"Hit Play Not Pause," is the name of Selene Yeagar's podcast, and we think it's perfect.

While middle age and menopause mean changes in our bodies, aging doesn't mean physical activity — even at a competitive level — is behind us.

In this episode, Gennev CEO Jill Angelo talks with Selene about how post-menopausal women can continue to perform at a high level — or just be fit and feel good in their bodies, if that's the goal. 

Selene Yeager manages content for Feisty Menopause. She is also a top-selling professional health and fitness writer who lives what she writes as an NASM certified personal trainer, USA Cycling licensed coach, Pn1 certified nutrition coach, pro licensed off-road racer, and former All-American Ironman triathlete. 

Learn more about Selene and hear the podcast at FeistyMenopause.com.

Remember getting out of bed when you were 30? Nothing hurt, everything moved in the right direction, nothing was stuck or rusty or sore.

You can be that way again, says Dr. Vonda Wright, double-boarded orthopedic sports surgeon, internationally recognized authority on active aging and mobility, and an innovator focused on optimizing personal and professional performance at every age. 

Menopause and achy joints don't have to stop you from doing activities you love. You may need to approach activity differently, and (please don't shoot the messenger) cut back on sugar, but 50 and menopause don't mean your active life is over.

Have a listen to Jill Angelo, Gennev CEO, and Dr. Wright as they talk about movement, joint pain, and how to FACE the future.

Find Dr. Wright at DrVondaWright.com, check out her podcast Hot For Your Health, and be sure to find her books!

Gennev's #IAmThe Change campaign is a call to arms for women to speak up about how they’re transforming during their time of menopause. No more shushing women into isolation, I am the Change is meant to help us all feel a little more normal, a little more in control of this miraculous and sometimes challenging transition we’re in, and a little less lonely when the stress, sleeplessness, or relationship strain gets heavy.

We didn’t quite know where the women’s stories would take us, but we knew that it takes voices coming together to create change. The kind of change that materially changes how women will experience this menopause transition so many of us manage on a daily basis. Join us!

2020 was a tough year for women and wellness. In fact, 70% of us put our health “on hold,” pushing off preventative appointments and screenings. How is that impacting our health?

In this podcast, Gennev CEO Jill Angelo, CMO Dr. Rebecca Dunsmoor-Su, and Director of Coaching Stasi Kasianchuk discuss telehealth, menopause, and the incredible resilience of women.

Historically (and, let's face it, currently) society hasn't done a great job of valuing and centering women and women's issues. 

This lack of care and attention is compounded when the woman in question is older, Black or of color, LGBTQ+, disabled, trans, or at the intersection of two or more of these identities. 

Omisade Burney-Scott is changing that. Her website, Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause, is a sort of Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret for an older demographic -- intended to be a safe space for Black women to ask questions, get and give answers, and explore identity at any age.

In a society that values youth over age and rewards "anti-aging" over aging naturally, Omisade's site, podcast, and events are opportunities for women to individually and collective take back their power and identity. 

In this podcast, Omisade speaks with Gennev CEO Jill Angelo about women's obligation and honor to teach younger generations about aging and menopause. As Omisade says, it's important "to see the trajectory of someone's lived experience" and understand "there's no shelf-life on evolving." Older women have important information to give, about the experience of menopause, and so much more. It's up to us to find opportunities to pass that information along. 

About Omisade Burney-Scott: 

February is Heart Health month, and here are a few things you need to know but might not:

1. Heart disease is the #1 killer of women in the United States, far outpacing breast cancer.
2. Estrogen is protective of the heart - it relaxes arteries and promotes the "good" kind of cholesterol.
3. Ten years post-menopause, a woman's risk of heart disease is equal to a man's.
4. Women are more likely to die due to heart attack because our assumptions about what heart attacks "look like" are based largely on men's symptoms - not women's. So women often don't seek treatment or are misdiagnosed.

That's enough of the bad news. Here's some good news instead.

Nutrition, exercise, and attention to gut health can go a long way toward reducing your risk of heart disease (and this is true of everyone at every age).

In this conversation with bariatric surgeon and gut-health expert Dr. Erika La Vella, Gennev Director of Health Coaching Stasi Kasianchuk asks the questions YOU need the answers to: how to maximize gut health to have a healthier heart.

You can find Dr. La Vella at lavellayourguts.com. You can make an appointment with Coach Stasi or any of our Dietitian Nutritionist coaches at Gennev.com/plans.

Resources for additional information:

Ada Calhoun's Book Why Can't We Sleep? was an instant New York Times bestseller. 

