Wellness Big Sis: The Pod

Women are about twice as likely as men to live with chronic pain conditions like IBS, endometriosis, migraines and fibromyalgia. On October 1, the journal Science dedicated a special issue to women's health, including a review on why women experience pain differently, and in this episode I'm breaking it down for you.

We chat about how estrogen and your gut bacteria team up to turn up gut pain, the immune cells in women that make their own painkiller, why pain can take longer to resolve in women, and what the research says about migraines, fibromyalgia and knee arthritis...

Flag football makes its Olympic debut at LA 2028, and Deliah Autry-Jones is working toward that stage as a member of Team USA Women's Flag Football. On this episode of Five Seats, Dr. Kelsy Vick sits down with Deliah to talk about how she got her seat at the table, the mental resilience it takes to compete at the elite level, and where women's flag football goes from here. Through CAMP13, she's also investing in the next generation of athletes.

We close, as always, with the five people Deliah would seat at her own dinner party: Simone Biles...

Porter Geer kept seeing "angel investor" in the LinkedIn bios of people she admired, so she decided to learn what it meant. Almost three years later, she and her two cofounders run Girl Math Capital, a community bringing more women into alternative investing, from angel investing to real estate. On this episode of Five Seats, Dr. Kelsy Vick sits down with Porter to talk about investing beyond the stock market.

Porter explains what alternative investing actually is, and the foundations to have in place before you start: no high interest debt, an emergency fund, and retirement and...

Rebecca Metters doesn't vibe code. She calls what she does directed intelligence: using AI to build real products while understanding every line it changes. It's how she built Gythr, an all in one platform for event organizers, without a technical background. On this episode of Five Seats, Dr. Kelsy Vick sits down with Rebecca, founder of Gythr, COO of Black is Tech, and part of the team at Gauntlet AI, to talk about using AI to build human connection.

Rebecca shares why she built Gythr so she could finally experience the rooms she was creating, and how...

The craziest things we've done in the name of wellness. Dr. Kelsy Vick is taking it back to girl talk, inspired by Liz Plosser's Best Case Scenario article In the Name of Wellness.

KV shares her biggest wellness regrets, from restrictive dieting and under-fueling in college to buying every supplement she heard about on podcasts without any blood work. Plus TSA powder horror stories, her carry on shoe hack for walking heavy vacations, the apple cider vinegar shot era, two years without dessert (dark chocolate excluded), mouth taping, skipping food on travel days to help with travel...

Where female agency shapes culture. In this bonus mini episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick introduces Five Seats, the new interview series she's been building behind the scenes during the Trimester Zero Podcast Festival.

Each episode of Five Seats features one woman who made space in a room that wasn't always built for her. KV asks how she got her seat at the table, whether it was given, earned, or built, which rules she follows and which she refuses to, and, to close, the five people she'd seat at her own table. Wellness is still her home base, but...

Almost every preconception conversation leaves out half the equation. In this episode, part of our Trimester Zero festival, Dr. Kelsy Vick sits down in person with Camryn Novak, co founder of the men's fertility and performance brand TIES, to finally talk about male fertility. They cover the top reasons men contribute to infertility, why the male factor stays so invisible even though men are involved in about half of infertility cases, and what actually supports sperm health, from lifestyle to the nutrients men tend to be missing. Camryn also breaks down what it really takes to build a supplement...

Before pregnancy even starts, there's a window that quietly shapes a lot of what comes next, and most of us never hear about it. This episode is part of the Trimester 0 preconception podcast festival, and I'm sitting down with Kelly Moline, PharmD, the pharmacist and functional medicine practitioner behind the Moline Method. We get into how she combines her knowledge as a pharmacist with her functional medicine expertise, what actually matters about folate timing, how gut health and thyroid function connect, whether all that lab testing is really necessary, and what her patients almost always assume is fine when...

The positive test is not where pregnancy preparation begins. It's where it continues — if you've done the work.

