131. How to find your Spark in Midlife

Have you ever found yourself stuck—knowing you want more energy, more confidence, more joy—but unsure of where to start? Or maybe you’ve hit a roadblock that’s thrown your whole routine off course (again), and you're struggling to get back on track. If any of that sounds familiar, this episode is here to help you reconnect with your inner spark and move forward with purpose.

In this uplifting and empowering conversation, I’m joined by midlife fitness expert and author Heike Yates, creator of the SPARK Framework. We talk about the common challenges midlife women face when it comes to fitness, motivation, and mindset—and how a simple yet powerful structure can guide you back to yourself, even when life gets messy.

Heike Yates is a Midlife Fitness Expert, Author, and Creator of the SPARK Framework, known for helping women in midlife reclaim their confidence, rebuild their energy, and live fully, on their terms. With over 35 years of experience in fitness, nutrition, and mindset coaching, she supports women who feel stuck in the “start-over cycle” to create realistic, empowering habits that fit their lives right now—not some perfect version of the past. As the host of the Pursue Your Spark Podcast and author of Pursue Your Spark, Heike inspires women to step out of survival mode and into a life that feels clear, strong, and truly their own.

In this episode:

•  What the SPARK Framework is—and how to use it daily to support your wellness goals
• Why "starting over" is a myth and how to shift your mindset toward refinement instead
• How to navigate real-life roadblocks (like burnout, injuries, or caregiving duties) without losing momentum
• The power of scanning your life to uncover what you truly want—right now
• Ways to reconnect with joy by revisiting childhood interests and playful movement
• Why it's never too late to try something new (yes, even hula hooping at 82!)
• How group classes, gamified movement, and structure can support consistency in a busy life

Resources Mentioned:

·         Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pursueyourspark 

·         Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heikeyates/

·         LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heike-yates/

·         YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQIeOesGLGAOD5RhI2KYjcA 

·         Podcast - Pursue Your Spark: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pursue-your-spark-midlife-fitness-nutrition-mindset/id1231586317

·         Book - Pursue Your Spark: https://amzn.to/4mD5xL7

·         Free Midlife Reset Guide: https://heikeyates.com/l/midlife-reset-guide/

Connect with me, Dr. Sara Poldmae:

Website: https://risingwomanproject.com

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/drsarapoldmae

Transcript

Sara Poldmae: 0:01

Sarah, welcome to menopause. Rise and thrive. I am Dr Sarah pulled May, and this podcast is your go to guide for navigating perimenopause and menopause. If you are feeling a little overwhelmed, trust me, you are in great company each week, I'll bring you expert advice, raw, honest conversations and simple tips to help you stay grounded and maybe even find some humor in the process. Let's rise, thrive and tackle this wild ride together. Hello, ladies, today I am super excited to bringing Heike on the show. She is a midlife fitness expert and author and creator of the spark framework, which is known for helping women in midlife reclaim their confidence, rebuild their energy and live fully on their terms. Who doesn't need that? Well, Heike, I'm going to let you take over and tell the audience a little bit more about yourself.

Heike Yates: 1:01

Well, I also am a fellow, fellow Marylander, as we found out just a minute ago, yeah, which is super excited, because I'm here in Silver Spring Maryland, and we're just like, 45 minutes away from each other, yeah? So great. And, you know, I am the owner of two studio, two businesses. I always am very proudly saying I'm the owner of two women owned businesses. I have a brick and mortar studio here in Maryland. It's Pilates, fitness, nutrition, what everybody wants or needs in midlife is basically where I provide just one on one coaching, and then I created pursue your spark about seven years ago, just about when my my podcast started with the same name. So I'll pursue your spark. And I felt that when I was in the studio. And I'm sure you can relate to this, everybody wants an eight or a nine, they're just I can't come any other time. And I was unable to reach more people with my message of, yes, you can do it. Yes you can be healthier. Let me show you how it's not the end of the road when you come out of physical therapy. Now we're going to move on. Yes, you have arthritis, but that's okay. We'll deal with things. And so I said, Okay, I got to come up with an idea of helping women and end men live better, live fully and really have options in the sea of information that we have on our interwebs.

