This episode is a conversation between Mina and Dr Stacy Sims. Stacy is a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Waikato in New Zealand where she specialises in exercise physiology and human performance, specifically looking at sex differences in training and nutrition. Stacy really stands behind a motto of #womenarenotsmallmen and she is actively pushing to understand and do further research into female physiology so that we can really begin to better understand the differences that women may need to consider in sport. After all, we have this thing called the menstrual cycle for a big period (pun intended) of our lives, a completely different (and more complex) hormonal environment to men and our bodies will react differently to some stimuli because of this.  In this chat we cover a lot! We discuss the current state of research, why there isn’t much research done in women, conflicting opinions within the current evidence, why young girls drop out of sport, the menstrual cycle, it’s phases and how we can optimise our experience through training and nutrition, PMS symptoms including increased fear, the pill, future research and much more.