A few months ago, I was doing what most of us do when we can't sleep: mindlessly scrolling through videos on my phone.

But then, one video stopped me.

The woman speaking was 63, the same age as me. She had also been through menopause. But as I listened, I realised her experience of this phase of life looked very different from mine.

While I was waking up with stiff joints, dealing with unexplained body aches and feeling exhausted long before the day was over, she was talking about trekking, scuba diving, marathon running and preparing for her next adventure.

I remember thinking, how can two women in the same stage of life feel so different?

Because if you'd asked me a year ago, I would have said what many women probably say: it's just age.

The aching knees when I got out of bed. The fatigue that arrived every afternoon without fail. The mood swings that seemed to appear out of nowhere. The constant feeling that my body wasn't keeping up with the life I still wanted to live.

I had assumed all of it was simply part of getting older. Something to tolerate. Something to accept.

And yet here was a woman my age who seemed to be experiencing this chapter of life very differently.

I wasn't looking for a miracle. I just wanted to understand what she knew that I didn't.

So I watched the entire video.

What I discovered sent me down a rabbit hole that completely changed the way I think about menopause, healthy ageing and one nutrient that millions of Indian women may be unknowingly missing.

That was my first thought too. As it turns out, sunlight alone isn't always enough.

As we age, our skin becomes less efficient at producing vitamin D. Add modern lifestyles, more time spent indoors, pollution and limited direct sun exposure, and deficiency becomes surprisingly common, even in sunny countries like India.

In fact, studies estimate that 50% to 90% of Indians may have insufficient vitamin D levels.

Suddenly, what I was experiencing didn't seem unusual anymore.

But I still wanted to know why the woman in that video seemed to be experiencing this phase of life so differently.

So I went back and watched it again.

By this point, I had started wondering whether I had somehow brought this on myself. Maybe I wasn't eating well enough. Maybe I should have paid more attention to my health over the years.

Then I came across nutritionist Khushboo Jain Tibrewala's perspective, and it was surprisingly reassuring.

According to Khushboo, many women experiencing low vitamin D levels are often doing a lot of things right. They're eating home-cooked meals, choosing nutritious foods, paying attention to protein intake and making conscious efforts to stay healthy.

The challenge is that vitamin D is unlike most other nutrients.

While a balanced diet remains the foundation of good health, vitamin D naturally occurs in very few foods and often in relatively small amounts. Even women who eat well and maintain otherwise healthy lifestyles may struggle to get enough of it through food alone.

That was a genuine lightbulb moment for me.

For years, I had assumed that eating well would automatically cover all my nutritional needs. Hearing a nutritionist explain that vitamin D is one of the few nutrients that often requires support beyond food made me look at the issue differently.

Suddenly, Susan's advice made much more sense.

This wasn't about replacing healthy habits. It wasn't about finding a shortcut. It was about recognising that after menopause, some nutritional needs change, and vitamin D is one nutrient that deserves special attention.

At that point, I thought I finally had the answer.

Eat well. Stay active. Get enough sunlight. Take a vitamin D supplement if needed.

Simple. Or so I thought.