Sara Poldmae: 2:30

Yeah, I know there's a lot of information out there, and I think it's it can be overwhelming for women. In my midlife concierge program, we really help to kind of cut through the noise and help women to figure out what's going to be the best for them. And although it's not a one size fits all, it's always nice to have a framework to be working from. And it sounds like your spark framework is just that it gives a starting place for women to kind of rebuild. So go ahead and tell us a little bit more about that.

Heike Yates: 3:02

And you know what? It's not just a starting point, Sarah, it's a point of where we can keep going back, because the spark framework is and like I said, pursue your spark. We're sparking everywhere here, over here is, is something that let's, let's, let's go through the spark framework. The S is for we're scanning what's going on in our lives, what's going on with our fitness and health and our mindset, with our family. You know what is going on right now. Many of us are dissatisfied with where we are, especially as we're starting, you know, down after menopause, during menopause, you want to know what's next. And oftentimes, we put so many people before us, the grandkids, the husband, our own parents, so we're in that sandwich position where we are always at the end of the totem pole, yeah. And so I want women to scan first and say, Where am I? What's going on with my life? And we can use a simple example of, oh, I want to get stronger. So if you're using that example of getting stronger, where are you right now in that idea of getting stronger, do you actually know what getting stronger means to you, not to the women on on Instagram, not to the one that you get inspired by, but where are you? Have you exercised ever? Are you just starting out? What are your skills? As in, what have I done before? What do I know about what would I like to try? And then you say, Okay, I want to get stronger. And I don't really know, because it's a very broad term, yeah, and very broad term. So let's, let's then take it to the action, the actually, the planning part, what do I like? Are you interested in using dumbbells? Or would you like to try Pilates? Or what is, what sounds interesting, or what is actually accessible to you? If you're not a gym person, then you're like, Okay, I'm definitely not gonna. Go to the gym, you want something else that you can do, and so we're laying out a we're planning what could be a possibility, yeah, and then we're just gonna go with that possibility. Let's say, you said, Of course it is. I love Pilates. I've never been doing Pilates. I always wanted to try it. And I love or I find those machines interesting. So our next step is we're finding a studio where we can take a class, and that means we're taking action. We're not just hoping and wishing and dreaming that something will happen, but we're going to take an action now. And then you get to the studio and you realize you love it. You totally confused at first, but that's okay, but you don't like that. There's many people there. You like a very private atmosphere. And you said, Okay, this is this is great, and I like continue to do that, but in a different environment, just to use this as an example. And then we suddenly have a roadblock. The roadblock is, I don't want to be in a group class. I want to be in a small class. At this point, you could say, I'm giving up. I'm like, nah, this is not for me. I tried it and hike is said that, and whatever. But this is when I encourage women to say, Okay, look at what are the other possibilities? Would you rather do a one on one group, a class? Would you like to do a YouTube video? You know, what is it that you feel most comfortable at the moment? And so we're overcoming that roadblock by making another plan, saying, Okay, here we go. There's our roadblock. We're overcoming this by making a choice. And then again, we are K stands for kick ass. That's what I say. I editor says it's not nice to say, but I say kick ass. Then we're putting the pedal to the metal and we're taking action again. And you can repeat that process as many times as you like. If you're stuck in your roadblock, go visit the roadblock. If you have problems in the action department, you're not you have to wish the dream and the want, but you're not taking action. You need to really visit that spot and say, Hey, wait a minute. Why am I not taking action? What's going on? Maybe I need to revisit the s for scanning. Maybe what I thought I wanted is really not what I want. So it's, it's keeps, it helps you keep going back to where you're, where you

Sara Poldmae: 7:29

start maybe doubting yourself, yeah, or where you feel overwhelmed. You have a framework. You have the s, the P, the a, r, k, and k, without explaining them, remind us of what the acronym is.

Heike Yates: 7:42

The S is for scan, the P is for planning, the A is for action, the R is for roadblock, and the K is for keeping momentum, for

Sara Poldmae: 7:53

keeping ass. I like kicking ass better. It could be because I'm from New Jersey.

