StrongHER Brains: Sarcopenia Isn’t Just in the Body — It Shows Up in the Brain Too

When women talk about aging, they usually talk about their bodies — the weight gain, the fatigue, the shifts in hormones, the muscle loss that sneaks up on us somewhere between perimenopause and “what the hell is happening to me?”

But almost no one talks about what’s happening inside the brain at the same time.

And let me tell you something, as your coach: everything you feel in your body, your brain feels too.

Sarcopenia — that slow loss of muscle we associate with aging — doesn’t just happen from the neck down. There is a neurological version of it happening quietly behind the scenes.

When I sit with women in midlife, especially in my coaching space at ElleJolieWellness, they tell me they feel “slower,” “foggy,” “less sharp,” “less themselves.” And that’s not imagination. That is neural aging — and it mirrors muscular aging almost perfectly.

Exactly like your muscles get smaller and weaker if they aren’t challenged, certain areas of your brain naturally lose volume, efficiency, and resilience over time. Grey matter shrinks, white matter becomes less efficient, neuroplasticity — your brain’s ability to adapt and learn — softens, and if we don’t actively support the brain, those changes feel like memory lapses, overwhelm, emotional swings, and that frustrating sense that you’re trying to think through fog.

Yet here’s what most women never learn: what’s happening in the body and what’s happening in the brain are not separate stories. They are one story. When you lose muscle, the brain loses some of its spark. And when you build muscle, your brain actually responds by aging more slowly.

This isn’t poetic — it’s what emerging science shows.

• A large longitudinal study (over 8,000 older adults) found that low muscle mass was independently associated with faster decline in executive functions over three years. JAMA Network+1

• Others show that greater leg strength in older adults correlates with better overall cognition, regardless of physical activity level. PMC

• On a molecular level: muscles are not just “meat and movement.” They’re endocrine organs. When they contract — during resistance training — they release myokines (like BDNF, irisin, IL-6) that travel through the bloodstream and influence brain function. OUP Academic+2Frontiers+2

• These myokines help reduce inflammation, improve insulin signalling, support neuroplasticity, and may even protect against neurodegenerative processes. PMC+2Frontiers+2

That is why I’ve built my entire StrongHER model around strength training for women in midlife. When you lift weights, you are not just building a better body — you’re protecting your brain.

Muscles release these incredible “brain messengers” every time you train — molecules that support mood, memory, clarity, and resilience. They lower inflammation. They help your brain adapt and repair. And as you rebuild strength, your metabolic health improves, your insulin sensitivity steadies, and the inflammation that drives brain aging begins to calm.

You can feel this difference. Women tell me all the time, “Elle, I swear my brain is sharper since lifting with you.” And they’re right. Strength training literally improves the kind of physiology that supports healthy brain aging: better blood flow, cleaner metabolism, hormonal balance, and neurochemical support.

And let’s talk about belly fat — because that hormone-driven perimenopause/menopause belly fat that loves to show up has real neurological consequences. Even thin women can carry it. That deep, visceral fat sends inflammatory signals everywhere — including to your brain. When we reduce visceral fat (not through starvation, but through strength work, protein, metabolic conditioning, and smart nutrition), we’re taking pressure off your brain. You start sleeping better, thinking clearer, feeling more emotionally grounded. It’s all connected.

When I talk to women in midlife about brain health, this is the part that usually lands the hardest: your brain is not operating in a vacuum. It is responding directly to how you live, eat, sleep, and cope. Alcohol, for example, ages the brain faster than almost anything — studies out of Nature and The Lancet show even “moderate drinking” accelerates grey matter loss and disrupts neural pathways that regulate memory, mood, and impulse control (Nature study). Stress does the exact same thing. Chronic cortisol exposure shrinks the hippocampus, increases inflammation, and decreases neuroplasticity — meaning you literally lose the brain’s ability to adapt and learn when you marinate in stress for too long (Harvard Health). And when poor nutrition is layered on top — under-eating, skipping meals, obsessively “eating clean” but not eating enough — the brain becomes starved of glucose, amino acids, and essential fats. That alone can trigger irritability, brain fog, memory lapses, low mood and increased anxiety. Add poor sleep to the mix, and you have the perfect neurological storm. Sleep is where your brain clears metabolic waste, repairs pathways, consolidates memory, and stabilizes emotional circuits. One study from Neurology found that chronic insomnia accelerates cognitive aging and increases dementia risk by disrupting these nightly processes (Neurology). So when women in midlife tell me they’re feeling foggy, anxious, overwhelmed, forgetful or like they “don’t recognize themselves,” it is not personality — it is physiology. Alcohol, stress, poor sleep, and under-nourishing your body are all punches the brain cannot keep absorbing. And the moment we stabilize eating, train consistently, reduce alcohol, and restore sleep, women are shocked at how quickly their clarity, emotional stability, and cognitive sharpness return. Your brain is not aging randomly — it’s responding to everything you give it, and everything you don’t.

This is why having a trainer matters. Because midlife is not the time to wing it. Your brain is too important. Your body is too important. This is the season where structure, safety, accountability, and evidence-based training make all the difference. When you train with me, I’m not just thinking about your glutes or your deadlift form — I’m thinking about your nervous system, your stress load, your hormones, your brain chemistry. We are rebuilding your muscle and your mind at the same time.

I tell my clients this often:

Your strength is not just about how you look. It’s about how your brain will age.

Sarcopenia is not just physical. It’s neurological. And strength training is one of the only proven tools that slows both.

This is what StrongHER really means. Not just strong legs, strong core, or strong posture — but strong cognition, strong clarity, strong emotional grounding, strong future. The kind of strength that lets you age with power instead of fear. The kind of strength you feel in your bones and in your brain.

So if you haven’t yet given your brain the same gift you give your body when you pick up the weights, let’s change that.

You deserve to age well — not just in your body, but in your mind. You deserve a brain that feels alive. You deserve support on that journey.

That’s what I do here at ElleJolieWellness. That’s what StrongHER is all about.