The Cyclist

There’s a third person in the room in this episode with Kat and Jess… 
Jess is pregnant! In this episode, Jess and Kat talk about baby number two and share the full journey of how they got here. 
This is the conversation Jess says she has dreamt of recording, and it's everything. Honest, emotional, funny, and deeply real.
Jess takes us back to the beginning. After a two-year journey to fall pregnant with Marla, a loss along the way, and a more recent miscarriage that hit harder than she expected, Jess and Todd made the call to take six months away from trying. She opens up about what it's like to try for a baby when you're already living with a panic disorder, the internal conversations around medication, the question of whether it was irresponsible to grow a family when she wasn't in her best space, and the fear that the panic disorder might never fully end.
She talks candidly about going on sertraline, the two years she resisted medication because pregnancy was on the horizon, and the guilt of knowing the research said it was safe while still carrying a quiet doubt in the back of her mind. The decision that finally shifted things: realising she wasn't able to enjoy the life she'd worked so hard to build, and that a healthy mum was the most important thing she could give her family.
Then there's the trying-to-conceive reality, the scheduling, the long cycles, the months of negative tests, the switch that flips when you've had a loss and every negative brings it all back. The moment Todd came down with man flu on what turned out to be their last window for a 2026 baby. The password on Jess's laptop. The morning she snuck into the bathroom to take a test she was expecting to be negative, and wasn't.
Kat shares what it was like to watch from the outside, holding her tongue through the hardest months because she had a feeling it was going to happen, and not wanting to say that out loud in case she was wrong.
They also go into the pregnancy itself, the four emergency scans, the breakthrough bleeding that sent Jess to the hospital at eight weeks, the anxiety of standing up slowly every single time and checking for blood. The moment at the studio, ten minutes before a podcast interview, when Jess came to Kat and said she was bleeding and had to leave. And through all of it, the mindset she kept coming back to, miscarriage is never anyone's fault, and worrying about it won't change the outcome.
Jess is now in her second trimester, due in early December, and not finding out the gender. Baby's working name is Pickle. Marla has been told there's a baby in mummy's tummy and has asked whether it's in her boobies too.
This one will stay with you.
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Instagram: @wearethecyclist
Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. And congratulations, Jess!

She's had a rebrand. And it's been a long time coming.
In this episode, Jess sits down with Sara, New Zealand registered dietitian, women's health expert, and founder of Your Monthly Club, to unpack one of the biggest developments in women's health in recent years. 
PCOS has officially been renamed PMOS, Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome, and Sara is here to explain exactly what that means, why it matters, and what it changes for the one in ten women living with this condition.
Sara breaks down the name change from the ground up. Why the word "cysts" was always misleading, why so many women were being misdiagnosed or dismissed because they didn't have cysts visible on ultrasound, and why the new name is a far more accurate reflection of what PMOS actually is. 
A full-body, metabolic, endocrine experience, not just a reproductive one. She explains why the change took over 14 years of global consultation to get right, and why the online community's response felt, in her words, like a feminist moment.
They go deep into insulin resistance, the driving force behind 70 to 90% of PMOS symptoms and Sara dismantles some of the most common nutrition myths that women with PCOS have been living by for years. Cutting carbs, going gluten-free, skipping meals, and fasting. 
She reframes the conversation entirely. It's not about taking foods away, it's about what you add alongside them. Her practical rule of four (protein, fat, fibre, and carbohydrate together) is one of the most accessible and genuinely useful pieces of nutrition advice we've had on the show.
Jess shares her own experience of years of unexplained weight gain before her endometriosis diagnosis, the self-blame, the guilt, the constant comparison to friends who seemed to lose weight easily, and Sara explains exactly why that experience makes complete biological sense for women with insulin resistance, and why the weight loss advice most women receive is actively working against their physiology.
They also touch on inositol and its role in improving insulin signalling, GLP-1 medications and Sara's honest and nuanced view on their place in PMOS management, and what she hopes the name change will actually change in terms of how women are diagnosed, informed, and cared for long term.
This is a rich, reassuring, and genuinely eye-opening episode for anyone who has a PCOS or PMOS diagnosis, suspects they might, or has ever been made to feel like their symptoms are their own fault.
Find Sara at yourmonthlyclub.co.nz and on Instagram @yourmonthlyclub
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Instagram: @wearethecyclist
Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. Your hormones aren't broken. You just haven't been given the full picture yet.

Not every woman's path looks the same. And that's exactly the point.
In this episode, Jess sits down with Danni Duncan, content creator, community builder, and founder of The Others Club, for a conversation that's a little different from our usual. Danni has spent years building one of the most engaged childfree communities in Aotearoa and beyond, and this episode is for every woman who has ever felt like the path laid out in front of her wasn't quite the right fit.
They start with acne, something Danni has navigated since her teenage years, through cystic breakouts, two rounds of Roaccutane, and the complex relationship between skin, hormones, stress, and self-worth. She shares what's finally helped her reach a place of consistency with her skin, why simplifying her routine made more of a difference than any trending product, and the honest truth that she still doesn't know exactly what fixed it, and has had to make peace with that uncertainty.
Then the conversation opens up into childfree life. Danni shares the full arc of her journey, from assuming she'd become a mum one day, to the two years she spent on the fence in her early 30s, paralysed between two paths and feeling completely alone in that experience. She talks about what finally shifted for her, why she started sharing online when there was nobody else in her life who understood, and how that vulnerability turned into a community of hundreds of thousands of people who felt exactly the same way.
They talk about the messy, tender parts of this conversation that don't often get airtime, the friendships that shift when you're the only one without kids, the unspoken expectation that childfree women are somehow the flexible ones, the people who've been told they're "taking something away" from their partners, and why Danni believes the only way through that tension is to talk about it rather than bottle it up.
Danni also introduces The Others Club, the online community and platform she launched two months ago that already has almost 200 meetups listed across New Zealand, Australia, the US, UK, and Europe. It's not just for childfree-by-choice women. It's for anyone who doesn't quite fit into the parenting world, whether that's by choice, by circumstance, by loss, or by the kind of not-quite-sure that so many women quietly carry.
There's a beautiful moment in this conversation where Jess admits she has FOMO about the meetups, and realises she can't actually remember what her hobbies are. It's one of those moments that will quietly land for a lot of people listening.
This is a warm, funny, thought-provoking episode that we think will offer something for almost everyone in The Cyclist community, whether you're choosing a childfree life, questioning what you want, navigating a woman's health journey that's made that decision complicated, or simply craving a conversation that isn't about anyone's sleep schedule.
Find Danni at @danniduncan__ on Instagram and The Others Club at theothersclub.com
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Instagram: @wearethecyclist
Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. Whatever your path looks like, there's a place for you here.

