Hotness

I hear some version of this from women all the time: my husband is exhausted, his blood sugar is creeping up, and his doctor won't even check his testosterone. Dr. Mark Jankowske is the men's health counterpart to what I do, and I wanted him to explain why men get the same ‘your labs are normal’ brush-off women do. Mark's own story starts with football. When college sports ended and th...

Picture a college president in full academic regalia, covered from chin to wrists. Now picture that same woman at 71, on a bodybuilding stage in a crop top. That's Dr. Maria Cristina Sheehan. After 20 years running a college, she was watching colleagues slow down, gain weight, and develop heart problems, and a couple of them died at their desks. Her family has longevity, and she realized that...

Solo travel was never on my list. I've traveled my whole life, almost always with family or to visit family, so landing in Las Vegas on my own for a business meeting has been an eye-opener. You make every call yourself, right down to what's for dinner and when. That turns out to be a quick way to build confidence, and confidence is what this third round of Dating in the Wild is about. Ask...

I have known Jen Rowell for 12 years, which means she has had her hands on my face for the whole of my own midlife. So when I asked her what she sees happening to women's skin in their forties and fifties, she did not hand me a list of products. She started underneath. Oil production drops and cell turnover slows way down, and her image for the rest of it is that the face starts making its way...

Here is the line I want you to keep: "Normal is not optimal." Donna White has spent over 30 years teaching providers how to do hormones properly, and her example stopped me. A lab range for testosterone might run from around 300 up past 1,000. Come in at 352 and you are, officially, normal. Nobody calls and nothing happens. But most people there do not feel good. Swap in almost any hormo...

Two things women tell me in the exam room, almost word for word. The first is that they would be fine if they never had sex again. The second is that their partner is very understanding. What I do not say out loud is that understanding has a shelf life, and that libido was never only about sex in the first place. It is about intimacy and connection in a partnership, and it is about intimacy and co...

Here is what I want you to sit with: my guest is 77 and radiantly, unapologetically alive. Dr. Elsbeth Meuth is the co-founder of the TantraNova Institute, and she is one of my favorite people to talk to about the thing my whole message is built on: feeling alive at every age. Elsbeth reframes tantra right at the top, not as a set of techniques, but as the original yoga of the energetic body, a wa...

Here is the truth no one told us: time does not heal. We say it to each other constantly, and it is one of the kindest sounding, least helpful things we pass around. On this Midlife Plot Twist, I go straight at it. By the time we reach midlife, every one of us is carrying loss, and often a layer of unresolved pain underneath it, and that weight does not just sit quietly. It shows up in our energy,...

Leah Piper opens this one with the cleanest definition of Tantra I have heard: the yoga of the bedroom. A solo practice for learning your own instrument, and a partnered one for playing with the band. Then she takes apart the three things she sees people do that quietly work against them. Making the orgasm the goal, which turns the whole thing into a test you can fail. Holding your breath right at...

Women come to my practice having spent a year, sometimes longer, going from the joint specialist to the surgeon to the pain doctor. Frozen shoulder. Hip pain. Knee pain. Heel pain. That stiffness getting out of bed that absolutely did not used to be there. And what almost none of them have been told is that the timing is not a coincidence, because the hormones that were quietly holding their tissu...

On this episode, I sit down with nutritionist and fitness trainer Anna Jamtaas to get specific about what works for women in midlife. We talk protein, and why most of us are eating far less than we need, along with Anna's practical way to build up to it without force-feeding yourself eggs. We get into blood sugar and her no naked carbs rule, the healthy fats so many women still fear, and the m...

In this one, Dr. Willow Brown and I go straight to the root, literally. She teaches Taoist sexology, the idea that we're not separate from nature but made of the same rhythms: contraction and expansion, yin and yang, the same pull that runs our hormones every month. For women past the monthly cycle, she has a reframe I loved. You're no longer on a moon-womb cycle, you're on a moon-in-t...

If you've hit midlife and felt the quiet pressure to shrink, slow down, or settle, Jana Short is the antidote. In this episode of Hotness , I sit down with my friend Jana, and I'll be honest, I got chills more than once. She's 65, runs a magazine read by millions, recently went back to school to learn AI, and has zero interest in slowing down. We talk about why she sees aging as an ope...