Gen X women are finding it hauntingly and painfully and upliftingly familiar. 

Gen X women are ... unhappy. Not all of them, not all of the time, but certainly there is more of a cloud over this generation than others. Sandwiched eternally between the much larger, much louder Boomer and Millennial cohorts, Gen X has been overlooked and ignored like the latchkey kids we so essentially are.

And that's doubly true of the women of Gen X, who are now aging into "invisibility" - those supposedly unsexy years after 40. 

Ada Calhoun wanted to know why we're such a miserable bunch, so she started asking. Two hundred interviews with Gen X women later, she's got answers, and she shared them in this fabulous podcast with Gen Xer (and what an irony that my computer's spellcheck doesn't recognize "Xer"), Gennev CEO Jill Angelo.

Hear their conversation about the price of trying to have it all, what it's like to be the first generation not to do better than our parents did, and why perimenopause and menopause are making it even harder on the women of the forgotten generation.

Spoiler: it's not all bad news. But there is some. 

Jeannie Ralston has, literally, done pretty much everything and been pretty much everywhere.

From hiking the Great Wall to introducing her kids to the Arab Spring to hanging out in Morocco with famous people (and not really enjoying it much), she's been there, written about that.

At 60, not only does she show no signs of slowing down, she's not really sure why anyone would expect her to. She's as vibrant, energetic, and curious as ever, and she's sharing that energy and optimism with women globally.

"We can be very proud of being women and of being women this age," she says, and we are very proud to know her.

Have a listen to this fantastic conversation between Gennev CEO Jill Angelo and Next Tribe founder Jeannie Ralston, then come find your Next Tribe for your awesome next chapter of life. 

Also, if you're interested in participating in the writing workshop she spoke of in the podcast, learn more: https://nexttribe.com/book-publishing-workshop/

About Jeannie

Jeannie Ralston is the co-founder and CEO of NextTribe, the digital magazine and community for smart, engaged women over 45.

NextTribe’s mission is to inform, promote, and connect women who are determined to “Age Boldly” (NextTribe’s tagline).

Ralston’s work as a journalist has been published in National Geographic, Life, The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Allure, and many other magazines. Her years growing lavender in rural Texas was the subject of her memoir, The Unlikely Lavender Queen, published by Broadway Books; her e-book, The Mother of All Field Trips, was about the three years she and her husband homeschooled and traveled with their sons.

She lives in Austin, Texas.

What's the link between your gut health and your emotions?

It's a tighter combination than most of us realize, meaning perhaps more of our mental and emotional health is in our control than we previously thought.

We know that our emotions can have a direct physical result: stress, depression, anxiety — all of these can show up in our bodies and in our guts. Upset stomach, loss of (or increase in) appetite, body aches and pains can all result from emotional distress.

But the impact travels both directions: the health of our microbiome can also dictate a great deal of how we feel, physically and emotionally.

In this podcast, Gennev Director of Health Coaching Stasi Kasianchuk talks with metabolic surgeon, gut-health expert, and owner of LaVellaYourGuts.com, Dr. Erika La Vella, about the intersection of nutrition, emotion, gut, brain, and menopause.

There's long been a gap in the quality of care men and women receive. Women's bodies are less understood, their health issues less researched, their solutions have frequently been "treat women as small men," their pain poorly treated or ignored, and on and on and on.

That discrepancy in care is exponentially worse if the woman is Black or a woman of color; worse if she's poor, worse if she's a transgender woman; worse if she's past reproductive age.

There are women, men, and organizations out there that feel like part of our family — the family that's working to improve health care for women. Denise Pines is one of that family. 

She is is the co-visionary and head task master for Tea Botanics, a company that makes tea for hot flashes, among others. An award-winning marketer and serial entrepreneur, Denise has participated in 10 startups. She is founder of WisePause, a pro-aging health and education platform and FemAging 2020, a report that introduces a new industry sector, FemAging Tech.

Denise cofounded Women in the Room Productions who produced the award-winning film PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in School. Denise is the current President of the Medical Board of California.

In this conversation with Gennev CEO Jill Angelo, Denise and Jill talk about the discrepancies in care and how many in the medical community are starting to recognize and close the gap.

The largest organ in the human body isn’t actually in the human body – it’s on the outside. To be even more accurate, it is the outside.

It’s our skin. And it does more than keep the rain out and our insides in.

Our skin is a pretty good barrier against much of the outside world, but it isn’t perfect. Sun damage happens. And the products we use on our skin may be doing us more harm than good.