What if the key to your mental health, fertility, and longevity was sitting quietly in one hormone most women have never been taught to protect?
In this episode, Jess sits down with Francesca Lyon, degree-qualified Naturopath and Medical Herbalist from Auckland, now based in Amsterdam, and Director of Nutrition at Future Woman, a UK-based at-home hormone testing company. Francesca has spent over 13 years specialising in women's health, hormones, fertility, PCOS and perimenopause, and this conversation is one of the most wide-ranging and genuinely eye-opening we've had on The Cyclist.
It starts with progesterone, the hormone Francesca is perhaps most passionate about, and why protecting ovulation is the single most impactful thing a woman can do for her mental health, sleep, pain levels, brain health and longevity. 
She explains what happens when progesterone breaks down in the body, how it communicates with GABA, our calming neurotransmitter, and why so many women in their 30s experiencing anxiety, rage, sleep disruption and low mood are being handed anxiety medication when what they actually need is more progesterone.
Francesca shares her own story of burnout, cystic acne, a miscarriage, and a brain AVM, an arteriovenous malformation, that was diagnosed after she developed daily debilitating migraines two weeks postpartum. She had suspected the AVM for years before her diagnosis, having studied them in her psychology degree and had a gut feeling she had one, only to be told not to be silly. The moment she was finally diagnosed, her first thought was: I told you.
They go deep into miscarriage, what Francesca believes about why they happen, why she would never wait for three before investigating, and what she thinks about the deeply underfunded and underinvestigated space of pregnancy loss. She talks honestly about the grief of a lost pregnancy, the anxiety of trying again, and the client she worked with who had eight miscarriages in a year before a progesterone deficiency was finally identified and addressed.
The conversation moves through PCOS, which Francesca believes is reversible in every case when the root drivers are properly investigated, and endometriosis, which she approaches as an autoimmune and inflammatory condition, often triggered by a microbial infection. She shares her views on the gluten and dairy question for endo, the link between environmental toxins and PCOS, and why unexplained infertility is really just uninvestigated infertility.
There's also a genuinely practical section on sleep, two of Francesca's top sleep hygiene tips for hormone health, and an honest conversation about the food noise and control that can come with managing a condition like endometriosis, and when the stress of avoiding a food is worse than just eating it.
Francesca is also co-founder of Future Woman, an at-home hormone testing service using the Dutch test, with expert interpretation and a personalised protocol included, making comprehensive hormone testing accessible without the cost of multiple practitioner appointments.
Find Francesca at flnaturopathy.com and Future Woman at future-woman.com
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Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. Your hormones have been trying to tell you something. This episode might be the one that finally makes it click.

We're closing out our period pain miniseries the way it started. With a real story.
In the final episode of the Period Pain Mini Series, Jess sits down with Ella, founder of Els Lovers, a New Zealand-made brand creating wearable heat packs designed specifically for endometriosis and period pain relief. 
Ella takes us right back to the beginning to a musical theatre rehearsal camp, three days before her 14th birthday, when her very first period arrived and brought her to her knees. From that day forward, eight-day heavy periods, severe pain, and chronic exhaustion became her norm. Because her mum had always suffered the same way, Ella assumed that's just how it was for her too.
What followed was years of dismissed symptoms, a GP who attributed her chronically low iron to her plant-based diet rather than the blood she was losing every month, and a gynaecologist at family planning who told her that heavy periods were an opinion. It wasn't until a nutritionist connected the dots, low iron, low B12, IBS-like symptoms, painful heavy periods, and said the word endometriosis, that Ella finally had somewhere to start.
She shares what it took to push for her diagnosis, what her endometriosis surgery in February 2024 actually involved, and why the year and a half she spent with a Mirena afterwards was the most painful of her life and how trusting her body and getting it removed was the decision that finally started turning things around.
Ella also opens up about having to leave her first full-time job out of university at just 21 because her pain had become too unpredictable to manage, and how that painful chapter led her to create Els Lovers. Handmade in Aotearoa from 100% natural cotton, Els heat packs were born out of Ella's own search for something wide enough, long enough, and weighted enough to actually wrap around the places that hurt.
This is the episode we want every young woman who is quietly pushing through to hear. Because how the hell are you supposed to know if your period pain isn't normal if nobody is talking about it?
This is episode five of five of The Cyclist's period pain miniseries. All episodes are available now.
Find Ella and Els Lovers at elslovers.com or on Instagram @elslovers
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Hit play. And if you know someone who needs to hear this, send it to them.