From Frustrated to Fit: What Works to Lose Weight, Get Lean for Women Over 50 [Ep 48]

Feeling like you've tried everything, but the weight just won’t budge after 50? You’re not imagining it. What worked in your 30s and 40s just doesn’t cut it anymore—but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck. 

In this episode, Lisa DuPree tackles two of the most common struggles for midlife women: why weight loss feels so frustrating and why exercise alone isn’t enough to lose stubborn belly fat. She shares real, no-fluff strategies that make a difference, including the importance of protein, strength training, and balancing blood sugar.

Lisa also gets personal about how she overcame weight gain, hormone imbalances, and stress-related setbacks to become stronger and leaner in her 50s. Plus, she reveals the exact shifts that helped her go from frustrated to fit and why she’s stepping on stage for her first bodybuilding competition this year at 59!

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:

[00:23] Why Diets Fail After 50 – Why traditional diets don’t work for midlife women and how restrictive eating cycles can set you up for failure.

[02:15] The Power of Strength Training – Why lifting weights is the #1 game-changer for metabolism and fat loss after menopause.

[04:17] No One-Size-Fits-All Approach – How to create a way of eating that’s flexible, sustainable, and works for you.

[05:03] Why “All or Nothing” Thinking Holds You Back – How ditching perfectionism leads to long-term success.

[05:45] Why Exercise Alone Won’t Fix Belly Fat – The hidden factors behind midlife weight gain (hint: it’s not just about workouts).

[08:09] Key Lifestyle Changes for Fat Loss Over 50 – The biggest shifts I made that helped me lose weight, gain muscle, and feel my best.

[10:42] Lisa's Personal Transformation – How I went from feeling stuck to prepping for a bodybuilding competition in my late 50s.

[11:27] Why a Full-Body Approach Works Best – Why metabolism, stress, sleep, and hormones all play a role in weight loss.

[12:06] Free 5-Day Midlife Mojo Jumpstart! – A simple, actionable plan to help you kickstart your own transformation.

🔥 Memorable Quote 🗣️ "Losing weight after 50 isn’t about doing more workouts or the newest diet. It’s about supporting your whole body, hormones, and metabolism." 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Lisa DuPree: Feel like you've tried everything, but the weight just won't budge after 50. You're not imagining it. What worked in our thirties and forties just isn't cutting it anymore, but that doesn't mean you're stuck. Today I'm answering a couple of questions I've gotten recently from listeners about why midlife weight loss feels so frustrating and in what actually works.

[00:00:23] No gimmicks, no quick fixes, just real, no fluff strategies that make a difference. If you're new to Midlife Mojo, welcome. I'm Lisa Dupree, a certified exercise physiologist and health coach. I've been helping people transform their health and fitness for more than 20 years, and my mission is to make fitness and fat loss simple, sustainable, and achievable for women like you. 

Question one. I've tried every diet, but nothing sticks after menopause. How is your approach different for weight loss so that it actually lasts for women in their fifties? Okay, so I, I get this. I have been there myself a few years ago. I tried intermittent fasting when it became all the rage, and it just didn't work for me.

[00:01:11] The strict eating window felt. Too restrictive. My blood sugar would tank, it would tank in the evening, and then I would wake up starving. And if you know me, you know, I love food and I don't like to be hungry. Um, so what really made me quit though was that I realized I, it set me up in this restrict release cycle where I was just white knuckling my way through the rules.

[00:01:40] Through the day and then feeling like I had to break them just to be able to feel normal. And so, you know how, like how many rules do we actually have to follow already in life? And I just like, I just felt like it, it was too much and I couldn't keep it up. And so my personal experience with this couple, with a couple of decades of working with people to improve their health and fitness has taught me something really important, and that is sustainability matters more than any quick fix.

[00:02:15] Sustainability matters more than any quick fad diet. And so that's why my approach is different. It's not about rigidity in rules and deprivation. It's about working with your body and your lifestyle, not against it, and so what this means is specifically more protein. And strength training.

