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 content manager at Feisty Menopause, a best-selling professional health and fitness writer, including...
May 31, 2023•43 min•Ep. 132
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 we take a deep dive into the menopause mindset with body-mind coach Cara Bradley, who helps us find o...
May 24, 2023•55 min•Ep. 131
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-minded menopausal women, and everything turned around. Now at 48, she’s not only gotten her double jum...
May 17, 2023•52 min•Ep. 130
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 the best menopausal athlete she could be. Now at age 55, she’s crushing those goals. Lisa has recen...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 129
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 (though that’s bad enough!). It’s damaged our relationship with our bodies–and even our breath, whi...
May 03, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 128
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 menopause. She has also smashed preconceived notions of what is possible, becoming the first person to co...
Apr 26, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 127
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 the maximum licensed dose, causing myriad medical societies to sound the alarm. Meanwhile, researchers...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 126
Midlife and menopause can do a number on our sexual selves. Our bodies are changing. We can feel more anxious and less self-confident. After years of taking care of others, we can lose sight of ourselves. Sex might be the last thing on our minds. If that makes you sad, take heart. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can find body–and sexual–confidence with age. And it starts with self-love, which as this week’s guest Lou Featherstone explains doesn’t just mean a fuzzy appreciation of yourself. I...
Apr 12, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 125
What does it mean to be fit? Deadlifting your body weight? Running a 10K? Doing an Ironman? Most of our notions about fitness spotlight the big thing we want to do while glossing over all the smaller, equally important, but less “sexy” stuff like joint mobility, breathing practices, balance, and nutrition it takes to get you there strong and injury-free. Kind of like wanting to climb Mount Everest without spending any time at Base Camp. This week’s guest, Juliet Starrett, co-author of the new bo...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 124
2022 Ultraman World Championship winner and new course record setter Dede Griesbauer will be the first to tell you, age is definitely more than “just a number.” It’s real, and the training, recovery practices, and dedication it takes to accomplish such feats at 52 is radically different than it is at 32 or even 42. But it’s possible, and you should not put an expiration date on your dreams, because with hard work and smart training they can come true. We talk all about what it takes to conquer 3...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 123
Whether we’re trying to make muscle, perform our best, or avoid the dreaded GI distress during long endurance events, women in and beyond the menopause transition have special needs. But the sports nutrition and supplement landscape is rife with conflicting and confusing information. This week we cut through the noise with scientist, exercise physiologist, and sports nutritionist Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan. We dive into protein, carbohydrates, essential amino acids, fasted training, macronutrient usag...
Mar 22, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 122
Sarah-Jane Nichols is a BMX cycling legend. The Hall of Famer was a 7-time British Champion, 4-time European Champion, and a World Champion as a teen in 1986. Now, at age 52, 34 years after retiring from the sport, Nichols is back on her bike despite being in the throes of extremely challenging perimenopausal symptoms. In fact, Nichols is returning to the sport in part because of the physical and emotional challenges she’s experienced during the menopause transition. We talk all about her histor...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 121
What does equity mean in sport? Yes, it's women being included, but it's also resources for racing moms, supporting the inclusion of Black folks in historically white sports, having size-inclusive athletic gear, and SO much more. Feisty Media welcomes a panel of women with intersectional identities to celebrate International Women's Day and discuss why equal opportunity is no longer enough. Hosted by Selene Yeager and Sara Gross, guests Khadijah Diggs, Marley Blonsky, and Alison Tetrick share th...
Mar 08, 2023•1 hr 7 min
Pat Spencer couldn’t help but think she’d be faster if she were lighter. After all, that’s what everyone in endurance sports tells you. But instead of gaining speed, Pat went from being a competitive age group triathlete to not being able to do any endurance sports because of a profound case of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports (RED-S) she suffered while training for her 4th Iron distance triathlon in 2016. She still suffers the consequences today, seven years after she found herself in that ...
Mar 08, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 120
Record-holding runner Anabelle Broadbent thought she’d blow right through menopause…until erratic, uber-heavy periods, body composition changes, anxiety, and a major drop in speed told her menopause had other ideas. As a scientist, she did what she knows best: research and problem-solving. And last year, at age 55, she was awarded the 2022 USATF GOLD Phidippides Award for Excellence in Long Distance Running. Though her body is different now in her mid-50s than it was in her mid-40s, her competit...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 119
Past trauma–big or small–and daily stress can take a toll on the nervous system, and many of us spend our days largely in a state of fight or flight. When we hit menopause, our nervous system becomes even more nervous, and life, along with everything that happened up until that point rises to the surface and demands to be dealt with. We can run, lift, or ride away from it all…to a point. But we often end up feeling tired but wired. That’s where this week’s guest Dr. Nerina Ramlakhan, author of F...
Feb 22, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 118
Many women start exercising to lose weight–to get smaller and chase a number on the scale. This week’s guest powerlifter Michelle Carlson is no stranger to those goals. She took up running in her early 30s and in her own words “spent a ridiculous number of years chasing the number on the scale and living in a chronic state of energy deficiency”--a state she likened to a prison of her own creation. But when a terrible accident left her shaken and shattered, she picked up weight lifting to help he...
