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 talking about menopause at a time when athletes rarely uttered the word. Now 63, Pam is still blazing trails, most recently finishing the Hardrock 100, Badwater 135, and Western States Endurance Run–tha ..read more

Your metabolism is broken. You need to stop eating carbs. All weight gain is bad! If you’re a woman in menopause, you’ve been on the receiving end of a steady stream of overwhelmingly negative messages about your midlife body. Many of them are simply not true. That’s why we wanted to have a more nuanced conversation about the body composition changes many of us experience during this time of life. And this week’s guest, midlife health and nutrition specialist Val Schonberg was just the woman to have it with. This week, Val walks us through a lot of the myths, misunderstandings, and maybe even ..read more

Your metabolism is broken. You need to stop eating carbs. All weight gain is bad! If you’re a woman in menopause, you’ve been on the receiving end of a steady stream of overwhelmingly negative messages about your midlife body. Many of them are simply not true. That’s why we wanted to have a more nuanced conversation about the body composition changes many of us experience during this time of life. And this week’s guest, midlife health and nutrition specialist Val Schonberg was just the woman to have it with. This week, Val walks us through a lot of the myths, misunderstandings, and maybe even ..read more

From being burned as witches to being barred from attending medical school, from being dismissed as hysterical to well, just being dismissed, from being shamed to being sexualized, the medical system has a long, sordid history in how it treats women and women’s health. And those toxic roots still poison the waters we have to navigate to this day. If you’ve ever wondered why we’re so far off the back with regards to our understanding of women’s health and wellness and treatment, this week’s guest Dr. Elizabeth Comen, author of All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About W ..read more

We wrap up heart health awareness month with one topic that comes up a whole lot in our community–cholesterol. We hear from scores of athletic, active women who have had perfectly fine lipid levels their whole lives only to see them shoot up, often dramatically, at menopause. If you’re one, you’re not alone. This week we take a deep dive into all things lipids, including what they are, what influences them, and what to do about them, with cardiologist and lipid and women’s health specialist Dr. Samia Mora.  Samia Mora, MD, MHS, is a cardiologist and molecular epidemiologist conducting tra ..read more

For years, hot flashes and night sweats (aka vasomotor symptoms) were considered just a “bothersome” part of being a menopausal woman: we were to wear layers, buy a fan, and soldier on. Then researchers started making some troubling connections between vasomotor symptoms and chronic disease. This week’s guest, Dr. Rebecca Thurston, is one of those investigators whose work shows that women with severe and/or persistent vasomotor symptoms have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and changes in the brain that are linked to dementia. We dig into those findings and many more during this we ..read more

Mirna Valerio, aka the Mirnavator, has never shied away from adversity. As a Black woman in a larger body who is also an ultrarunner, she’s endured her share of harassment and ridicule, both online and in real life. But despite some people trying to put her down, she’s devoted her life to lifting others up, showing those like herself what’s possible, which, for her, includes 11 marathons, 15 50K+ ultras, and a best-selling memoir, A Beautiful Work in Progress. Now, Mirna is facing another challenge we’re all familiar with, perimenopause. This week we talk all about what she’s experiencing, how ..read more

As women who’ve grown up steeped in diet culture, we often give away our agency to books, apps, and strict food rules rather than trusting ourselves to know what to eat and what our bodies need. During menopause, when our bodies are changing, we can doubledown on those rules, making life harder. This week we talk about ditching diets and restrictive rules and using our knowledge and intuition to find food freedom and a whole lot more joy with Intuitive Eating Coach Pam Moore.  Pam Moore is a journalist and an occupational therapist-turned-award-winning intuitive eating coach. Her writing ..read more

As active, athletic women, we know ourselves better than anyone. We know our pace, our power, and our mindset for training and competing. Perimenopause can make all of that change out of the blue. It can rob us of our confidence and knock us off our game, just when we feel like we’re really hitting our stride. Elite cyclist and coach Jill Patterson, 42, lived that reality for months, wondering if she had just “aged out” of her sport before discovering that the muscle and power loss, low motivation, mood swings, fatigue, and sudden aches and pains were in fact perimenopause. This week, we talk ..read more

Millions of women will tell you they feel like their muscle disappeared overnight once they hit the menopause transition. It may not technically happen in a 24 hour period, but muscle tissue really does slip away quickly over the perimenopause period. That’s a problem because muscle is our metabolic engine and helps us live, play, and perform our best. This week, we sat down with exercise scientist Sam Moore, who was so moved by her athletic mother’s experience during perimenopause, she devoted herself to learning as much as she could to help others. She presented her research on body composit ..read more