Heike Yates: 7:58

It's like good, good moment. Let's go move that.

Sara Poldmae: 8:01

Because I think what people come to me for, you know, we do a lot of lifestyle medicine, and that's hard, right? It's hard to keep going, it's hard to always make healthy choices, and you don't always have to, but, you know, for the majority of time, but what women struggle with is, you know, I was doing so good for like, six weeks, and then this happened, which is the R the roadblock, right? My parents are sick. I'm taking care of them. You know what? I had the fire in my clinic. And I'm I guess it's been almost three weeks Exactly. They haven't been the most fun three weeks in my life. And one thing that has fallen to the wayside as I'm not working out as much. In fact, I'm not working out at all. In the past three weeks, I have done a little bit of yoga. I have walked my dog, but I haven't gone and done solid core, which I loved, you know, really intense version of Pilates. So I, you know, I keep catching myself feeling like, Oh my God, my muscles are going to get weaker and weaker. I know that it's not that's not what the rest of my life is most likely going to look like. I will get back to it. And that roadblock was a real road block, and we need to give ourselves grace and then figure out, like you said, we got the roadblock All right, how can I go back out and keep going right? And for each person, it might look a little bit differently, but by having that acronym, and I'll do my own acronym right now for this particular thing, how am I going to kick butt, right? How am I going to go back out and keep that momentum going? Well, today is a short day. I'm gonna go home finish up some more insurance paperwork that seems to never be ending, and then S I'm going to scan. What do I want to do? Well, I had another roadblock earlier on, a few weeks before the fire, where I found out that I can no longer eat dairy, gluten and eggs. Well, I have chickens not eating eggs. Really sucks, and so does like not being able to have a little cheese on yourself. Solid so I haven't been eating as much protein as normal. So I think that my body during this fire stage of recovery is really scanning to say maybe I don't need that much intense physical activity at this particular time until I get my protein needs figured out. So I think in my scanning, and I'm talking out loud, because this is not something I did before we got on the episode, but I think talking out loud scanning, what do I need? Think, I just need a little bit more gentle movement. I need to start incorporating it back in. And then for the P What is my plan? I need to get my calendar out. I need to figure out which days I'm going to put it in there and just hold myself accountable. And that action step of taking the calendar and then making it happen, it's nice because you can actually those those letters can really help you to design getting out of that roadblock. I think that R is actually probably the most important letter for me, because that is the biggest issue when women are trying to make changes, is that stuff comes up, shit hits the fan. True. Thank you for sharing that, because I'm going to go home with those letters later today, and I'm going to sit down and create a

Heike Yates: 11:21

plan. And, you know, the neat thing about it, in my mind, at least, is that once you have a structure and you can, you can think back on it, and when you don't have the momentum that you envisioned, go revisit it. Go get my book and say, Okay, what did Heike say at this stage? What are the example that she's using from the book, what do these women do? Yeah, and, and it's not what I'm so adamant about. It's not starting over, right? This whole notion of, oh, this diet worked great. Let me go back on it, because I fell off the wagon. Oh, whatever the the explanations are, excuses are why it's not continuing. And, you know, we're looking at this and we're thinking, okay, I can go use the spark method and say, All right, where am I? Where am I really? What do I need to do right now? Yeah, yeah.

Sara Poldmae: 12:13

And that's the thing, the starting over brings such a negative connotation. You're not starting over. You're bringing a lot of stuff that you've already done to the table. You're refining, right? You're refining and reinvigorating.

Heike Yates: 12:28

Or it's also, I think, a way of looking at it, learning something new about yourself, something that you may have never wanted to look at deep down in your what we all call here the why. Look at your why. And I was like, Okay, this is such a cliche, but it is true. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta be honest with what it is you want you need. At the moment, next month, when you have your fire situation figured out, when you're back a little bit more on track, you will look at life a little bit differently than right now, of course, and so do, does everybody