For two years, my hip hurt and nothing helped. I saw orthopedic surgeons and pain doctors, I had the X-rays and the MRIs, I did the physical therapy, and I barely moved the needle. Then I went outside my insurance to Stephania Humphrey, and within a couple of gentle sessions I felt dramatically better. Years later, it has held. In this episode of Hotness, I finally got to ask her how she does it....

This is the second round of Dating in the Wild, and this time I’m handing you my playbook. I call them rules, but really they’re guidelines, the ones that have kept my own dating life low-drama and honestly really fun. First truth: online dating is not dating. It’s meeting. So stop living in the messages and go meet the person. You can’t tell what someone smells like, or what their teeth really lo...

That 'is this all there is?' feeling can sneak in after years of doing, giving, working, mothering, managing, and being the strong one. In this episode of Hotness , Dr. Liz speaks with Rev. Lynn LaBorde about why many women begin asking deeper questions about purpose, desire, safety, sensuality, and who they are beyond their roles. Lynn shares her view of divine feminine energy, receiving...

Midlife is a whole-body experience. So no, your gut, hormones, skin, waistline, energy, libido, and mood are not living in separate little boxes. In this episode of Hotness , Dr. Liz speaks with Amber Ross about why gut health matters so much for women in midlife. They talk about inflammation, insulin swings, constipation, liver support, detox, the gut's role in hormone processing, and why hor...

Anger is not the enemy. It’s a signal. The problem starts when anger turns into yelling, shutting down, blaming, or trying to hurt the other person back. In this episode of Hotness , Dr. Liz speaks with Paul Gutrecht, LMFT about why 'anger management' should really be called 'angry behavior management,' and how couples can handle conflict without losing the whole point of the conve...

No libido does not mean you are broken. It may mean your body, hormones, comfort, stress, and sense of safety all need a better setup. In this spicy science episode of Hotness, Dr. Liz talks about why desire can go quiet in midlife and why the answer is not just 'try harder,' 'use lube,' or 'take testosterone.' She breaks down pain, dryness, hormone shifts, sleep, mood, blo...

The answer might not be more Kegels.  In this episode of Hotness , Dr. Liz Lyster speaks with pelvic floor physical therapist Julie Bottarini about the many ways the pelvic floor connects to core stability, bladder and bowel function, sexual health, pregnancy, postpartum recovery, menopause, and intimacy. They also explore why pelvic floor therapy can involve both strengthening and relaxation, how...

Dating again in midlife can feel like a plot twist you never asked for, but it can also bring unexpected aliveness. In this episode of Hotness , Dr. Liz Lyster shares her personal experience returning to dating after the loss of her husband, reflecting on how grief recovery, self-awareness, and openness helped her step back into connection in a way that feels more embodied and less performative th...

Midlife can become a powerful return to the self after years of roles, expectations, and serving others. In this episode of Hotness, Dr. Liz Lyster speaks with Naomi Bareket about values, subconscious programming, intimacy, spirituality, and the inner work that helps women reconnect with their authentic selves. Naomi shares how limiting beliefs, shame, old emotional patterns, and unconscious habit...

Some of the deepest midlife pain does not always look dramatic, but that does not make it any less real. In this episode of Hotness , Dr. Liz Lyster introduces the idea that grief is a normal and natural response to loss, and that many women in midlife may be carrying dozens of losses that were never named, acknowledged, or fully processed. These can include shifts in identity, health, energy, fer...

What if the reason you still feel anxious, reactive, or stuck… isn’t because you haven’t done enough work—but because your body hasn’t caught up yet? In this episode of Hotness , Dr. Liz Lyster speaks with Dr. Karin Sponholz about the deeper reality of trauma and how it lives in the nervous system. They explore why insight alone doesn’t create healing, how the body holds unresolved experiences, an...

This stage of life is not about slowing down. It is about reconnecting to what makes you feel alive. In this Hotness bonus episode, Dr. Liz shares what is coming next on the podcast, including a lineup of expert guests and new recurring segments designed to support women in midlife. She introduces upcoming conversations with specialists in trauma, communication, pelvic health, and functional medic...