Most women over 50 are doing everything they were told to do. Eating less. Exercising more. And getting nowhere.

In this episode of Thrive on Plants, Dr. Daphne Bascom sits down with Debra Atkinson, an exercise physiologist, former Iowa State kinesiology lecturer, and founder of Flipping 50, to discuss why the old fitness rules stop working in midlife and what actually builds a strong, capable body for the long haul.

Debra spent more than thirty years in the fitness industry before realizing that almost everything women had been taught about exercise was built on research done on young men. So she built what was missing: a science-based, hormone-smart approach to training, nutrition, and recovery for women navigating menopause and beyond.

This is a practical, myth-busting conversation about strength, sleep, stress, and what it really means to age on your own terms.

What we cover:

• Why "eat less, exercise more" backfires in midlife, and what to do instead
• The two at-home tests (grip strength and the sit-to-stand) that tell you more than your scale
• Why body composition matters far more than the number you weigh
• The sleep research showing better-rested women lost more fat and kept more muscle
• Why your ability to recover, not your ability to work hard, becomes the key to aging well
• The one strength move Debra would keep above all others
• Building a legacy of health that ripples out to the people who are watching you

Whether you are 40, 50, 60 or 80 years young, this conversation will change how you think about aging racefully

Debra Atkinson, MS, CSCS

Founder of Flipping 50, TEDx speaker, and bestselling author of You Still Got It, Girl! and Hot, Not Bothered.

Website: https://www.flippingfifty.com

Instagram: @flipping50tv

Podcast: The Flipping 50 Show

#DebraAtkinson #FitnessAfter50 #Flipping50 #MenopauseFitness #WomenOver50 #StrengthTraining #MidlifeHealth #Menopause #HealthyAging #Longevity #WomensHealth #BodyComposition #PlantBased #ThriveOnPlants 

This episode is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for personalized medical advice. Always consult your own clinician.

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

Everyone worries about losing muscle as they age. Almost everyone is worried about the wrong thing.

Dr. Brad Currier has spent his career studying what actually keeps us strong and functional into our 70s, 80s, and 90s. He earned his PhD under Professor Stuart Phillips, helped write the latest ACSM resistance training guidelines, and now leads clinical research at Timeline in Switzerland.

In this episode of Thrive on Plants, Dr. Daphne Bascom asks him the questions most people never think to ask. The answers reframe how you should think about aging, from your muscles all the way down to the power plants inside your cells.

No hype. No overpromising. Just a clear-eyed look at what the science supports, what it doesn't yet, and what you can do about it starting this week.

Here's what you'll learn:

• Why the number on your DEXA scan may be lying to you about how well you'll age
• The difference between muscle mass, muscle strength, and muscle power, and why the last one decides whether you catch yourself when you trip
• A strength test you can run in under a minute, no lab required
• What mitochondria actually do, beyond the line you memorized in high school biology
• Mitophagy: the cellular cleanup crew you lose with age, and why it may matter more than any supplement
• The pomegranate problem: why loading up on the "right" foods may not give you what you think
• The truth about urolithin A, including where the evidence is strong and where it's still an open question
• The single longevity metric Dr. Currier calls unreliable and clinically useless

About Dr. Brad Currier:

Dr. Currier leads clinical research at Timeline, a Switzerland-based company studying cellular and mitochondrial health. His background is in muscle physiology, aging, and nutrition.

Website: https://www.timeline.com/

Blog: https://www.timeline.com/blog/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradcurrier.phd/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-currier

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SxVmAooAAAAJ&hl=en

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

Beta-hydroxybutyrate, the primary ketone your body produces, is turning out to be one of the most compelling molecules in longevity and healthspan science. It fuels your brain when glucose falls short. It influences gene expression. It signals your cells to burn fat more efficiently. And a single dose has been shown to improve cardiac output, ejection fraction, and stroke volume in patients with heart failure.

Dr. Latt Mansor grew up in Malaysia surrounded by chronic disease. His father died of a stroke when he was 17. His half-brother died of a heart attack at 43. His mother's side of the family carries decades of obesity and diabetes. That personal history took him from Oxford, where he studied the diabetic heart under low-oxygen conditions, to leading a $6 million Department of Defense contract on exogenous ketones and elite military performance. Now he has come full circle, using what peak-performance science has revealed to help build the case for prevention.

Dr. Mansor holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford and serves as Research Director at H.V.M.N., the company behind Ketone IQ. 

