A few years ago, elite Canadian runner Sasha Gollish started experiencing some symptoms that had her wondering what the hell was up with her body—crime scene (or as she called them firehose) periods, strange memory lapses, times in races when her legs were flailing and her muscles were not responding the way they typically would as she struggled to find her stride. She wondered if she was sick. As you likely guessed by now, she wasn’t sick. She was in perimenopause. After suffering alone for a bit, Sasha decided to open up and share her experiences online, not only for her own mental health, but also so other women wouldn’t feel alone or invisible in their own struggles. This week she talks all about how she is learning to make peace with and tame what she calls her hormonal perimonster.

Along with being an elite runner, Sasha Gollish, PhD, 41, is also a high-performance coach, engineer, and researcher in the Mental Health and Physical Activity Research Centre at the University of Toronto where her work focuses on knowledge translation. She has a substantial resume of world and national records, including setting the world record in the women’s 40+ indoor mile in 2022 and setting two Canadian Masters Indoor records earlier this year at the Hal Brown Invitational Indoor meet. Also, this year she competed in the marathon at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, the half marathon at the inaugural World Road Running Champs in Riga, Latvia, and the World Mountain Running Champs in Innsbruck, Austria. You can learn more about her and her work at www.sashagollish.com

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Women in menopause get a lot of nutrition and fitness advice. Some of it is sound. Some less so. Quite a bit of it is downright predatory. That is why the best nutrition and fitness advice for menopausal women is often not about grams of protein or hours of exercise, but rather a hard look at our own attitudes and beliefs about how we eat (or don’t eat) and move our bodies. What narratives form our nutrition and fitness foundations? Are they even true? This week we dig deep into those narratives–and how to change them–with Meredith Root, co-founder of Tactic Functional Nutrition and Tactic Functional Fitness, both of which are grounded in empathy and behavioral change.

Meredith Root has a B.S. in Biological Engineering and 6 years experience in biopharmacetutical process development. She is an active member of the Canadian and American Society for Nutrition and contributing writer for The Morning Chalk Up. She has been a nutrition coach since 2015 and along with her partner, Alex Parker, founded Tactic Functional Nutrition in 2018. Tactic now employees a team of 10 coaches and works with people from all over the globe on health and habits. Together, Meredith and Alex run Tactic's Instagram page which has garnered over 210k followers as well as their podcast, Afternoon Snack, which allows them to amplify their messaging even further. Fundamentally, the Tactic methodology is one that emphasizes consistency with basic nutrition and fitness principles that compound over time; communicated in a way that inspires trust, confidence, and self-determination. Their new business, Tactic Functional Fitness aims to bring uncommonly good fitness to common people. You can learn more at tacticmethod.com.

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We exercise and train for hours each week (and sometimes each day) to build our physical fitness. We work on our mental toughness. But how much time do we devote to our spiritual fitness? To exercising our soul? For many of us it’s not so much. And we can suffer for it, getting lost, sad, and stuck, especially during menopause and midlife when we can find ourselves looking around going, “Is this it?” “What’s it all about?” This week we plug into our inner selves for a little tune up with longtime yoga practitioner, best-selling health and fitness writer, and now interfaith minister Anne Alexander, as we explore how to expand our purpose and passion in this next chapter of our lives.

Anne Alexander is a longtime yogi, writer, and newly ordained interfaith minister with a passion for making the frontiers of health, science, and spirituality irresistibly interesting and surprisingly practical. Author of two New York Times best-sellers, former SVP/Editorial Director at National Geographic, and founder of SoulCandy, Anne brings decades of training in Iyengar, hatha and jnana/wisdom yoga and a deep understanding of ancient spiritual wisdom traditions to helping people find peace, discover their purpose, and experience their power, especially at mid-life. Her latest work, Wake Up to Love, is a practical and profound invitation to let go, lean in, and follow your bliss. You can learn more about her and her work at soulcandy.com

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Tummy tucks, insomnia, hormonal headaches, training post breast cancer, anxiety-calming supplements…you had some questions! And we have some answers! This week we dig back into the Speakpipe voicemail box and address your questions regarding menopause-related concerns and performance with host Selene Yeager. We are not medical professionals, of course, so this is not a substitute for medical advice. That you need to pursue on your own. Answers are based on medical literature reviews, medical society recommendations, personal and professional experience, and past episodes.

Along with being 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 the co-author of Next Level and ROAR with Dr. Stacy Sims. She lives what she writes as an NASM certified personal trainer, cycling coach, Pn1 certified nutrition coach, certified menopause training coach, and lifelong athlete. You can follow her work at Feistymenopause.com

Resources:

When Cancer Enters the Equation with Dr. Corinne Menn (Episode 46)

Just Keep Swimming with Sarah Thomas (Episode 127)

Calm Your Mind with Dr. Alisha Brosse (Episode 43)

Examine.com/supplements/gaba

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Fasting is often recommended as a solution to the metabolic health and weight management challenges menopausal women face. And while it can be an effective health tool when done properly, there are numerous pitfalls that active women can encounter when layering the stress of fuel restriction on top of other stress in their lives. This week we break it all down with autoimmune and precision medicine specialist Erin Faules, DO, who formerly worked with Wild Health before devoting herself to her own practice, Doctor Erin Health full time. 

