Menopause, Melanin & Aging Like A Queen

Epizody

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  Episode 116 - I Finally Feel Like I've Arrived 05.10.2026 32min

  Send us Fan Mail A few weeks ago, a podcast host asked me, "When did you know you had succeeded?" I looked at him and said, "Here. Right now." I've been invited onto two podcasts run by Black men, I Quit My Job Podcast and Pizza in the Breakroom, to talk about menopause. To men. To Black men. In this episode, I tell you what success means to me now. I've been an entrepreneur for 20 years, and the last year and a half, I've carried all of it without a partner. Fifteen years ago, I would have t...
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  Episode 115 - Muscle is THE anti-aging drug. Period 28.09.2026 13min

  Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I'm talking about something I see constantly in this work - women in menopause who are under-fueled, over-exercised, and under-muscled, all at the same time. Doing everything for everyone else, and running themselves into the ground in the process. This is a pattern I've watched for 25 years - women eating too little, then hopping on cardio to "burn off" what they did eat, and wondering why they feel exhausted, depleted, and stuck. I get real about why we onl...
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  Episode 114 - If You Don't Make the Time, It Will Be Made for You 21.09.2026 14min

  Send us Fan Mail I was at the gym last week when a man I'd met once before — at a party over the summer — came up to chat. He wanted to talk about his wife. She's struggling through menopause, and he told me he'd registered her for a free webinar I ran back in August, just so he could grab the replay for her. When I asked if she'd watched it yet, he said no. She works a lot. And when she's not working, she's busy doing other things. That word again. Busy. Then he got a little quieter and aske...
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  Episode 113 - Slim Is ‘Back’? Let’s Talk About Who Never Left 14.09.2026 17min

  Send us Fan Mail A UK Telegraph column just told the world that slim, beautiful women are "back in fashion" — thank God, apparently — and that all that inclusive advertising over the last few years was just brands appeasing the woke crowd. Cute theory. Except it conveniently skips the part where GLP-1s are now as easy to get as a haircut — your doctor's office, the mail, a discount code on a TV ad — and body size is being manufactured faster than it's ever been manufactured before. In this ep...
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  Episode 112 - The Coop Is Empty: On Letting Go, Grief, and Learning to Be Alone 07.09.2026 21min

  Send us Fan Mail Last weekend I drove my oldest to Massachusetts for grad school. And somewhere on the drive home, I completely lost it. This episode is not really about her — she's happy, she's healthy, she's exactly where she's supposed to be. It's about me. About what happens when the person you built so much of your identity around starts building a life that no longer centers you. About grief for someone who is very much alive. About crying that comes out of nowhere, and why I've stopped...
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  Episode 111 - Celebrate Your (Smallest) Wins & Rewire Your Brain 31.08.2026 19min

  Send us Fan Mail Why does your brain remember every mistake and forget every win? In this episode, Sam breaks down negativity bias — the reason we're all wired to scan for what's wrong instead of what's going right — and why your brain treats "staying stuck" as the safe choice, even when you know better. Sam shares the story of a client in her late 50s — five kids, eight grandbabies, and a fresh 185-pound deadlift PR — who didn't want to ring the bell at her gym to celebrate it. Sam unpacks w...
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  Episode 110 - Same Diet. New Delivery System. 24.08.2026 17min

  Send us Fan Mail Last weekend I was at a fitness conference, sitting in a session about GLP-1s, and the person facilitating it said something to a room full of trainers that made me stand up, say something out loud, and walk out. They said: don't worry about calories — the GLP-1 takes care of that. Just make sure your client is strength training and eating enough protein. Fine, on its own. Almost responsible sounding. Then they said the rest of it. Once your client comes off the medication, y...
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  Episode 109 - Muscle Is the Organ Nobody Told You About 17.08.2026 25min

  Send us Fan Mail I got a DM a while back about a woman's mom who had ankle surgery. She'd been told to build up her upper body strength beforehand and didn't. Now she doesn't have enough strength to use crutches, so she scoots up and down her own stairs on her bum. Right after that, a friend told me about her mom — knee surgery, but she strengthened everything around the joint first with a physio. Her recovery was incredible, and her other knee, which has the exact same damage on imaging, is ...
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  Episode 108 - Fed Up, Fried, and Done Pretending 10.08.2026 21min

  Send us Fan Mail You know that tired that isn't fixed by a nap? That's what this episode is about. Sam recaps her Strong Through Menopause Method webinar and breaks down the three pillars behind it — Cortisol Calm, Build-Don't-Burn, and Unlearning diet culture — and gets real about what happened after: 200 women signed up, 70 showed up, and every single woman she's talked to since has said almost the exact same thing. I'm exhausted. I'm fed up starting and stopping. Something has to change. S...
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  Episode 107 - Why Midlife Community Matters More Than the Plan 27.07.2026 15min

  Send us Fan Mail Last night I hosted eleven women I love at my house — food, laughter, connection, the whole thing. It was, by every measure, a beautiful night. We just never got around to dancing. And somehow that's the one thing I fixated on. I went to bed anxious. Woke up anxious. Spinning on whether everyone actually had a good time, or was just being polite. In this episode, I'm getting honest about where that feeling actually came from — and it wasn't the dancing. It was the first time ...
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  Episode 106 - Should Canada Follow Suit? Menopause, Rhode Island's New Law, and the Real Cost of Staying Silent at Work 20.07.2026 18min