Kari Gran and Lisa Strain started the Kari Gran company based, as it often is for women, on a need that no one was meeting.

Kari herself was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder in her late twenties. That diagnosis, after years of not feeling well, led her to consider the impact on her insides of the products she used on her outside: creams, lotions, soaps, makeup, etc.

We know what we put on our skin can affect us systemically — it's the way nicotine patches work, after all. So we need to be thoughtful about the products we use on our skin, especially as we get older.

Kari, who describes herself as a "diehard beauty junkie," made healthy alternatives in her kitchen to give to friends as gifts. Lisa pushed her to turn her amazing formulations into a business, and there's been no looking back.

Guaranteed free from endocrine-disrupting parabens and other harmful ingredients, the rich, lush, cleansing, hydrating, restorative serums, soaps, oils and more are protective and nourishing.

Learn more about skin care and Kari Gran — the company and the woman it's named for — in this podcast with Gennev CEO Jill Angelo. 

"Fatigue" does not equal "tired." Fatigue is something else, and it can be exponentially worse. It isn't solved with "just get more sleep," and day after day of it can really wear you down.

Fatigue — real fatigue — is a common symptom of menopause. It makes work hard, exercise impossible, even thinking straight can feel like it takes all your resources.

The kind of fatigue we're talking about can be a result of less estrogen to "feed" your brain. If you have some brain fog, forgetfulness, are easily distracted and occasionally confused, it's all part of the same process: your brain is trying to adapt to less estrogen.

While this part of perimenopause and menopause is temporary, it can last a year or two or longer. And if you don't know what's happening, it can be frightening. We hear from women all the time that they were terrified they were developing early onset dementia or that they'd been to a round of doctors to deal with "chronic fatigue." Finding out it's likely a (temporary) result of menopause is a huge relief.

Even worse than the symptom itself is that often, no one even mentions the culprit could be diminishing hormones, leading women to get expensive tests, waste time on incorrect diagnoses, and live in fear over a totally normal process.

There are things you can do to fight the fatigue: the right nutrition and exercise are powerful tools, and there are medications that can help while your brain and body adjust to the new normal. 

In this podcast, we hear from Gennev Director of Health Coaching, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Exercise Physiologist Stasi Kasianchuk and Naturopathic Physician Dr. Wendy Ellis on how to handle menopause fatigue. 

I think we can safely say that 2020 has been an above-average year for just about everyone — in terms of stress, anyway.

For women dealing with perimenopause and menopause symptoms on top of everything else, the stress can seem unmanageable. And because 2020 has been harder on women, it's no surprise many women are looking for relief from stress.

One relatively new avenue for many is CBD, the non-hallucinogenic compound found in hemp. While research is still underway, many women have found CBD helps relieve stress and joint pain and promote sleep.

In this conversation, Gennev Director of Health Coaching Stasi Kasianchuk talks with naturopathic doctor Aimée Shunney about the potential of CBD and how to choose a CBD supplement that's high-quality, safe, and contains what it claims on the label.

Take a listen, then check out Gennev's high-quality CBD supplements, tincture, and Sleep System. 

With Halloween just behind us and Thanksgiving straight ahead, it's official: we've entered the Season of Sugar. 

And it's not just sugar, of course: it's salt and saturated fat and stress and alcohol and stress and parties and not enough sleep and stress.

If you think your head aches after a night of too much indulgence, just imagine what your poor gut biome is going through. 

And as we get older, our gut biome changes, loses diversity, isn't as able to handle the demands we put on those poor friendly bacteria, especially over the holidays.

Fortunately, there are experts like metabolic surgeon and founder of LaVellaYourGuts.com, Dr. Erika La Vella.

In this conversation with Gennev's Director of Health Coaching, Stasi Kasianchuk, Dr. La Vella talks about how to preserve your gut through the holiday season and stay healthier all year 'round. 

Culturally, we have this idea that life slows at 50. Children are grown and gone, we're looking into retirement, our days of doing new things and surprising ourselves are over. Life past 50, if you look at the marketing for this age group, is mostly about fear: fear over health, fear over finances, fear of the future.

Nothing could be further from the truth, says David Stewart of the AGEIST. People in the 50-plus age group are doing all sorts of amazing things. Women especially are "figuring out life 2.0," says David.

AGEIST's message is that culture and brands really misunderstand this age group — it's not a time of fear, and messaging to the 50+ that way won't resonate with a lot of the over-50s. Many in this cohort feel "at the peak of their powers," David says, and if you want to reach them, you need to understand that.

