As estrogen drops, our midlife brains go through a lot of changes. The activity in our dopamine network declines, which can leave us going from highly motivated to “meh.” We can experience bigger cortisol spikes and have elevated levels of the stress hormone longer. We can end up feeling constantly stressed out and in a doom spiral we can’t quite escape. And it doesn’t exactly help that many of us are also firmly entrenched in the most demanding period of our lives. This week’s guest, cognitive neuroscientist Therese Huston, PhD, is coming to the rescue with a host of simple–and quick–ways to boost our dopamine, keep cortisol in check, and help our midlife brains be their best.

Therese Huston, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist at Seattle University and the author of four books. She’s always asking, “How can we remove the pesky obstacles that get in the way of smart people?” Her latest book, Sharp:  14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science, offers science-backed actionable strategies, many of which take 5 minutes or less, to help you make the most of the brain you’ve got.  Therese received her MS and PhD in cognitive psychology from Carnegie Mellon University.  She completed a prestigious post-doc in cognitive neuroscience at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition and earned a degree in Organizational Leadership at Oxford University.  She frequently gives talks and runs workshops for organizations like Microsoft, Amazon, Morgan Stanley, Strava, and the Cleveland Clinic.  She also loves a good 5K, especially when the rain takes a pause in her hometown of Seattle. You can learn more about her, her work, and her books at www.theresehuston.com.

Resources: 

The Healthy Minds Program app here

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Muscle and bone loss. Inflammation. Bloating, diarrhea, and other GI issues. Peri and postmenopausal active women can face myriad training and performance challenges. But the good news is that a lot of them can be helped with proper nutrition practices. This week we dive into the basics on how to fuel your active midlife body, including what to know about carbohydrates, ultraprocessed foods, energy availability, protein, anti-inflammatory foods, supplements, and more with sports dietitian Kristen Arnold. 

Kristen Arnold MS, RDN, CSSD is a board-certified sports dietitian, cycling coach, retired professional athlete, and team sport director for USA Cycling and professional cycling teams. Her private practice is centered around empowering women through evidence-based sports nutrition coaching and information, and she has done research on improving postmenopausal women's health through nutrition strategies and counseling. You can learn more about her and her work at sportsnutritionforwomen.com.

Resources

Black Cohosh review here

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This week’s guest ultrarunner Megan Eastwood is a portrait of perseverance. She’s lived through trauma, battled eating disorders, and been flattened by perimenopause. Through it all, she’s learned, grown, evolved, and ultimately thrived. Now 55 and postmenopausal, Megan is out in nature every week, running, climbing, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, basically anything she can do outdoors. She’s completed numerous multi-day running events, where she generally posts top five in her age group, and currently has her sights set on 70.3 Ironman triathlon events. We talk all about her journey and learnings and what she wants other women like her to know.

Megan Eastwood never considered herself athletic. She was the girl no-one wanted on their sports team at school. Now 50+ she’s finding the confidence to see what her body is capable of.

She found ultra trail running in the UK in her early 20s, but an eating disorder ended any sports activity by the age of 30. Through career, marriage, and raising a family, she hit 39, overweight and not even able to run around the block. She knew she couldn’t enter her 40s like this and started running again. Living in Vancouver, Canada she quickly found the ultra-marathon scene.

Perimenopause hit hard. Like many women she couldn’t understand why everything was going wrong. She dug into research and resources and turned her situation around. Her message to anyone struggling to stay fit through menopause is keep going (and strength train), you will come through the other side eventually.

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Active and athletic women can be hit hard by the menopause transition. Many of us have become accustomed to our bodies responding in a predictable way to our training and nutrition, only to have that sense of control slip away during the menopause transition. That can leave us feeling desperate for solutions–and vulnerable to predatory marketing. That’s where mindset, especially acceptance, becomes an essential tool in our midlife toolbox. While there are steps we can take to feel and perform our best at every age and stage of life, there will always be some changes outside of our control. Accepting that isn’t “giving up”, it’s freeing yourself to stop battling your body and to truly appreciate all it does for you. This week we talk all about movement and mindset during midlife and menopause with fitness expert Maria Luque, PhD, menopause coach with Respin Health.

