GLP-1s, Hormones, and Why You Can't Calorie-Count Your Way Out of Menopause with Dr. Michelle Gordon

unPAUSED with Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Mary Claire Media, LLC

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Dr. Michelle Gordon, a board certified obesity medicine physician and diplomate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, with surgical fellowships from the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Osteopathic Surgeons. Through her practice Thrive Span Medical, she works with midlife women across 39 states whose metabolic and hormonal symptoms have been dismissed as normal aging. Dr. Gordon opens by dismantling the calories in, calories out framework, not as a vague wellness talking point but on a physiological level. She explains why biology determines the burn rate, why fat oxidation drops by 32% in perimenopause, why visceral fat accumulation accelerates when estrogen declines, and why insulin resistance and leptin resistance make it nearly impossible for midlife women to lose weight through willpower alone. She also covers how sleep deprivation compounds all of it, creating a cycle of cravings, brain fog, and weight gain that most women are navigating without any clinical support. Guest links: Michelle E. Gordon, DO (LinkedIn) Dr. Michelle Gordon (Instagram) Dr. Gordon, Obesity Medicine (Substack) Dr. Michelle Gordon (Facebook) Dr. Michelle Gordon Dr. Michelle Gordon (TikTok) Dr. Michelle Gordon Dr. Michelle Gordon (YouTube) Books: “The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver “The New Menopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire HaverWeightless: A Doctor's Guide to GLP-1 Medications, Sustainable Weight Loss, and the Health You Deserve,” by Dr. Rocio Salas-Whalen For full show notes, please click here. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Weight gain in midlife women is physiological and predictable.
0:04.3	We know this now.
0:05.8	The burn rate goes down and you can't out calorie, count yourself out of it.
0:12.1	It's going to happen.
0:13.4	It's predictable.
0:14.5	We can work on it.
0:16.1	Resistance training.
0:16.9	I mean, that's the number one longevity hack and sleep. Yeah. And fiber. You don't have to
0:24.2	white knuckle through it. If you start gaining weight and rapidly the weight comes on and all you're
0:29.9	doing is thinking about food and you're craving food, we have medication that can help now.
0:35.2	And the other thing I want to say to the women is that if your
0:39.4	doctor dismisses, you go get another doctor. There's a million doctors in this country. You don't
0:44.1	have to go to a doctor that makes you feel like crap. Yeah. The views and opinions expressed on unpaused are those of the talent and guests alone,
1:01.5	and are provided for informational and entertainment purposes only.
1:05.7	No part of this podcast or any related materials are intended to be a substitute for
1:10.6	professional medical advice,
1:12.3	diagnosis, or treatment. Today's guest is someone I found the way I find many of the best
1:18.3	medical communicators. I was scrolling on social media and came across a video where she was
1:23.6	explaining why calories in, calories out, does not work for many midlife women. Not in the
1:29.4	vague, wellnessy way. In a physiological, mechanistic, this is what's actually happening in your body
1:35.8	way. And I thought, this is someone who gets it. I was watching her dismantle a medical myth in plain,
1:42.6	precise, clinical language, and I thought she has
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 22 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mary Claire Media, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Mary Claire Media, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.