Feb 15, 2023•59 min•Ep. 117
Do you struggle with feeling you’re not enough? Fit enough? Successful enough? Lean enough? Enough, enough, enough. By the time we reach menopause, many of us have spent years, even decades, of our lives chasing enough. And, as this week’s guest, coach, trainer, and athlete Kristin DiDomenico knows, that relentless pursuit of perfection can take us down some pretty dark roads including addiction, eating disorders, and sometimes much worse. Kristin shares her own personal journey through all of i...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 116
People will often accuse a woman who is changing things in her life at 50 of having a midlife crisis. It’s quite the opposite, according to this week’s guest, two-time Olympian, Jennifer Stoute. It’s midlife clarity. Stoute, who also played Rebel the Gladiator on the hit show Gladiators has done her share of evaluating and re-evaluating her personal, professional, and active life as she’s transitioned through menopause and midlife. This week she talks about what she’s learned and where she’s lan...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 115
In many ways, health care is actually sick care. We are enormously grateful for physicians who can address pathology and treat disease. But often the emphasis is on surviving, not thriving. That’s where Lifestyle Medicine comes in. It’s a system of health care that leans in on the power of social connections, personal psychology, exercise, nourishment, and more to prevent disease and optimize health. This week’s guest, Dr. Michelle Tollefson is a Lifestyle Medicine expert and OB/GYN helping wome...
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 114
We’ve been led to believe weight is a simple equation: energy in versus energy out, which implies it’s all in our control. We’re in charge. We just need the right diet, exercise, and willpower. And while nutrition and physical activity matter a lot, and some maintain their weight through those means, others feel like their bodies have a mind of their own, which is actually true, as this week’s guest, obesity medicine scientist, educator, and policy maker Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford explains. That’s...
Jan 18, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 113
We’re back! And we’re kicking off the New Year with the perfect introspective conversation with former pro athlete turned entrepreneur and life adventurer, Nicole DeBoom. Nicole recently turned 50 and is in the thick of perimenopause, which for her has manifested in brain fog, night sweats, body composition changes, and more. She’s also recently had spinal fusion for spondylolisthesis, a spinal condition that causes instability and slips in the vertebrae in the spinal column, which is as awful a...
Jan 11, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 112
Since we started this podcast, many women have gone from being afraid to take hormone therapy to being afraid not to take hormone therapy, as some in the menopause field are saying that menopause is really a “hormone deficiency” and we can’t age well without it. This week we dive in on what hormone therapy is; what it can do (especially for performance and health); what it can’t do, and what we’re still learning about all of it with Dr. Carla DiGirolamo. Carla is a Double Board Certified Reprodu...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 3 min
The good news: we are finally talking about menopause! The not so good news: we still have a long way to go, especially in the realm of research, says this week’s guest Dr. Stephanie Faubion, who is on the tip of the spear leading the way forward as the Medical Director of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). When it comes to dealing with menopause openly in our culture, especially in the workplace, Dr. Faubion believes we are where we were with pregnancy 30 years ago. And she has some i...
Dec 28, 2022•35 min
Dr. Google is often our first stop when we want to understand a symptom we’re experiencing and find out what we can do about it. But the internet is a bottomless well of information–and disinformation. Even when we dig into actual research studies, the conclusions aren’t always reliable or consistent, which is why it’s hard to get a straight answer on complex issues like hormone therapy. It can be frustrating and confusing, but there are ways you can evaluate the information you find to determin...
Dec 21, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 111
At age 42, off-road triathlete Deanna McCurdy was crushing it, including clocking the fastest female amateur time at XTERRA National Championships, and was ready to turn pro when—perimenopause. Out of the blue, her performance tanked and she found herself in tears through a key race. Deanna, who’s also a mom of a special needs daughter, was forced to rest, research, reset, and make some training and lifestyle changes. It worked and she roared back to racing as a pro by age 45, winning XTERRA Fru...
Dec 14, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 110
Women have been taught incontinence is our destiny–that we should just accept it and wear pads. Pelvic floor issues like prolapse are often normalized–we should just stop running, jumping, and lifting heavy sh*t. This week’s guest The Vagina Coach, Kim Vopni, is having none of it, and she dives into all the therapies and tools available to help remedy prolapse, incontinence, and other pelvic floor issues so you can continue doing the activities you love. And she should know, Kim has dealt with h...
Dec 07, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 109
Ultrarunner Kamm Prongay is clear: she did not sign up for the Menopause 200. Her ovaries did. And when they did, she eventually found herself on the start line, unable to run. Kamm has been chronicling her journey through menopause in a series of essays in Ultrarunner.com, including one titled the Menopause 200, in which she shares her anxiety, brain fog, drenching night sweats, and ultimately performance decline and lack of drive to do the sport she loved. And this week, she shares that journe...
Nov 30, 2022•52 min•Ep. 108
More than diet, exercise, the money in your bank account, your cholesterol levels, or even your genes, it’s your relationships that matter most when it comes to being happier and healthier in midlife and into old age. That’s important because midlife and menopause are inextricably intertwined, and how we experience one impacts how we experience the other. We dig into all of that and so much more with this week’s guest, gerontologist Zora Benhamou, who encourages women in midlife to find positive...
Nov 23, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 107
Want to challenge yourself without the pressure that comes with traditional competition? Feel like trying something new that won’t have you comparing your former self to your current self? This week’s guests Teri Smith and Dana Katz suggest trying an FKT, or fastest known time, a challenge where you run, hike, or in some cases bike or “multi-sport” along a route as quickly as you can to try and set an FKT. When perimenopause upended Teri’s competitive identity as an ultrarunner, her friend Dana ...
Nov 16, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 106