In this conversation, we cover:

• What exogenous ketones actually are and how they differ from the endogenous ketones your body already makes
• How beta-hydroxybutyrate acts as a signaling molecule that binds directly to DNA and why a recent transcriptomics analysis showed it affected up to 300 genes
• The brain energy implications for women navigating perimenopause and menopause
• Exogenous ketones and GLP-1 receptor agonists: can they work together to protect lean mass and reduce brain fog during weight loss
• New unpublished appetite suppression data showing Ketone IQ's direct effects on GLP-1, ghrelin, and leptin
• Why Dr. Mansor calls it "the adaptive fuel" and what that means for how you use it

The research on exogenous ketones is still catching up to the biology.  The long-term human data is incomplete. But the mechanistic rationale is compelling, the early clinical signals are hard to ignore, and this conversation will give you the scientific foundation to decide whether any of it belongs in your longevity supplement stack.

Connect with Dr. Latt Mansor:

Social media: @lattmansor

Website: ketoneiq.com

Thrive on Plants:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thrive-on-plants/id1793550910

YouTube: youtube.com/@drdaphnebascom

Instagram: @WingmanDaphne

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/DaphneBascom 

This episode is not sponsored.

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

Most women are told menopause is a hormone story. The science suggests it is also an energy story, one that starts inside your cells decades before your last period.

Dr. Siobhan Mitchell is a neuroscientist with a PhD, 80+ peer-reviewed publications, and 25 years of research on how nutrition shapes brain aging. She started this work after watching her grandmother die of Alzheimer's and she has spent her career trying to make sure that never has to happen to anyone else. She currently serves as Chief Science and Technology Officer at MitoQ. This episode is not sponsored.

In this conversation, we go deep into the science that most physicians are still not talking about: how estrogen loss during perimenopause and menopause triggers a cascade of mitochondrial changes that affect your brain, your metabolism, your muscles, and your cardiovascular system, all at once.

What you will learn in this episode:

• Why your mitochondria, not the calendar, determine how fast you age
• How estrogen acts as a master regulator of cellular energy, and what happens when it disappears
• Why women's brains start to struggle with glucose during perimenopause and what the research shows about preserving cognitive function
• What S-Equol is, why only 25% of Western women can produce it from soy, and how to change that
• The biomarker GDF-15 that most doctors are not ordering, and why it should be on your radar
• How plant-based fats, MCTs, fiber, B vitamins, and polyphenols feed your mitochondria in ways no supplement can replicate

Dr. Mitchell also addresses the honest evidence base for MitoQ, including where the data is strong and where more research is still needed.

If you are navigating perimenopause, postmenopause, or want to understand how to protect your healthspan, you will enjoy learning from Dr. Mitchell in this episode.

Connect with Dr. Siobhan Mitchell:

MitoQ: https://www.mitoq.com

Research: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=s6LruaUAAAAJ&hl=en

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

What if the cleanest, most complete protein you could eat wasn't made from animals, plants, or soil at all?

In this episode, Dr. Daphne sits down with Walter Ross, founder and CEO of Spacemilk, to explore a category of protein most people have never heard of: single-cell yeast protein, grown in a closed-loop tank of water, free of heavy metals, pesticides, allergens, and the resource footprint of conventional agriculture.

Walter is not a food scientist. He studied economics, went to law school, and grew up watching his father pioneer hydroponic heirloom tomatoes in South Florida. The through-line? A relentless drive to find a better way. That instinct led him to baker's yeast, one of the oldest organisms in human food history, and to building what he believes is the cleanest protein powder on the market today.

We cover a lot of ground in this conversation:

• How yeast protein is actually made, from a molasses-fed fermentation tank to a finished isolate, and why that process naturally removes purines, histamines, and heavy metals that accumulate in soil-grown proteins.
• Why Walter named the company Spacemilk, and the moment at a space conference that reframed everything he was building.
• The randomized controlled trial data comparing yeast protein to whey for lean muscle mass, and what the research actually shows.
• The environmental math: 40% less water and land use than soy, 97% less than beef, and a certified upcycled supply chain where nothing goes to waste.
• Why he third-party tests every single batch for heavy metals, 77 pesticides, molds, mycotoxins, and allergens, and why he thinks most companies simply do not.
• The formulation decisions behind every ingredient, from monk fruit and thaumatin to acacia fiber and algae-based omegas, and what is changing in the next product version.
• What living with purpose means to him, and why he believes the root of all meaning is in giving back more than you take.

