Hit Play Not Pause Feisty Media

At 49, this week’s guest Sarah Max is the oldest rider in the Life Time Grand Prix, the biggest, hardest gravel and mountain bike race series on the planet. That was something Sarah didn’t always want to talk about. She didn’t want to be defined by her age and didn’t always love the attention it attracted. But she’s realized that while her age isn’t her “brand,” it is part of her story–and an important part that inspires others and helps them see their own potential. And it most certainly doesn’t get in her way, as she embraces the challenges and opportunities of the professional cycling life while also working full time as the Managing Editor at Morgan Stanley Research and being the mom of twin college-age girls. 
Sarah Max’s professional cycling highlights include a 3rd place finish at 2019 Unbound (formerly DK200), 2nd place in the notoriously competitive Belgian Waffle Ride in Southern California in 2019 and 6th in 2023, 4th at Steamboat Gravel in 2022, and 13th overall in the Life Time Grand Prix series last year. She started her editorial career covering investing and personal finance as a staff writer for Money Magazine and, later, as a senior writer for CNNMoney. With the mountains calling, Sarah moved to Bend, Oregon where she worked as a contributing editor to Barron's and contributing writer to publications including Entrepreneur, The New York Times, Time Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal before taking her current job at Morgan Stanley.
Resources
https://www.lifetimegrandprix.com/
Register for the Feisty Summer STRONG Course: https://www.womensperformance.com/strong
Subscribe to the Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feistymedia.ac-page.com/feisty-40-sign-up-page
Follow Us on Instagram:
Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopause
Feisty Media: @feisty_media
Selene: @fitchick3
Hit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099
Join Level Up - Our Community for Active Women Navigating the Menopause Transition:
Join: https://www.feistymenopause.com/monthly-membership-1
Leave your questions for Selene:
https://www.speakpipe.com/hitplay
Get the Free Feisty Women's Guide to Lifting Heavy Sh*t:
https://www.feistymenopause.com/liftheavy
Support our Partners:
Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/
Lagoon Sleep: Go to LagoonSleep.com/hitplay and take the 2 minute sleep quiz to find your match, and then use the code HITPLAY for 15% off your first purchase
Hettas: Use code FEISTY20 for 20% off at https://hettas.com/

Women’s brains are finally getting the research attention they deserve! While we sort out the role hormones play in our current and future cognitive health, it’s important to remember that estrogen is just one player in a lifelong host of factors impacting your brain, including education, intellectual engagement, diet and nutrition, exercise and fitness, hearing loss, head injuries, sleep, stress levels, community, purpose, and much more! Hormones are part of the picture, but don’t outweigh everything else. There are many actions we can take to improve cognitive function and brain health, whether or not we also use hormone therapy. We dive into it all this week with neuroscientist Dr. Sarah McKay.
Dr. Sarah McKay is an Oxford University-educated neuroscientist and educator. She is the director of The Neuroscience Academy and author of The Women’s Brain Book: The Neuroscience of Health, Hormones and Happiness. Dr. McKay teaches coaches, therapists, teachers and other professionals how to thoughtfully apply insights and tools from neuroscience to their work. You can learn more about her and buy her book at drsarahmckay.com
Resources
Menopause impacts human brain structure, connectivity, energy metabolism, and amyloid‑beta deposition study here.
Systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of menopause hormone therapy on risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia study here. 
Sex-specific associations of serum cortisol with brain biomarkers of Alzheimer’s risk study here.
Hormone Replacement Therapy Could Ward off Alzheimer’s Among At-Risk Women research here
Trends in Intracranial and Cerebral Volumes of Framingham Heart Study Participants Born 1930 to 1970 study here. 
Register for the Feisty Summer STRONG Course: https://www.womensperformance.com/strong
Subscribe to the Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feistymedia.ac-page.com/feisty-40-sign-up-page
Follow Us on Instagram:
Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopause
Feisty Media: @feisty_media
Selene: @fitchick3
Hit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099
Join Level Up - Our Community for Active Women Navigating the Menopause Transition:
Join: https://www.feistymenopause.com/monthly-membership-1
Leave your questions for Selene:
https://www.speakpipe.com/hitplay
Get the Free Feisty Women's Guide to Lifting Heavy Sh*t:
https://www.feistymenopause.com/liftheavy
Support our Partners:
Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/
Lagoon Sleep: Go to LagoonSleep.com/hitplay and take the 2 minute sleep quiz to find your match, and then use the code HITPLAY for 15% off your first purchase
Hettas: Use code FEISTY20 for 20% off at https://hettas.com/

