INTRO
Megan Pfiffner (00:00)
Hey, I’m Megan Pfiffner, and welcome to Mornings with Megan. Grab your coffee and let’s have a convo.
MORGANA’S STORY
Megan (00:05)
Okay, I have to tell you something. When I first learned about Morgana’s work and her personal story, I had to put my phone down for a second. Because here is a woman who has been a two-time world champion Latin dancer at the absolute peak of physical performance, and she was being body shamed by her own coaches. She spent a decade and nearly $80,000 trying to fix something that was never broken, and ended up with a series of hormonal conditions in the process.
And then she did something that most people never do. She actually figured out what was wrong. Not just with her body, but the actual information that we have all been given. Morgana is now a certified perimenopause health coach, a bestselling author, and the founder of This Isn’t a Diet, which is the perfect name for a perimenopause wellness company, because as you’re going to hear, diets don’t just not work in midlife, they can actively work against you. She helps women in midlife lose real weight without restriction, without starvation, without another fad, by working with their hormones instead of against them.
This conversation is for every woman who has done everything right and still watched the scale go up. We are getting into the biology of why that happens, what’s actually driving the midlife weight gain, and why the thing most of us reach for first, eating less, is often making it worse. Morgana, welcome to Mornings with Megan.
Morgana (01:44)
Thank you so much. That was such a beautiful intro. I appreciate it.
THE DANCER, THE DIET CULTURE LOOP, AND WHAT RESTRICTION ACTUALLY DOES
Megan (01:48)
Of course. Well, let’s dive right into this. So you were a world champion dancer, which on so many levels is impressive. And from the outside, that looks like the ultimate picture of discipline and physical mastery. But you have described that period as one of the most damaging of your life. What was actually happening?
Morgana (02:11)
Of course it was damaging in a certain sense, but it was also a really beautiful chapter. I just want to say that as well, because sometimes I talk about my story and I feel like people think she hated it. No, I loved dancing. I still love dancing. But it was very difficult, especially as a woman. When you compare yourself, we do that in everyday life, and then you magnify that by dancing in front of a mirror all day and literally being compared with other people, that can really get into your mindset.
I always, when I was growing up, I was always the youngest dancer. And I would see the older girls pinching at their body and saying, I need to lose weight. And I was still eating pasta and chocolate. I was young. And then obviously puberty hit and that changes things. But I told myself I never want to get to that point. So when I first heard that first comment of, you need to lose weight, I took things to too much of an extreme from that prior conditioning. That’s where I was overtraining, waking up at 6 a.m. to hop on the treadmill, trying not to eat, doing keto, juicing, shake diets, carnivore, everything you can name.
And that constant jumping up and down on the scale and never actually seeing sustainable results was really getting the better of me. I was still comparing myself to all these beautiful, thin girls who had the perfect dancer body. And it’s funny, because when I speak to them now, they say, my god, I felt exactly how you felt. I think a lot of us feel that internally, dancer or not. It was definitely a mental game and also a physical one, and I had no idea what was going on.
Megan (04:07)
That compare and despair really gets so many of us. There is so much variability in bodies, in genetics, in diet, in lifestyle, in environmental factors, especially in puberty. I was feeling a lot of those things too, but I wasn’t dancing. There wasn’t a mirror in front of me. There wasn’t a room full of women all moving their bodies in a certain way to compare against. So I can only imagine the magnification that brought.
Through everything you talk about, you make a really strong case that restriction is actually making weight loss harder. And it sounds like you found that out from personal experience. Can you walk us through what’s actually happening when women cut calories significantly, and why their body is not responding the way they expect?
Morgana (05:06)
I always talk about the diet culture loop. It’s a feedback loop, and that’s why we always start a new diet every couple of months. A lot of diet culture is rooted in starvation and restriction and that eat less, move more mindset. You can do that for a set period of time, but your biology will always get the better of you. Yes, we say mind over matter, but your biology is just so strong.