This is one of those conversations that quietly shifts how you think about where your food comes from.

Spacemilk: https://spacemilk.com

Spacemilk third-party testing: https://spacemilk.com/pages/testing-1

Try Spacemilk for yourself at spacemilk.com and use code SPACE50 for 50% off your first subscription from July 2 - July 5, 2026, only! 

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

What if the most powerful cancer-fighting tool isn't a drug, it's your muscle?

Exercise oncologist Sami Mansfield spent 23 years building programs inside cancer centers and co-authoring ASCO guidelines before most oncologists were willing to have this conversation. In this episode, she joins Dr. Daphne Bascom to cover what your care team probably hasn't told you about movement, muscle, menopause, and what it actually takes to prevent cancer and thrive after it.

Whether you have a diagnosis, are caring for someone who does, or are simply committed to protecting your health in midlife and beyond, this conversation will change how you think about your body.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why "rest and eat whatever you want" is one of the most harmful things an oncology team can say
• The minimum effective dose of movement Sami starts every patient with (it's 5 minutes and it works)
• Why muscle loss during treatment may occur and how to prevent it
• How to track your muscle health at home for under $35
• The difference between cancer detection and cancer prevention (and why 364 days matter more than your annual screening)
• Sami's "bookend" method for protecting sleep during treatment and menopause
• ….and more!

Connect with Sami Mansfield

My Lifestyle Shift (her survivorship and lifestyle program): https://www.mylifestyleshift.com

Cancer Wellness for Life: https://www.cancerwellnessforlife.com

#CancerPrevention #ExerciseOncology #WomensHealth #Menopause #PlantBased #Longevity #LifestyleMedicine #CancerSurvivor #MuscleHealth #ThriveOnPlants 

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

What if the healthcare system was never actually designed to make you healthy?

Dr. Zeev Neuwirth spent decades inside major health systems as a physician, Chief Medical Officer, and Population Health Officer. What he found there shocked him, then frustrated him, then ultimately set him free.

In this conversation, Dr. Neuwirth breaks down three phases of his career-long awakening: from realizing that even world-class hospitals were failing patients relationally, to discovering that improving healthcare delivery was not the same as improving health, to his most unsettling realization of all: that the entire system, including much of the wellness industry, is built around consumption rather than creation. 

This is one of the most riveting conversations we have had on Thrive on Plants. We ran out of time before we ran out of ideas. Part 2 is coming.

What We Cover

• Why the US ranks 40th in lifespan and 80th in healthy adjusted life years despite spending over $5 trillion on healthcare annually
• The Groundhog Day moment that changed Dr. Neuwirth's career trajectory
• Why willpower is the least reliable health tool you have and what actually works instead
• The three reframes that shift you from self-blame to self-protection
• How your social environment is shaping your health behaviors, whether you realize it or not
• The wellness industrial complex: when the solution becomes part of the problem

About Dr. Zeev Neuwirth

Dr. Zeev Neuwirth is a physician, healthcare executive, and author of Reframing Healthcare. He is the host of the podcast Creating a New Healthcare and spent decades in senior leadership roles at major US health systems, including Atrium Health (now Advocate Health), one of the three largest health systems in the country. His work sits at the intersection of healthcare systems reform, behavior change science, and personal health agency.

Connect with Dr. Zeev Neuwirth

X: https://x.com/ZeevNeuwirth

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeevneuwirth

Apple Podcast: https://www.creatinganewhealthcare.com/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0bU0A671AbKoeKIKLlaKSk

Amazon (books): https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07NK5YP7H

#HealthcareReform #Healthspan #LifestyleMedicine #ReframingHealthcare #BehaviorChange #ThriveOnPlants 

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

Julie Gibson Clark is not a billionaire with a team of longevity doctors. She is a full-time recruiter, a former structural engineer, a single mom from Phoenix -- and she has outperformed most of the world's highest-spending biohackers on the most rigorous biological aging leaderboard.

Her DunedinPACE score of 0.665 indicates she was aging at a rate of 65 days per 100 days. She got there with a pound of vegetables a day, weights four times a week, a $20 gym membership, and a very clear reason why she refuses to age faster than she has to.In this episode of Thrive on Plants, Julie shares what she has learned over the years. She did not just tell me what works. She told me what went wrong, including the time she added one too many supplements, developed a fibroid, cut her HRT in half, stopped sleeping, and watched her pace of aging jump from 0.665 back up to 0.77. 