Sara Poldmae: 13:03

else, yeah, yeah. And that's the beauty that I think, that we have so much inner dialog about, should, I, would, I, could I, and, oh, I used to be this way, like we get the opportunity each day to wake up and use the spark method, right? We get to kind of say, What does my you know? We get to scan and say, What? What do we want our day to look like? We get to plan, then we get to take action. And then if we hit a roadblock in the day, whether it's traffic or, who knows, we get to figure out how we're going to keep the momentum going. So we can use it for, like, larger context things. But it sounds like we can use it day

Heike Yates: 13:39

by day, absolutely. I mean, it's like, think about a lot of us. Have many of us, not a lot, but many of us have planned to go to their class like you go to your core class, and traffic hits. So you have choices at that point. Okay, you scan your situation. Traffic stinks. I'm stuck on the Annapolis bridge, and I can't go further. What do I do now? Do I go home open up the crackers and the cheese and a bottle of wine? Or do I when I go home because I missed my class? Do I now just do 10 push ups and 10 squats and call it a day?

Sara Poldmae: 14:14

Yeah? Yep. I mean, and that's the thing we get to choose, and we don't have to choose perfection, right? I think we can get lost in that, oh, it should have been this way, or it should have been that way. Well, it can be a different way, and that can still be good, you know, like the idea for me of going and doing an intense, vigorous workout just doesn't sound good right now. But I'm not going to think, oh, gosh, I've failed because of it,

Heike Yates: 14:34

absolutely, because what was is not now, but now you have the time to reinvent yourself, yeah, and I took my mom as an example. She's been posting on Facebook all these women with hula hoops. My mom is 82 Oh, and so she's posting all these women, and she has her little whatever German Polka kind of music, and she's posting those videos from these ladies doing hula hoop. And. And I was like, Mom, why don't you get a hula hoop? I'm just gonna send you one. And she's like, I'm 82 I can't do this anymore. My knees are bad, and blah, blah, blah, just all these explanations why she couldn't do it. And she said, Well, you should do it. And I said, Well, Mom, I got an hula hoop for my 60th birthday, and I hula hooped through Hawaii with my hula hoop, and it was a lot of fun. And I said, You know what, why don't you get a hula hoop? Who's who's holding you back to hula hoop? And I was like, I'm gonna send her one, because I know she's not gonna buy one, enabling her to at least play with it. And I also thought, what I do is a little beginner video for her in German, so she can understand what people are saying, and just to try it out, yeah, why not? Right? Trying something, try something new, and, oh, this is the point I was actually going to make. Is she told me that in her childhood she loved hula hoop. I'd never heard about that before, and that's what I hear too. Women say I used to love when I was a kid, right? Do it again. Do it again. Now it's the best time. Now.

Sara Poldmae: 16:09

I love that. I love that. So tell us the name of your book again. The name of

Heike Yates: 16:15

the book is called, pursue your spark. Here's your guide for midlife women to get out of the traps and contently live your life fully. That's my book. Pursue your spark. I'm all about the spark.

Sara Poldmae: 16:28

I love that. And you know, I think that that's a really timely message, because what I have seen in clinic is so many women come in and we ask them questions that they're regular doctors, maybe don't ask them, but one of the questions I ask is, what brings you joy? And it is so sad that so many women in midlife can't answer that question. Oh, interesting. And I think what it is is that we've, you know, lost our sense of youthful fun self in all the roles that we've played, you know, between mother, maybe grandmother, wife, you know, they have fun. Like, you know, some people say, Well, I liked going out to dinner with my husband, you know, but when they're answering, there's no spark in their eye. Like, if someone answered, I really liked a hula it's just a different so they can answer, but the answers are not you can just tell there's a sadness there. And so one of the things that I always challenge them is, well, what did you like to do when you were eight years old? And then do that right? Because oftentimes the things that we love when we're in our childhood will bring back some joy to our lives. And it doesn't have to be an exact translation, but it can be similar. Like, for instance, I love animals, yep, you have joy right there exactly, you know, and there, there's a lot of women out there that you know like to move their bodies in certain ways and and don't anymore, whether they used to love to dance or they used to love to play in some way, and they've lost all sense of play. So by exploring through things like the spark method, perhaps they can bring back more joy, more more fulfillment in their lives that isn't related to what someone else wants