David Harry Stewart is the founder and face of the AGEIST and the host of the SuperAge podcast. He is a passionate champion and leading authority on the modern 50+ lifestyle, and the mindset and aspirations that drive this influential demographic. Prior to launching AGEIST, Stewart enjoyed an award-winning career as a photographer whose advertising work included Nike, Google, American Express and others, and his magazine work includes Esquire, GQ, Interview, RedBull, Time, and many others. 

Hear his conversation with Gennev CEO Jill Angelo, and check out both Gennev and AGEIST for much much more. 

With so many symptoms, and some of them pretty unpleasant, menopause can seem like the end of your world. Or at least your world as you knew it.

Amanda Thebe was a lifelong athlete and fitness enthusiast, but when she hit perimenopause at 43, things went ... awry. Fatigue set in, and she found her previously boundless reserves of energy were drying up. And, like so many of us, she didn't realize right away that the issues she was having were hormonal.

And like many women, she ran a gamut of doctors who never even suggested perimenopause. Nausea, vomiting, and extreme fatigue led to dozens of tests (even the emergency room!) over nearly two years.

Fortunately, at a standard well-woman check up with an OB/GYN, the doc was able to diagnose perimenopause after about five minutes of conversation.  A few minutes more, and she had some next steps to start feeling like herself again. 

Her book Menopocalypse is Amanda's way of bringing attention to the fact that women need information and, once they have it, can actually thrive through this change.  

Listen to the conversation. Buy and read the book. Join us at Gennev to learn more from experts in menopause and menopause care.

Is there a connection between estrogen and breast cancer? Maybe, but it may not be what you think. Gennev CEO Jill Angelo talks with Dr. Avrum Bluming, Dr. Joanne Weidhaas, and Dr. Rebecca Dunsmoor-Su on hormones, cancer risk, and the WHI study that changed everything.

Listen to the podcast, then visit Gennev.com for more information.

Science is starting to uncover the many ways our gut flora affect our health. While many of us still believe the beneficial bacteria is good for digestion (and it is), it does a whole lot more. 

In this podcast, metabolic surgeon and gut expert Dr. Erika La Vella talks with Gennev's Director of Health Coaching Stasi Kasianchuk about the bi-directional relationship between your gut and your brain.

The "Gut-Brain Axis" affects your perception, cognition, your nervous system, your mood, pretty much everything. Given that, and how cattywampus everything is during menopause anyway, doesn't it make sense to be sure your gut is getting exactly what it needs?

Have a listen, then find Dr. La Vella at LavellaYourGuts.com and make an appointment to work with Coach Stasi or one of our other amazing coaches at Gennev.com. 

When you look your best, it's easier to feel confident. Unfortunately, midlife seems to conspire against us, at least by today's cultural standards of "best," with thicker waistlines, more wrinkled skin, and flyaway hair.

One of the first things we notice when we see someone for the first time is their hair — and this is especially true of women. If our previously shiny, glossy, thick hair is now dry, thinner, and frizzy, we feel we're not making our best first impression. That can undermine confidence before we even open our mouths.

To help women feel better about their hair, whether it's to make a better first impression or just happier moments in front of the mirror, Sonsoles Gonzalez founded Better Not Younger, a haircare brand focused on the changes many women experience as they age.

Better Not Younger isn't just dedicated to healthier hair, though; it's also changing the conversation around women and aging. 

As an executive in the haircare industry, Sonsoles noticed that products were always geared toward the "18-44 year old women" market. What happens when a woman turns 45, she asked?

Apparently, as far as the large brands go, 45-year-old women and older pretty much cease to exist. But at 52 or 53, Sonsoles, says, she still felt youthful and attractive — not ready for invisibility!

So she started her own company that researched the needs of women in this demographic and began providing products that work. 

In this podcast, Better Not Younger CEO Sonsoles Gonzalez and Gennev CEO Jill Angelo talk about providing products for women in midlife and how our culture is slowly shifting to recognize the unique value and beauty of women 40 and over.

Take a moment to listen, then learn more about Gennev and Better Not Younger at Gennev.com. 

Do you feel comfortable in your own skin?

Many women don't, and that's more to do with the expectations we've been taught than any real problem with our health or wellness.

Emphasis on women's outsides has far surpassed focus on a woman's insides, resulting in a system that has many more solutions for "weight loss" than it does for managing menopause symptoms. 

At Gennev, we know the bodily changes that come with aging and hormone declines are natural, normal, and beautiful—they just may not all be comfortable.

