Started training at 50. 10 pullups at 53. PT student at 55. Still feral. Art, craft & interiors. City flat + country house. Founder @finelittleday 🇸🇪
Perimenopause wrecked me. Not a little, a lot. I crashed hard, and the way out started with hormone therapy, then movement, then slowly, energy crawling back. I made myself a promise, never back in that hole. Strength training was my last resort. I’d never done it before, knew nothing about it. Right before 50, I got a PT and asked him straight: what’s the hardest thing for a woman to train? Pull-ups, he said. Upper body, grip, shoulders. Long road. I thought, if I can get that, maybe everything else gets lighter too.
Now I’m 55 and the strongest I’ve ever been. Not just physically. Energy, mood, the way I move through a day. All of it different. That’s why I post training here and there. No agenda. Just tiny sparks. Maybe what lifted me can lift you, too. Hope one lands where it’s needed.
I didn’t grow up athletic. I didn’t peak in high school. I started just before 50, from scratch, with zero credentials and a stubborn spark. Strength feels like freedom. Mobility feels like money in the bank. Explosiveness is power on demand, and I’m not giving it up. Hanging from a bar and pulling yourself up is a quiet kind of wealth. Built late. Mine to keep.
The image you have of training matters more than you think. It might even be the whole thing. Mine was completely wrong. I thought a real workout meant vomiting in a corner and not being able to walk for a week. Anything less was pointless. That belief kept me from starting for years, and would have stopped me within months if I’d held onto it. Soreness is not the goal. Soreness means you did something unfamiliar, or that you didn’t sleep or eat enough, or you’re getting sick. I rarely get sore anymore. That’s not a sign I’m slacking. It’s a sign my body has adapted.
I train around two longer sessions a week, 45 to 60 minutes, and short bursts here and there when the mood is right. Real rest between sets. Real recovery between sessions. Not frantic, not punishing. The workout that works is the one you actually show up for. And you only keep showing up when the image in your head is something worth wanting.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
You do not need a gym to begin. Your own body is already an entire training system. Push-ups. Squats. Lunges. Planks. Hip lifts. We’re a mother and son who both got rescued by strength training. Not by having the right gear. Not by perfect routines. By showing up. Again and again. Mostly with bodyweight. Sometimes with our little playground of gear when the mood hits.
And yes, gear can be fun. But consistency beats equipment every single time. If you buy one thing: get a jump rope. Cheap, tiny, weirdly brutal. Cardio, coordination, leg strength. Done. Then maybe a kettlebell or two. 2–3 sessions a week, bodyweight only, year after year, beats any gym membership you don’t use.
PS. Makes me genuinely happy that some of you stay for the training and health posts too. I know it’s not for everyone. But this stuff I’ve really come to care about, and I want to share the good that came out of it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Windows. Six meters of glass, floor to ceiling. The first time we had no idea how to even approach this. Stood there staring up like two people who had made a terrible decision about architecture. The answer: a platform ladder and a telescopic pole.
Energy. Jesus Christ, what a thing to get back. Not just enough to work and train, but enough to keep the house from becoming a project I’ll get to eventually. My brain turns into static when the home around me falls apart. The part that still surprises me, training creates the energy. Not the other way around. You don’t wait until you feel like it. You go, and then you feel like it. And then things start coming back. The desire to actually show up for your own life. Clothes and accessories I actually wear again. For years, just sitting there in piles like museum artifacts from a former life.
Reklam, egen verksamhet,
I need you to really hear this: strength training in and around menopause is about survival. Quality of life. Autonomy. Resistance training changes the biology. Bones, muscle, sleep, cognition, mood. The evidence is not subtle. And yes, you can start now. From zero. From exhaustion. From brain fog. From a body that feels unfamiliar and slightly not yours anymore. I started just before 50. I’m 55 now. No athletic background. None. Hormone support helped. A mindset shift helped. A PT helped. A couple of years ago I would’ve laughed at the idea of any of this being available to me. Find your thing. Lift something. Carry something heavy. Do whatever makes you feel like your body belongs to you again. The important part isn’t what you do. It’s realizing it’s possible, and then doing it anyway.
Saturday. Ironing in the kitchen, and posing on the veranda with textiles that need to be shot. This is what running a small business actually looks like. And I genuinely appreciate it. What I appreciate more: that at this point in life, I don’t edit myself. I move freely between interior obsessions, my work as a photographer and designer, and a full commitment to health and training that arrived late and hit hard. No apologies for any of it. No hierarchy between the interests. I take care of what I care about. Every day of the week.
Reklam, egen verksamhet.
I document because I need to. Clothes, colors, corners of home, ordinary life. Tiny glimpses of a human being moving through the day. So yeah, AI freaks me out. The idea of everything getting flattened, automated, emptied out. Because honestly I don’t fully know who I am without visual storytelling. And now, with this whole women’s health / movement chapter of my life, sharing feels like the point. It pushes me. Maybe it pushes you too. That matters. I’m keeping it.
Damn. This veranda changed everything. I open the door and step outside and that’s it. Workout started. Morning daylight hits your circadian clock hard, in the best way. It cues cortisol to peak when it should, so energy and recovery actually work the way they’re supposed to. And yes weighted hula hoop. Laugh if you want. Then try three minutes and tell me your obliques are not on fire.
