Hit Play Not Pause

Menopause is not a monolith. We all experience this stage of life differently and require unique care. So this week we sat down with Dr. Heather Hirsch, author of Unlock Your Menopause Type to talk about the six basic types she sees in her practice, including premature, sudden, full-throttle, mind-altering, seemingly never-ending, and silent and the care they require. We also dig into the controve...

Ultra running sensation Camille Herron is currently smashing world records, including a new woman’s 48 hour running world record set earlier this year where she logged a whopping 435 kilometers (270.5 miles) around a 400-meter track(!), which also made her the first female athlete to surpass a Men’s American record, all while managing the hormonal havoc of perimenopause, something she has recently...

Nina McGowan didn't begin freediving until she was in her late 40s and sliding into the menopause transition. With the help of her background in meditation, yoga, dance, the arts, and eventually hormone therapy, she’s reached depths she would have only dreamed imaginable, setting multiple Irish National Records as well as securing a World Record in the 50-54 age division with a dive of 43 meters (...

The conversation around menopause is moving at lightspeed these days, with a wave of misinformation following quickly in its wake. So this week we sat down with the medical director of The Menopause Society (formerly the North American Menopause Society), Dr. Stephanie Faubion, author of The New Rules of Menopause to catch up on where we are with our understanding of menopause, menopause therapies...

Amanda Thebe was so frustrated by her two-year odyssey to find out what was behind her bone-crushing fatigue, vertigo, incontinence, rage, migraines, depression, and other symptoms that were outright derailing her life (spoiler: it was perimenopause), she wrote what would become an Amazon best-selling book, Menopocalypse: How I Learned to Thrive During Menopause and How You Can Too! to help other...

Menopause is all over mainstream media these days. But too many women are still missing the message that they don’t have to needlessly suffer, especially Black women who on average go into menopause earlier and have worse symptoms such as hot flashes, depression and sleep disturbances than White women, but are less likely to receive hormone therapy, as well as medical and mental health services. T...

Of all our hormones, cortisol might be the most misunderstood and maligned. We’re told this stress hormone is the culprit behind excess belly fat, high blood sugar, accelerated aging, and a host of menopausal and midlife woes. Menopausal and midlife women sometimes are afraid to exercise too much because they’ve been told it will raise their cortisol, which can already be elevated during this time...

At this point, you may have been doing your sport for a decade, maybe two…or more. It’s easy to fall into a rut or lose your spark. The hormonal changes that come with the menopause transition also can make training more challenging and put a dent in your motivation. Trying a new challenge and/or working with a new coach can help you find your why and feel fired up again. This week, we pull back t...

When we’re in our 20s and 30s, we see ourselves everywhere in sports marketing and branding. Then, somewhere along the way, we vanish, as though women past 40 or 50 don’t run, ride, hit the weights, or live active, vibrant lives. This week’s guest, Velocio Cycling Apparel ambassador Joan Swain, is on a mission to change that. As she says, “We are athletic. We are beautiful. We are intelligent. We...

CrossFit Games athlete Leka Fineman didn’t start the sport until she was 40. She learned to walk on her hands at age 50. Now at 56, she is competing in her fifth CrossFit Games competition as this episode airs. And she’s done it all while going through the menopause transition. We talk all about how she does it and why she believes that once you toss out your self-limiting beliefs, you can continu...

Whether it’s waking up at 2 a.m. with feelings of impending doom, fighting off a sudden freakout about driving on the freeway, or becoming paralyzed on a tricky trail you’ve ridden, hiked, or climbed dozens of times before, anxiety can hit seemingly out of nowhere during the menopause transition. In fact, because it can be one of the earliest symptoms of perimenopause, some women suffer for months...

*Note - This episode originally dropped on January 27, 2021* Time for “the talk.” Seriously, we get sex ed when we go through puberty to know what to expect. But then we hit the other end of the hormonal spectrum and...crickets. Loss of libido and painful sex are real issues during menopausal years and, all too often, women suffer in silence. Issues like vaginal dryness don’t just hurt your sex li...