Dr. Maria Luque is an energetic and accomplished fitness and menopause expert, former health science professor, and USAF veteran. With a PhD and MS in Health Sciences and over two decades of fitness experience, she combines academic expertise with practical insights. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist, ACE Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Fitness Nutrition Specialist, and NASM Women’s Fitness Specialist. Dr. Luque is passionate about helping women in midlife re-imagine exercise, body image, and well-being. She’s the founder of Fitness in Menopause, a company dedicated to helping women be healthier, stronger, saner, and more open to fun and adventure. In her role as head coach at Respin health, she has worked as the menopause coach to founder Halle Berry. You can learn more about her work at www.FitnessInMenopause.com and 

www.DrMariaLuque.com. You can find her at Respin at www.respin.health/coaches

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Perimenopause can blindside us in unexpected ways. Fatigue hit this week’s guest, elite cyclist and coach Marissa Axell, so hard she thought she had cancer. Now the creator of the Cycling Success System wants everyone to know what can happen during this phase of life, and importantly what active women can do to counteract it. We talk all about how Marissa tailors her coaching for 40+ women, focusing on proper fueling, strength development, and smart exercise programming so they can keep crushing their active and athletic goals. You can learn more about her and her work at www.axnfitnessandcoaching.com

Marissa Axell is the founder of AXN Fitness and Coaching, LLC, and on a mission to get more women on more start lines! She coaches her athletes to success by showing them how to climb hills stronger, ride farther, at faster average speeds, while creating more energy to ride day after day. As a result, her athletes are setting personal bests on their rides and landing top 10 placings at their races. Marissa has been coaching and personal training since 2008. She’s stood on a dozen national masters podiums, been top 5 in the UCI World Masters Track Championships 4 times, holds a cycling coaching certification from UESCA and is working on a nutrition certification from ISSA. She is a USAC category 1 cyclist, and holds an undergraduate degree in biological sciences from Willamette University. She believes that love is love, Black lives matter, Transwomen are women and belong in sports, no human is illegal, and bikes are a form of therapy.

Resources

A Role for Branched-Chain Amino Acids in Reducing Central Fatigue here

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We’ve got a grab-bag of gynecological goodness for you this week, as we sat down with elite ultrarunner, gynecologist, and Paradis pro ambassador Dr. Lauren Puretz. We dive into her running life, including how she navigates elite ultra training with two kids and a medical practice; the common gynecological issues she helps peri and menopausal women navigate, how to find quality care, and of course, what makes a good pair of performance underwear.

Lauren Puretz, DO, is a gynecologist dedicated to helping women especially during transitions in life. She’s an elite ultra runner, a mom of two, and recently opened up a private practice in Colorado Springs, CO. Last year, at age 41, Lauren finished third at the 2024 Javelina Jundred, running 100 miles in 15:00:50, the ninth-fastest time by a woman on the course. She came in 3rd at the Black Canyon 100k, securing a Golden Ticket for the Western States 100, which she competed in later that year. She also won the 2024 World Masters Mountain Running Championship. Lauren is also a pro ambassador for Paradis Sport, performance underwear by and for women. You can read more about her and her work in her ambassador profile here. 

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If you’ve ever felt like your mood has a mind of its own during PMS, pregnancy, or perimenopause, you already know that hormones like estrogen and progesterone don’t just affect your body — they shape your entire sense of well-being. And if you’ve lived with trauma or neurodivergence, like ADHD, you also know how reactive the nervous system can be. What happens when all of that collides during midlife and menopause…and hormone therapy gets added to the mix? For some women, the results are anything but balanced. This week’s guest, trauma therapist Paula Rastrick, knows that firsthand. She opens up about her harrowing experience with high-dose hormone therapy — an intervention that nearly unraveled her — and shares what she’s uncovered about the deep, complex relationship between hormones, nervous system sensitivity, trauma, and stress. 