In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick sits down with licensed psychologist and certified mental health and nutrition clinical specialist Dr. Abigail Powell to explore trimester zero — the season before pregnancy focused on preparing your mind, body, and relationships for everything that comes next.

What you'll learn:

Hormone balance has become a marketing machine, so we brought in a dietitian to tell us what it actually means. In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick talks with Bayleigh Wessel, a registered dietitian, about what hormonal health really looks like day to day: predictable cycles, consistent ovulation, manageable PMS, steady energy and hunger cues, restorative sleep, steady digestion, and normal workout recovery. They reframe hormones as responsive messengers shaped by fueling, stress, inflammation, sleep, training, blood sugar, and nutrient status, rather than numbers to force into a perfect range. Bayleigh breaks down the red flags worth noticing, including severe...

There is a trimester nobody talks about, the one before pregnancy even starts. In this episode I am breaking down what the research actually says about muscle mass, cardio, and overall fitness on fertility, pregnancy, neuromuscular control, and postpartum recovery, plus what your fitness does for your baby and where dad fits into all of it. As a board certified orthopedic Dr. of PT and women's health PT, this is the episode I wish more people had before they started trying to conceive. We get into the real numbers on gestational diabetes, labor duration, postpartum depression, diastasis recti, and...

Your skin starts changing earlier than you think, and most of us were never told what actually happens or what to do about it. In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick sits down with Claire Schwegel, a nurse injector in aesthetic dermatology at Vollure Medical, to break down the real science of aging skin: slower cell turnover, slower wound healing, and rising inflammation. Then they build a decade by decade game plan, evidence based prevention in your 20s, collagen banking and judicious neuromodulators in your 30s, perimenopausal structural care in your 40s, and hydration, resurfacing, and neck and hand care...

Creatine has been rebranded for women, and it is suddenly everywhere in pastel gummies and tone and sculpt language. In this commentary episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick separates the real science from the marketing. She covers whether women's bodies actually handle creatine differently than men's, why creatine monohydrate is the same molecule regardless of who it is sold to, and the genuine women's health benefits for muscle, bone, mood, and cognition, especially heading into perimenopause and menopause. She also digs into the gummy format, why creatine can degrade into an inactive form during gummy manufacturing, what independent testing has found...

The movement snacks trend is everywhere right now, and for once the science actually backs it. In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick breaks down what movement snacks really are, small one to five minute bites of movement sprinkled through your day, and why they matter so much for women, especially as we all head into a sitting heavy back to school and back to work season. She covers how breaking up prolonged sitting steadies blood sugar and drops blood pressure, why research suggests women get a bigger health payoff from less exercise than men, how strength snacks help protect...

The entire longevity conversation forgot about female bodies, so we are fixing that today. It turns out your ovaries are the fastest aging organ you have, declining measurably in your mid 30s, and researchers now consider ovarian aging one of the most important longevity markers we have for women. In this episode we break down why your ovaries age more than twice as fast as the rest of you, how ovarian aging connects to your heart, bones, and brain, what AMH and your family menopause timeline can tell you, and the everyday habits that actually protect your ovarian longevity...

Grief isn't just an emotion — it's a full-body experience. In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick (board-certified Doctor of Physical Therapy and pelvic floor specialist) breaks down what's actually happening in your brain and body when you're grieving — and why that chest tightness, exhaustion, and brain fog are real physiological responses, not weakness.

We cover the neuroscience of grief (what happens in your amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and reward circuitry), how grief impacts your immune system and hormones, why grief disrupts your sleep more than you realize, and the surprising overlap between Western neuroscience and Traditional Chinese Medicine's ancient unde...

Part I broke down what actually happens in your brain and body under pressure. Now for the part you can use. In Part II of the Performing Under Pressure series, Dr. Kelsy Vick walks through the real science behind the things we reach for to perform better under pressure: breathwork and meditation, prayer and rituals, exercise, visualization, and naps. You will learn the 30 second physiological sigh that beat mindfulness in a 2023 Stanford study, why a lucky ritual can genuinely boost your performance through self efficacy, how consistent exercise trains your body to handle stress, the visualization method elite athletes...

