When Perimenopause Gets Personal: Training Through the Chaos with Shawna Norton (Episode 265)

Hit Play Not Pause

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Fitness

4.9 • 769 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week’s guest would like to apologize. Like many of us before perimenopause hit, Shawna Norton admits she used to quietly doubt—even judge—women who said their bodies changed overnight despite doing nothing differently. Then it happened to her. Now she gets it. And she’s genuinely sorry. In this wide-ranging, sometimes raucous, and brutally honest conversation, we dig into her own experience with rapid weight gain, joint pain, brain fog, and the unsettling feeling of living in a body that suddenly feels unfamiliar. We talk cortisol, stress resilience, inflammation, blood sugar management, the complexities of HRT, sleep strategies, and the emotional whiplash of navigating so many unknowns at once. Most of all, we talk about validation—because sometimes the most powerful thing you can hear in this chaotic time of life is: you’re not alone.

Shawna Norton, M.S., is a kinesiology specialist, strength coach, and nutrition coach dedicated to helping women build resilient, high-performing bodies. She holds a Master of Science in Kinesiology and is a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer as well as a Level 1 Certified Nutrition Coach through Precision Nutrition. Shawna is the founder of Competitive Female Training, a women-only coaching program where she guides athletes in fueling their training, optimizing performance, and focusing on what their bodies can do. She also coaches with Deep End Fitness, integrating stress-resilience and breath-driven performance strategies into athletic development. Learn more about her work at competitivefemaletraining.com

Resources

www.precisionnutrition.com/nutrition-calculator

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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.
0:12.2	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
0:21.7	your hormones are doing. This show is a production of feisty media.
0:27.2	Hello, strong feisty women. I hope you all are well. So to start, this week's guest would
0:34.4	like to apologize. Like many of us before perimenopause hit,
0:39.0	Shauna Norton, who's been on this show before and is all about female training, admits
0:44.0	she used to quietly doubt women who said their bodies changed overnight despite doing
0:49.3	nothing differently. And then it happened to her. And now she gets it. And she is genuinely sorry, which anyone
0:57.8	who's listened to this show for any length of time has heard me say as well. Before I went through it
1:03.5	myself, I did not believe some of the changes could happen so freaking quick, despite women
1:09.9	telling me so for years. And like Shana, I am sorry,
1:14.5	and I will apologize till the end of time because, yeah, I get it now too. So this week, we just really
1:22.2	get into it and all of it. We dig into Shana's experience with rapid weight gain and joint pain and brain fog and
1:29.2	the unsettling feeling of living in a body that suddenly feels unfamiliar. We talk cortisol,
1:36.2	stress management, inflammation, blood sugar management, the complexities of HRT, sleep strategies,
1:43.1	and the emotional whiplash of navigating so many unknowns at
1:47.4	once. And most of all, we talk about validation, because sometimes the most powerful thing you can
1:54.6	hear in this chaotic time of life is you are not alone. And little warning, we let it rip during much of this conversation.
2:06.5	We get pretty passionate. We get brutally honest. Bad words fly. And I'll tell you, I considered,
2:13.5	I've thought about this one for quite a while, and I considered whether or not to edit some of that out.
2:19.0	And you know what? I just decided not to filter it because it's real. This is how so many of us feel
2:25.3	so much of the time when we're unvarnished and just talking to each other. And again, I thought the
	...

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