So we want to help women embrace a body that may be a little heavier, a little softer, a body that has silver hair and laugh lines to show she's had a life. We want to help her be comfortable in that body, both by embracing change but also by managing hot flashes and interrupted sleep.

In this podcast, Gennev Director of Health Coaching Stasi Kasianchuk talked with Erica Mouch, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who also has a BA in psychology.

Erica advocates and practices from a Health At Every Size® lens in order to support people from all shapes and sizes in healing their relationship with food and their bodies. Erica is also a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor.

Listen to their conversation, then join us at Gennev.com for more information on having a happier, healthier menopause transition. 

The physical and emotional changes that come with menopause can complicate intimacy. 

Sexual intercourse can become painful due to the thinning and drying of intimate tissue; libido may wane as hormones decrease and menopause symptoms increase.

But because sexuality, and in particular women's sexuality, is such a taboo subject in American culture, we don't talk about it. And what doesn't get discussed, generally doesn't get solved.

But times and attitudes are changing: there are more platforms now for women to get information and solutions and engage in conversation about the very real, very natural changes happening in their bodies.

Two companies helping women regain sexual health in menopause are Gennev and MiddlesexMD.

In this conversation, the CEOs of each company, and a menopause-specialist OB/GYN, talk about the importance of open conversation around women's sexuality and health, the challenges of starting a business in a stigmatized niche, and the ways their companies are helping women enjoy the second half of their lives.

Continuing our conversation with Dr. Erika La Vella, in this month's Microbiome Series, we're asking the doc about how food affects our microbiome for good or ill, how we can eat to protect beneficial gut flora, and substances that may impact our gut.

The gut microbiome is sometimes referred to as "the second brain." Why? Because what happens in the gut does NOT stay in the gut. As science explores gut flora, we're discovering more and more how  microbiome health impacts so many other systems and organs of the body.

That means taking care of the gut is pretty critical to feeling good and being healthy. And like every other organism, beneficial bacteria rely on the right food sources for optimal health.

So what do they eat? They eat what we eat, for better or worse. Fortunately, people like Dr. Erika La Vella have a good handle on what food our good gut bacteria thrive on, and she shared that information with us.

Take a listen to the podcast, then visit Gennev.com for more information to be happier and healthier through and beyond the menopause transition. 

Our environment can be pretty heavy with things that are bad for our health, including endocrine-disrupting substances.

Cleansers, detergents, scrubs, things we use to clean our environments and ourselves may be doing more damage to our health than than they prevent. What about products that go on and in our bodies — soaps, creams, powders, makeup, deodorants and anti-perspirants, hair sprays, plastic containers to hold our food in the fridge or microwave. How many products do you come in contact with every day, all days of your life?

And it's not just the products we use. Disruptive chemicals can be in our clothes or furniture or daily use objects as fire-retardants or easy-clean surfaces. 

Mary Purdy is an expert on helping us minimize our exposure to toxins in our environment and maximize our efficiency in ridding them from our bodies, homes, and workplaces.

Have a listen to the podcast, then visit Gennev.com for more information on menopause, toxins, and how to have a healthier second chapter of life. 

Many experience menopause as a time of grief and loss: loss of youth, of reproduction, of a body that looked different, behaved in predictable ways, and seemed easier to control. 

To feel some sense of grief at change is totally normal and understandable. But at Gennev, we feel the menopause transition can also be a very positive time to embrace a new you, changed body, changed attitude, new freedoms and all.

To help us understand and navigate this transition, Gennev Health Coach Katie Linville talked with Kathleen Putnam, an expert in grief, loss, and transition. 

She gave us new ways of thinking about change and aging, and new strategies to celebrate the new us on the other side of the symptoms.

Listen to the podcast, then come over to Gennev.com to learn more about how to manage menopause to have an easier, better, healthier transition.

Physical health and financial health have a lot of overlap. When one is not optimal, the other can suffer.

How much should you have before you can "safely" retire? Should I be aggressive or conservative in my investments now? How can I invest in companies that represent my interests and principles?

Because women live, on average, a couple of years longer than men, and because women generally come to retirement with less in the bank, retirement planning is really important. 

Yet many women avoid taking the time to truly plan so they can enjoy a comfortable, stable retirement income.

We asked Jenifer Sapel, CEO of Utor Wealth, to join us for a conversation on how women can protect their financial health — and independence — as they age.

Listen to the podcast, then come to Gennev for more information about Jenifer Sapel, Utor Wealth, and how to have a truly great second half of life. 

You can access the slides Jenifer discusses here.