It is World Cup season, so we are doing a two part series on performing under pressure. Part I is the science: what actually happens in your brain and body the second the stakes spike. We meet your amygdala (the alarm) and your prefrontal cortex (your working memory and calm decision maker), and we find out why pressure can dim the exact system you need most. We break down what choking really is, why it hits the most talented people hardest, and why women's stress wiring, thanks to oxytocin and estrogen, can play out differently. Part II is the...

Two things are happening simultaneously right now: America's 250th birthday and the World Cup on American soil. And the intersection of those two things raises a genuinely interesting health and wellness question — what does the research actually say about shared experiences across cultural lines?

In this episode Dr. Kelsy Vick brings her honest, all-angles approach to one of the most talked-about cultural moments of 2026. The science of collective sporting experiences, cross-cultural contact, social connection and longevity, team sport vs. individual sport, and 250 years of women in American sport — all covered with the complete picture, not just the high...

There's a new headline going around claiming Ozempic might help with fertility — so Dr. Kelsy Vick (board-certified Doctor of Physical Therapy) went straight to the source: the actual research presented at ENDO 2026, the Endocrine Society's annual conference.

In this episode, we break down two separate findings — one in women with PMOS (formerly known as PCOS) and one in men — and what they actually mean. Spoiler: it's not "Ozempic cures infertility." It's something more specific, more mechanistic, and honestly more interesting than the headlines suggest.

We cover the RESTORE trial out of University of Colorado Anschutz and wh...

Crash dieting before your wedding is not the answer. And today's guest has the evidence-based framework to prove it.

Dr. Kelsy Vick sits down with Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Integrative and Functional Nutrition Certified Practitioner Bayleigh Wessel — founder of Balance Blue Collective — for the most practical, sustainable, and science-backed bridal nutrition conversation you are going to find. From protein baselines to blood sugar stability, hormone health to body composition — this episode covers the full 10-month runway to looking and feeling your absolute best.

What you'll learn:

Your skin on your wedding day is not something you want to figure out last minute. And according to today's guest — it's also not something you want to experiment with close to the date.

Dr. Kelsy Vick sits down with Claire — a Columbia-trained, board-certified nurse practitioner and cosmetic injector — for the most practical, honest, evidence-based bridal skin prep conversation on the internet. From the mistakes brides make most often to the exact timeline you should be following — this episode covers everything.

What you'll learn:

Nobody puts this in the wedding planning timeline. But it might be the most important tool you have.

In this episode of the Science-Backed Wedding Prep Series, Dr. Kelsy Vick breaks down how learning to read your menstrual cycle as health data can transform your engagement season — from how you schedule high-stakes wedding moments to how you train, fuel, recover, sleep, and show up emotionally on the days that matter most.

This is not cycle syncing. This is individualized cycle awareness — and it changes everything.

What you'll learn:

Forget the 6-week bridal crash plan. There is a smarter, more sustainable, and more science-backed way to look and feel your absolute best on your wedding day — and it starts right here.

In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick — board-certified orthopedic DPT and pelvic floor physical therapist — kicks off the Wedding Prep Series with the real framework for body recomposition: losing fat while building or maintaining muscle over months, not weeks, without crash dieting or overexercising.

What you'll learn:

On May 12th, 2026, a landmark paper published in The Lancet officially renamed polycystic ovary syndrome to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome — PMOS. The result of 14 years of work, 56 international organizations, and 22,000 voices from around the world.

This is not a cosmetic rebrand. This is a clinical correction — and it changes how this condition affecting 170 million women worldwide will be diagnosed, treated, and researched for generations to come.

In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick breaks down everything:

Welcome to the Hottest Version season. Dr. Kelsy Vick is pulling back the curtain on her most personal health journey yet — optimizing her body, mind, relationships, and spiritual health in what she's calling "trimester zero."

