Five Years of Aging Out Loud! A Certain Age Birthday Bash with Katie Fogarty and Co-Host Liz Plosser
Show Snapshot:
Five years of aging out loud—let's celebrate! Katie hands the mic to special co-host Liz Plosser, former Women's Health Editor-in-Chief, for our biggest birthday bash yet. We're diving deep into how the menopause conversation has exploded (finally!), why reinvention is the ultimate midlife superpower, and what it really means to "age exuberantly." Plus, how Katie's preparing for empty nest life with a big move back to NYC. Stick around for Liz’s summer and travel tips: confidence-boosting swimsuits, smart travel gear, and why she's doing the downward dog in boarding areas (and doesn't care who's watching). It's a party packed with wisdom, amazing giveaways, and real talk. Thank you for making A Certain Age part of your weekly routine, for tuning in from around the world—cheers to aging boldly together!
Show Links:
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Quotable:
You don't have to be the same woman you were yesterday. I've interviewed 240 women. many of them are reinventors in big and small ways... you can be somebody different tomorrow than you are today or you were yesterday.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 0:03
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty.
Beauties, grab your noise makers, put your party hats on. We have a very special episode of A Certain Age today. It is our fifth birthday show, and we're celebrating and doing the party thing with a very special co-host. But first, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for five fabulous years. You have listened to hundreds of shows featuring extraordinary guests each and every Monday. We have listeners from around the globe, and we now have a new sister show, the literary podcast, The Midlife Book Club. You have done this - you have helped the show grow by showing up each and every week. Thank you for making A Certain Age part of your listening experience.
We are going to be celebrating with some fun party favors, along with amazing giveaways from A Certain Age guests. We have books from authors and some really fantastic products to put in the mail. You can learn how to get in on the giveaway fun by signing up for our newsletter, Age Boldly, over on acertainagepod.com, or follow us on Instagram at @acertainagepod.
If you have been sticking around for these past five years, you know that we celebrate each one of these birthday shows with a switch-and-show format. We have a former guest co-hosting, and I am on the hot seat. Please welcome back to the show, journalist and health and fitness pro, Liz Baker Plosser.
Liz is an author, a certified nutrition pro, and a longtime health and fitness journalist. For seven years, she was editor-in-chief of Women's Health, the top women's health and fitness magazine in the world. If you like smart, snackable women's health content, Liz's Substack, Best Case Scenario, is truly a must-read. I am excited she's back as my co-host today to help us celebrate our fifth birthday and to share some of her top summer picks for fitness, workouts, and summer fun. So make sure you stick around to the end of the show. She'll be sharing must-haves for summer travel and bathing suits you actually feel great about wearing.
Let's do this. Let's get this party started. Welcome back to A Certain Age, Liz.
Liz Baker Plosser 3:03
Hi, Katie, I'm so excited to be here again with you. I am really, really thrilled.
Katie Fogarty
It's always so fun when somebody says yes and rejoins. We had a fantastic episode. If people missed that, they need to click back a few months ago. Liz came on to talk about her career reinvention and share some wonderful fitness and nutrition information with us about the importance of essential amino acids, and that was a great show. I've been using those Kion EAAs ever since. When you first came on, my favorite flavor was watermelon, but I've now moved on to mango, so you've already changed my life, and I'm excited that you're back today. Thank you.
So you know what? I'm turning over the reins of the show to you now.
Liz Baker Plosser 3:36
All right. Ooh, taking a deep breath over here, and I have my amino water bottle. You can't see it, but it's in here with me.
Okay, so first of all, I just have to say, Katie, thank you so much for asking me. It was, I think, one of the fastest email responses I've ever had in my life when you invited me to do this. So thank you. And second, before we jump in, I just want to say I feel a little bit of pressure, because, as I shared when we were off mic last time, you are like one of the most extraordinary interviewers I have come across, and I've done a lot of podcasts, so I hope I do you justice, and I know you'll chime in and help me out along the way, because this is my first time leading a podcast in this manner.
So okay, I'm just gonna jump right in, because…
Katie Fogarty
You totally got this. By the way, the reason why I asked you is I got to see you at an Alloy Women's Health panel conversation where a lot of former guests on the show were speaking. It was Rachel Hughes, it was Monica Molenaar, and women I really admire, and you were so fantastic. I was like, wait a minute, maybe Liz wants to be my co-host, so I know you've got this. So let's go.
Liz Baker Plosser 4:46
I do. I believe. I believe. And that was so fun to meet you in real life. Actually, yes, when you meet your heroes and people you've deeply connected with in other ways, digitally, but you get to meet them in person, there's really nothing like it, especially when they live up to your expectations or then some. So okay, I'll stop gushing over you and your awesome show.
And this is exciting, Katie - five years! That is a lot of work. I think it's like 240 shows. Let me know how many, right?
Katie Fogarty
You got it!
Liz Baker Plosser 5:00
Okay, I am curious. Tell me, like, I'm sure there are so many things, but just to kick us off, what is, like, one big thing that has surprised you by how much it's changed from year one to where you are in year five?
Katie Fogarty 5:09
I love this question. I think the biggest change that I've seen, the biggest shift that I've seen since I first launched the show, is the menopause conversation. I mean, menopause has been around for millennia, and people have talked about it over the years, but truly, when I launched the show, there wasn't a ton of information. There weren't a lot of very visible voices in this space, and there has been an explosion of information and guides and resources and tools that are being put in the hands of women. And I am totally here for it.
From Tamsen Fadal, who's been on my podcast three times, hitting the New York Times bestseller list with her book "How to Menopause" - so needed. There was such a groundswell of support for that, because people need that kind of information. I've interviewed Dr. Sharon Malone, who is with Alloy, and she had an instant New York Times bestseller with "Grown Woman Talk." So I really feel like their books, their voices, their resources in the menopause space - it's become very zeitgeisty, as it should be. And people joke about how menopause is having a moment. Menopause has really turned into a movement, and that's the biggest change that I've seen since I launched the show.
