By the time she’d reached her late thirties, Terry Tateossian had it all. The self-made entrepreneur was running Socialfix Media, a technology and marketing agency she'd founded. She oversaw a portfolio that included some of the world's biggest companies. When Tateossian wasn't at work, she was caring for her two young children.
But the strain of working 16-hour days while managing 40 full-time employees, dozens of contractors, and two kids — along with the constant travel — was taking a toll on her mind and body. “There was no time to go to the gym. I was a sedentary type and I sat most of the day,” she says. “At conferences, trade shows, and clients’ offices, I just ate what they gave me. And I was drinking a lot of alcohol.”
The lack of exercise and unhealthy diet was weighing on her — literally. At age 37, Tateossian was 5 foot 3 inches and 210 pounds. Her BMI was 37, which health professionals consider class 2 obesity.
She tried to lose the excess weight by trying various diets — whichever diet happened to be trending at the time. She stuck to each one for a while, then eventually dropped off when it became unsustainable and gained all the weight back.
Tateossian’s weight gain and lifestyle soon led to a health crisis, an urgent life evaluation, and a transformation that propelled her into an entirely different career path.
Emergency
One night, while digging through her freezer for a pint of ice cream, Tateossian felt a sharp pain in her chest. Figuring the pain would go away on its own, she didn't do anything. “Five minutes later, it kept getting worse and worse. I couldn't breathe,” she says. “I thought I was having a heart attack.”
In the ER, doctors couldn't find any evidence of a heart attack. In fact, they couldn’t find anything wrong with her. They gave her Xanax and sent her home with the advice to “rethink” her hectic lifestyle. “I didn't listen. I just kept going with the same work hours, [same] food, and no exercise,” Tateossian says.
Nine months later, she was back in the ER with another bout of intense chest pain. This time she was absolutely certain it was a heart attack. After running a full panel of tests, the doctors still found no evidence of a heart problem. A cardiologist told her that what she'd been experiencing are panic attacks.
Unbeknownst to her at the time, she also was in perimenopause. “I had a lot of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. I had extreme panic attacks, extreme mood swings, and I wasn't able to sleep,” she says.
Time for a Transformation: Fitness During Menopause
At age 42, Tateossian realized that if she didn't make some major changes in her life, she wouldn't be around to run a company and raise her two children. She decided it was time to regain control of her life.
Her first step was to contact Stephanie Solaris, a functional wellness specialist in Bedminster, New Jersey. “It was the first time somebody sat me down for two hours and asked me historical questions about my life, everything from birth to the present,” Tateossian says. “She woke me up to the fact that there was an emotional reason why I was overeating.”
Tateossian also learned that she was locked into a perfectionistic way of dieting. The more restrictive the diet she went on, the better. But the severe calorie restriction wasn't sustainable. Eventually, she'd always go back to overeating.
With Solaris’ help, Tateossian reframed her nutrition and fitness habits. She became more strategic about the protein, carb, and fat content of her meals. Rather than eating fat-heavy and nutrient-light foods like ice cream, Nutella, cheese, and a little bit of salad, she filled up on nutritionally balanced meals.
Instead of drastically cutting calories, she actually ate more than she did before — about 2,000 calories a day — but foods rich in healthy fats and protein, like Greek yogurt, egg whites, lean ground turkey, sweet potatoes, blueberries, nuts, avocados, and overnight oats. “I had to eat these big meals five times a day, so I was horrified at first,” she says. “I couldn't stop complaining that I was going to gain weight.”
Instead, she lost 7 pounds in the first month. "That's when everything shifted for me," she says. By eating five healthy meals a day and exercising (15 to 20 minutes of cardio per day, strength training four to five times a week, and yoga, Pilates, and walking), she dropped 80 pounds over the next nine months.
Tateossian got into the best shape of her life and no longer had the symptoms that had plagued her during perimenopause, all without the need for hormone replacement therapy (HRT). “I understand this may not be the case with many women, but lifestyle changes were the only thing I needed when I entered perimenopause. And, of course, reducing body fat,” she says. “My weight is holding steady, despite eating over 2,000 calories per day. I have no belly fat, and I sleep great!”
