Skip to content
Book my free call

Perimenopause · Menopause · The years after

Your body still responds. It just needs different instructions.

Done all the things and still feel stuck? I'm Shelley. I coach women through the middle years on both sides at once — the food, the strength and the sleep, and the rules in your head that quietly stopped serving you decades ago.

Book my free 15-minute call See what 12 weeks looks like
  • No cost
  • Nothing to buy on the call
  • You leave with one thing to do
Shelley O'Connor walking a park trail in training gear, carrying a mat and water bottle
Outdoor small-group training
Shelley O'Connor sitting on a kitchen island, smiling
Nutrition that starts in your kitchen
NutritionCertified Holistic Nutrition Coach
StrengthCertified Group Fitness Instructor
HormonesCertified Peri & Menopause Coach
SystemsFunctional Nutrition — Full Body Systems

Sound familiar?

You're not imagining it, and you're not the problem.

“

I'm running on empty, and sleep doesn't fix it.

“

Everything that worked at 35 stopped working, and nobody told me why.

“

I've tried everything and I still don't feel good enough.

“

I know what everyone else needs. I've no idea what I need.

None of that means you're broken. It means you're running a plan you wrote thirty years ago, for a body that has since changed the rules.

Book my free 15-minute call

What makes this different

The head work and the body work. At the same time.

Most coaching picks a side. A mindset coach can't tell you why your protein is too low to hold muscle. A trainer can't tell you why you keep saying yes to things you resent. Do them separately and each one quietly undoes the other.

I do both in the same hour, because in the middle years they're the same problem. Your sleep is a hormone question and a boundaries question. Your energy is a food question and a resentment question. Treat one and you get a good six weeks. Treat both and it holds.

Hi, I'm Shelley

I spent the first fifty years on everybody else.

The family, the dog, the bills, the housework, the people at work. I volunteered. I drove carloads of teenagers to soccer tournaments. I baked the cookies, I ate the cookies, I planned the parties and I went to the parties even when I didn't feel like it. There was always a to-do list and my name was never on it.

The one hour that was mine was an exercise class. Every week an email arrived about their instructor training program, and every week I read it and closed it. Then one day, at fifty, I clicked sign up. I was terrified. I finished the course, started teaching, and went on to study nutrition — because it turns out the outside and the inside are the same project.

And then, on a warm June morning, my sister called to tell me our mother had died.

I was an HR manager. I had spent my career telling other people to take care of themselves. I couldn't think, couldn't concentrate, and for the first time in my life I put my own needs first and took the summer off. I called the employee assistance line — the first time I had ever asked anyone for help.

Between 2018 and 2021 my daughter married, I left my husband, both my parents died, the divorce came through, and a pandemic arrived. I walked. One day I checked and I'd done thirty thousand steps. Somewhere in all that walking I stopped running from my own life.

I'm not going to dress that up as a beautiful awakening. It was the hardest four years I've had. But I came out the other side, and I did it with the food, the training and the honest thinking all pulling in the same direction — which is exactly how I coach now.

The next fifty are mine. Let's get yours started.

Book my free 15-minute call

This is for you if

  • You're roughly 45 to 70 and done being told this is just how it is now
  • You're in perimenopause, menopause or the years after and you want a plan rather than a pamphlet
  • You've been strong before and want to be strong again — safely, at this age
  • You'd rather be coached than lectured, and you'll do the work between sessions

It isn't for you if

  • You want a 21-day fix or a number on the scale by Friday
  • You need medical treatment — coaching works alongside your doctor, never instead of them
Portrait of Shelley O'Connor
Shelley O'Connor. Photography by Brooke Schaal.
Shelley O'Connor outdoors

The method

Four plays. Run together, not in a line.

Every woman I work with gets the same four plays, weighted differently. We start where the pressure is highest and keep the others moving underneath.

Play One

Rules — find out whose plan you're following

Before we change a meal or a workout, we find the rules you're obeying without noticing. Most were written by a much younger woman under very different conditions, and nobody has updated them since.

  • Name what you keep saying yes to, and what it actually costs
  • Tell the difference between an old reflex and a decision
  • Practise the sentence you've been avoiding, out loud, with backup

You stop renegotiating the same argument with yourself every morning.

Play Two

Fuel — eat for the body you have now

Not a diet. A working system built on protein, fibre and steady blood sugar, using food you'd happily serve to someone you like. We start with what's already in your kitchen.

  • Audit one ordinary week — no food-diary theatre, just the truth
  • Set a protein and fibre floor that holds your energy and your muscle
  • Fix the 4 p.m. crash and the 9 p.m. cupboard visit
  • Grocery, batch and travel plans you'll still use next year

Food goes back to being a tool instead of a daily verdict.

Play Three

Strength — build a body that carries you

After fifty, muscle and bone are the whole game. We train for what you want to still be doing at eighty: stairs, suitcases, grandchildren, gardens, getting up off the floor without planning it first.

