After years of running, we know that our strongest race day performance starts before we even lace up our shoes and hit the start-line. Now, it's time to discuss nuances as our hormones change age 35 and beyond and how to optimize race day outcomes! Ready to thrive? Hell yes you are!

In this energizing episode, Louise shares the excitement of taper week leading up to the first Breaking Through Wellness retreat and half marathon in the Finger Lakes of beautiful New York. With real stories of women thriving through hormone-optimizing training and female-specific fueling, she reveals how small shifts, like maximizing cortisol resilience, sleep, and recovery, can completely transform performance and confidence for women in perimenopause and beyond.

Louise, as one of the world’s leading health, nutrition, and performance experts for everyday female runners, breaks down her exact taper-week formula, explaining how to balance strength training, short yet effective mindset work, and nervous system regulation to feel strong, calm, and injury-free on race day. Through personal experiences, including winning a 5K during her taper week, she demonstrates how female-specific methods can yield results that seem “too good to be true.”

As an industry leader actively rewriting women's health, fitness, and recreational running age 35 and beyond alongside her clients, this is a can't miss episode with inspiring badass runner stories!

Whether you’re chasing a PR or just want to feel amazing in your next race, this episode gives you the roadmap to do it: hormonally smart, strategic, and joy-filled.

Learn & level up with my free nutrition guide and award-winning Badass Breakthrough Academy to thrive through perimenopause with less stress: https://www.breakingthroughwellness.com/

Link to our FullScript where you can see our curated best supplement picks & save 20% off: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/breakingthroughwellness/store-start

Take advantage of our podcast listener discount and save 20% off all of Kion’s science-backed clean products: https://www.getkion.com/pages/maximizing Promo code LOUISE saves on all future orders!

Episode Highlights:
(0:00) Intro
(3:15) Breaking Through Wellness Retreat & race prep
(5:17) Taper week and hormone optimization
(7:06) Louise’s race-day story & mindset
(23:39) Training week breakdown for taper
(15:04) Recovery and cortisol management
(23:39) Training week breakdown for taper
(24:59) Mindset: From breakdown to badass
(29:58) Nutrition and carb-loading for women
(32:14) Recovery, results, and redefining limits
(33:51) Outro

Tune in weekly to "Maximizing Hormones, Physique, and Running Through Perimenopause" for our simple female-specific science-based revolution. Let's unlock our best with less stress!

I'd love to connect!

Instagram 📷
https://www.instagram.com/breakingthroughwellness

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/BreakingThroughWellness

Email 💬 (Note: We do not have guests on our podcast)
support@breakingthroughwellness.com

As hard as it is for us to hear, the “grind harder” and "bigger, faster, stronger" mindsets that once got us results are now holding us back.

In this powerful episode, world-leading perimenopause women's health, fitness and performance expert Louise Valentine breaks down why women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, especially runners and Type A high-achievers, need to rethink how they train, fuel, and recover. She introduces the idea that “the threshold has changed”. Our bodies, hormones, how we achieve fitness adaptations, and nervous system health evolves with aging, and so must our approach.

Listeners will learn how chronic stress, underfueling, male-based nutrition strategies and unexpected overtraining due to male-based running methods stall progress, and how recalibrating with smarter female-specific strength training, fueling, recovery, and nervous system regulation can unlock new levels of strength, holistic mind-body performance, and clarity.

Louise shares real client stories showing how doing a bit less with intention and customized female-specific strategies can lead to faster running, better sleep, glowing skin, PRs, and lasting energy.

This isn’t about slowing down, it’s about working smarter with your changing body and female physiology so you can continue to thrive, perform, and feel amazing at every age.

Learn & level up with my free nutrition guide and award-winning Badass Breakthrough Academy to thrive through perimenopause with less stress: https://www.breakingthroughwellness.com/

Link to our FullScript where you can see our curated best supplement picks & save 20% off: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/breakingthroughwellness/store-start

Take advantage of our podcast listener discount and save 20% off all of Kion’s science-backed clean products: https://www.getkion.com/pages/maximizing

Episode Highlights:
(0:00) Intro
(5:07) Discovering the “threshold has changed”
(7:57) Why Type A women need new strategies
(12:28) The role of cortisol and recovery
(16:37) Real client wins from doing less
(20:06) Nervous system regulation and breathwork
(25:39) The cost of always “crushing it”
(28:46) New rules for nutrition, rest, and strength
(30:46) Action steps to adapt and thrive
(34:41) Outro

Tune in weekly to "Maximizing Hormones, Physique, and Running Through Perimenopause" for our simple female-specific science-based revolution. Let's unlock our best with less stress!

I'd love to connect!

Instagram 📷
https://www.instagram.com/breakingthroughwellness

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/BreakingThroughWellness

Email 💬 (Note: We do not have guests on our podcast)
support@breakingthroughwellness.com

Lady runners and endurance athletes, don't let anyone ever tell you we can't lower our cholesterol, balance our hormones, and boost our running performance without extreme diets, endless supplements or prescriptions. Most of the time, there is a (much) better way and it's time we learn some specifics, nuances, and targeted female-specific strategies to try!

In this episode of Maximizing Hormones, Physique, and Running Through Perimenopause, Louise Valentine, one of the world’s leading health, fitness and performance experts, shares a simple, science-backed roadmap for avid active women and recreational runners age 35+ who are navigating perimenopause and beyond.

Louise reveals root cause mechanisms of why LDL cholesterol often spikes as estrogen declines and how outdated advice about cutting out eggs or red meat isn’t the full picture. Drawing from over two decades of coaching and research, her own fiercely inspiring health journey, and empowering thousands of individuals over the course of her proven career designing integrative health and fitness interventions, she explains practical steps you can take to improve biomarkers in as little as three months.

You’ll learn which supplements actually make a difference, how much your specific food choices matter, awareness of how seed oils sneak into your pantry, and why advocating for yourself with doctors matters. You'll get a step-by-step playbook to discuss your labs with your doctor to be fully heard and get the comprehensive effective care you deserve. Most importantly, you’ll discover realistic strategies, rooted in cutting-edge female-specific science, that help you feel energized, resilient, and confident in your body.

If you’re a driven, active woman who’s tired of feeling blindsided by midlife changes, this episode is your playbook for thriving with less stress, relentless confidence, and more strength.

Link to our FullScript where you can see our curated best supplement picks under "Favorites" & save 20% off the supplements mentioned in today’s episode: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/breakingthroughwellness/store-start

Learn & level up with my free nutrition guide and award-winning Badass Breakthrough Academy to thrive through perimenopause with less stress: https://www.breakingthroughwellness.com/

Our affiliate link to check Function Health for comprehensive blood work: https://my.functionhealth.com/signup?code=LVALENTINE11&_saasquatch=LVALENTINE11

Take advantage of our podcast listener discount and save 20% off all of Kion’s science-backed clean products: https://www.getkion.com/pages/maximizing Promo code “LOUISE” saves on all future orders!

Episode Highlights:
(0:000 Intro
(3:04) A step-by-step roadmap to lower LDL
(7:41) The importance of advanced lipid testing
(11:13) A client’s success challenging the “only meds” advice
(14:56) Louise’s personal results lowering biomarkers
(19:26) Fueling frameworks that boost natural hormone production
(22:42) Ou

Tune in weekly to "Maximizing Hormones, Physique, and Running Through Perimenopause" for our simple female-specific science-based revolution. Let's unlock our best with less stress!

I'd love to connect!

Instagram 📷
https://www.instagram.com/breakingthroughwellness

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/BreakingThroughWellness

Email 💬 (Note: We do not have guests on our podcast)
support@breakingthroughwellness.com