Dr. Erin Faules (formerly Donaldson) graduated from Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine and is board-certified in Family Medicine. Her passion for changing healthcare was sparked when during her second year of medical school, she was diagnosed with lupus, a systemic autoimmune condition. She was told by her specialist she would be on medication to suppress her immune system for the rest of her life, and was literally laughed out of the office when she asked if anything she could do with her diet or lifestyle might change her outcome. Today, thanks to her own persistence and practice, her auto-immune antibodies are non-existent and she has not been on a pharmaceutical medication for over five years. You can learn more about her and her work at thedoctorerin.com

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When we reach menopause and midlife, we’re sometimes leery of trying new things. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves. We feel afraid. We don’t want to get hurt. Whether hormonal, societal, or a blend of both, we can easily succumb to the urge to stay on the sidelines. But the real magic happens when you jump (maybe literally) into something new, especially an activity that builds skill, confidence, and a community of like-minded women who want to break expectations. For this week’s guests, that activity has been parkour, a practice that involves maneuvering over, under, and through obstacles, which has given them both a newfound sense of power and strength, as well as play and fun. They talk all about their path to parkour and how much it’s improved their lives in this week’s show. 

Penny Szentkuti, 53, is a teacher librarian at Ascham School in Edgecliff, Sydney, Australia and is a mother of two (which is how she got into parkour in the first place). You can see her parkour in action on Instagram here. Rachel Gray, 48, is an early childhood educator, running Outdoor Playgroups. She is a mother of three active children (which is how she, too, got into parkour). They both practice parkour at AAPES (Australian Academy of Parkour, Exercise and Self-Defence). 

Resources: 

Parkour, skydiving, wing foiling — women over 50 are finding freedom in adventure sports, ABC.net.au feature here.

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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 composition, activity, and nutrition in menopause at this year’s Female Athlete Conference. We talk all about her research there and much more.

Sam Moore is an applied sport scientist and Human Movement Science Doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Medicine, researching endocrinological topics of applied female athlete sport science. Sam completed her undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and Human Biology from Western Oregon University and her master’s degree in Performance Enhancement and Injury Prevention from California University of Pennsylvania. Prior to Carolina, Sam was with the NC State Wolfpack from 2019-2021 as the Director of Sport Science and Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach. As the first woman to serve as a Director of Sport Science in the NCAA, Sam implemented a revolutionary and evidence-informed framework of women’s specific training design based on the hormonal landscape of the Wolfpack female athletes. You can learn more about her and her work at mooresportscience.com

Resources

Evaluation of the relationship between body composition and menopause symptoms across the menopause transition, here.

Body Composition, Activity, & Nutrition in Menopause, here.

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We’ve been fed a narrative that you can’t get faster after a certain age. We used to say 40. Definitely not after 50. Could you possibly get faster after 60? This week’s guests say, “Why not?” When it comes to women in midlife and menopause, we’re more active than ever. We also know more, have better coaching, and have more information at our disposal. This week, during a special educational session at the Vinfast Ironman World Championship, we had a panel discussion on all of it with five-time world champion Melanie McQuaid, physical therapist and strength and triathlon coach Dr. Chrissy Davis, and co-founder of FLY Health + Wellness and USAT certified coach Jen Temperley. Together the panel takes on body image, musculoskeletal health and injury prevention, how to adapt through the menopause transition, and training for the long game. Even if you never step foot in the three-sport arena, you’ll get a ton of useful and inspirational information from this incredible conversation. 

 

Melanie McQuaid is a professional triathlete, mountain bike racer, and five-time world champion. She continues to compete at an elite level while focusing her energies on her coaching business, MelRad Coaching. You can check her out there and at melaniemcquaid.com. In 2023, Melanie was 2nd pro female at Ironman Maryland and became the first 50-year-old to podium in the open pro category of an Ironman race and the first ever 50-year-old to qualify for the main pro race with her 3rd place finish at Ironman Coeur d’Alene. 

 

Dr. Chrissy Davis, PT, DPT, ATC, CSCS is a coach with MSM + JHC Coaching, a USAT and Ironman University Certified Coach, a Certified Running Analyst, as well as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and a Certified Holistic Health Coach. She is the owner & sports performance physical therapist at Precision Performance Sports in Park Ridge, Illinois.

 

Jen Temperley is co-founder of FLY Health + Wellness. Along with being a USAT Certified coach, she is a Precision Nutrition Coach and female athlete specialist. She’s been in triathlon since doing Ironkids at the age of 8. Her career includes age group wins at Oceanside 70.3, Wildflower Triathlon, and Escape from Alcatraz, and she’s competed in 7 World Championships including the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. 

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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 controversial topics of hormone testing and menopausal hormone therapy for perimenopause. Heather’s ultimate goal is to give all women the information they need to make fully educated decisions about their care. And we’re happy to support that mission on the show this week.

Dr. Heather Hirsch is board certified in internal medicine and completed advanced fellowship training in women’s health at the Cleveland Clinic. Her clinical work and research centers on inequalities and unanswered questions in the field of gynecology and women’s health, specifically in menopause and its role in chronic disease development. Heather was the founder of the Menopause and Midlife Clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston Massachusetts. She is also a private telemedicine practitioner at Heather Hirsch MD, PLLC. You can learn more about her and her work at heatherhirschmd.com

Resources:

The ABCs of MHT with Heather Hirsch, MD

Unlock Your Menopause Type by Heather Hirsch, MD, MS, NCMP with Stacey Colino

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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 opened up about in a series of posts on Instagram. We talk all about it, as well as her involvement with Lululemon’s groundbreaking FURTHER multi-day ultramarathon and research initiative on this week’s show.

Camille Herron is an ultra running phenom. She is the first and only athlete to win all three of the road IAU World Championships for 50K, 100K, and 24 Hours, where she clocked 270 kilometers (nearly 168 mi), more than any woman in history. Last year, just after turning 40, she won the Jackpot 100, outright beating all of the men by almost 30 minutes. At age 41 she set a new woman’s 48 hour running world record. And she holds a Guinness Book of World Records record for the fastest marathon by a female in a superhero costume—running 2:48 dressed head to toe as Spiderwoman. You can learn more about her at camilleherron.com

Resources

Lululemon FURTHER initiative 

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