Liz Baker Plosser 6:25
Cool. Yes, I agree. Just reflecting on my career at Women's Health, where I was for seven years, we were writing about menopause from day one, but it was really in the last couple of years that anything we wrote, readers just could not get enough of it. So it's really heartening to see, right, that there's interest, and it's been de-stigmatized, and hopefully it's a conversation that men are joining in too, because we need them to be aware of these transitions that women are undergoing. So that's something I'm interested in.
Katie Fogarty 6:54
Yeah, absolutely. You know what? I actually - I'm on the board of Let's Talk Menopause. And they do an annual Menoposium, and their last one was in Dallas, Texas, and it was a sold-out Menoposium, and there were, I think, 250 women in the audience, but there were a handful of men, and a couple of them shared that they were there to support their partners. They were there to support their wives and to get smarter themselves. And that is phenomenal to see. One man actually bought the ticket to the Menoposium and flew his wife across country for her as a gift.
So men are raising their antenna on these issues, and I think that we can help the men in our lives out by putting resources into their hands, like Tamsen's book, or directing them to the letstalkmenopause.org website, if they too want to become more informed.
Liz Baker Plosser 7:44
I love that. I'm glad that you brought that up. Yeah, that's such a cool point. I love seeing it when men show up in those ways. And it was a dream of mine that I didn't have enough time to execute at Women's Health, but obviously our sibling brand was, or is, for that team, Men's Health, and I always thought it would be really interesting to do some sort of like joint package, and to use the power of both of those brands to amplify it, but also to have the editorial teams share their perspective and information that would really resonate with those audiences. So, yeah, I'm here for that too, and I hope more men join the conversation.
All right, so that's what surprised you. How about common themes that just come up time and time again? I'm sure, always in interesting in different ways. But what are the themes that you can't get away from? They're always...
Katie Fogarty 8:30
I think the biggest overarching theme is you don't have to be the same woman you were yesterday. I've interviewed 240 women, and many of them are reinventors in big and small ways. I think of Dr. Mary Claire Haver, who came on the show to talk about her book at the time, "The Galveston Diet," and she herself has been very vocal about her own evolution as a women's healthcare provider, how she felt like perhaps at one point in her life she wasn't being the menopause doctor that she should have been for her patients. And she herself has evolved over the five years from "The Galveston Diet" to her own New York Times bestseller, "The New Menopause." So she's somebody who still has her expertise, but has a new viewpoint on it.
And I think of a woman named Angel Cornelius who came on, I think, in year one, and she had been a hospital administrator who was mixing hair care potions at her kitchen counter, and went on to launch a hair care company called Maison 276, which is for natural hair and for silvering hair. And she wound up being like an Oprah Magazine pick, and she literally posted last week, and I was so happy to re-share it. She's now stocked in Walmart, so when she started mixing her own kitchen cocktail to care for her hair, I'm pretty sure she had no idea she'd wind up in Walmart and undergo this massive transformation.
So, and people have smaller transformations. People transform their fitness, or they transform their marriages and their relationships. They transform as a parent. I mean, the women who come on my show are continuously evolving, and so the idea that you can be somebody different tomorrow than you are today or you were yesterday, is truly a theme that's across all my guests.
Liz Baker Plosser 10:19
I love that so much. And I think there was a lot you said there that resonated with me. But on the note of Dr. Haver, I think I'm always so inspired when a person, whether they're a luminary like Dr. Haver, Mary Claire Haver, or just an everyday person, when they have the mindset that they're curious and they listen, and they want to keep learning and educating themselves, and they might change their mind or their approach, and I think she's a wonderful example of that. And also your second guest too, you know, is having this meteoric rise professionally. What a testament to following your passion and leaning into the thing that lights you up, and it takes a lot of luck, but also a lot of effort. And I think when you get all those things just right, it's just magic what can happen.
Which leads me to my next question, actually, which is you and podcasting. We've talked a little bit about what you've learned from the guests and how that shows up in the health space and midlife space. But what about you personally? Katie, what has it been like teaching yourself this platform, experimenting, iterating, growing? How has that felt, personally?
Katie Fogarty 11:23
It has absolutely been joyful. I mean, it is truly just like an incredible ride. I love doing this. I get up every Monday when I'm airing a show so excited about introducing another fabulous woman to my listening audience. I mean, and some people I'm not introducing. I've been lucky enough to have like Stacy London on the show and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, women who need absolutely no introduction, but just to have conversations with them is... I got to speak to Shannon Watts a few weeks ago, and I've admired her career for years. I've admired her work in anti-gun violence advocacy, so to have her on the show is like, just like, and be able to talk to her is like, totally just a pinch-me moment.
But I've also just loved learning new skills, like I've learned how to podcast, I learned how to interview. I've learned how to promote the show. So on the back end, beyond simply having the conversations, the back end is really fun for me as well. Like I recorded for my first three years in a professional studio with a wonderful sound engineer named Dave Goldberg, who I absolutely loved. And it was so fun to go into those booths and hang out and have that experience. I'm now recording at Riverside with virtual editors, and it's been fun to learn this new platform and collaborate with new people.
So for many years... Also, this is actually really funny. The woman who edited my podcast transcripts was a French Canadian who was biking through Europe during the pandemic, and we would like email back and forth every week about the transcripts, and I got to hear about her adventures. And so it's been so fun to have these different collaborators in my life through the show.
Liz Baker Plosser 13:15
That's awesome. I can hear it in your voice now and with every episode that you record that you deeply care and are deeply passionate and have a lot of respect for your guests, so it's coming across what you're putting down.
