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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 about her experience going into the menopause transition and how she got her power, mojo, and competitive edge back.After graduating college, Jill Patterson moved to Japan to teach English. She ended up staying 10 years, picked up road cycling, and was recruited to race on a Japanese women’s road racing team. After returning to the US 8 years ago, she continued to explore cycling in all forms, including Gran Fondo, criteriums, gravel, mountain bike, and cyclocross. Today she is a full time cycling coach for athletes from all over the world. Jill continues to race and has achieved many notable wins including the 2018 GFNY World Championship, the 2021 Wedu Segment Challenge, and the 2022 and 2023 USA Cycling Gran Fondo National Championship titles. You can learn more about her at @jillpattersoncycling on Instagram and at jillpattersoncycling.com.Sign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

The New York Times recently called Ozempic a “new match for menopausal weight gain”. But is it? These drugs can be a godsend for those who need them. But there's a lot we need to understand. How do they work? How well do they work? Who benefits from them? What are their risks? What impact do they have on muscle, bone, and performance? How do they affect training and racing? We dig into all of that and more this week with endocrinologist and Ironman triathlete Dr. Jody Dushay who has been researching these drugs for more than a decade. Jody Dushay, M.D., MMSc, is an endocrinologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also the founder and director of Well Powered, a comprehensive wellness and weight management program. Dr Dushay has studied the effect of pharmacotherapies and dietary interventions on body weight for years, including a large single-site study examining the effects of a glucagon-like peptide receptor agonist on body weight in obese women without diabetes. As a triathlete, she has qualified for Kona 3 times and came in 2nd in her age group at the 2020 Ironman World Championship in St George. You can learn more about her and her work at wellpowered.org.Resources:Dr. Jody Dushay’s research:Short-term exenatide treatment leads to significant weight loss in a subset of obese women without diabetesWeight Loss Outcomes Among Early High Responders to Exenatide Treatment: A Randomized, Placebo Controlled Study in Overweight and Obese WomenSign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

Most women don’t expect menopause symptoms to start until age 50. Neither do many of their healthcare providers. That’s a problem because, as this week’s guest Nina Coslov’s research shows, women can actually start experiencing symptoms associated with menopause during their late reproductive years before their periods become noticeably irregular and they’re officially in perimenopause. Yet when they seek care, they’re often told they’re “too young for menopause” because they still have regular cycles. This week, Coslov talks about her research on the late reproductive stage in a woman’s life as well as womenlivingbetter.org, the organization she started to help women get the menopausal information they need before they’re suffering and not knowing where to turn.Nina Coslov created Women Living Better (womenlivingbetter.org) to provide anticipatory guidance about perimenopause. Intent on better characterizing the path to menopause, she focuses on education and research, and along with her partners, has published six papers in peer-reviewed journals. Nina was the lead author on “Symptom experience during the late reproductive stage and the menopause transition: observations from the Women Living Better survey,” published in the journal Menopause. She authored the chapter “Women’s Voices: The Lived Experience of the Path to Menopause” in Each Women’s Menopause: An evidenced Based Resource. Nina received the 2021 Media Award from the North American Menopause Society. Prior to Women Living Better, Nina worked in the biotech industry and before that was a management consultant. Nina has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a BA from Williams College. ResourcesMenopause Journal study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34313615/Women Living Better Instagram https://www.instagram.com/womenlivingbetter/Perimenopause care resources: https://womenlivingbetter.org/published-research-health-care-for-perimenopause/https://womenlivingbetter.org/hormonal-changes/Sign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

As we roll into a brand new year filled with goals and aspirations, this week’s guest, fan-favorite Peloton Cycling instructor Christine D’Ercole would like to remind us that we are bigger than a smaller pair of pants, and the most powerful thing anyone can say to us is what we say to ourselves, and we have agency in that conversation. Now 52, Christine has started using her enormous platform to share her experiences with the menopause transition and to defy and rewrite the story that we’ve been told about what menopause means when it comes to what we’re capable of and how we see ourselves. When she’s not putting power into her pedals, she’s helping women empower themselves by changing their self talk and helps guide them with her signature mantra:  I Am  I Can I Will I Do. We cover Christine’s menopause experience, her body image battles, and how she uses self talk in her own life and you can too. You can learn more about her and her work at christinedercole.com.Christine D’Ercole is a speaker, writer, decorated competitive cyclist, and original Peloton Cycling Instructor who inspires thousands daily with her work on and off the bike. She is also the founder of WORDSHOP: a workshop in self-talk that is a practical and profound tool for change, centered on the four prompts that make up the root of all our self-talk: I am... I can... I will... and I do. Over the past ten years she has provided wordshops for major corporations, youth organizations and Employee Resource Groups. When she is not writing or speaking, Christine is racing her bike at Velodromes across the country. She is a Masters World Champion, holds 15 National titles, and is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.Check out her CDE Menopause Playlist here on SpotifySign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