In this episode she shares her real DEXA scan results from 2015 vs. April 2026, breaks down exactly what the numbers mean, and gets honest about what she's working on — from fueling patterns and body recomposition goals to skincare, sleep, cycle health, and intentional mindset work.

What you'll learn:

Dr. Kelsy Vick interviews Dr. Abigail about pregnancy and postpartum mental health. They discuss common struggles like first-trimester fatigue while trying to function normally, body comments, and the sudden shift from “not pregnant” to pregnant—often kept secret early on—which fuels comparison and self-doubt. Dr. Abigail explains how she helps moms challenge comparison by questioning its purpose and identifying needs for external versus internal validation, emphasizing motherhood as delayed gratification. They cover parenting and mom guilt, reframing kids’ mistakes as not reflecting a parent’s worth, and the need to parent each child differently. Postpartum, they stress flexible planning and...

Dr. Kelsy Vick introduces a live bonus episode recorded at Erin’s April book launch for Do The Thing, following Erin’s earlier Wellness Big Sis The Pod appearance about behavior change and habit formation. Erin explains why she became an author after years of coaching clients who struggled to follow through outside sessions, leading her to study behavioral science and co-found Habit Coach Professionals. She shares the book’s writing and editing journey, including using AI for tone and audience guidance, relying on beta readers and a human editor, and navigating a major title change late in the proces...

Miranda Priestly didn't just stress Andy out emotionally. She was actively dysregulating her HPA axis. And if you've ever worked a job — or lived a life — that felt anything like that, this episode is for you.

In honor of Devil Wears Prada 2 hitting theaters, Dr. Kelsy Vick is breaking down one of the most misunderstood hormones in women's health: cortisol. Not to demonize it — but to completely reframe it. Because cortisol is not the villain. A dysregulated cortisol rhythm is. And those are two very different things.

In this episode you'll learn:

Your brain's dopamine system wasn't designed for infinite scroll, autoplay, and variable notifications. It was designed for earned rewards — and social media is engineered to exploit the gap between those two realities.

In this episode, Dr. Kelsy Vick closes out the April Spring Cleaning Series by breaking down what dopamine actually does in the brain, how social media platforms are specifically built to trigger tolerance and receptor downregulation, and why real life starts to feel flat when your reward system has been worn down.

Plus — the personal story of traveling with her phone on airplane mode...

Dr. Kelsy Vick continues the spring cleaning series by focusing on the liver and how alcohol uniquely affects female physiology. She explains that women experience more severe alcohol-associated liver disease at lower levels than men due to differences in first-pass metabolism, estrogen-related sensitivity to liver damage, and immune activation in the liver. Regular drinking can raise estradiol while also making the liver prioritize alcohol over estrogen clearance, potentially contributing to estrogen dominance symptoms like heavy or painful periods, bloating, mood swings, breast tenderness, and sleep disruption; alcohol may also interfere with brain-to-ovary signaling and progesterone production, with evidence strongest...

Dr. Kelsy Vick continues the April “spring cleaning” series on Wellness Big Sis The Pod by revisiting the glymphatic system—discovered in 2012—which functions as the brain’s waste-clearing system and works primarily during deep, non-REM sleep. She explains how cerebrospinal fluid helps transport and remove metabolic waste into the venous system, and notes animal research suggesting brain cell spaces expand during sleep to improve clearance. The episode links poor deep sleep to symptoms like brain fog, irritability, headaches, memory lapses, and difficulty concentrating, and discusses findings on sleep quality, norepinephrine fluctuations, and how sleep aids can impair restorative cleaning...

Dr. Kelsy Vick kicks off a body “spring cleaning” series by explaining the lymphatic system’s role in waste clearance, immunity, fluid balance, and puffiness, and why many wellness trends (like gua sha and dry brushing) are often done incorrectly. She breaks down lymph fluid, vessels, nodes, and organs, emphasizing key traits: the system runs throughout the body, is low pressure with no pump, lies close to the skin (so light pressure works), and requires clearing lymph nodes closer to the trunk before working on distal swelling. She shares a story about a “nothing” feeling lymphatic massage being appropriate, outlines p...