All right, I love the tagline of your podcast, "age out loud." So can you go a little deeper on that? What does it mean to you, and why is that tagline so important to you? And I know taglines are really hard to come up with, so maybe even share a peek behind the curtain - how you landed on it?
Katie Fogarty 13:46
Absolutely. So I actually thought about calling the show "Age Out Loud" instead of "A Certain Age." I think "A Certain Age" works because we all experience midlife or taking the keys away from our aging parents, or watching your nest empty at different stages, right? Women go into menopause, sometimes at 42 and sometimes at 52, but at a certain age, you're going to experience these things.
So that's... I did land on that for the show, but "age out loud" was my initial first name for the show, and I was talking to a woman who did - she ran the podcasting business for Forbes magazine, and she was delightful, and gave me so much great podcasting advice. And when I shared my name with her, she was like, "Eh, I don't love it." And I let myself be swayed, because she felt maybe it was just too confusing, and it was a little hard. And anyhow, so I didn't do it, but I loved it so much I wanted it to be the tagline of the show.
And to me, "age out loud" means just sort of embracing the phase that you're in, saying no to the pop culture pressure to be eternally youthful, to kind of chase the impossible, like hanging on to your youth. And "age out loud" really came out of my day job as well. I work as a career coach. I help senior executives shape and share their professional stories, both online, on LinkedIn, and in other ways. And because I work with so many senior executives, I was bumping into a lot of people who did not want to age out loud, who wanted to hide their age to remain relevant and marketable in their careers. And I get it, because ageism is real, but it also made me sad on a very deep level, that people with incredible experience, years of expertise, felt that they had to hide that in some way.
So I really embraced that for myself as a philosophy. I launched this podcast 35 days before I turned 51. I had been shouting my age all over the internet ever since, and I think that we're not going to shift the conversation around what it means to become experienced and add chronological years, if we're continuing trying to hide that. So I want to do it for myself. I am 55 and I'm proud of that. I've learned a lot. I've covered a lot of ground over these 55 years, some of it hard, some of it amazing. I don't want to pretend none of it existed. And I also want to make sure that my 25-year-old daughter does not wake up and feel that at 35 she's expired, at 45 she's expired, and the only way that's going to happen is if we all start to be more visible in claiming our age.
Liz Baker Plosser 16:38
Amen to all of that. A few years back, I started proudly and loudly, in true Katie fashion, sharing my age with like a social media post. And I say it sort of whenever I can. I probably said it at that Alloy panel we were at together. But it's kind of weird when you start to do it. But I came to a point at the end of my WH tenure, where I was like, I have this platform and this giant brand. If I can't boldly, loudly, and proudly say exactly where I am and how old I am, rather than trying to be a Benjamin Button version of myself, then who can do it? So it's awesome that women like you, who have such a voice and reach so many women, are showing that it's possible. And also, yes, it's completely true. Ageism is real. There's plenty of science and data to support that, but we've got to start somewhere.
Katie Fogarty 17:34
Totally. And Liz, you used one of the best expressions I've ever heard on the show when we talked about aging. You said you want to "age exuberantly." And I thought, "Yeah!" That's great. I love that. I love that. Because sometimes there's a lot of pressure on this notion of "aging gracefully," and it's like, what does that even mean? But to age exuberantly? I think we can all get behind that with like, some joy and energy and vibrancy. And I'm like, yes, yes, yes, let's all age exuberantly.
Liz Baker Plosser 18:08
Thank you for reminding me I said that. I had forgotten. I love it when I say something that inspires me... stuck in my head. It's such a great word. I love it. I love that word too.
All right. Well, who are some of the role models, besides my exuberant aging, who inspire you with how they're aging?
Katie Fogarty 18:30
I have to look at, like, publicly, women like Paulina Porizkova, who really talks about her aging process on Instagram. I love that. She says things like, "Sexy has no expiration date." She's somewhere between J.Lo and Betty White. She just has, like, a very cheeky approach to aging, but she's also very honest about how it's hard to be a model that had fame for a certain set of looks and to age visibly, and I admire how she handles it. I look at Jane Fonda, who's unstoppable, who is using her platform to advocate for the climate, and she's incredible. I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who could easily be resting on her laurels as just like the OG TV icon, and has instead decided to remain ever curious and interview amazing women. So I love all of those women. There's truly no shortage, if you look around, of women who are aging with curiosity and openly.
But I also look at my own mother and mother-in-law. My mother-in-law is just... did that talk about the spirit of curiosity keeping you forever young? She's always... she's writing children's... she's, I think, 82 right now, and she's writing children's books, and she's always gardening or heading off to museums. And my mother's experiencing some memory decline. But for many years, she was exactly the role model of aging. She had a wide group of friends ranging across ages. She worked for many years in one of the university systems in New York, and her friends were... she was like the bridesmaid at one of her 27-year-old coworkers' weddings, like, when, you know, when she was a grandmother. So she's always had a wide range of friends and interests and curiosity. So I think we can look to the women in our own lives. But if we don't have that, there are plenty of people in culture that we can look to and that I know that I do.
Liz Baker Plosser 20:17
Yeah, for sure. Your mom sounds just wonderful. I hope to be kicking it like her when I'm in my 80s, too.
All right, let's talk about yet another passion project, since you didn't have enough on your plate, but I know this one is very meaningful for you, and I imagine gives you an opportunity to work with a lot of these women who inspire you as they're aging. You recently launched a second podcast. Last year, you launched The Midlife Book Club, and I've been loving how you surface these writers and authors who sometimes I haven't heard of and sometimes I know about them, and just your fervor and excitement and joy for your friends or these women who have put their hearts and souls into books is so apparent. So what was the impetus for that? Are you a big reader? Why did you decide to do a whole second podcast?
