Why Detox Needs to Look Different in Perimenopause

mariekesteen
8 hours ago
3 min read

(And Why “Trying Harder” Often Makes Things Worse)

After weeks of festive meals, richer foods, more alcohol, less routine and more stress, there’s this collective feeling of feeling heavy and sluggish and the desire to shed some weight or inflammation…

Energy is lower. The body feels heavier. Sleep is off. Clothes fit differently.

And naturally, the question comes up: “Should I detox?”

Social media certainly thinks so.

But here’s the thing I’ve learned - personally and professionally - over many years of working with women in midlife:

The problem isn’t that we don’t need support.
It’s that we’re often supporting the body in a way that no longer matches where we are hormonally.

When the old rules stop working...

Earlier in life, the body tends to be more forgiving.

You could skip meals, do a juice cleanse, push through workouts, sleep a bit less - and bounce back fairly quickly.

In perimenopause, that resilience quietly changes.

Not dramatically.

But enough that “doing what used to work” starts to feel harder… and less effective.

When our hormone output goes low and/or fluctuates, with it goes a key buffer against stress.

As progesterone drops, we have a higher baseline of cortisol. But also when our hormones fluctuate, they create a yet new stress on our brain and often blood sugar.

That means:

less stress tolerance
slower recovery
more sensitivity to restriction, fasting, and pressure

So when we approach detox the same way we did at 30, the body doesn’t experience it as a “reset”. It experiences it as yet another stressor.

Detox in perimenopause doesn’t need to be harder - it needs to be smarter

I often say this in my workshops about exercise: In perimenopause, we don’t need to train harder. We need to train smarter. Exactly the same applies to detox.

Many traditional detox approaches:

destabilise blood sugar
reduce protein intake
increase cortisol
lead to muscle loss rather than fat loss

Yes, the scale might go down.

But what’s often lost is water and lean tissue - not the body fat women are actually hoping to shift.

At the same time, muscle mass becomes more important with age:

for metabolic health
for insulin sensitivity
for hormone balance
for long-term resilience

So a detox that underfeeds, overstresses, or strips the body of nutrients is working against us, not for us.

The part that’s often missing: everyday toxin exposure

Another reason detox feels more complicated than it used to has nothing to do with willpower or food choices.

It has to do with load.

We are exposed daily to endocrine-disrupting chemicals through:

air pollution
microplastics
pesticides
water
cosmetics and cleaning products

These compounds don’t just burden the liver. They can interfere with hormone receptors - essentially clogging the communication between hormones and cells.

This is why some women: