Hit Play Not Pause

In this special episode, your Feisty Women's Performance podcast host Dr. Erin Ayala brings together a group of experts on mental health to talk about the science and psychology of stress and collective trauma. Along with being a sports psychologist & therapist in her own right, Erin also lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota — which has been at the center of the news over the last month since it be...

Exercise is supposed to be healthy—but when does dedication cross into compulsion? In this episode, we sat down with sports psychologist and new host of the Feisty Women’s Performance Podcast, Dr. Erin Ayala to explore the murky, often misunderstood concept of exercise addiction. We unpack why it’s not an official diagnosis, how it overlaps with perfectionism, anxiety, body image, and control, and...

This week we welcome back protein and fat-loss researcher Dr. Bill Campbell to unpack early findings from what may be the largest menopause fitness survey to date, designed to finally study women who actively train. We dive into what thousands of fit midlife women report about calorie and protein intake, hormone therapy use, and the widely felt—but poorly studied—experience of weight-loss resistan...

When the first signs of menopause hit, the temptation can be strong to throw everything we have at it–all the supplements, all the hacks, all the hormones. But not everything is right for everyone, and doing too much at once can backfire, leaving you feeling worse, lighter in the wallet, or both. This week, we take a more measured, targeted approach with pharmacist, nutritionist, and certified men...

“ Carbs are evil.” As we usher in 2026, and as endurance athletes around the globe are stuffing down as many carbohydrates per hour as humanly possible to supercharge their performance, this week’s guest, sports dietitian Kristen Arnold, still manages misconceptions, especially from her midlife clients, that carbohydrates are something to be cut from the diet. Nothing could be further from the tru...

This episode originally dropped on: March 19, 2025 Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to shrink ourselves. We grew up being told you could never be too thin. As athletes, especially in endurance sports, smaller, lighter, faster was the ethos of the day. That is changing as we see athletes, especially women, discover that being fueled and strong yields even better performance–and longevity. Th...

This episode originally dropped on: June 2, 2025 When some of the biggest names in menopause medicine want to learn to lift heavy, they turn to this week’s guest, Nike Master Trainer and midlife fitness advocate Holly Rilinger, founder of the LIFTED Method. Because Holly gets it. She’s been through her own journey with damaging diet culture, body image issues, and a challenging perimenopause that...

As we wrap up 2025 and start dreaming about our goals for the New Year, this week’s guest, ultracyclist Paula Ralph, has one simple message: Just go for it. We often wait until we’re 100% ready—which usually means we never start. But whether you succeed or fall short, you’ll be better for having tried. Paula knows this firsthand. She set out to break a world record riding solo from Cape Town, Sout...

Are you burned out? Or just in a rough patch? Is it perimenopause, depression, or some messy mix of well, everything? In this episode, we’re joined by sports psychologist and endurance athlete Dr. Erin Ayala to unpack athletic burnout in midlife women—what it is, how it shows up, how it overlaps with perimenopause and mood changes, and how to tell it apart from being overreached, under-fueled, or...

As active women, muscle is the engine that powers us through our lives, no matter what sport we love. When we hit midlife and menopause, it can feel like that 8-cylinder engine drops to six—less punch when we hit the gas, even though we’re still training. We may notice less muscle and more body fat when we look in the mirror. Muscle and strength loss during the menopause transition is multifactori...

The menopause transition is a critical tipping point for bone health. Bone loss accelerates rapidly in late perimenopause and continues for roughly 3 to 5 years after menopause begins–a window in which some women lose up to 20% of their total bone mass. For too long, society accepted this decline as inevitable. That fragility is our fate. That as women, our stature–and our lives and our worlds–jus...

Unpredictable cycles. Sleepless nights. Mood swings. Body composition changes. And performance that mirrors all of it. During the menopause transition, you never quite know which body will show up on any given day. As this week’s guest menopause run and strength coach Becky Croft explains, you can still get stronger and faster, but it won’t come from constantly pushing through or grinding it out....

Our ligaments, tendons, and overall musculoskeletal system can take a real hit during the menopause transition, making injuries more frequent and recovery slower. Too often, practitioners still overlook common issues like tendinopathies—leaving women to live with unnecessary pain before getting an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. This week’s guest, former pro triathlete and licensed mas...