Vibration plates are all over everyone’s feed, so Dr. Kelsy Vick (board-certified orthopedic doctor of physical therapy and pelvic floor PT) dives into what they actually are, why people are buying them, and what the research on “whole body vibration therapy” really examines. She walks through how studies test different positions and exercises on the plate, explains why systematic reviews matter, and unpacks the big categories researchers track—strength, power, bone mineral density, body composition, and even differences across training status and menopausal status. You’ll also get a quick, girly “smart science” moment on the proposed reflex-style mechanism behi...

This podcast episode aims to help us understand the changes that occur in our bodies during perimenopause and menopause. We wellness girl chat about the importance of being preventive rather than reactive, emphasizing early education on the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause. The episode covers the common symptoms, hormonal shifts, and the metabolic impact of perimenopause and menopause. It also provides actionable advice on exercise, diet, sleep, and supplements, highlighting the role of hormone replacement therapy. The conversation underscores the need for foundational habits like protein intake and weightlifting to prepare for a healthier transition into menopause.

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In this investigative “Wellness Girl chat,” Dr. Kelsy Vick breaks down how fitness trackers estimate caloric expenditure—and why those numbers can be misleading for assessing workout effort, effectiveness, or weight loss. She defines calories (including the difference between food-label “calories” and kilocalories), explains total daily energy expenditure, and outlines what wearables typically model: basal metabolic rate (BMR) plus active energy expenditure, while often failing to capture thermic effect of food and non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). She reviews how BMR is estimated from static equations using age, sex, height, and weight (with limitations and common error ranges), then explains how active...

With the Lunar New Year, Olympics, and Traditional Chinese Medicine practices on social media right now, Dr. Kelsy Vick revisits her June convo with TCM practitioner Dr. Felice Chan and pulls out the most practical takeaways. We cover core TCM ideas (qi, blood, jing), how imbalance can show up like missed periods in hard-training athletes, and easy ways to apply TCM day-to-day: more warmth for digestion, gentler movement for stress and cortisol balance, and blood-building foods during your period. Kelsy also shares Dr. Felice's travel digestion tips (breathwork, hydration/electrolytes, ginger tea) and what TCM might look like in...

Dr. Kelsy Vick closes out the Goalchella Podcast Festival with self-selected highlights from expert interviews recorded from November through early February, created around common New Year’s goals for women. She revisits key moments from: Dr. Sam Moore on female physiology, menstrual-cycle awareness, resilience in training, energy availability, and the importance of carbohydrates and progressive strength training; Dr. Emily Hilz on the dopamine reward system, estrogen sensitivity across the menstrual cycle, and how hormonal states can influence reward seeking and motivation, plus an overview of endocrine disrupting chemicals (including bisphenols, phthalates, PFAAS, parabens, and flame retardants), where they’re foun...

Why do New Year goals fail — even when motivation is high? In this Goalchella finale, we dive into the neuroscience of habit formation with expert Erin to unpack what actually happens in the brain when we try to build new habits or break old ones.

We explore why motivation fades, how discipline is built, and whether forming a new habit is harder than breaking an existing one. This episode breaks down intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, the role of rewards, and how your environment — including social settings like alcohol-centered events — can either support or sabotage your goals.

If y...

​​Travel can be one of the most empowering ways to invest in yourself — but it requires intentional planning, smart saving, and creative strategies. In this Goalchella episode, we explore how women can prioritize travel in 2026 while strengthening their financial wellness.

We discuss actionable steps to turn travel dreams into reality, from setting up dedicated travel savings accounts and budgeting for your trips, to visualizing your ideal experiences and bringing them to life through social media inspiration. Our guest shares insider tips on making travel more budget-friendly, including using credit card points, off-season travel, flight trackers, and local strate...