Katie Fogarty 21:06
Sometimes I ask myself that same question, Liz. I'm like, "What am I thinking?" Like my plate is, like, comically full.
Yes, I grew up an avid reader. My mom's a former librarian. My dad is addicted to buying books. We have, like, shelves that are groaning and groaning and groaning with books. And I used to commute through New York City as a New York City school kid like reading a book as I walked down blocks. So I've loved reading forever.
And the truth is I get pitched all the time by book publicists for A Certain Age, and I could do every single show on an author. But the reality is that my listeners want a wide swath of types of guests. A lot of my show is that future doctors do really well because people need tools. And a lot of the books that I feature on A Certain Age are kind of more... I don't want to use the word "self-help," because that's got like, icky connotations, but they're probably on the self-help... they're like personal development books, or sort of non-fiction books about how to change your life.
But so it's been hard for me to have all the book content that I would want on the show, so I decided to peel some of it off and put it onto a separate podcast. And so The Midlife Book Club is really more of a literary look at midlife. It's authors that are spotlighting either the stories of midlife - it's about reimagining a midlife marriage, or it might be dealing with sandwich generation stuff, or it could be dealing with sprawling generational stories. The Midlife Book Club also is allowing me the possibility of featuring men as guests, because A Certain Age... I'm committed to featuring women only on the show. It's just that's the way the show got started, and that's the way I want it to stay. But The Midlife Book Club features... we had Chip Conley on the show, who wrote his sort of midlife manifesto, "Learning to Love Midlife."
So it's been super fun. Shows that I'm really excited about that are around the birthday... in July, I had Sarah Johnson, who wrote this wonderful, sprawling, multi-generational story called "Grown Women," and it is so incredible and rich and layered about a family of Black women growing up in the South through different levels of either poverty or affluence, and how it shapes them and their stories. And then I had Lidija Hilje, who was a wonderful Croatian novelist with this insanely beautiful, evocative book called "Slanting Towards the Sea." And Lidija was put on my notice by Claire Lombardo, who is a New York Times bestselling author who came on to talk about her book, "Same as It Ever Was," which is about a midlife marriage. And "Slanting Towards the Sea" is a bit of a coming-of-age story and a... I mean, she's the most stunning writer. It's like poetry, but through the lens of a very gripping sort of page-turning story.
So it's been very fun to explore these books on that show, and I just wanted to... and that show's only once a month, but it's truly fun to do, and it allows me to, I guess, explore stories that maybe don't necessarily have a home on A Certain Age.
Liz Baker Plosser 24:27
Oh, it's so beautiful to hear you talk about books and reading and writing. That's awesome. I actually am taking notes on a couple I haven't read yet, so thanks for those tips.
All right, I'm gonna switch gears to personal life for a minute, though, I guess it all blends together. You and I, since we've become friends, I know you have the 25-year-old daughter you mentioned, and a darling son who just graduated from high school and went to his senior prom. Liz, he looks like he could be your son, because he has the same platinum hair that you have. He reminds me of my son, Charlie. They've even got the same, like, mop hair. I think they would probably get along when they come across each other. I have a good feeling about those two.
But oh my goodness, my kids, I have three. I have a 10-year-old who's approaching his last year of elementary school, which is fifth grade in New York. I have boy-girl twins who just graduated from eighth grade, so they're heading into high school, and I can already feel it like, oh my gosh, it's going so fast, like it's speeding up. It's not slowing down, just my time with them. So I already have like, heart pains about, like, what it's gonna feel like when they start moving out of the house and heading off to college. But you are, like, right there in that empty nest phase. Or, I don't know, maybe we should rebrand it in some way, shape or form, but I know you've got some exciting plans on the horizon, including maybe some downsizing and coming back into the city. So, yes, yes, yes. Tell us all a little bit about that. What's going on with that, and be real too. Yeah. What are you... though, totally different stuff, so I can prepare.
Katie Fogarty 26:05
Oh, absolutely. My husband and I are selling our family home. We've lived in a town in Long Island for 20 years, and in this particular home for 10, and we are selling the house, emptying it, which, by the way, not fun, but we're doing it. And we are moving back to the city, which I'm really excited about. I grew up in this city. My parents are both still there, one of my brothers, and I'm excited for this phase of just being back with more restaurants and just easier access to culture and just kind of the buzz and the hum of the city. So I'm thrilled about that, but it is... it is a bit painful to say goodbye to a place that you've lived for so long. And I'm having these moments of like, "Oh, was that the last fire we ever had?" Or, "Oh my gosh, like the dogwood tree bloomed and now it's into leaves. Will I ever see it bloom again?" So there's all these like little moments that are... it's bittersweet as you think about moving through that.
And in terms of the kids sort of growing and moving out, my daughter's in Brooklyn. My middle son is... that's where he's headed, and my youngest is off to college. And one of the things that I've learned because Grace is 25 and she actually went to school in Scotland, so she was gone for four years, and then lived in Australia for a year afterwards, doing wild dolphin research. So she's been like, here, there and everywhere, but your kids come back, and we still have so much time with them, and there's... although it changes. So I think watching my youngest walk off is hard and sad, but I also know that they come back for breaks, and maybe because my husband's a great cook, they like... they come back regularly, like they're around a lot, so I feel like it's an exciting time to just watch them, I don't know, blossom and flourish and move off to their next things.
We'll see how I feel differently in September, when he's fully gone and the college drop-off has happened. Will that be a time when I just feel like overwhelmed with the loss? But right now, I think I'm just sort of poised on the threshold of, like, excitement for them, because it's fun watching them go off to do their own things, and it's fun having them sleep through the night and all... like being a young mom is hard. I like this phase. I like being a mom of kids that I truly enjoy hanging out with, so I think there's that. But I've also learned being a mom never ends.
