Hit Play Not Pause

Frozen with fear. That’s how many active women can find themselves on mountain bike trails, ski slopes, and wherever they recreate as our hormones fluctuate and decline in the menopause transition. That’s something high altitude mountaineer Jeannette McGill knows all too well as she summits some of the tallest mountains in the world and sets her sights on Everest. She’s also come to learn that fea...

Menopause is a confusing, sometimes isolating time. We have more information than ever, but can still feel in the dark about exactly what’s going on and what we should or maybe shouldn’t be doing about it. To help, Feisty Menopause and Hit Play Not Pause host Selene Yeager have created an 8 week course called Navigate Menopause that guides women through menopause physiology, hormonal and other the...

Of all the things women worry about when it comes to hormone therapy, breast cancer, for many, tops the list. Our current understanding of breast cancer risk–even among at-risk women–has changed dramatically in recent years and continues to evolve. To fully understand hormone therapy and breast cancer risk, we need to understand that hormone therapy is not all the same, nor is breast cancer. There...

Many of us going through menopause at the moment were the latchkey kids of Generation X, who came of age without a whole lot of supervision and (though it certainly wasn’t all bad!), more than our share of angst, body image issues, eating disorders, and cultural BS about how women were supposed to look and behave. It wasn’t always easy, but it also taught us how to fend for ourselves, be resilient...

Many of us grew up with implicit–and sometimes explicit–messages to be small, both in our physical selves and in our power. Now, as we hit midlife, we’re increasingly rejecting those BS limitations and seeing just how powerful we can be. That’s exactly what two-time Olympian Gabrielle Rose did in her mid-40s when she set her sights on the 2024 Olympic Trials, were she achieved personal bests in bo...

Menopause can be challenging. Menopause for women who have been through trauma can be exponentially harder. Few know this better than political refugee and abuse survivor, Mirella Russell, one of the “House Wives” of Hip Hop who found hip hop dance when she was 40 and has used it to bring joy through her grief and struggles for the past 10 years. She’s joined this week by fellow team manager, Alex...

Women and girls have historically been overlooked when it comes to ADHD. Now experts understand that many girls and women do indeed have ADHD. It just looks different, and estrogen has a big role in how it plays out and in how we treat it, which becomes especially important once we hit the menopause transition. For women with ADHD–and many are just being diagnosed for the first time in midlife–the...

The New York Times recently called Ozempic a “new match for menopausal weight gain”. But is it? These drugs can be a godsend for those who need them. But there's a lot we need to understand. How do they work? How well do they work? Who benefits from them? What are their risks? What impact do they have on muscle, bone, and performance? How do they affect training and racing? We dig into all of...

*This episode originally dropped on January 3, 2024* As we roll into a brand new year filled with goals and aspirations, this week’s guest, fan-favorite Peloton Cycling instructor Christine D’Ercole would like to remind us that we are bigger than a smaller pair of pants, and the most powerful thing anyone can say to us is what we say to ourselves, and we have agency in that conversation. Now 52, C...

Midlife and menopause can be the perfect time to try something new (like as we talk about this week, mountain biking!...but also surfing, skiing, you name it). It frees you from the endless self comparison that can come after years (even decades) in the same sport and infuses you with the confidence that comes with tackling new challenges. And it’s never too late and you are never too old. With sk...

The conversation around hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms is pretty clear. Hormone therapy is the gold standard for treating hot flashes and night sweats and can help with many other common symptoms that come with the menopause transition. It’s very effective and broadly safe. But recently, the conversation has evolved past symptom management and into preventative health with many experts su...

Boy, oh boy, we women can really struggle to find good medical care–especially when we hit the menopause transition. And this week’s guest Erin Ferguson has experienced that firsthand. Erin went through multiple gynecological complications, surgeries, and hormonally-driven symptoms, including panic attacks, anxiety, weight gain, painful periods, severely disrupted sleep, hot flashes, night sweats,...

Nearly every one of us will go through some mourning with the changes that come with menopause. Even if we go on hormone therapy, which can help a ton, there is some loss that comes at this time. A loss of our reproductive selves. A loss of speed in our sport. A loss of our ability to quickly bounce back after hard workouts. A loss of some aspect of our health, wellness, or appearance. Some are bi...

