You are listening to Hit Play, Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.

I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers,

and other experts to help you feel and perform your best no matter what your hormones are doing.

This show is a production of Live Feisty Media.

Hello, strong, feisty women.

So, this week's topic is gut health, which I know some of you were probably really into,

and others might have looked at the show tile and went, yeah, let me illustrate just how impactful

your gut microbiome is, not just to your health, but also to your performance. And warning,

if you're eating right now, you might want to put down the fork for a few bites.

A few years ago, Bicycley Magazine did a story

on Lauren Peterson, who founded the Athlete Microbiome Project.

Peterson had contracted Lyme disease when she was 11,

and she was on and off antibiotics and pretty sick for more

than a decade of her life. Then as she was finishing her PhD she was still struggling

with some of these issues so she gave herself a fecal transplant from a

competitive cyclist which is as it sounds. A few months after her transplant, Peterson was training five days a week,

up from her usual two that she could manage. She started racing. She was soon placing,

even winning in the pro field. And it had her wondering, like, okay, if I had gotten my

microbiome from my couch potato and not

eraser, would I be doing this?

And it just made her wonder what the best possible microbiome for eraser would be.

Because as she did more research, she discovered that high-level performing cyclists actually had different bacteria in their guts than non-racers and non-athletes.

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