And I just have this conversation with Wendi Aarons, who's a humor writer, who was a guest on this podcast at one point. She wrote a very funny sort of coming-to-middle-age memoir called "I'm Wearing Tunics Now," and she writes for The New Yorker, McSweeney's... a lot of humor pieces. She's phenomenal. And we both contributed essays to a new midlife anthology called "Midlife Private Parts," and her essay's about empty nesting, and it's wonderful. It's just a marvelous, funny, hilarious essay, but she was saying that one of her kids was back home for a period of time, and even though he's in his mid-20s, she was like worried when he didn't get home at a certain time. And it's like when your kids are with you, there's that constant worry, no matter what their age is, but somehow, when they're not living with you, you worry about them less. So I don't know if that helps answer the question. So there's something about them being off on their own, for some reason, that I have less anxiety than when... if Grace is spending a weekend with us, and I'm like, "Wait a minute. It's like... where is she?" Your work... proximity causes worry, and distance causes, I don't know, what do they say? The heart to grow fonder, but also the worry to abate.
Liz Baker Plosser 29:47
No, that all makes a lot of sense. So prepare yourself, because in the coming years, we will be chatting more about this. Totally. I get it. The transitions are... it's hard, like anytime something comes to an end. I think it's really hard, but yeah, well said. I agree with you.
All right, Katie, well, I'm gonna let you put me in the hot seat for a few minutes, but I do... I have one last question before we do that, which is, I can't end my line of questioning without asking: What's next for you as you take this podcast into year six? What are your hopes and dreams that you want to do here?
Katie Fogarty 30:25
My hopes and dreams are just to continue to put out great shows that women tune into every Monday. And I think that's possible. There's no shortage of amazing midlife women that I want to feature on the show. I also do want to do some more writing. I've talked many times about how I've been thinking of writing a book. I want to move from thinking to doing. The experience of contributing an essay to "Midlife Private Parts" and being part of that book launch... it was, like, so inspiring. And I really... I'm going to, like, put my rear in a chair at some point, at a desk, and really get some thoughts on paper. So that's something that I'm excited about for year six. Yeah, just continue to talk to amazing women is like my number one vision for the podcast.
Liz Baker Plosser 31:15
I love that. You most certainly have a book in you, so I will be rooting very exuberantly from the sidelines as you get into...
Katie Fogarty 31:23
Thank you. And I know you... it's so much fun writing, and that's actually, you know why I think you probably have your Substack. And by the way, I mentioned this at the top of the show, but anyone who's not yet subscribing to Liz's Substack, Best Case Scenario, it's going to be the best thing in your inbox every week, because it's first of all... I mean, you have decades as a journalist. You're an editor-in-chief, so you have, like, a finely honed sense of interesting content, and you've got your finger on the pulse of what people want to know. You're bringing products, tools, resources, research to our attention that we might be... flying under the radar because we don't have that sort of sense of, like, editorial strategy that you bring. But it's also, when I said it's smart and snackable, I mean it. It's like, you can quickly move through it and be like, "Oh my gosh." And here's, like, a little... there's a link or this or that. It's, it's really... it's easy. It's not one of these things that shows up and you're like, "Oh my God. I need, like, 50 minutes to read it." It's like, super delightful.
And I know that this, we're having this conversation in August. You've been sharing so many phenomenal sort of summer content blocks and posts and things, so I would love to kind of dive into some of that with you. I noticed recently, and this was something that definitely caught my eye, because this is so hard to do. You shared a post on summer swimsuit shopping. And I, for a lot of women, I think summer swimsuit shopping, it like sends a chill down our spines. You have found some amazing suits that you can exercise in, that you can enjoy yourself in on the beach. So let's start off with that, because I know listeners need this.
Liz Baker Plosser 33:00
Awesome. Yeah, so... Well, thank you for your kind words. Much like you, I'm really leaning into something that lights me up, which is writing a lot, so I'm having so much fun with it, and I'm also experimenting there. So my swimsuit post was definitely an experiment. You're an avid reader, so I'm curious how that felt, since I typically do very sciencey deep dives or my Monday news roundups with sort of a little personal... I weave a story from my life, so I infuse myself and experience into anything I write. I just don't know how to do it differently.
And yeah, I mean as a woman, no, but you did it like... I love the way you did it, where you had... you broke each of these suits down into sort of categories, and you had suits for confidence. And I was like, "Yes, let's feel confident. Let's go!"
Well, and also, I think words really matter, and I think there's some really icky ways that, whether it's an editorial brand or even a consumer brand, talk about swimwear, and I want everything I do, at Best Case Scenario, to come from a place of like, strength and giving our reader credit for... giving my reader credit for where she is, and like, "Heck yeah," to feeling even more confident with a suit that is flattering and that you can run around in and allows you to wiggle and jiggle in all the ways we're meant to. So yeah, that was, I think, the first category I started with.
And I have to say, all the suits I wrote about are ones I either personally wear or that we recommended to readers at Women's Health. I did a lot of segments on the Today Show over the years talking about the best swimwear for women. So I think the best one... well, they're all great, but the Summersalt Marina in that crew of confidence suits is by far the one I would recommend if anyone's still looking for a summer suit. Or honestly, right now, there are probably a lot of them on sale just with the time of year. It's got color blocking, some compression, it's got internal bra support. It's got plenty of butt coverage, so all the things we women want.
But then I did also, I talked about bikinis. I wear bikinis sometimes. One of my favorite bikini brands is Left on Friday. It's just like, so comfortable and so beautifully constructed. And if you pop onto their website, Katie, like, the biggest struggle for me is choosing a color, because they're all just so, like, rich and saturated and happy and beautiful.
Katie Fogarty 35:30
Plus the name is so fun. I love the name Left on Friday. It just like, conjures up, like, fun summer weekend, right?