Grazing. Chronic stress. Poor sleep. Rushed meals. Sitting for long hours. Underfueled workouts. Estrogen decline. There’s a lot more behind our fasting glucose and A1C than how many carbs we eat. This week we return to one of the most consistently requested topics: blood sugar meaning and management with Liz McKinney, CNS, LDN. We explore what glucose spikes really mean, why time-in-range and var...

We asked for your big questions on hormone therapy–and an avalanche ensued! This week, after 5+ years of Hit Play Not Pause, we’re doing a level set on hormone therapy. This week’s guest, nationally-recognized menopause expert Lauren Streicher, MD, digs into hormone therapy research, what it tells us and what it doesn't, why formulations matter, perimenopause versus postmenopause therapy, the card...

At 46, professional off-road cyclist and coach Serena Bishop Gordon has redefined what she thought was possible—physically, mentally, and emotionally. From second place at this year’s Unbound XL (360 miles in 22:19:56 hours) to multiple podiums at Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder, Serena shares how she’s learned to let go of limits, release outcomes, and lean into curiosity. We dive into the mental shi...

When amateur boxer Jessica D'Abrosca entered perimenopause, she didn’t know what hit her. The exhaustion. The night sweats. The joint pain. She felt like she was unraveling. Then she found our community and studied up on this new opponent perimenopause and its hormonal haymakers and learned how she could fight back with training, diet, and lifestyle adjustments. Today, she’s still in the ring. Thi...

We’re told stress (looking at you cortisol) is the enemy in midlife—but that’s too simple. In the right dose (and with real recovery), stress is good medicine that builds resilience and makes us stronger, in sport, at work, and in life. In this episode, we dive into the “stress that helps” with Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist—physician, researcher, and author of The Stress Paradox . We break down horm...

The next wave of menopausal women is here. Millennials (born 1981–1996)—with the oldest now 44—are marching into the transition. And no, they’re not “all set.” They’re still running into poor care, confusion about hormone therapy, and real mental-health turbulence. Many are also rolling straight from postpartum into perimenopause—stacking new physical and emotional challenges. This week’s guest, l...

Kim Beckinsale and Alina McMaster, both in their mid-50s, race with Mountain Designs Wild Women, along with their teammates Cass Kimlin and Del Lloyd, who are both over 40. The team made history last year by becoming the first all-female team to win the 450 km Legend Expedition Race along Australia’s Great Ocean Road, finishing in 73:09:27 and outracing men half their age. They unpack how women-on...

Eighty percent of us will develop fibroids by age 50–making them an epidemic nobody talks about. Tennis legend Venus Williams, 45, has recently spoken up about the debilitating pain, fatigue, and heavy bleeding she suffered with due to fibroids for literally decades. This week we talk with the doctor who finally helped her find relief, Dr. Taraneh Shirazian, Founder and Director of the Center for...

Buckle up for a trip (pun intended) into the midlife brain. This week we sit down with neuroscientist Dr. Grace Blest-Hopley to connect the dots between cannabinoids, psychedelics, trauma, and the menopause transition. We cover CBD/THC for sleep, anxiety, pain, and inflammation; how the endocannabinoid system works, and how psychedelics like psilocybin act on serotonin pathways, reduce neuroinflam...

Growing up in sport, this week’s guest was often told her body wasn’t “right”—too muscular, not tall enough, never thin enough—and those messages followed her into adulthood through the pressures of work, marriage, motherhood, and loss. Her turning point came in a hotel gym, where she discovered the power of fueling well, eating enough protein, and lifting heavy. What began as a shift from self-me...

At 65, Diane Grim was the oldest woman competing at the Western States 100–widely considered one of the toughest organized trail runs in the United States–this year. It was her first ever 100 miler and she didn’t even start running till she was in her 50s, but as she says, every mile, every step is a gift, so why not? She didn’t have the day she hoped for, but she left filled with pride, hope of b...

She did it. At 10:06 a.m. on May 24th, two-time guest Jeannette McGill stood on top of the world. Jeannette, 52, summited Mount Everest after three years of navigating hot flashes, heavy, erratic periods, joint pain, stubborn injuries, brain fog, and maybe most difficult of all for a high altitude mountaineer–newfound fear that made tasks that once came easily feel overwhelming. Along the way, inc...