What we cover:

• What biological aging pace actually measures, and why it matters more than a static "biological age" number
• How she accidentally slowed her aging faster than Bryan Johnson, and why she is not surprised he has since surpassed her
• The quercetin experiment gone wrong: a new fibroid, disrupted HRT, and a DunedinPACE score that climbed back up -- and what it taught her about adding supplements without understanding your own genetics
• Why she stopped eating 100 grams of protein every day and what she does instead 

This is not a story about biohacking. It is a story about what happens when you pursue healthspan with consistency and intention.

Resources:

• Julie Gibson Clark's website: https://www.juliegibsonclark.com
• Julie's YouTube channel (Longevity Kitchen -- From Paper to Plate): youtube.com/@JulieGibsonClark
• Julie's Instagram: @juliegibsonclark

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

Forty percent of women are not being heard by their doctors when they report menopause symptoms. Andrea Donsky was one of them.

She is a nutritionist with 26 years of experience. She had studied health and wellness her entire career. And she still spent 14 years in perimenopause without knowing it.

When she finally understood what had been happening to her body, she did not keep it to herself. She spent two years researching, surveyed over 5,200 women, published her findings, and wrote the book she wished she had been handed at 35. That book is Nourishing Menopause: Powerful Nutrition and Lifestyle Strategies to Feel Your Best. 

In this episode, we cover:

• Why perimenopause likely starts earlier than you think, and why most women miss it
• How one night of poor sleep disrupts insulin, increases cravings, and contributes to weight gain
• The REST Protocol for better sleep: Routine, Environment, Support, and Technology
• Why "eat less, exercise more" stops working in perimenopause, and what to do instead
• The 17 reasons you may be gaining weight, and most of them are not your fault
• How your gut microbiome and estrobolome affect hormone clearance
• The blood tests every woman in midlife should be asking her doctor for
• Andrea's simple protein formula, built directly from the research
• Why most electrolyte supplements are formulated for male athletes, not perimenopausal women
• How mindset shapes your menopause experience more than most people realize
• Andrea's research found that 50 to 90 percent of the top 10 most common menopause symptoms are brain and mental health related

Get Nourishing Menopause (available now): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668061546

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Nourishing-Menopause-Audiobook/B0FXHRZX63 

Book website: nourishingmenopausebook.com (a great download is available on this site)

Learn more about Andrea and her research: https://wearemorphus.com

Follow Andrea Donsky: 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearemorphus 
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreadonsky 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wearemorphus

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!

Lori Baum is a medical assistant who has spent over two decades working in oncology. She knows cancer. She knows screenings. She eats well, stays active, and has been proactive about her health for years.

And still, in November 2022, she found the words "invasive carcinoma" on her phone screen at lunch.

In this episode of Thrive on Plants, Lori shares her full story: a heavy family history of cancer, a negative BRCA test, a breast MRI that changed everything, and a triple-negative breast cancer diagnosis that her mammogram earlier that same year had completely missed.

What follows is one of the most honest conversations we have had on this podcast. Lori talks about what it actually feels like to go through 16 rounds of chemotherapy and 15 rounds of radiation, how she stayed active and kept eating well when treatment was taking everything from her, what the healthcare system gets right and gets wrong during survivorship, and how she found her way back to herself on the other side.

Lori is now 58 years old, fully plant-based, strength training, running half marathons, and training for an Ironman relay. She says she is in the best shape of her life.

Topics covered:

• Why family history and dense breasts may require more than a standard mammogram
• Triple negative breast cancer: what it is and what treatment involves
• How Lori stayed active and ate well through chemotherapy and radiation
• The emotional weight of survivorship and what comes after treatment ends
• How plant-based eating and strength training transformed her recovery
• Why self-advocacy is the most important tool you have in your healthcare journey

Connect with Lori: [email protected]

Additional resources to help you thrive on plants:

🌱 Access the free Plant-Powered Body course: Access Here

🌱 Take the free health assessment for women 40+: Start Here  

🌱  Watch every episode on YouTube

⭐️ If you loved this episode, please leave a review! ⭐️

Here’s how to do it on Apple Podcasts:

Go to the Thrive on Plants Podcast page: Click here

Scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Tap ‘Write a Review’ 

(you may be prompted to log in with your Apple ID). 

Thank you for your support!