About Happy Ever After Menopause

Happy Ever After Menopause is about the bit nobody warns you about.

The hot flushes calm down. Life stops being quite so chaotic. Everyone acts like you should be absolutely fine now.

But instead you're standing there thinking, hang on, I'm heavier than I've ever been, I'm knackered for no obvious reason, and my spark appears to have left without telling me where it was going.

Is this all there is for me now?

No. It's not.

This is where we sort that out.

With straight talking, real science in plain English, a lot of laughs, and absolutely zero patience for wellness wankery, it's time to get your weight, your energy, and your sense of self back in a way that actually works for the body you've got right now.

Not the body you had at 35.

This one. The one that's been through the wringer the last 10 years.

This website is also the spiritual home of the Facebook Page, The Can't Be Arsed Club For Women Over 50 — where 1000’s of women are already doing exactly that.

With swearing, solidarity, and the occasional cat.

Because the next 20 or 30 years shouldn’t just be about “getting through.”

They should feel good.

They should feel like yours.

Happy Ever After Menopause. The Story So Far...

Hello. I’m Janette.

Former World Champion Kazoo Player in the Majorettes!!

(Which is exactly as impressive as it sounds… if you’re 14.)

At the time I assumed it was the beginning of a glittering career in show business. As it turns out, it may have been the peak of my musical achievements.

But it did leave me with one lifelong belief, that I was destined for something a bit bigger than working all week just to pay bills or make someone else rich. It’s taken me a few decades, several questionable career decisions, and a pair of ovaries that have now officially retired… but I still believe that.

For me. And for you.

Anyway, if you’re wondering how a retired kazoo champion ended up here — pull up a chair.

All About Janette

(Or: A Reluctant Explanation of Who I Am and Why You’re Here)

Let’s get one thing straight.

I HATE ABOUT PAGES!!

They always sound like someone standing up at a training day clutching a lukewarm coffee saying:

“Hi, I’m Janette and I’m passionate about empowering women through transformational wellbeing frameworks”.

I am not passionate about that sentence. I’m barely passionate about standing up. So instead, here’s the truth....

Hiya

I’m Janette - cat lover, former entertainer, proud and slightly gobby Northerner, living in Devon for the last 36 years but I’ve never lost the accent. Deliberately.

Owner of big pants, strong opinions and a rapidly diminishing tolerance for nonsense.

My weight has gone up and down like a fiddler’s elbow for most of my life, which means I understand exactly how frustrating it is when your body suddenly decides to start playing by completely different rules. And right now I’m properly tackling it, because I’d quite like the next 30 years of my life to involve a bit more living and a bit less wheezing.

The Early Years

(Or: A Series of Questionable Career Decisions)

At 17 I auditioned to be a television presenter. I didn’t get the job because apparently too much gum showed when I smiled.

Cheeky sod.

At 18 I ran away from home to join the circus.

Alright… that bit’s a fib.

But I did go to work as an entertainer on a holiday park. And honestly? It was the most fun job I’ve ever had. I sang, danced, hosted shows, organised events and eventually worked my way up to Entertainment Manager on one of the largest holiday parks in the country.

Then came the phrase that ruins many perfectly good lives:

“You should grow up and get a proper job now.”

The “Grown-Up” Years

Despite knowing that, I did what most of us do and got a series of respectable jobs. Management. Sales and Marketing. Hospitality. All perfectly sensible careers.

Eventually though, life nudged me back to where I actually belonged. Entertainment and Events. This time managing a theatre, which I did for 13 years. But all those years there was always a little voice in the back of my head saying: surely life can’t just be this, there must be more. More laughter. More adventure. More living.

I still believe that now, for all of us, whatever our age.

Why I Started Learning All This Stuff

Over the years I’ve become seriously fascinated with why we humans do the things we do. Why we comfort eat. Why confidence takes a battering as we get older. Why the moanapause turns perfectly sensible women into sweaty, forgetful lunatics.

So I started studying it. Not because I wanted to become some sort of wellness guru. Just because I genuinely wanted to understand what was happening to me.

