How to Support Your Body Through Menopause with Dr. Jessica Shepherd

Perimenopause and menopause are under-addressed in many clinical settings. Labs and screenings often don’t happen until symptoms are severe, or they’re dismissed altogether. According to board-certified OB-GYN, menopause expert, and author of Generation M Dr. Jessica Shepherd, it’s time to adjust our approach. In her clinical practice and personal experience, Dr. Shepherd has seen how women are underserved in this transition. Her message is clear: start preparing earlier, build strength from the inside out, and advocate for better care.

If you're not already tracking your health, now's the time to start. Metrics like heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate, and sleep quality give you a baseline, and show how your lifestyle is affecting your body. WHOOP members can also track hormonal trends, strength training, and recovery over time to see how daily habits impact their long-term health.

Know the Signs

Hormonal shifts often begin in a woman’s late 30s or early 40s. Often, women sense that something is off but don’t realize that they’re experiencing symptoms. The changes are usually subtle at first, and can include disrupted sleep, heavier periods, lower energy, or mood swings. 

By paying attention to these early signals, women can better understand the changes happening to their body and seek support with confidence.

What You Can Do Right Now

There’s no way to avoid menopause, but you can adjust how you move through it. Dr. Shepherd recommends starting with two core strategies: resistance training and protein intake.

As estrogen declines, the body naturally loses muscle and bone mass. This can lead to metabolic shifts, increased injury risk, and decreased mobility over time. Strength training helps the body maintain muscle and bone density, directly supporting health through midlife and beyond.

Dr. Shepherd recommends working up to four days of strength training per week, and to incorporate 2 days with 20 minutes of cardio. 

Protein is equally important. Most women don’t eat enough to support their changing physiology. A general target is to aim for at least half your body weight (in pounds) in grams of protein per day. Improving protein quality and quantity is one of the most effective ways to maintain energy, metabolism, and lean mass.

Find Joy in the Process

Dr. Shepherd reminds us that health isn’t about punishing routines or chasing perfection. You don’t get a medal for checking every box or grinding through workouts you hate.

The key is finding what feels good, building routines that support your goals, and allowing space to pivot when your body needs something different. Some days that might mean heavy lifting. Other days, a long walk or a quiet stretch session is exactly what your body needs.

When you make space for joy, you build habits that last.

Advocate for Better Care

Many women don’t realize how little support exists for perimenopause and menopause until they’re already navigating it. That’s why Dr. Shepherd emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy. She recommends asking for a full thyroid panel, hemoglobin A1C, vitamin D, B12, and a cholesterol panel. Depending on your goals, it may also be helpful to test estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone. These labs won’t tell the full story, but they provide a useful starting point for understanding what’s changing.

The key is finding care that looks at your full picture, from your lifestyle to your physiology, instead of just checking boxes on a lab report.

The Bottom Line

• Hormonal shifts can begin in your late 30s
• Early preparation supports smoother transitions and better long-term outcomes
• Strength training and protein intake are essential
• Ask for labs that help build a more complete picture of your health

Want to go deeper? Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Jessica Shepherd and Dr. Kristen Holmes on the WHOOP Podcast, or watch the episode now.