In 2025, at age 48, Tateossian got the chance to walk the runway at Paris Fashion Week, in the healthiest shape she'd ever been.
Paying It Forward
Inspired by her own journey, Tateossian decided to help other perimenopausal and menopausal women achieve their health and fitness goals. She got certified as a lifestyle medicine coach, personal trainer, and nutritionist. In 2022, she launched THOR: The House of Rose, a community offering wellness retreats and lifestyle coaching for women over 40.
Since then, Tateossian has coached more than 600 women in midlife, helping them to not only lose weight, but keep it off in a healthy, sustainable way. “When you learn how to feed yourself where you love your meals, you don't need to go back. You just keep going forward,” she says. “Maintaining weight loss signals that you have changed your habits. You have changed your mindset. You have rewired patterns in your brain that in the past would have triggered you to start overeating.”
Her advice for other women who are trying to break the weight gain and crash diet cycle? “The first thing is to be really honest,” she says. Audit your current way of eating. Have you been dieting for several years without losing weight? Are you an emotional eater? Keep a food diary for a week or two on paper or in a calorie tracking app. “If it goes in your mouth, it goes on the tracker,” says Tateossian.
She recommends tracking your macronutrients (macros) — the amount of protein, carbohydrates, and fats you're eating — using an app such as LoseIt or MyFitnessPal. “Macro tracking is not restrictive. … It's just like having a budget for your business,” she says. “Is there a balance, or are you in a deficit or in an overage?”
Evaluate other areas of your health, too. How often do you exercise? What do your workouts look like? How much sleep do you get each night? Tracking your diet and exercise patterns will show you where you need to make changes.
If you're not sure how to track your own patterns and make healthy changes, a health and wellness coach or registered dietitian nutritionist can help. Your coach can design a program that fits your goals and life stage, track your progress, and hold you accountable, just like her coach did, Tateossian says.
The Takeaway
Lifestyle changes during perimenopause can help reduce symptoms such as mood swings and sleep issues, though individual needs may vary.
A balanced approach to diet and exercise rather than extreme dieting can lead to long-term weight loss and well-being.
A registered dietitian-nutritionist or a health and wellness coach can provide insights and guidance for sustainable lifestyle changes.
Editor’s Note: Lose It! is owned by the Everyday Health Group.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Reyna Franco, RDN, is a New York City–based dietitian-nutritionist, certified specialist in sports dietetics, and certified personal trainer. She is a diplomate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and has a master's degree in nutrition and exercise physiology from Columbia University.
In her private practice, she provides medical nutrition therapy for weight management, sports nutrition, diabetes, cardiac disease, renal disease, gastrointestinal disorders, cancer, food allergies, eating disorders, and childhood nutrition. To serve her diverse patients, she demonstrates cultural sensitivity and knowledge of customary food practices. She applies the tenets of lifestyle medicine to reduce the risk of chronic disease and improve health outcomes for her patients.
Franco is also a corporate wellness consultant who conducts wellness counseling and seminars for organizations of every size. She taught sports nutrition to medical students at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, taught life cycle nutrition and nutrition counseling to undergraduate students at LaGuardia Community College, and precepts nutrition students and interns. She created the sports nutrition rotation for the New York Distance Dietetic Internship program.
She is the chair of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine's Registered Dietitian-Nutritionist Member Interest Group. She is also the treasurer and secretary of the New York State Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, having previously served in many other leadership roles for the organization, including as past president, awards committee chair, and grant committee chair, among others. She is active in the local Greater New York Dietetic Association and Long Island Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, too.
Stephanie Watson is a freelance health writer who has contributed to WebMD, AARP.org, BabyCenter, Forbes Health, Fortune Well, Time, Self, Arthritis Today, Greatist, Healthgrades, and HealthCentral. Previously, she was the executive editor of Harvard Women’s Health Watch and Mount Sinai’s Focus on Healthy Aging. She has also written more than 30 young adult books on subjects ranging from celebrity biographies to brain injuries in football.