Heike Yates: 18:29

or need. Yep, you know another good example, again, my mom, which I'm thinking about, is when she came to visit last year to the states, because she lives in Germany. She always wanted to see how we live here in Maryland, how the house is, and all my studio, and she worked out of my studio, and I told her what to do and all this, but she just loved coming here and and and being around what we're doing. And I said, Mom, what are we gonna do tonight? And she's like, Oh, I don't know. I said, Why don't we? You want to play games? And she's like, Oh, you gotta know. So we played banana gram. I don't know if people know that banana gram is you make words and you looks like a crossword puzzle with yellow squares. And so we made the banana gram in English. She made it in German because she's like, Oh, I can't do this now, Sarah, I am fluent in German. We could have done it in German. It never occurred to me to do this in German, but may as it be, she loves playing games. She was, I mean, all kinds of pulled out all kinds of games, and she was really good at them, too, but we didn't know that until we pulled out the games. So a super perfect example, again,

Sara Poldmae: 19:35

I love that we had. I don't know if you've heard of the game cards against humanity. Yeah, it's quite naughty. And they actually have a kids version now, and it's actually done very, very well. And I was just thinking while you were telling the story of the game that we I went up to visit my parents in New Jersey and my nephew, who's nine, but still. Out this game. I can't remember what the name of it might be, kids against humanity or something like that, but we laughed. I mean, it was all like, poopy potting humor, and, you know, it was just the funniest, funniest thing. And I was like, that's probably the most laughter I've had in the past year. Was during that game. So, you know, sometimes I like group exercise because I like to be held accountable for it. With my busy world of managing businesses and all of that, it helps me to keep it on the schedule, knowing that I'm going to be charged if I don't show up. Right? Just takes, like the decision making out of the process, which, which serves me, it makes me more consistent. But I also like the part of it that's, like, gamified a little bit like, it's just, it's, you know, you have to stay engaged and follow along and use your brain in ways that maybe some other forms of exercise don't. So, you know, I think with that method of spark of scanning and deciding, what do you want, like, I think looking at it from angles of like, what would work for me consistently? What would I enjoy? Do I have a busy mind? Do I want my mind to be going by having to follow an instructor? Or do I want a more nurturing one on one atmosphere, like, what would serve me? What do I want? I think that's such an important piece of the spark puzzle I love that I agree. Well, Heike, it's been such a pleasure to get to meet a fellow Marylander and learn all about the spark method that you have, we will definitely share all of your information in the show notes, of course. And I hope some some of the women in Maryland will reach out to you and perhaps even visit your studio and definitely buy your book.

Heike Yates: 21:54

Book. Yep, I would love that. Thank you, Sarah, thanks for having me on the show. And so exciting to meet you too. I I have not told you that yet. I love acupuncture, and I think you do the five branches, the five so

Sara Poldmae: 22:09

five element, five elements. He has been trained in traditional Chinese medicine, and I'm not, I'm actually not practicing acupuncture right now, right? I do more functional medicine, specifically for women in midlife, within a concierge membership where we can really dive deep into lifestyle and functional medicine. I do bring a lot of Chinese medicine into my functional medicine, so it's a little bit different. But that being said, the other acupunctures that are in my clinic are all five element,

Heike Yates: 22:38

yeah, if I experienced that when I had microscopic colitis, my friend who was trained in that method that come on, let me see if I can help you. And it did help.

Sara Poldmae: 22:48

Oh, amazing. That's so good to hear that. I love those success stories.

Heike Yates: 22:52

This is that. And I said, You know what? It's not exactly part of the interview, but I'm going to tell you anyways, because I know I heard that you do functional medicine, but it was an eye opener how amazing acupuncture is and what functional medicine is

Sara Poldmae: 23:05

as well. Yeah, we do good work here. Yep, I'm proud of it. I'm I'm proud of the fact that I can say I'm proud of it too,

Heike Yates: 23:13

and it brings you joy absolutely 100%

Sara Poldmae: 23:16

I love what I do, and I know not everybody is quite as lucky to to be able to do that, but All right, well, thank you so much for being on the Show and stay in touch.

Heike Yates: 23:26

Thank you. Thanks, Sierra. You