  • Progressive strength scaled to your joints, not to a class average
  • Balance and bone-loading built into an ordinary week
  • Two or three sessions you can do at home, outdoors or at your gym

You get stronger every month instead of more careful.

Play Four

Rhythm — work with your hormones, not against them

Perimenopause, menopause and after. Sleep, stress load, recovery, temperature, mood. We track what's actually happening, adjust the other three plays around it, and get you ready for a much better conversation with your doctor.

  • Map your symptoms and patterns instead of guessing at them
  • Rebuild sleep and recovery as the foundation, not the leftovers
  • Walk into your appointment with notes, dates and specific questions

The chaos turns into information you can act on.

No mystery

What twelve weeks actually looks like.

Most coaching sells you a feeling and shows you the calendar afterwards. Here's the whole thing, in advance, before you spend anything.

Week 1

The honest inventory

Full intake across all four plays. What a normal week really looks like — the 3 a.m. wake-ups, the skipped lunches, the Sunday dread. You leave with one change, not twelve.

Rules · Fuel · Strength · Rhythm

Week 2

First win, on purpose

Protein floor and a sleep anchor. These two are chosen deliberately because they move fastest — most women notice the afternoon crash lifting inside ten days, which is the point.

Fuel · Rhythm

Weeks 3–4

Strength starts

Two sessions a week built around your joints and your history, with whatever equipment you actually have. We start lighter than you'd like. That's how you're still doing it in week twelve.

Strength

Weeks 5–8

The rules come up

By now the food and the training are running, and what's left is the harder part: the yes you didn't mean, the 9 p.m. cupboard visit, the plan you abandon the moment someone else needs something.

Rules · Fuel

Weeks 9–11

Load and adjust

Heavier, or more often, or neither — we go where your recovery says. Twelve weeks of symptom tracking becomes notes you can hand your physician.

Strength · Rhythm

Week 12

Your playbook, written down

What you keep, what you drop, and exactly what to do when a bad month arrives — because one will. You finish with a document, not a feeling.

All four

In their words

What the women who've done it say.

Shelley O'Connor in a one-to-one coaching session
She held such compassionate space for me and really listened. I loved the homework she gave after — I went about the rest of my day feeling more present.
Coaching client
Shelley was great at helping me see how most of my issues are interconnected. She pointed out I have to start slowly so I don't feel overwhelmed — and it worked.
Coaching client
Shelley helped me feel amazing as a person. I commend her on her willingness to guide others.
Coaching client

Programs

Three ways in. All of them start with the same free call.

There's no cart on this website. We talk first, decide together which one fits, and only then do you commit to anything.

Most women start here

The Rewrite

$1,89712 weeks, private · or 3 payments of $679

The full twelve weeks above. Long enough for habits to hold and for your body to actually answer.

Book my free call
  • Twelve 50-minute private sessions
  • Nutrition and strength plans built and revised with you
  • Symptom tracking, summarised for your doctor
  • Voice-note support between sessions
  • Your written playbook to keep
Fastest start

The Reset

$8976 weeks, private · or 2 payments of $479

For the woman who needs traction now and wants to know exactly what she's dealing with.

Book my free call
  • Six 50-minute private sessions
  • Full intake across all four plays
  • Your playbook, updated every week
  • Email support between sessions
Eight women max

The Table

$4978 weeks, small group · or 2 payments of $269

Eight women, one room, same season of life. Coaching plus the part nobody mentions: company.

Book my free call
  • Eight weekly 75-minute group sessions
  • One private session to set your own plan
  • Shared workbook and a weekly practice
  • Private group thread between calls
Shelley O'Connor heading out to lead an outdoor training session

Also running: outdoor small-group training

Private small-group fitness classes outdoors, for women who'd rather train in a park than a mirrored room. Local clients only, seasonal, and they fill by word of mouth.

Ask about the next block
TWO
SESSION
PROMISE

If it isn't working, you don't stay.

After your first two sessions, if you don't believe this is going to work, tell me and I'll refund the balance. No form, no awkward conversation. I'd rather have the right twelve clients than twenty of the wrong ones, and you shouldn't have to gamble eleven weeks to find out which you are.

And afterwards — The Circle, $97 a month. Once you've finished a programme you can stay in the room: one group coaching call a month, a monthly check-in, and your plan updated as your body and your life keep moving. Cancel any time. Graduates only.

Not ready to talk yet?

Take the four plays with you.

A short, practical guide to the same four plays I use with private clients — what to change in the first two weeks, and what to stop wasting energy on entirely. No charge.

One email with the guide, then a short note most weeks. Unsubscribe any time.

Before you book

Fair questions.

Your move

Book the call. Bring the tiredness with you.

Fifteen minutes, free. You tell me what's going on, I tell you honestly whether I can help, and you leave with one thing to do this week either way.

  • No cost
  • Nothing to buy on the call
  • Two-session promise if you start
Open the booking page Email me a question first
Book my free 15-minute call