This episode originally dropped on May 24, 2023. 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 our strengths to slice through the limiting beliefs that hold us back so we can feel and perform our best.Cara Bradley is a former pro skater and leading authority of mental fitness and menopause mindsets. She shares her signature body-mind training with Fortune 500 companies, pro and college sports teams, and top wellness brands. Cara is the author of On The Verge: Wake Up, Show Up, and Shine, the founder of Verge Yoga Center, and the host of the Daily Whispers podcast. In 2020, Cara was named a “Top 12 Most Powerful Women in the Mindfulness Movement” by Mindful Magazine. You can learn more about Cara and her work at carabradley.net And check her out on TikTok @menopausemindset. 

This episode originally dropped on April 5, 2023.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 book Built to Move is all about the Base Camp, especially in midlife and menopause. We dive into Juliet’s personal story (including a hippo attack!) as well as the vital signs and foundations menopausal women need to tune into so they can be strong, able, and pain-free for the rest of their active lives.  Juliet Starrett is an entrepreneur, attorney, author, and podcaster. She is the former co-founder and CEO of San Francisco CrossFit, one of the first 50 CrossFit affiliates. Juliet is the co-author of the Wall Street Journal Bestseller, Deskbound and co-host of The Ready State Podcast. Before turning her attention to The Ready State and San Francisco CrossFit full time, Juliet was a professional whitewater paddler, winning 3 World Championship and 5 National titles. Her latest book, co-authored with her husband and mobility pioneer, Dr. Kelly Starrett is Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully. You can learn more about her, The Ready State, and Built to Move at thereadystate.com ResourcesBuilt to Move: thereadystate.com/product/built-to-move/Juliet’s blog on preparing for menopause: thereadystate.com/blogs/how-i-am-preparing-for-menopause/Sign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

As active women, we’re so used to our bodies being considered “other” or “less than” in health and fitness media, we barely notice it. Our bouncing breasts are a problem. Our wide hips are a problem. Our periods, boy oh boy, big problem. And when we hit perimenopause and menopause? Well, until very recently nobody even bothered talking about us…especially exercise physiology researchers, who, as this week’s guest Christine Yu discovered, have largely overlooked athletic and active menopausal women. This week we flip the script and make women’s bodies the norm as we dive in on what we know and the research we need to answer the questions we have. Christine Yu is the author of Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes, in which she explains the latest research and celebrates the researchers, athletes, and advocates pushing back against the status quo and proposing better solutions to improve the active and athletic lives of women and girls. Yu is an award-winning journalist whose work focuses on the intersection of sports science and women athletes. Her writing has appeared in Outside, The Washington Post, Runner’s World, and other publications. She’s a lifelong athlete and yoga teacher who loves running, surfing, and skiing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can learn more about her and her work at christinemyu.comResources:Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes. Pick up a copy here. Sign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

Women generally talk about what they see and feel during menopause. Symptoms like hot flashes, joint pain, and vaginal dryness grab our attention while our bone density silently slips away. Women can lose up to 20% of their spinal bone mass through the menopause transition. Thirty-five to 50 percent of women have low bone mass by age 50. Your lifetime risk of having a hip fracture is higher than breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and uterine cancer combined. Thirty percent of women will die within a year of having a hip fracture. Yet, bone health still fails to grab the headlines it deserves. We want to stay strong and active into our older years, and that starts with maintaining healthy bones. This week we dive into all of it with osteoporosis and menopause expert Dr. Kristi DeSapri.Kristi DeSapri, MD, truly believes that women deserve to function at optimal health and are gatekeepers to their families’ and communities’ health. She is a board certified internist specializing in midlife women’s health and is regarded as a national leader in the field of osteoporosis and menopause management. After fellowship training at the Cleveland Clinic, she has worked in private practice and academic medicine including being director of the Northwestern Women’s Bone Health program at the Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. She is the founding physician and owner of Bone and Body Women’s Health, LCC a specialized midlife women’s health practice in Winnetka, IL focused on consultation and management of perimenopause, menopause, osteoporosis, fracture prevention and treatment and sexual health. You can learn more about her and her work at www.boneandbodywh.com.ResourcesOnline fracture risk assessment calculator hereFind a DEXA scan near you hereSign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

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.comSign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

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.Sign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feisty.co/feisty-40/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://feisty.co/events/feisty-fest/Learn More about our 2026 Feisty Events, including Bike Camps and Cycling Trips: https://feisty.co/events/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners: Eternal - Get 15% off their services with code FEISTY15 at https://eternal.coMidi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Hettas: Use code STAYFEISTY for 20% off at https://hettas.com/ Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr