The Cyclist

Can I be honest with you for a second? Today’s episode was supposed to be recorded in the studio, but after a 7:00 AM incident involving a brushing-my-teeth-multitask, a 6-year-old mirror, and a trip to the A&E, Jess is coming to you straight from her bed, down to four functional toes, almost 32 weeks pregnant, and keeping it completely real.
In this cosy solo catch-up, Jess opens up about navigating pregnancy, toddlerhood, and preparing for baby number two as an amputee living with chronic health conditions. She shares the story behind her rotationplasty surgery, what it’s actually like getting around at night post-C-section on one leg, and the unexpected micro-moments that hit hard, like not being able to sit cross-legged with Marla at music class or crouch down to eye level during a toddler tantrum.
From the quiet grief of wishing to experience motherhood in an abled body to the visceral joy of raising a little human, this episode is an honest, warm reflection on capacity, support systems, and the unbelievable human ability to adapt. Whether you live with a disability, manage chronic illness, or just need to hear another mum admit how messy and gorgeous it all is, hit play and settle in.
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Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. And send this to a mum who needs a gentle reminder of how adaptable she really is.Thank you Chief for sponsoring this episode! They are products Jess is using daily and are so delish while having fab clean ingredients. Go check out wearechief.com

She had brain surgery. And then she built a condom brand.
In this episode, Jess sits down with Ema Beard, teacher, mum of three, and founder of Cleoh, the New Zealand-born sexual wellness brand putting women at the centre of a category that has largely ignored them for decades. This is one of those conversations that starts in one place and ends somewhere completely unexpected. And is all the better for it.
Ema's path to founding Cleoh began in 2023, during her recovery from brain surgery. She wasn't looking to start a business. She was focused on healing and getting back to her family. And then, scrolling through her phone during a quiet moment, a condom ad appeared. And it felt outdated, tone-deaf, and designed entirely without women in mind. She couldn't stop thinking about it. And Cleoh was born. 
She opens up honestly about what recovery from brain surgery actually looked like, the cognitive changes, the fatigue, the identity shift of going from a high-functioning teacher and mum to someone relearning how to be in her own body. And how that experience gave her a clarity about what she wanted to do with her time and energy that she'd never had before.
They go deep into the conversation that Cleoh is trying to normalise. Sexual health as a women's health issue, not just a contraception issue. Ema shares why she became passionate about women understanding their own bodies, the connection between sexual health and overall wellbeing, and why the shame and stigma that still surrounds this category is actively harming women's health outcomes. She talks about what it felt like to walk into a pharmacy and buy condoms before Cleoh existed, and why the experience of purchasing protection should feel as considered and dignified as anything else in a woman's wellness routine.
Cleoh condoms are free from parabens, casein, fragrances, and unnecessary chemicals. Ingredients that most women have never thought to question but that matter enormously when it comes to vaginal health. Ema explains what those ingredients actually do to the body, why the standard options on pharmacy shelves weren't designed with women's physiology in mind, and what she looks for in a product she'd actually feel good about using. 
This is a conversation about courage, clarity, women's health, and a brand that is quietly changing the way New Zealand women think about protection.
Thank you Chief for sponsoring this episode! They are products Jess is using daily and are so delish while having fab clean ingredients. Go check out wearechief.com
Follow and connect
Instagram: @wearethecyclist
Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. And maybe add Cleoh to cart while you listen.

Third trimester. Elective C-section booked. Gender still a secret. And Jess is feeling, genuinely, pretty good.
In this episode, Jess and Kat sit down for a warm and wide-ranging third trimester catch-up. The kind of chat that covers everything from birth plans and baby names to maternity leave, panic disorder progress, and the electric nursing chair that is going to change Jess's life.
Jess opens up about landing on an elective C-section this time around and the thinking behind it. Not because she's against vaginal birth, but because the unknowns of what a vaginal birth would mean for her body, with her leg reconstructed through her pelvis, made the risk not worth taking. She reflects on genuinely loving her emergency C-section with Marla and the beautiful spontaneous labour that came before it, and the quiet grief of knowing she'll skip that part this time. She also shares the surreal feeling of knowing roughly when her baby will be born, somewhere around 38 to 39 weeks, and what it's like to approach the end of a pregnancy on a timeline.
Jess shares the baby names she loves but isn’t using. The actual names are decided. Both girl and boy options. And Jess is not telling.
She also shares what's helping this pregnancy feel manageable: maternity bras that don't trigger her panic disorder, Hydro Babe on rotation, panty liners as a non-negotiable, the pregnancy pillow she's been sleeping with for three years, and lymphatic massage starting now for the swelling she's noticing in her feet and legs for the first time. Night sweats, brain fog, and a toddler who has finally started kissing the bump also all get a mention.
Jess talks about what her maternity leave will look like as a self-employed mum of two. And she reflects honestly on working too soon after Marla and the sadness of what she feels she missed, balanced against the reality that Cadence wouldn't be where it is without that early commitment.
And then there's the panic disorder update. It's a good one. From being unable to leave her house or drive, ordering sour lollies to get through panic attacks, to sitting at 85% better and knowing that when a hard day comes, it usually passes within a couple of days now. Jess is clear-eyed about what two years of resisting medication cost her, and honest about what she'd tell herself if she could go back. The medication helped. A healthy mum is what matters most.
This one is cosy, honest, and very exciting.
Want to try Go Mama? Shop here! https://gomamamaternity.co.nz
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Instagram: @wearethecyclist
Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. Baby is almost here!

This episode contains open discussion about bulimia, disordered eating, body image, pregnancy loss, postpartum haemorrhage, and health anxiety. Please take care if any of these are sensitive topics for you.
Jess sits down with Meg Mansell, beloved New Zealand radio personality from The Edge, mother of two, and as it turns out, Jess's new best friend, for one of the most wide-ranging, raw, and genuinely hilarious conversations The Cyclist has had. They were meant to talk about birth. They talked about everything.
Meg opens up about growing up as a dancer, deeply aware of her body from a very young age, watching the way the world responded to her beautiful mother, feeling the pressure to look the same way, and realising quickly that she hadn't inherited her mum's body. What followed were years of hyperawareness, comparison, and eventually bulimia from around 15 or 16. She speaks honestly about what it's like to carry 36 years of that conditioning while trying to raise daughters differently, telling Daisy her tummy is her favourite part of herself because it made her and her sister, while sitting quietly with the word fraud flashing in her own head.
Then there's Miller's pregnancy, a story that barely exists in the public conversation around pregnancy because it sits in that rare and terrifying 1%. At 14 weeks, Meg woke up covered in blood. She drove herself to hospital alone at 1am while Guy stayed home with Daisy. Blood tests came back showing a dramatic drop in hCG. She and Guy sat in hospital for eight hours grieving a baby they were told they'd lost, making quiet decisions about whether they'd even try again, before a scan revealed a heartbeat. The results had been mixed up with her previous pregnancy. What followed was daily bleeding until 23 weeks, repeated hospital admissions, and a day-by-day pregnancy that somehow made it to 37 weeks.
Miller's birth was its own story entirely. An induced labour, a 30-minute window from five centimetres to birth with no epidural after the anaesthetist couldn't reach her in time, a postpartum haemorrhage of 2.1 litres, emergency surgery, and, in a moment Meg still can't fully explain, convincing the nurses not to tell Guy she was okay so she could roll in and surprise him herself. She has apologised profusely.
They also get into health anxiety, something both Meg and Jess share deeply and personally. Meg describes the particular brand that keeps her awake at night: the constant, exhausting fear that she will miss something and her children will die. The 1am checks. The spiral from a cough to meningococcal. The dog with a bump the vet said was a bug bite that turned out to be cancer. The way being right once makes it impossible to ever believe you might be wrong.
And then Hashimoto's, the autoimmune thyroid condition Meg was eventually diagnosed with after months of blaming herself for her own exhaustion, bone aches, and weight changes. A female doctor who pushed for bloods. A 9am phone call the next morning asking her to come in. Antibodies hundreds of times above normal range.
Want to try Go Mama? Shop here! https://gomamamaternity.co.nz
Follow and connect
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Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. And maybe clear your afternoon.

CW: This episode contains open discussion about disordered eating, body image, and diet culture. Please take care if these are sensitive topics for you.
In this episode, Jess sits down with Renee Diment, New Zealand nutritionist, REPs-registered personal trainer, NZ Personal Trainer of the Year 2024, and founder of Beyond the Body,  for one of the most grounding, refreshing, and genuinely practical conversations The Cyclist has had about food, movement, and what it actually means to look after yourself as a woman.
Renee opens up about her own story, a 10-year-old on a beach in Perth, looking down at her body and comparing it to the girls in Total Girl magazine. The friend with anorexia at dance class. The restricting that started at 11 or 12. The gym before school at 14. And how 13 years of working with women eventually taught her that fat loss was always just the surface-level goal, and what women actually needed was far deeper than that.
Her business is called Beyond the Body for a reason. She shares how her coaching evolved from helping women lose weight to helping women discover who they actually are. Their values, their why, their relationship with themselves. And how the biggest wins her clients have had weren't about the scales at all.
From there, this episode becomes one of the most practical nutrition conversations The Cyclist has had. Jess asks all the questions she's been holding for years, from someone who knows a lot about nutrition but has spent years lost in the noise of it all. Renee walks through the four phases of the menstrual cycle and how understanding them gives women better body autonomy, not as a reason to stop doing things but as a guide for listening in. She explains the 10-minute rule for those days when you genuinely don't know whether your body needs rest or a push.
On nutrition, Renee introduces the add-in approach: forget elimination diets, forget what you're cutting out, just start adding. Protein, fats, fibre, carbohydrates on every plate. She makes a case for carbohydrates that will make a lot of women exhale, pushes back on the protein obsession dominating social media right now, and makes the case that fibre is actually the thing most women are deficient in and nobody is talking about it enough.
She talks about the fuck-it mode that follows restriction, why sharing a pizza with friends is genuinely better for your health than ordering the salad, and why your body is not broken, it just needs the right support and understanding.
And then there's strength training. Renee is passionate about this in a way that is completely unrelated to aesthetics. Building muscle protects your bones. It helps your body metabolise food. It combats stress and supports your nervous system. A 70-year-old client who broke her pelvis in a car accident recovered in months because of her training. That's the real reason to lift weights. Not Greece, not a bikini, but your 90-year-old self.
She wraps by saying that you do not need to shrink yourself to fit into a box someone else created. You are enough as you are. And when you truly allow yourself to believe that, everything else becomes possible.
Renee is coming back for a gut health and nervous system episode, because they ran out of time and there was still so much to cover. If you want that episode, let them know in the comments.
Find Renee at reneediment.com
Follow and connect
Instagram: @wearethecyclist
Website: wearethecyclist.com
Hit play. And maybe eat something while you listen.