry’s perspective is that she doesn’t romanticise midlife, but she absolutely refuses to write it off. She speaks to the grief, the exhaustion, the years of self-abandonment many women carry, but she also keeps bringing the conversation back to possibility. Back to strength. Back to what becomes available when a woman stops trying to become smaller and starts building a life and a body that actually supports her.

This conversation is a reminder that lasting change in midlife is never just about macros or workouts. It’s about identity. It’s about nervous system safety. It’s about telling the truth about what no longer works and having the courage to choose something better. Terry’s journey proves what so many women need to hear: it is not too late, your body is not broken, and midlife is not the end of your vitality. In many ways, it can be the beginning of the most intentional, self-honouring chapter yet.

You can explore Terry’s work, coaching, retreats, and community here: Thehouseofrose.com