Gynecological surgeries are extremely common. More 600,000 women get a hysterectomy each year in the US alone, and more than one-third of women will have had one by age 60. And often a woman is told that she’s “good to go” after a few weeks, when in reality, when it comes to her sport, she’s anything but, and she can struggle for months–or longer–because no one properly helped her rehab to return...

Supplements get a bad rap. And to be fair, there is a lot of trash out there. But there are some treasures, too, especially for midlife and menopausal women who often can use some extra help building bone, recovering from injuries, and hitting it hard during training and events. This week we break down the best ergogenic aids for active women in and beyond the menopause transition with Kristen Arn...

Menopause and age raise our cardiovascular disease risk. Athletes and highly active people also tend to have a higher prevalence of coronary artery calcium and atherosclerotic plaque (though it tends to be the benign kind). But what does that all mean? How can we know what’s really going on in those coronary arteries of ours? To find out, host Selene Yeager had a Cleerly-enabled coronary computed...

This week we bring you a special live show from UNBOUND Gravel in Emporia, KS, where we sat down with two legends in the sport of gravel cycling, UNBOUND Gravel co-founder Kristi Mohn and seven time world champion Rebecca Rusch to have an open, honest conversation about midlife and menopause, how we view things today, and what we want for the future. Spoiler alert: We’re not hanging it up anytime...

As active menopausal women, we get outright bombarded with ads for nutritional supplements. But what do we really need? This week, we take it down to brass tacks and hit the basics with registered dietitian nutritionist Katie Linville. We break it down on what we should know about calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, iron, and the other vitamins and minerals we’re often told to take as a matter of cours...

Sally “Sal” Edwards, now 76, is a pioneer in women’s sports. She qualified for the first women's marathon Olympic Trials in 1983 and is one of the original founders of USA Triathlon. She also brought heart rate and zone training to the mainstream. For 22 years, Sal served as the national spokeswoman for the Danskin Women's Triathlon Series volunteering to finish last as a professional triathlete s...

Be smaller. Be lighter. For our entire lives those messages have been drilled into us from every angle, including very often from those in our sports. We hear we need to be at “race weight.” We’re shown “idealized” images of what female athletes “should” look like. It’s all incredibly damaging, especially as we hit menopause and midlife and our bodies start to change. It’s also based on BS. Women...

If there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s pelvic floor health is a whole lot more than doing Kegel exercises. In fact, sometimes Kegels are the last thing you need. This week we look at pelvic floor health through the lens of Postural Restoration with pelvic floor physical therapist and Postural Restoration Certified (PRC) practitioner Hayley Kava, who talks us through anatomical and structural issu...

At 49, this week’s guest Sarah Max is the oldest rider in the Life Time Grand Prix, the biggest, hardest gravel and mountain bike race series on the planet. That was something Sarah didn’t always want to talk about. She didn’t want to be defined by her age and didn’t always love the attention it attracted. But she’s realized that while her age isn’t her “brand,” it is part of her story–and an impo...

Women’s brains are finally getting the research attention they deserve! While we sort out the role hormones play in our current and future cognitive health, it’s important to remember that estrogen is just one player in a lifelong host of factors impacting your brain, including education, intellectual engagement, diet and nutrition, exercise and fitness, hearing loss, head injuries, sleep, stress...

Cultural messages glorify youth as the best time of our lives. But that’s not what this week’s guest, Caroline Paul found while researching her wonderful book Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking―How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age . Instead, she found active, adventurous women praising their postmenopausal lives and the enjoyment they found in the now. For this project...

Women’s ultrarunning is on fire right now with powerhouses like recent Barkley Marathons finisher Jasmin Paris, 40, and Lululemon FURTHER 6-day record smasher Camille Herron, 42, showing the world what midlife women can do. This week, we sat down with ultrarunning legend Pam Reed, who broke ground for women in the sport decades ago, winning races like Badwater 135 outright in 2002 and 2003, and ta...