Hormones Throughout a Female Lifespan

Weight Management During and After Pregnancy

Pregnancy triggers one of the most dramatic hormonal and metabolic shifts a body can experience — and it throws every "normal" weight loss rule out the window. Rick and Greg welcome back nurse and mother of three Lindsay Ellsworth for a candid conversation about staying active and eating well during pregnancy, navigating the postpartum "fourth trimester," and making peace with a body that's doing something extraordinary. They talk through realistic calorie guidelines, why insulin resistance rises during pregnancy, what happens when you have to pause a GLP-1 medication, and how to rebuild strength and confidence after delivery — all with a healthy dose of grace and a few Little Caesars breadstick confessions along the way.

Pregnancy and Post-partum Hormones

Rick and Greg close out their hormones series with one of the most personal episodes yet — a conversation with a guest who's family: Rick's daughter Lindsay, a nurse and soon-to-be nurse practitioner at BYU, who opens up about her own experience with postpartum depression and anxiety. Lindsay shares what it was like to go through three different postpartum periods — mild anxiety she dismissed with her first baby, a severe depressive episode after her second, and panic attacks she'd never experienced before with her third — and why recognizing the symptoms in herself was far harder than recognizing them in the patients she cares for every day as a nurse. Rick and Greg unpack the biology behind it: in the hours and days after delivery, estrogen and progesterone fall off a cliff, making the postpartum period the single most dramatic hormonal shift in human biology. While most women experience a short-lived case of the "baby blues," 15–20% go on to experience real postpartum depression — serious, often underdiagnosed, and treatable. The conversation also covers the stigma around antidepressants, what changed when Lindsay found a provider who actually took the time to listen, the role of a strong support system, and how breastfeeding's hormonal effects can extend the postpartum recovery window to as long as 18 months. A candid, important listen for anyone who is pregnant, postpartum, or supporting someone who is — and a reminder that struggling after childbirth isn't a personal failure, it's biology. Rick and Greg are medical providers, but not your medical provider. Please consult your own provider regarding pregnancy, postpartum care, or any medication or treatment decisions.

What to do About Women's Hormones

Rick, Greg, and nurse practitioner Caitlin wrap up their women's hormonal health series with a practical episode focused on what to actually do. They start with the lifestyle foundation — resistance training, protein, sleep, and stress — and then move into the full menu of hormone therapy options: estrogen (why the patch is often the safest bet), progesterone, testosterone for women, and vaginal estrogen. They also discuss GLP-1 medications and how they fit into a whole-patient approach. If you've been listening to this series and wondering "okay, but what do I do?" — this is the episode. For informational and educational purposes only. Consult your personal medical provider before starting any hormone replacement, supplement, or medication.

Hormones Throughout a Female Lifespan

Hormones don't just affect reproduction — they shape nearly every system in your body across your entire lifetime. In this episode, Rick and Greg continue their conversation with women's hormone specialist Caitlin, covering the full hormonal timeline of a woman's life: what estrogen is actually doing from your twenties through perimenopause, how to recognize when symptoms cross from "normal fluctuation" into "something's off," and why the same habits that kept you healthy in your thirties suddenly stop working in your forties. They also discuss the May 2026 renaming of PCOS to Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome — and why that shift in language matters for how the condition gets treated. Plus: why sleep is usually the first place to start, how cortisol quietly undermines everything, and the stepwise approach Caitlin uses to restore hormonal balance without overwhelming the system all at once. Nothing in this episode is medical advice. Please consult your healthcare provider before starting any hormone, medication, or treatment protocol.

History of Female Hormone Replacement

What if the study that scared an entire generation of women away from hormone replacement therapy was fundamentally flawed — and the fallout lasted twenty years? Rick and Greg sit down with Caitlin Robinson, NP, to trace the full arc of female HRT: from the optimism of the 1960s through the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study that brought it to a hard stop, to the slow, ongoing rehabilitation of the science. Caitlin breaks down the three core problems with the WHI — wrong patients (mostly women over 60, a decade past menopause), wrong medications (synthetic hormones instead of bioidenticals), and a misreading of risk that got amplified by media coverage into something close to panic. She explains what bioidentical hormones actually are, why women's hormonal balance is more complex than a single testosterone number, and what the current consensus looks like for timing, candidacy, and individualized care. They also get honest about the downstream cost: women who lost years of quality of life, a generation of older women with fragile bones and metabolic disease, and primary care providers still practicing off guidelines written in the shadow of a flawed study. This is Part 1 of a multi-episode series on women's hormonal health. For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Talk to your provider.