The Confident Woman Podcast · Rachel Brooks

Stress, Hormones, and Reclaiming Your Health with Molly McNamee

September 24, 2025·41 min·3 clips

Molly McNamee was having one to three panic attacks every day, gaining 20 to 30 pounds in a month without changing her diet, and was already a fitness coach—until she discovered her workout routine was the cause.

Rock bottom begins Molly's story. Rachel introduces Molly McNamee as an online fitness coach and founder of MFit Workouts, then the conversation moves through stress, hormones, anxiety, and exercise without getting stiff about it. Molly keeps coming back to nervous system regulation. In her view, the body has to feel safe before it can release excess fat. She does not split health into clean little boxes. Stress, sensitivity, nervous system dysregulation, and hormone imbalance can keep leaning on each other until the whole system feels overloaded. Anxiety becomes a body signal. Molly compares it to a car alarm that goes off too easily, where even a feather can set off the whole thing. The image works because it is simple and a little too familiar. She also avoids pretending there is one neat answer. Stress can feed anxiety, and anxiety can feed more stress. That loop is the point. Molly brings in high functioning anxiety from her own life, which gives the episode a warmer, more honest feel than a distant expert chat. Rachel meets her there with her own experience of stress and anxiety. Again and again, they speak to women who feel on edge, overwhelmed, or thrown by a body that no longer responds the way they expect. The close points listeners toward Molly's work without turning pushy. Exercise is part of the path, but the deeper message is safety, regulation, and noticing what the nervous system has been carrying. The pressure eases. Rachel also points listeners toward a short faith-fueled reset for finding calm in chaos. The episode lands on a useful idea: healing can start before anyone knows whether stress or anxiety came first.

As heard by us

A calm, grounded conversation about stress, anxiety, and how the body carries both.

Molly McNamee's conversation with Rachel Brooks sits squarely in stress, anxiety, and the body's response to both. The strongest section is how plainly it links nervous-system regulation, stress hormones, and exercise to a sense of safety in the body.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If your body feels stuck in overdrive, this conversation gives you a way to name it.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Confident Woman Podcast