Carbohydrates: The Key to Midlife Health & Performance with Kristen Arnold, MS, RDN, CSSD (Episode 256)

Hit Play Not Pause

Fitness, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.9 • 769 Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2026

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“Carbs are evil.” As we usher in 2026, and as endurance athletes around the globe are stuffing down as many carbohydrates per hour as humanly possible to supercharge their performance, this week’s guest, sports dietitian Kristen Arnold, still manages misconceptions, especially from her midlife clients, that carbohydrates are something to be cut from the diet. Nothing could be further from the truth. This week we kick off the new year with a show all about the life and performance-boosting benefits of carbs. We cover carbohydrate timing, processed carbs versus unprocessed carbs, carbohydrate’s impact on blood sugar, brain function, mood, inflammation, general health, and much, much more.

Kristen Arnold, MS, RDN, CSSD is a board-certified sports dietitian, cycling coach, and retired professional athlete with over 10 years of experience in sports dietetics. She has worked with a wide range of professional sports teams, athlete-centered healthcare initiatives, and Olympic organizations. Kristen owns a thriving private practice dedicated to empowering active women across the lifespan through evidence-based sports nutrition coaching and education. She is a first-author, peer-reviewed researcher on improving postmenopausal women’s health through targeted nutrition strategies and counseling, and she regularly speaks on podcasts and contributes to publications on sports nutrition topics. Learn more at sportsnutritionforwomen.com.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Hit Play, Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.
0:14.6	I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help
0:21.2	you feel and perform you best, no matter what your hormones are doing.
0:25.0	This show is a production of Live Feisty Media.
0:30.5	Happy New Year, strong feisty women.
0:33.5	I hope you all are well and ready for the new year and you have lots of fun goals on tap.
0:40.0	For myself, I've got another couple big book projects brewing on the burners,
0:45.5	and I'm really, really, really looking forward to our road cycling trip
0:49.8	with the cyclist menu in Majorca, Spain on May 17th through the 22nd.
0:56.0	If you have not checked that out yet, there's a link in the show notes.
1:00.3	There is just nothing like spending time with like-minded women, just nothing.
1:06.3	And of course, I love cycling.
1:08.2	So I am definitely looking forward to that. And as part of my training,
1:12.8	I will be eating all of the carbohydrates, which is the topic of this week's show as we kick
1:18.4	off the new year. Somehow, some way, many midlife and menopausal women are still getting the
1:26.4	message that we need to cut carbs.
1:30.1	In fact, this week's guest, women's sports dietician Kristen Arnold, still has clients flat out say,
1:38.4	quote unquote, carbs are evil.
1:41.4	Even as we are watching athletes around the globe, stuffing down as many carbohydrates as
1:47.6	humanly possible to supercharge their performance, this attitude that so many of us have towards carbs
1:55.4	persists. So this week, we devote the show to all the life and performance boosting benefits of carbohydrates.
2:04.9	We cover carbohydrate timing, processed carbs versus unprocessed carbs, carbohydrates impact on blood sugar, brain function, mood, inflammation, general health, and much, much more.
	...

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