Over the years I’ve trained in:

Weight Counselling
Hypnotherapy
Menopause Symptom Management
Level 3 Nutrition

COMING SOON!

A review of some of the best selling self help books from the last 40 years, written in Can't Be Arsed Club style.

The Weight Bit

(Because Let’s Not Pretend)

If I’m being completely honest, my weight has been a lifelong battle. Up. Down. Up again. Down again. Sometimes I lost a bit. Sometimes I lost a lot. And sometimes I found even more again.

You name the diet, I’ve probably tried it.

There was the cabbage soup diet, which mainly resulted in me farting so much my friends temporarily put me into social exile. Then the eggs and grapefruit diet — that one also did nothing for my social life. Soups and shakes worked great while I was having them, but crikey they mess you up when you stop and to be honest, my metabolism never really recovered.

And at one point I tried those tablets that were supposed to stop your body absorbing fat. Which technically worked. Unfortunately the fat had to leave your body somehow… and it did so by leaking from my bum like a bright orange oil slick while I was wearing white jeans on the bus home from town.

Not my finest era.

So believe me when I say I understand the frustration. Because when you’re carrying a serious amount of extra weight — not just a few pounds — it effects everything.

And at this stage of life it stops being just about appearance. It becomes about health. About not playing Russian Roulette with your future. About sorting it out before the doctor starts using words you really don’t want attached to your name.

Not Happy With Your Body…
But Done With Diets?

Not just the weight...

The avoiding mirrors.

The pretending you’re fine.

The quiet thought of… is this just me now?

I get it. I’m not standing on the sidelines. I’m in it too.

Shift Happens™ is the 28-day weight loss and transformation programme I created for myself. Significantly overweight, fed up of trying, done with being sold approaches designed for someone half my age with a completely different body. It worked. So I opened the door and invited other women in.

Real food. Proper portions. No judgement. And me in your inbox every single day — making you laugh, keeping you going, and telling you the truth even when it’s a bit uncomfortable.

£97 one-off. New cohorts start 1st and 15th.

SO NOW IT'S TIME FOR ACTION!

The Can't Be Arsed Fat Loss Club For Women Over 50

With me. The Fat Fat Loss Coach.

It's coming soon. And it's going to be MASSIVE. Pun very much intended.

Years ago I qualified as a weight loss counsellor.... then promptly went on one of those meal replacement diets and ended up about 8 stone heavier than when I bloody started!

I know. Not exactly the inspirational before and after you were hoping for.

But here's the thing. After menopause, carrying a lot of extra weight stops being just uncomfortable and starts being genuinely dangerous. And most of the advice out there is still designed for a younger body with completely different hormones. No wonder none of it's working.

So I've gone back to studying. Properly. Full nutrition qualification. Combined with the weight loss counselling I already have, I can finally build something that actually makes sense for women like us.

Women who can't be arsed with diets that make them miserable. Can't be arsed with guilt. And definitely can't be arsed with that horrible little voice (I call min Twatelina) in their head telling them they've ruined everything and are a failure all because they ate a KitKat.

No fads. No starvation. No wellness wankery.

We can’t be arsed with that nonsense anymore.

Just proper food, proper support, and a way of eating that works with the body you've actually got.

Will contain laughter. Obviously.

Watch this space.

Some of you might already know me from The Can’t Be Arsed Club for Women Over 50 on Facebook.

What started as a daft page has turned into a community of tens of thousands of brilliant, funny, slightly sweary women navigating life after 50 together. It’s basically the place where women gather when the moanapause is technically over… but the “normal” we were promised never actually came back.

Expect rants, big pants, humour, straight-talking conversations, and a healthy amount of swearing. No perfection. No preaching. Just women figuring it out together.

The Can't be Arsed Club - For Women Over 50 who are sick of hearing moanapause stories and can’t be arsed with anti-ageing nonsense or being told they’re past it...

Happy Ever After Menopause — The Next Chapter is its spiritual home. The place where the Can’t Be Arsed Club comes to actually live its best life.

Join The Can’t Be Arsed Club FREE on Facebook