  Send us Fan Mail Rhode Island just made history — it's the first U.S. state to legally require workplace accommodations for menopause. No pamphlet in the break room, no vague "be supportive" suggestion. An actual legal requirement. And it made me ask the question I know a lot of you have been asking too: should Canada be next? In this episode I break down exactly what the Rhode Island law says, what's happening (and not happening) here in Canada, and the numbers that honestly stopped me in my...
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  Episode 105 - Menopause and My Mental Health (Anxiety, Mental Load, and What Actually Helps) 13.07.2026 15min

  Send us Fan Mail I'm 55, and almost a year and a half ago, my husband moved out. What followed wasn't something I expected — new anxiety, heart palpitations, a racing mind I couldn't quiet. I've never been a worrier. Now I am. And I'm not telling you this for sympathy. This is a truth-telling episode, not a woe-is-me one. In this episode, I get honest about what this season has actually looked like for me — the anxiety, the monkey brain, the mental load of running a business, showing up for c...
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  Episode 104 - We Have Lost the Plot — And How to Find Your Way Back to YOUR Body This Summer 06.07.2026 19min

  Send us Fan Mail When is the last time you went dancing? Not swaying in your living room — really dancing. Out somewhere. In your body. Not thinking about how you look. If that question made you pause, this episode is for you. Sam Montpetit-Huynh is talking about the summer body myth — decades of diet culture that taught women their bodies needed to be smaller, thinner, and more acceptable before they were worthy of being seen. The 30-day challenges. The before-and-after photos. The summers s...
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  Episode 103 - The Menopause Symptom No One Warns You About. 29.06.2026 19min

  Send us Fan Mail Guess what? I never had a single hot flash. Not one night sweat in over two years of perimenopause. What I had instead: hives the size of a deck of cards from a single mosquito bite, sneezing attacks out of nowhere, and ears that itched so badly at 3am I used to dream about taking a razor blade to them. That's not in any of the ads. In this episode, I'm breaking down the symptoms nobody warns you about — the ones that don't make it into the marketing because they're not "pho...
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  Episode 102 - Juneteenth & Connecting To Who I Really AM 22.06.2026 18min

  Send us Fan Mail This isn't your average menopause content — and Sam wants you to know that right up front. Recorded on Juneteenth, this episode steps away from strength training and hormone talk to go somewhere more personal: what George Floyd's murder on May 25th, 2020 cracked open in Sam, and everything she's learned — and is still learning — since. Sam walks through the real history of Juneteenth, including the two-and-a-half-year gap between the Emancipation Proclamation and the day free...
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  Episode 101 - The Call Back — My Breast Cancer Scare and What It Taught Me 15.06.2026 19min

  Send us Fan Mail Two weeks ago I got a callback after my mammogram. I hung up the phone and cried. In this episode, I'm sharing what those two weeks between my first appointment and my follow-up were really like — the fear, the sleepless nights, and the moment I made a conscious decision to choose peace over panic even when my mind wanted to go somewhere dark. I also take you back 15 years to the first time I found a lump and catastrophized my way through an entire night convinced my life was...
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  Episode 100 🎉 - My Daughter Has Something to Say 08.06.2026 28min

  Send us Fan Mail One hundred episodes. And for this one, Sam did something she has never done before — she invited her firstborn daughter, Rio, to sit across from the microphone and tell the truth. Rio is almost 25 years old. She grew up with one of Canada's leading fitness coaches and menopause specialists for a mother. She heard the podcast recordings from the other room. She watched Sam pivot her entire career to perimenopause and menopause six years ago. She has been a quiet witness to al...
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  Episode 99 - Clothes Are Meant to Fit You — Not the Other Way Around 01.06.2026 19min

  Send us Fan Mail Have you ever tried on something you loved — and felt crushed when it no longer fit? This week, Sam gets personal after a client reached out needing to be "talked off the ledge" — all because a dress she bought last year no longer fits her body. But here's the thing: this woman is doing everything right. She strength trains. She sleeps well. She eats well. And yet, in one year, her body changed — and she couldn't figure out why. In this episode, Sam unpacks what's really goin...
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  Episode 98 - Sleep is NOT a luxury; it's your lifeline 25.05.2026 26min

  Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Sam dives deep into the number one complaint she hears from menopausal women — sleep. This is not a "go to bed earlier" conversation. We're talking about what is actually happening inside your body while you sleep, why menopause makes sleep a completely different challenge, the real health risks of chronic under-sleeping (including a cancer connection that will stop you in your tracks), and a real client story with results that happened in just one night. If ...
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  Episode 97 - The Universe Is Testing You — What I Learned When Everything Was Going Right (And Then It Wasn't) 18.05.2026 18min

  Send us Fan Mail You know that feeling when everything is finally clicking? The work is landing, the opportunities are flowing, and for the first time in a long time you think — okay, this is it. And then something hits you sideways and your brain goes straight to: I knew it was too good to be true. Yeah. That happened to me. In this episode, I'm getting personal about a really good stretch, professionally — six new clients, a major brand pitch, a feature on Chatelaine Magazine's podcast, and...