Tamsen Fadal

A few weeks ago, I opened up about the hair loss I experienced in perimenopause. It was, as it is for many women, an incredibly confusing and emotional time. I couldn’t understand what was happening, much less know what to do to stop it. My once thick hair was breaking off at the ends, changing texture, and falling out in clumps. Still, I refused to accept this is just “how it is” for women in midlife. I dove into research and interviewed leading dermatologists to learn how I could best...

Hi Reader, I left a 30 year career as a news anchor at 52 with no plan that looked like a plan to anyone who knew me. No guarantee that anything on the other side was going to work. Just this quiet, persistent feeling that one chapter was done and something else was waiting, even though I couldn't see it yet. I remember sitting in the makeup chair I had been sitting in for decades and feeling absolutely nothing. Not tired, not frustrated… just nothing. And I couldn't remember when that had...

A few months ago I went on my Instagram to share a new series: Project Muscle. After learning that I lost three pounds of muscle, I was inspired to get serious about my strength and looked to my community for accountability and support, as I often do. So when I was told at a recent endocrinologist appointment that I lost an additional two pounds of muscle, I was surprised. How did this happen? I wrote a whole book about menopause and women’s health. I talk to doctors regularly. I interview...

Hi Reader, Something shifts in me every year when the weather starts to change. I don't know if it's the longer days or just the feeling that the world is waking back up, but spring always makes me want to look around at my life and ask myself what's still working and what I've just been carrying out of habit. This year that feeling hit me harder than usual. I've been traveling a lot for my documentary, running from one thing to the next, and I realized somewhere in the middle of all of it...

This was me getting ready for my last newscast 🥲 There are moments in life when the exact thing you need to hear is revealed to you at precisely the right moment. It was 2022 when I was wrestling with the decision to keep my job as a news anchor, a career that defined my identity, or step into something completely different, something that I didn't fully understand. It was also 2022 when I picked up a book that changed my life, Arthur C. Brooks’ From Strength To Strength. In that book, and in...

Hi Reader, I was scrolling through my camera roll the other night and stopped on a photo of someone I used to be really close with. It caught me off guard because it instantly brought back a flood of memories… trips we took, inside jokes, random calls at all hours of the day. I had that moment of… wait, when was the last time we actually talked? I sat there longer than I expected to, kind of replaying everything in my head and trying to figure out when it changed. And if I’m being honest, I...

Can I admit something to you? I've struggled with eating for most of my life. Growing up Gen X, being skinny was the ultimate goal. We were taught that food wasn’t nourishment, but a means of punishment and reward. Every dessert needed to be earned, every calorie tracked. So that’s what I did. I controlled my body, tracked my food, and burned it off with exercise. I genuinely believed that shrinking myself meant that I was doing something right because that was what was rewarded. This mindset...

Hi Reader, I’m going to be honest… I think I might need to slow down a little. This week I sprayed my hair with makeup setting spray instead of hairspray (don’t recommend), spent an entire day wearing my shirt inside out, and showed up to a doctor’s appointment on the wrong day. Which honestly should have been my first sign that something was off, but the appointment I *did* make it to this week actually lit a fire under me. I went to see my endocrinologist and found out I’ve lost two more...

If you’re angry, you’re not alone. And no, you’re not overreacting either. Sure, some of your anger might be hormonal. But a lot of it is not. A lot of the anger you’re feeling in midlife is earned. Because the system has failed us, giving us silence instead of information. When most women enter perimenopause, they have no idea what’s happening to their bodies. We know we might experience hot flashes or mood swings, but no one warns us about the cognitive shifts, the emotional disconnection,...

I was at an event recently when someone asked me a question I’ve heard more times than I can count: “Do you have kids?” When I said no, they paused for a second and then followed it up with another one: “Was that because of your career?” And I just stood there thinking… wow, we’re still doing this? I’m 55 years old. I thought by now we had moved past the idea that a woman’s life needs to be explained through the lens of motherhood or career. But somehow that question still finds its way into...