MICHELLE BRIDGES-'I'm proud to have come out the other side'

She's one of the most educated and connected health professionals, but when it came to her own menopause journey, Michelle Bridges was floundering. She reveals her struggle - and shares the lessons learned a result.

The second day in a row that Michelle Bridges “forgot” to exercise, she knew something was wrong. For months, she’d been feeling lethargic and unmotivated. While others might be tempted to brush this feeling off, for Michelle, a high-energy and intensely motivated woman whose body was her business, this was unfamiliar territory.

Michelle, 53, a former Les Mills trainer, first found fame as the tough yet compassionate fitness expert on the reality weight loss series, The Biggest Loser, in 2007 and has since built an empire aimed at helping women feel their best selves. She launched her popular 12WBT (12 Week Body Transformation) program of customisable diet and exercise routines in 2010, building a community of hundreds of thousands of eager subscribers who sing Michelle’s praises while sharing photos of their progress in online groups.

Many have stayed with the program since inception. Then, in recent years, Michelle began to notice calls for a new kind of content – to help women dealing with perimenopause and menopause – and she also began to look within.

“I just didn’t feel that it was a space I was ready to dabble in,” she tells The Weekly, speaking for the first time about her own experience. “And I don’t know if that was because I didn’t know if it would work in my model. And now, of course – when I’m authentically in that space myself – it makes perfect sense.”