Liz Baker Plosser 35:45
Totally. It's actually that brand was launched... I've met the two co-founders, two women. It was an executive marketer at Lululemon and a high-level designer at Lululemon, so it tracks that those ladies know what they're doing.I did a category I called "hardcore, but make it stylish" for those who are maybe training for a triathlon or enjoy swimming laps. Betty Designs is another female-founded brand that I love. I haven't met her in person, but I've done some Zoom calls with the founder. She's this, like, badass skier who's almost 60 and just like, so cool and rad. So it was kind of a mix of things that inform the suits that I chose, but they're all suits that really do stand up to the getting in the ocean, getting in chlorine, running around, chasing children. They really work. I will never write about something that I don't passionately believe in.
Katie Fogarty 36:20
Liz, so many great choices, and I love that you flagged the Summersalt brand, because I've seen those on Instagram. I love the color blocking. I have yet to pull the trigger on them, but now I'm inspired to do so.
Okay, you also had some really cool ideas on accessories. You had wetsuits, sunglasses, and there was something that definitely caught my eye that you talked about your favorite faux glow. Tell us about these.
Liz Baker Plosser 36:45
Yes. Okay, so the post was already getting quite long, but I felt like I couldn't leave people without a few of my tip-top favorite extras. So my faux glow, okay... I think nothing looks and feels healthier than having some glow. And I'm a person who has freckles and stuff. So again, as I've been aging exuberantly, I've been embracing that more, but I am also very, very firmly team SPF and not getting burnt and frying our skin because of all the dangers of skin cancer and other damage you can do. So I wear very high sunscreen, but I get that sort of tan, summery glow through a product called Typology Daily Bronze Building Duo. It's seriously... Katie, this is magic. It doesn't smell bad. It works instantly. I mean this stuff, and I have no skin in the game. I'm not making any money by saying this. I have no affiliation with them. It's just a great product.
Katie Fogarty 37:40
I have a lot of pale skin in the game. So that sounds like something I need to check out. I need to check out for my... especially, I think, sort of for your legs and arms. We're like... if you're in sundresses or suits or whatever like... to your point, like a swimsuit, it's nice to have a little bit of color that you don't have to come by with all the attendant sun damage and stuff. Love it.
Katie Fogarty 38:01
Correct. Great, yes. So do you have a favorite pair of sunglasses? I know you're out... you're doing a lot of... you're exercising outdoors a lot. I know because I follow you, that you also exercise in the gym, but you're outside often. Is there something that you use, that you can recommend?
Liz Baker Plosser 38:18
For sure. Okay, I've tried many sunglasses brands, and I have to say, my favorite that I keep coming back to is a brand called Goodr, G-O-O-D-R. You can get them on Amazon. Here's why I love them. Number one, they stay put. I typically jog outdoors with my dog, Willa, so we're not going very far, very long, but when you start sweating, when it's warm outside, you want your sunglasses not to be like slipping down your nose. So these really do stay put. Again, I'm a... I'm a sucker for great colors. They come in all different colors. So I have a white pair, a brown pair, a turquoise pair, and I have all these pairs because I often lose or misplace my sunglasses, or again, those three kids and dogs, something will happen to them. They'll get scrunched. But Goodr sunglasses are super affordable. Like every style they make is under 30 bucks, so there's nothing like that heartbreak of having a really fancy, nice pair of sunglasses you're obsessed with, it was also really expensive, and when you misplace it or it gets cracked, that just absolutely... that's no fun. If you're out and about, you want to make sure your sunglasses are going to kind of like work as hard as you do and not cost you a fortune.
Katie Fogarty 39:25
I love that they're so affordable. I'm going to hop in to say that I played so many racquet sports over the years, and I have so many tennis friends, particularly, that are addicted to the Goodrs, because they're kind of lightweight, and they do stay on when you're sweating and sliding all over a tennis court. So I'm throwing out there that as well.
All right, sunglasses. So when we think about sunglasses too, sometimes we think about travel. I know you did a great article recently on "travel as a full contact sport," which cracked me up, because I was like, "Liz must have been in the airport that I was in recently," because it feels like a lot. So you do travel? When we hopped on the mic today, you shared that you've been actually traveling a lot for work, so best luggage, tech gear. Tell me what makes your travel experience... fun?
Liz Baker Plosser
Yeah, I've been traveling so much, and I did a lot at Women's Health too, so I've had a lot of practice, like getting my system and my gear in tip-top working order to make my life as pleasant as possible when I'm on the road. So that was one of my most popular posts so far, Katie. I was super surprised, because, again, I was like, "Well, this is kind of out of my lane. I don't know what people are going to think of this," but it really... it crushed. People need this information.
Katie Fogarty 40:34
I bet the swimsuits performed really well also because, yeah, people want this stuff.
Liz Baker Plosser
Fun to see that... again, it's just fun to be able to experiment and do what I think is interesting. And then when the readers show up for it, as I'm sure you feel like, when the listeners show up, you're like, "Heck, yeah, you guys rock!"
At any rate, okay, some of my travel favorites. I have two luggage brands I love. Probably your listeners have heard of both. Away, which is pretty ubiquitous, and probably you see it in any airport, in any check-in line. But honestly, I think they're really excellent. Mine have been through the ringer, and I've never had any damage to it. I think the biggest issue with Away is it's now so common that I recommend tying like a colorful ribbon, not red, because that's what everybody else started to do. So put something special on it, like a big luggage tag, or, I don't know, tie... I read that you lost your Away luggage with a red ribbon, because somebody was like, "That's my Away."
Katie Fogarty 41:30
Yes, I'm a careful reader. Liz, I know that you lost your luggage. You really read that piece? Yeah, I shared a lot... we all have wild travel stories, right? I feel like I have many of them.
