Looking for a real example of successful weight loss after 40? Here’s a success story from one of our clients, Liza.
Liza is a client of ours who signed up for our Fit Over 40 program at the end of February. When she signed up she felt wobbly, frustrated, and like she was succumbing to the ageing process.
She’d tried plenty of different things to try and lose weight – but nothing had worked to shift the weight. Since going through menopause, and being diagnosed with hypothyroidism, she’d really struggled. She was worried about trying to exercise, since she suffers with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, and didn’t want to make it worse.
Liza came to us wanting to drop a dress size and tone up. Within just four weeks, she’s already lost 11lbs! She’s already able to fit into some of her size 10 clothes, and feels better than ever.
What’s more, she said the biggest win of all is she’s not felt like it has even been difficult.
So, how did she achieve such remarkable results in such a short space of time? All at age 54, during menopause, and with hypothyroidism AND fibromyalgia?
Let’s find out.
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Let’s start with exercise
When it comes to exercise, we always recommend LIST training (Low-Impact Strength Training). For Liza, she did this just twice a week.
LIST training is gentle on the body and joints, and gets amazing results.
A mistake most people make is thinking they need to work harder to get better results. They try things like HIIT, gym classes, a PT with burpees and box jumps, or peloton or spinning. This works for women in their 20s and 30s when body and hormones are optimal. However, for women over 40 – who’s bodies and hormones are changing – this doesn’t work any more.
The body’s sensitivity to stress increases with age, and at a rate of three times higher for women than for men.
So for women over 40, extreme exercise over-stresses the body. This is especially true if you’ve already got a stressful lifestyle or you have inflammatory conditions like hypothyroidism or fibromyalgia.
If you over-stress the body as you get older, it can lead to chronically high cortisol levels (stress levels). This blocks fat loss by triggering the Weight Gain Triangle.
Instead, Liza switched to LIST training just 2 times a week. She did this from home too! It might not sound like much, but it’s like using the right tool for the job – it makes things WAY easier and gets better results!
Hormonally balanced eating
The second thing Liza did was follow our hormonally-balanced eating strategy: you can’t out-exercise the wrong diet.
Firstly, Liza went through our Diet Makeover to get cravings under control and eliminate hormone-disrupting foods. She cut out wheat, alcohol, dairy and sugar for a short period of time to reset her habits.
Secondly, we worked with her to work out her food needs. A lot of people think losing weight is just about calories in vs. calories out. Cutting down to 1200 calories might work in your 20s and 30s, when your body can tolerate being starved and life is less busy and stressful. But for women over 40, this over-stresses the body and triggers the weight gain triangle.
As you get older, you need to be more specific to see good results. There are three main nutrients to worry about: calories, protein, and fibre.
Protein is key for retaining muscle, and it keeps you firm and toned. It keeps you full, and stops cravings. Fibre digests slowly, like protein, and keeps you full for hours while keeping your gut microbiome healthy.
Liza told us she hasn’t felt like it’s hard, and she still lost 5kg in 4 weeks!
Introducing accountability
When Liza signed up, she said the main things stopping her from succeeding were motivation, discipline, and making excuses.
We totally get it! Without someone to say “did you do what you said you’ll do” it’s all too easy to give up after a hard day or a hard week.
We all like to believe we can do it on our own. And maybe you could when you were younger, your body was working optimally and your life was less complicated. But if you could do it now, you’d have already done it.
Doing it alone is hard! It’s EASY to fail in private as there’s no short-term repercussions to giving up.
In order to succeed with any difficult achievement in life, accountability is essential.
You need the equivalent with your health and fitness. You need someone who’s keeping an eye on what you’re doing, checking in with you every week.
This needs to be someone impartial – someone you respect who’s ideally experienced in what you’re trying to achieve.
Accountability is just one of the reasons Liza was able to see such incredible results. Every member of our Fit Over 40 program is assigned a coach who they check in with every week. And if they don’t, it’s flagged up and we’re straight in touch to find out what’s not working.
Recap
So, those are the three key things Liza did differently to drop 11lbs in 4 weeks at age 54 – all during menopause and with fibromyalgia.
If you want to find out more about our Fit Over 40 program that Liza followed to drop 11lbs, click the button below!