A lot of people fall off track and say, I don’t have enough willpower. And I’m putting willpower in quotation marks here, because it’s not about willpower. It’s just the wrong strategy. So they fall off and start bingeing and then feel really bad about themselves, and that sparks the restart. Okay, I need a new diet. And you’re back in that loop, constantly going through this pattern of, I feel great, I’m seeing results, I can’t do this anymore, guilt and shame, and then back on the spiral. That’s why it’s not built to last.
When we seriously restrict calories as women, that whole eat less, move more mindset is rooted in male biology. The studies we have used for many decades were done on men. They never tested on women who are in their childbearing years and still cycling, because our hormones change every day. And that was then taught to us as though it applied to everyone. That’s why we see rising cases of hormonal conditions and stubborn hormonal weight.
Our hormones, as women, they respond to sufficient macros. Healthy fats literally build your sex hormones. You need complex carbohydrates to protect your ovulation. Most diets cut out carbohydrates and put your ovulation at risk. We hear about women losing their periods for years during extreme calorie deprivation because it does not work with hormonal health.
Over time, you store more hormonal weight because of what I call a safety mechanism. When you put your body under extreme stress, when it doesn’t know when it’s going to eat and have enough fuel and energy, it stores more fat for safety because your body will always prioritize survival and reproduction. When it’s in a survival state, it is going to want to keep you alive. So you’re storing that fat for later use.
THE 90S DIET CULTURE PROGRAMMING AND THE PEPTIDE QUESTION
Megan (08:01)
A lot of women in our audience know exactly what you’re talking about with this loop, because we all grew up in the nineties. It was low fat, low calorie. I remember those Snackwells, the hundred calorie snacks. The messaging was just bananas, and it was not being marketed to men. This was all for women specifically, because they’re the shoppers, and they’re the ones who supposedly needed these teeny tiny little snacks.
But that programming stays with you. Even if you absorb it as a teenager, as an adult you’re looping through keto, paleo, carnivore, all of these things. So that begs the question: what do you think is actually driving women to keep going through this cycle? Because it doesn’t seem like it’s just about weight loss. It seems like there’s something else in there.
Morgana (08:59)
In my opinion, the next thing has already started. And I don’t want to comment too much on this because I’ve never used them myself. I always like to speak on things I’ve done and tried. But I feel like peptides are the new thing: Ozempic, Wegovy, these types of weight loss peptides. Now they do have benefits, and peptides are amazing. But I always say you should only be introducing something that isn’t coming from a natural way unless you have your foundations in place. If you’re not eating right, if you’re not strength training, if you’re not sleeping well, if you’re not protecting your blood sugar levels, no drug is going to create that for you long term.
That’s why we’re seeing this wave of people using Ozempic where they lose so much weight that they’re losing muscle mass, and they’re not strength training or getting enough protein on top of that. What happens when you go off of it? You’ve really slowed your metabolism down, because muscle is your most metabolically active tissue. We see a lot of sarcopenia, a lot of muscle loss, and then people gain back more weight much more quickly because it’s not muscle weight. You’re putting on fat because you don’t have the muscle there to support you.
Megan (10:33)
I support lots of clients through the peptide journey, and the things we talk about are exactly what you said: getting protein down, managing blood sugar, sleep, rest, the foundational pieces. Because the medication is not going to work as well, or last as long, without those foundations in place.
What you just described, where people are losing muscle mass, their biggest metabolic engine, is especially significant for women in perimenopause. When that hormonal shift happens, insulin and cortisol both play a role in blood sugar regulation alongside estrogen and progesterone. As we lose those hormones, we become less metabolically fit and more insulin resistant. And if we lose our metabolic engine through extreme caloric restriction, it’s not the peptides causing the problem, it is the weight loss. Anytime you lose a massive amount of weight quickly, whether through bariatric surgery, extreme caloric restriction, or peptides, if you’re not managing it with strength training and protein, you lose muscle far more than fat. There is actually a recent Harvard study looking at this, showing roughly 30% muscle loss in people on these medications. That is something people need to be paying attention to.