Liz Baker Plosser 41:42
There's also a brand called Paravel. I have their like, little mini rolly, which is great for a weekend trip. It's just beautiful. It's gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous luggage. It's great luggage. It feels vintage, but it's like made to work for today. And I'm gonna hop... I'm gonna echo you on the Away. I have an Away roller bag that I bought like multiple years ago, and this thing has taken a beating and kept on ticking. And those wheels, they've been wheeled over cobblestone. They've been wheeled over gravel. I mean, they really have been put through the ringer, and they keep working. It's kind of amazing.
Katie Fogarty 42:15
Yeah, totally.
Liz Baker Plosser
Let's see... another piece of gear I recommend. The brand Dagny Dover is another one I love. It's kind of got this, like, neoprene material that's used in most of it. It feels very sporty. There's, like, a lot of mesh involved. They have this little, like, square-shaped zippered pouch thing that I use for all of my chargers and cords. And I used to be the person who would like yank all my stuff out of my bedside table where I'm charging, and now I just keep this zipper... Dagny Dover... ready to go. It's got my Apple Watch charger, my Apple charger, my laptop charger, an external battery pack charger. It's got the essentials I need, and it's just really cute and small and keeps everything organized. So that's something I highly recommend.
Katie Fogarty 42:58
Dagny Dover is new to me, so thank you for putting that on my radar. And so it makes travel easy. When you've got a dedicated bag that you can simply pop in, you don't have to think about... because I think part of the reason why people get stressed out over travel, it's like a lot of decisions, and if the decision has been made once and it's ready to go, that's so smart.
Let's talk about travel snacks, because I know that you write a lot about nutrition and you put a lot of brands on my radar. I would love for you to loop our listeners in, because we've all had the experience of getting to the airport... you're starving and what you're being offered, quite honestly, sometimes is horrible.
Liz Baker Plosser 43:35
Yeah, it's a danger zone, and I have fallen victim to the trap of feeling like, "What happens in the airport stays in the airport." You're like, suddenly it's like….
Katie Fogarty Well, I'm eating Pringles. So, like, I'm eating Pringles.
ILiz Baker Plosser
'm like, walking by McDonald's. Like, maybe..." Never do that in real life. Not that I'm... it's fine, right? Things in my face... but then you just, you get on the plane, and you're... exactly.
Katie Fogarty
We've all been there. It's, you're like, you'll eat whatever's in front of you. And so how do we put... how do we put better things in front of us? What are some ideas?
Liz Baker Plosser 44:10
So, yeah, definitely travel with intention. Well, I'm a big fan of essential amino acids. Those keep my energy up. I bring a tub of them, I bring a water bottle and I'll just go to a fountain and add cold water to it and sip on those. That helps take some of that, like weird snackiness away. Greek yogurt you can pretty much find in any little airport kiosk. So that... Katie, I prioritize my protein. I'm really serious about that. It's really impacted in a positive way, my energy levels.
I don't drink, and I know a lot of people, again, the blur of the airport... that can be a place where suddenly you're having more wine or beer, et cetera. So I like to just stick to a club soda with ice. That's what I'll have on the plane. I hadn't tried it yet because it hadn't launched, but after I wrote this piece, this brand I love, called Mush that is a refrigerated overnight oats brand, they came out with a protein line. So they make protein bars and also protein overnight oats. They don't have any added sugar. They're vegan. They're delicious. Every product in the line comes with 15 grams of protein. So that's another great thing to...
Katie Fogarty 45:15
Spelling Mush, is it M-U-S-H?
Liz Baker Plosser 45:18
Okay. I love, love, love overnight oats. And I also just love, like oatmeal, like hot oatmeal, too. So that's... I'm putting that on my radar. So those are a few. Oh, I'll give one more. Quest is another brand I like. I know it's filled with chemicals. I don't understand how they infuse their chips and bars with so much protein, but they have some... what are they like? Hot... hot chips that are sort of Dorito-esque, except without all the junk.
Katie Fogarty 45:46
Okay? Quest chips. All right, I'm gonna hop off to Google that in a minute. So what are some of your hacks for feeling your best while traveling, because you incorporated that into your piece too. Give us a few ideas about how we can hit that airport, get off that plane, and not feel like we've already done a marathon, an endurance test.
Liz Baker Plosser 46:05
For sure. Well, for starters, don't forget to breathe. I know it sounds so simple, but go into it knowing not everything is gonna go smoothly. It might go quite the opposite of smoothly. I've had some epic situations this year. I'll just put it that way. But doing my box breathing, where I breathe in for four counts, hold my breath for four counts and then exhale for four counts. That helps a lot.
What else? Oh, mobility work. I am like a tin man due to injuries and aging and just how much I'm in the gym probably, and when you scrunch yourself up in an airport seat for hours at a time, that just makes it that much worse. So I have no shame. At 46 years old, I will do a down dog and some cat cows and a child's pose in the boarding area before I get on board. And it makes a massive difference in how achy I am.
Katie Fogarty 46:55
Oh, my God. I love that so much. I love that so much. You need to be posting an Instagram reel of that, because I think that's so smart. And we do get... and by the way, have you caught wind of the Melanie "We Do Not Care" club, that sort of this viral thing that's gone around. I'll send you some of the reels afterwards. But this, she was on the Today Show, and she really made it into the New York Times, but she's launched this hysterical line of videos saying, "We do not care now," and basically it's like, "We don't care about certain things and we don't care that we're doing down dogs in the airport boarding area because we're at a certain age, and we don't care what you think. We're doing it anyway."
Liz Baker Plosser 47:33
That's right. My kids could add many more things to that list. I no longer care about... the "We Do Not Care" club junior edition reporting on what their parents are embarrassing them about.
