My story
It began in my kitchen,
on an ordinary morning.
Someone I loved saw it before I did. A patch of hair, simply gone. I had been so busy taking care of everything else that I had not noticed my own body asking for help.
That night I filled out one of those online questionnaires, hoping the answer would be a supplement. It was not. The answer on the screen was three words: call your doctor.
I was scared. Maybe you know that particular quiet fear, the one you carry alone because everything looks fine from the outside.
What I learned next changed everything
For decades, exercise science studied men, and much of sports medicine was built on their bodies. Women, especially across the menstrual cycle, perimenopause, and menopause, were barely in the research at all.
And yet those findings became the foundation of the health and fitness advice so many of us follow every day. The plans, the programs, the rules. Built on data that was never about us.
I wasn't failing.
I was following advice that was never designed for my body.
You might know this feeling
Millions of women begin noticing changes in their 30s and beyond, and are told it is simply part of getting older.
- Hair that is thinning, quietly
- Tiredness that sleep does not fix
- A fog where your focus used to be
- Sleep that comes late and leaves early
- A new anxiousness you cannot name
- A body that is changing shape on its own terms
- Muscle that fades even though you exercise
- Joints that ache in the morning
- Workouts that take longer to recover from
- Cycles that are not what they were
If any of this is you: you are not imagining it. And you are not failing.
The common thread was never discipline or motivation. It is that no one taught us how a woman's physiology changes through the menstrual years, perimenopause, and menopause, or how movement, nutrition, and rest should change with it.
What that morning became
A practice designed for women's bodies.
Mary Sarah Coaching, and The Soma School, grew from that kitchen. Research-backed movement, education, and care for women who are ready to stop working against their bodies and start working with them. I built what I needed that morning. It is yours now too.