NERVOUS SYSTEM, CORTISOL, AND THE REAL DRIVERS OF STUBBORN BELLY FAT
Megan (12:22)
You talk a lot about nervous system support when it comes to managing weight loss in midlife, and it seems like for you and your clients this is a non-negotiable. Can you explain what changes when a woman is chronically in fight or flight versus when she is balanced and regulated?
Morgana (12:44)
This is such a sneaky one, because as women, especially high-achieving women, we are always in go, go, go. And we just keep doing regardless of how we feel. I’ve had adrenal burnout sneak up on me and show up in my labs, and I had no idea. I teach this stuff, and I still had no idea. It can be a very sneaky one.
It is a non-negotiable because the three main drivers of stubborn belly fat are: one, the insulin piece; two, estrogen dominance, which can go very erratic in the early stages of perimenopause; and three, chronic high cortisol. And I see all three with every single client, even when they say, no, I feel good. We’re still going to do nervous system regulation, because it is so ingrained in who we are as women to just go.
A lot of women are praised for being selfless. I think perimenopause is a beautiful way that your body asks you to start prioritizing yourself again. It’s your body saying, okay, this is my new stage of life, and I am number one. And you have to support it.
There are different ways to do this. From a physical standpoint, we can improve vagal tone, which is your vagus nerve, running between your brain and your gut, enacting your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest and digest. You can stimulate this through chanting, laughter, being in social settings, gargling, deep diaphragmatic breathing. All of these stimulate it through vibration and put you in your parasympathetic nervous system.
There are also longer-term methods to build into your schedule: meditation, a morning routine, gratitude journaling. And it does not need to be a two-hour morning routine. Mine is 20 minutes. Find what works for you.
And then the one that really moves the needle the most, and is the hardest for women to do: set boundaries over your time. We are constantly saying yes. Is that impeding on your time to pour into your own cup? Creating boundaries, learning to say no to things that don’t bring joy or positivity into your life. When you run your own business, you have a lot of say over your time, which is a good thing and a bad thing. I used to work all week and all weekend. Now I have a clear stop: Saturday and Sunday, I do a little admin, but I’m not taking calls, I’m not doing everything else. Setting boundaries over your time is the one that shifts the needle the most, but it’s the most long-term one to see results.
MEGAN’S REFLECTION ON BURNOUT
Megan (16:12)
I really resonate with the boundary piece. I run my own business and have that same experience: I control all of my time, and somehow that turned into working all the time, with no divider between weekdays and weekends. And then you grind and grind until you hit the edge of burnout. Which it sounds like you have done several times. I have done this before. It is terrible, people. Do not do it. Not recommended.
PART 1 OUTRO
Megan (16:45)
We are going to pause right here because I want you to marinate on what Morgana just said about your nervous system and your body holding onto fat as a safety mechanism, not as a sign that there is something wrong with you. That is such an important reframe. All the links for Morgana, her book, her Instagram, and the 90-Day Shed are in the show notes. Part two drops on Wednesday and we are going deep on sleep, the 2 a.m. wakeup, and exactly what is happening in your body when you bolt awake in the middle of the night convinced the world is ending. It’s not, but your cortisol has some thoughts. I’ll see you there.
Megan Pfiffner (17:26)
Can you do me a favor? If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with one woman in your life who needs a different story about perimenopause. Our bodies didn’t come with a user manual, and this perimenopause thing can feel confusing and lonely. But you are not alone. You are not crazy, and you are definitely not broken. And maybe someone in your life needs that reminder today. Let’s spread the word and be kind to each other and ourselves.
Now the legal bit. I’m a nutritionist, but I’m not your nutritionist. This podcast is for information and education only. No client relationship is formed. Always seek medical advice when necessary. I’ll see you next Wednesday morning.