Cultural messages glorify youth as the best time of our lives. But that’s not what this week’s guest, Caroline Paul found while researching her wonderful book Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking―How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age. Instead, she found active, adventurous women praising their postmenopausal lives and the enjoyment they found in the now. For this project, Caroline spoke with women around the country about their aging journeys and the activities that have changed their lives – including BASE jumping, wing-walking, flying, swimming, orienteering, walking, scuba diving, boogie boarding and BMX riding – and examined the different ways that activity and the outdoors can help you age better and make you happier as well as improve your spirit, mind, body, and heart. We talked about all that and more this week.
Caroline Paul is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure and Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology, which has been translated into fifteen languages. She is also the author of the memoir Fighting Fire, the middle-grade book You Are Mighty: A Guide to Changing the World, and the novel East Wind, Rain. Her TED Talk, “To Raise Brave Girls, Encourage Adventure,” has been viewed over 2 million times. A longtime member of the Writers Grotto, she lives in San Francisco. You can learn all about her and Tough Broad at www.carolinepaul.com
Register for the Feisty Summer STRONG Course: https://www.womensperformance.com/strong
Subscribe to the Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feistymedia.ac-page.com/feisty-40-sign-up-page
Follow Us on Instagram:
Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopause
Feisty Media: @feisty_media
Selene: @fitchick3
Hit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099
Join Level Up - Our Community for Active Women Navigating the Menopause Transition:
Join: https://www.feistymenopause.com/monthly-membership-1
Leave your questions for Selene:
https://www.speakpipe.com/hitplay
Get the Free Feisty Women's Guide to Lifting Heavy Sh*t:
https://www.feistymenopause.com/liftheavy
Support our Partners:
Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/
Lagoon Sleep: Go to LagoonSleep.com/hitplay and take the 2 minute sleep quiz to find your match, and then use the code HITPLAY for 15% off your first purchase
Hettas: Use code FEISTY20 for 20% off at https://hettas.com/

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–that’s 337.5 miles total–in a span of 22 days. We talk all about how she gets it done, the hurdles she’s faced, and what the future holds.
Pam Reed has been a prolific ultrarunner since she entered the sport in 1992. She quickly excelled and won on the track, road, and trails. She is most well-known for her back-to-back Badwater 135 overall wins in 2002 and 2003. Over her career, she has at least 30 ultra wins, including 13 wins in races of 100 miles or more. In 2021, she became the 19th known person in the world to achieve 100 100-mile finishes with at least 45 podiums in those 100-milers. She has finished 65 full Ironmans, including 10 at Kona, Hawaii. In 2005, Pam authored the book, The Extra Mile: One Woman’s Personal Journey to Ultra-Running Greatness. She was also the race director for the Tucson Marathon for 28 years.
Resources
Follow Pam at Tor des Géants
Register for the Feisty Summer STRONG Course: https://www.womensperformance.com/strong
Subscribe to the Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feistymedia.ac-page.com/feisty-40-sign-up-page
Follow Us on Instagram:
Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopause
Feisty Media: @feisty_media
Selene: @fitchick3
Hit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099
Join Level Up - Our Community for Active Women Navigating the Menopause Transition:
Join: https://www.feistymenopause.com/monthly-membership-1
Leave your questions for Selene:
https://www.speakpipe.com/hitplay
Get the Free Feisty Women's Guide to Lifting Heavy Sh*t:
https://www.feistymenopause.com/liftheavy
Support our Partners:
Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/
Lagoon Sleep: Go to LagoonSleep.com/hitplay and take the 2 minute sleep quiz to find your match, and then use the code HITPLAY for 15% off your first purchase
Hettas: Use code FEISTY20 for 20% off at https://hettas.com/