Paula Rastrick is a trauma therapist, author and creator of The Brain-Body Method, an integrated trauma-informed and neurodiverse approach to hormonal sensitivity. She is a BSc (Hons) in Sport & Exercise Psychology; has postgraduate certification in Psychological Trauma, Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing (EDMR) Trauma Therapy, is a Safe and Sound Protocol Practitioner and has training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), pain science, and integrated kinetic neurology. She’s also done trauma-informed continuing professional development work in yoga therapy, applied polyvagal theory in yoga, vagus nerve integration, HRV training, performance psychology, and somatic psychology. You can learn more about her work at www.thebrainbodymethod.com and check out her e-book at 

https://subscribepage.io/hormonal-sensitivity-els-trauma-pdf

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Many women, like this week’s guest Olympian runner and broadcaster Carrie Tollefson, suffer through perimenopause for far too long because they know they’re tough and they can handle things. But you don’t need to suffer, and you shouldn’t just tough it out. You can get back to feeling better and living more fully by getting the help and care you need as soon as you need it. This week we talk all about Carrie’s challenging seven-year journey through perimenopause, her new running goals now that she finally feels like herself again, and what we all can learn from her experience. 

Carrie Tollefson is an elite middle distance runner from St. Paul, Minnesota. She was a 13-time state champion (eight in track and five in cross country) and five-time NCAA champion at Villanova. In her post-collegiate career, Carrie was a three-time national champion and represented the U.S. at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Carrie is now a broadcaster for major marathons, podcast host, motivational speaker, and fitness advocate. Living in Minnesota with her husband and three children, she empowers others to pursue active, healthy lifestyles, encouraging everyone to “Get After It!” You can learn more about her and her work at www.ctollerun.com

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Women go on hormone therapy to manage peri/menopause symptoms and feel better. But sometimes to their surprise, they feel worse. Or some symptoms go away while others pop up. That’s because of the hormones! We have hormone receptors all over our body and whenever we switch up the signals they’re receiving, whether through the menopause transition itself or through the hormones we use, they’re going to respond to those changes, and sometimes not in the way we want. Most side effects are manageable with time or by dialing in delivery methods and/or doses. It’s just important to know what to expect. We talk all about it this week with our resident menopause specialist Dr. Carla DiGirolamo.

Carla DiGirolamo, MD, PhD, is a Double Board Certified Reproductive Endocrinologist and Obstetrician/Gynecologist specializing in infertility and menopausal medicine. She is also a Crossfit Level 1 trainer, Certified Nutrition Coach, and member of CrossFit Health. She is a MedFit Care provider and provides weekly workouts and medical updates at her Substack Athletic Aging. She is an Endocrine Consultant for Wild Health. Most recently, she has launched her own private practice specializing in helping active and high-performing women reach their performance potential from puberty through menopause. Dr. DiGirolamo is now seeing patients for virtual consultations for menopausal care and performance optimization. Visit her website www.drcarlad.com to learn more about her services and schedule an appointment.

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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. This week’s guest, trainer and nutrition coach Steph Gaudreau embodies that journey through both her personal and professional life. She shares how, for 40+ women especially, growing muscles is the key to better energy and performance in sport and life, and how strength training is the gateway to midlife self-acceptance. 

Steph Gaudreau, CISSN, CPT, helps athletic women over 40 fuel themselves better, get stronger, increase their energy, and perform better in the gym. She’s a sports nutritionist and strength coach with multiple certifications including USA Weightlifting coach, Menopause Health & Fitness Specialist, Girls Gone Strong Women’s Coaching Specialist, and Intuitive Eating Counselor. She shares her advice on building strength, proper fueling, and much more as the host of the Fuel Your Strength Podcast. You can learn more about Steph and her work at www.stephgaudreau.com

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