*Note - This episode originally dropped on February 24, 2021* Menopause and midlife can send dueling wrecking balls straight into your sleep architecture, leaving you tossing and turning unable to get to sleep, waking up with racing thoughts at 3 a.m., and generally depriving you of the rest and regeneration you need. This week’s guest, Dr. Sophie Bostock, the sleep scientist—and self-proclaimed s...

Sandra Bueckert started bodybuilding when she was just 16. Now, 40 years later, she’s still in the strength and fitness game, but she’s made a few changes. Sure, she still wants to look her best, but that’s no longer her driving force. These days she’s training to be part of the resistance—specifically to defy what people assume a midlife, menopausal, and eventually “old” woman should be able to d...

Hormones bring your DNA to life. They drive your training adaptations, help build muscle and bone, modulate your immune system, and much, much more. As peri and postmenopausal women we often focus on estrogen and progesterone (and maybe testosterone), but others like human growth hormone, vitamin D, and cortisol deserve our attention, too. And though hormone therapy is one tool for optimizing your...

Healthcare as we know it (especially in the U.S.) is mostly sickcare. Instead of working with us to keep us healthy, it treats us when we’re on the verge of disease or are outright unwell. There’s a growing movement to change that approach, which would be especially beneficial for menopausal women, who are at a time of their lives when the risk for many diseases can begin to rise. This week, we sa...

Menopause and midlife don’t mean giving up on our big goals. We can run marathons. We can do Ironman triathlons. We can compete at CrossFit. We just need to do things differently now. We need to respect balanced training that includes equal amounts of effort and restoration and to respect that a balanced life is a healthy life. It’s what ultimately allows us to enjoy our physical pursuits, reach o...

Past trauma can lead to a difficult menopause transition with more severe symptoms. Making matters worse, severe menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and difficulty sleeping can also heighten existing post-traumatic stress symptoms for women who have suffered trauma. Female veterans are especially at risk for both, and this week’s guest Tonya Oxendine, Warrior Speak Spokesperson for the Wounded...

Pelvic floor injuries, body image woes, race day nerves, declining running times, newfound emotional flare ups, preventing injury…you had questions! And we have answers. This week we dig into the Speakpipe voicemail box and address your questions and concerns regarding menopause and performance with host Selene Yeager. Along with being the host of the Hit Play Not Pause podcast, Selene Yeager is c...

I’m too old. Nothing works for me. My best days are behind me. I just have to live with (fill in the blank). I’ll never feel better. When we’re really going through it, it can be easy to slip into a personal cave of limiting beliefs that can conspire to keep us there in the cold and dark. But where do these beliefs come from? Are they even true? What would we do if we didn’t have them? This week w...

When this week’s guest Jen McNutt laced up her figure skates and got back on the ice after a 26-year hiatus, her goal was to try to get back to where she used to be–hitting double jumps on the ice. Perimenopause had other ideas. Jen found herself struggling with fatigue, weakness, poor recovery, and sliding self-confidence. Then she found our community and all the advice for active, performance-mi...

Fine artist and cyclist Lisa Congdon was not prepared for the impact menopause was going to have on her body or the extent to which those changes would cause a drop in her athletic performance. So, she dug into all the resources she could find for athletic menopausal women and, at the then age of 54, went back to the drawing board, making changes in her diet, training, and lifestyle to help her be...

Remember being told you should start dieting if you could “pinch an inch” around your midsection? (Thanks Special K cereal ads…) Growing up, our bellies were often made a point of shame as they were poked, pinched, and otherwise derided. For many, that shame gets deeper in the menopause transition. That urge to suck it in and suck it up when our body image suffers has damaged more than our psyches...

When life gets hard, many of us channel our inner Dory, put our heads down, and “Just keep swimming.” Nobody, but nobody, embodies this ethos more than this week’s guest ultraendurance swimmer Sarah Thomas. In Sarah’s 40 years on this planet, she has endured chemo, radiation, and surgery for aggressive breast cancer, a traumatic ectopic pregnancy, and the challenges of cancer-related medical menop...

Now that menopause is mainstream news, interest in hormone therapy is exploding. And so is the confusion and controversy surrounding it, as menopausal hormone therapy (aka hormone replacement therapy), which is undeniably a game changer for millions, has also become a massive business. Some practitioners are reportedly prescribing “megadoses” of estrogen–in some cases twice or even 3 or 4 times th...