Katie Fogarty 47:43
That's hysterical. Oh, my God. All right, so you're hopping on airplanes after you've done your downward dogs. You're taking, hopefully, some fun trips as well, not just work ones. What... before I let you go. Last couple of questions. What are you reading this summer? We talked about how much I love books. Tell me what's on your TBR stack, or what you're maybe currently reading.
Liz Baker Plosser 48:05
So this is interesting, perhaps because I just finished this decades-long career in legacy media. I can't get enough of all these books that have been coming out about... from the perspective of former editors-in-chief who talk about what it was like and what their life is like now. I'm just finding them very inspiring. So one that's been out actually for quite a long time is "Save Me the Plums" by Ruth Reichl, who was the editor for... my husband actually got that for me. It was a present he gave me right after I left Women's Health. And it was just cool to remember like, as terrified and exhilarated as I was in those early days that like these people have been through it, and look at all they're building and doing like, even without that fancy title they always had, sort of like... it's about identity and learning who you are again without that title and the big office door that you swung open for so many years.
Katie Fogarty 49:00
What a marvelous gift. Yeah, I loved Ruth Reichl. I loved all of her articles. She was somebody that I read religiously, so I'm gonna have to check that out.
Liz Baker Plosser 49:09
Graydon Carter, who's the very iconic, famous editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, back in the day, he just came out with a book called "When the Going Was Good." So I'm in the midst of that right now, and I worked at Conde... Conde Nast is the publisher of Vanity Fair, as well as Self where I worked, and actually Gourmet. But I've also written down some books that you mentioned. I'm dying to read the... our friends who just published the book of midlife essays. I want to read yours. I want to read Wendy's. "I'm Wearing Tunics Now." That sounds marvelous.
And I just also had a friend gift me... And full disclosure, I haven't started it yet, but I keep bringing it with me, and perhaps on my next vacation, I really will start it. It's called "The Book of Alchemy." Do you know this one, Katie?
Katie Fogarty 49:55
Yeah, I've heard... Is it Suleika Jaouad?
Liz Baker Plosser
Yeah, I've heard of it, but I haven't read it yet, and it's supposed to be marvelous. A girlfriend... like people are so kind. We were getting coffee, and as we got talking about writing and Substack, and she's in the midst of a reinvention too. She mentioned this book, and what do you know? Like two days later it shows up in the mail. She had it sent to me from Amazon. It was so kind of her. But it's... good friends. I love that. People are so wonderful, such good eggs. But it's meant to give you different writing prompts and sort of take you through the process of writing and different exercises and thinking about it in new ways, and it shares reflections from the author. So I'm excited for that.
And then I just finished "Lessons in Chemistry," which I know has been out for a few years now, but oh my god, it was so good. I was like sobbing every time I read it, particularly in the final chapters.
Katie Fogarty
So I love that book, and the show is marvelous also. I mean, it was such a great... was such a great adaptation, I don't even say... I'm saying that correctly, but it was a wonderful, wonderful film. Or maybe it was a TV show on Apple.
Liz Baker Plosser 50:55
It was a, yeah, it was a TV series, and you know what? I started it. I started the first episode, and maybe it's meant more... maybe it's more geared for women, but my husband was like, not feeling it. Matt was not feeling it, so we kind of dropped the ball on that. But then I got the book for myself, and now I want to go back and watch the rest of the series.
Katie Fogarty
And I'm picking up "The Book of Alchemy." I actually read Suleika Jaouad's first book, "Between Two Kingdoms," which is an incredible memoir about her cancer journey, which she's still on. She's had several relapses. She's married to Jon Batiste, for anyone who doesn't know, the wonderful musician, and the book talks a little bit about their early relationship. They met at band camp, believe it or not, and she's an incredible writer. She goes on... "Between Two Kingdoms" is her existing between the space of wellness and illness and death, basically, and living in that this middle ground where you get mired in hospitals. But she does it so beautifully. It's truly an incredible read. And so her new book is on my radar, and if I sit down to write my own book, it sounds like this may be giving me some prompts and some ideas to move that process along. So thank you for reminding me about this book.
Katie Fogarty 52:00
Liz, this was so much fun today. Thank you for being a part of the show, for taking the co-hosting reins, for asking such thoughtful questions, for willing to be a yes when I dropped into your inbox. I so appreciate you. Thank you for being with me today.
Liz Baker Plosser 52:15
Oh, you're welcome. You will always get a yes from me, Katie. I'm Team Katie, forever.
Katie Fogarty 52:21
Uh oh, be careful.
[Both laugh]
This wraps "A Certain Age," a show for women who are aging without apology. Thank you so much for celebrating with me. Thank you so much to Liz Plosser for coming on, to hang out, to co-host, and to ask such thoughtful questions. I loved thinking about the past five years, what I've learned, what I've taken away, and all the amazing things that podcasting has brought to my life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can't say it enough. You truly have helped the show grow, and I love that you turn up and turn out. You get loud with me about aging each and every week.
We have tons of giveaway fun. You heard that you can head to Age Boldly newsletter to sign up and learn more at acertainagepod.com. You can also go to @acertainagepod on Instagram. Liz has her own very generous giveaway for listeners. She is a big fan of the Kion essential amino acids. She came on the show to talk about those a couple weeks ago and how they're an important part of her protein, muscle building and fitness routines. She's gotten me hooked. I love the mango. If you too want in on the essential amino acid fun, here is a 20% off code for you. Head to getKion. That's G-E-T-K-I-O-N.com/ACE for 20% off of your orders. Let me know if you like the mango.
Please sign up for the newsletter. Keep up with all things A Certain Age and keep making the show part of your week. We're heading into year six strong, and we want you to be a part of it. Special thanks to Phyllis and Angie and Kelvin at Sound Advice Strategies for helping me with all things editing and bringing the show to your ears every single week, and as always, special thanks to Mike Mancimu, who composed and produced our theme music.
See you next time, until then keep on aging boldly with me.