Functional Strength Training, Nutrition & Midlife Reset | Katalin Rodriguez Ogren

Katalin Rodriguez Ogren is a certified badass. She's owned POW Gym in Chicago's West Loop for 25 years — the first boutique gym in the city still standing after that long. She's a lifelong martial artist who played the female ninjas in Mortal Kombat 2. And she just wrote a book on nutrition for menopause.

Why? Because when her perimenopause symptoms got severe, her GP handed her marriage counseling referrals.

For her hormones.

Marriage counseling.

We've all been there in some form, and we're all tired of it. Katalin got tired enough to write a whole book.

In this episode, Katalin and I get into what's actually happening in your body during menopause — and what to do about it. Estrogen decline messes with protein synthesis and insulin sensitivity in ways most of us were never told about. Most midlife women are chronically under-eating protein (Katalin's floor is 30 grams per meal — not a suggestion). And functional strength training is nothing like what most gyms are selling you.

The bottom line: midlife is a metabolic reset. Not a decline. But you have to know what levers to pull.

We cover:

• What functional strength training actually is — and why it's not what you're probably doing

• How estrogen decline affects protein synthesis and insulin sensitivity

• Why most midlife women aren't eating enough protein — and what 30g per meal looks like in real life

• How small nutrition wins compound over time

• Why midlife is a reset, not a decline

• Movement as the long game for staying independent as you age