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 outright misinformation swirling around menopause metabolism, and much, much more.
Val Schonberg RDN, CSSD, is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition science from the University of Minnesota. She is Board Certified as a Specialist in Sports Dietetics, a Certified Menopause Practitioner with The Menopause Society, and a Fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Val owns a private practice in Atlanta, Georgia where she specializes in midlife health and menopause, recreational and professional sports nutrition, all types of eating disorders and helping individuals break free from dieting and disordered eating. She is the consulting dietitian for Emory Sports Medicine, Orthopedics, Atlanta Ballet, and the Atlanta Dream Women’s NBA team. Val is passionate about providing nutrition care to populations vulnerable to disordered eating and promoting positive nutrition messages that help people make informed decisions about their health and live a life where they are at peace in their relationship with food and their body. You can learn more about her at valschonberg.com.
Resources:
Sex Differences in the Association of Body Composition and Cardiovascular Mortality here
The effect of menopause on the relation between weight gain and mortality among women here
Register for the Feisty Summer STRONG Course: https://www.womensperformance.com/strong
Subscribe to the Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feistymedia.ac-page.com/feisty-40-sign-up-page
Follow Us on Instagram:
Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopause
Feisty Media: @feisty_media
Selene: @fitchick3
Hit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099
Join Level Up - Our Community for Active Women Navigating the Menopause Transition:
Join: https://www.feistymenopause.com/monthly-membership-1
Leave your questions for Selene:
https://www.speakpipe.com/hitplay
Get the Free Feisty Women's Guide to Lifting Heavy Sh*t:
https://www.feistymenopause.com/liftheavy
Support our Partners:
Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/
Lagoon Sleep: Go to LagoonSleep.com/hitplay and take the 2 minute sleep quiz to find your match, and then use the code HITPLAY for 15% off your first purchase
Hettas: Use code FEISTY20 for 20% off at https://hettas.com/

Wear and tear on our active joints is inevitable, and the menopause transition can make them more vulnerable. But there are some simple, and often overlooked, ways to support our joint health that include proper nutrition, recovery, strength and mobility practices, footwear and more, which can help us stay active and pain free through and beyond menopause. This week we break it all down with sports medicine physician Dr. Ashley Austin.
Ashley V. Austin, MD, is Assistant Attending Physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery. She graduated cum laude from the University of Evansville where she played Division I basketball and was an all-conference offensive and defensive player. Dr. Austin completed her family medicine residency at the University of Virginia and completed a fellowship in primary care sports medicine at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA). After fellowship, she remained on faculty at the University of Washington as an Assistant Professor. She also served as the Co-Director of Musculoskeletal Anatomy and Physiology for the School of Medicine and Faculty Liaison for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Austin has covered sports at all levels including high school, National Ski Patrol, the WNBA and MLB. Her hobbies include high-altitude mountaineering and hiking, playing tennis, basketball, and soccer, snowboarding, and learning to surf. You can learn more about her and her work at www.hss.edu.
Register for the Feisty Summer STRONG Course: https://www.womensperformance.com/strong
Subscribe to the Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://feistymedia.ac-page.com/feisty-40-sign-up-page
Follow Us on Instagram:
Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopause
Feisty Media: @feisty_media
Selene: @fitchick3
Hit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099
Join Level Up - Our Community for Active Women Navigating the Menopause Transition:
Join: https://www.feistymenopause.com/monthly-membership-1
Leave your questions for Selene:
https://www.speakpipe.com/hitplay
Get the Free Feisty Women's Guide to Lifting Heavy Sh*t:
https://www.feistymenopause.com/liftheavy
Support our Partners:
Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/
Lagoon Sleep: Go to LagoonSleep.com/hitplay and take the 2 minute sleep quiz to find your match, and then use the code HITPLAY for 15% off your first purchase
Hettas: Use code FEISTY20 for 20% off at https://hettas.com/