[00:02:44] So, you know, strength training for me at this point in my life, working with women over 50, it is really a cornerstone of what I work with women on, um, because it helps preserve your muscle that you already have and it helps keep your metabolism going strong. So. Looking at like how much protein you're eating, looking at what you're doing for strength training, where you are, and then kind of making it, um, a stepwise progression so that you're really preserving your muscle and actually building muscle at this point, which is possible.

[00:03:20] It is a hundred percent possible. All right. The other thing is balancing your blood sugar, or keeping it more even throughout the day so that you're not dealing with cravings, you're not dealing with energy crashes, and you're not dealing with hormone imbalances from hunger hormones being outta whack.

[00:03:38] And so really getting that blood sugar off like that, you know, roller coaster, really makes a difference. Also makes a difference overall with your energy and your focus. And so that means coming up with a flexible way of eating, right? So that's something that's really important.

[00:03:54] There's no one size fits all. There's no one diet that works. There's no, you know, magic bullet foods that you need to eat, like. You gotta come up with a way of eating that lets you enjoy food and not feel hungry and deprived while you're still able to see real lasting results. And so I work with my clients a lot on what are their preferences?

[00:04:17] What are their habits? What are their lifestyles? What are their energy demands throughout the day and throughout the week to come up with something that really works and a way of eating and eating patterns that support that. And then around mindset ditching the all or nothing thinking, because all or nothing thinking really, it's, it sets us up for failure.

[00:04:40] It's not sustainable. It leads to that restrict and release cycle that, you know, um, withhold and indulge. Right. And it's just not good for our mental and emotional health either. And so if it's not sustainable, it's not working. Like if there's any mantra take from this, if it's not sustainable, it's not working.

[00:05:03] And the bottom line is like women over 50, like we've tried diet, some have worked, we haven't been able to stick with it or you know, we haven't been able to, to keep it going long enough to really see what we wanted to see or see some changes to help us stay motivated. So you don't need another diet.

[00:05:21] What you need is a smarter strategy. That's what I work specifically with women on to figure out what that smartest strategy is for them. All right, question two. Help. I'm exercising regularly, but I still can't lose weight around my middle. Why isn't it working? And I got this one and I was like, oh yeah, this one hits home.

[00:05:45] Um, for me, uh, I just, you know, just a little bit about kind of why this sits home for me. And why I am so jazzed about it answering it is, you know, I've always been active. I danced as a kid and as a teenager I played soccer, I did triathlons in my twenties. I taught fitness classes like it was my job in the thirties, like it literally was my job.

[00:06:09] I taught bootcamp classes. I taught spinning, I taught step aerobics, you name it. I taught it at some point back then. And then in my forties I competed in ballroom dance, and so I'm used to being active. But when I hit 50, it was like, I woke up and my body had kind of changed overnight.

[00:06:30] Uh, it's like I got up one day and I had an extra, like somewhere around 10 to 15 pounds in my belly, in my behind, and I hadn't changed anything. Like, I was like, what the heck is happening? And so that was really a wake up call. Exercise alone was not cutting it, it was not going to. It wasn't gonna do it anymore.

[00:06:51] It wasn't gonna help me, maintain. Or improve my fitness, and it also wasn't helping me keep the extra weight off. So I really had to sit down and take a hard look at my whole lifestyle. And honestly, , getting into my fifties, there was a lot going on. I was so stressed from going through a divorce after 20 plus years of marriage.

[00:07:13] My sleep was wrecked from. Having severe night sweats. Um, and then I had hot flashes during the day as well, and then I was actually drinking too often and a little bit too much wine to be able to relax and unwind. And so what I discovered through my own experience and, and that of helping hundreds of people over the past two decades, .

[00:07:38] Their overall health and fitness is that kind of these things, were all creating a perfect storm for insulin resistance and elevated cortisol or cortisol imbalances. And so this is especially key for women over 50 because these two things tend to be like hidden saboteurs that most mainstream programs and diets just completely omit or just miss altogether.

[00:08:02] You know, the chronic stress was spiking up my cortisol and that directly contributes to increased belly fat. When you couple that, especially with reduced estrogen, your estrogen is fluctuating when you're going through perimenopause and then, after you are, you are in menopause, then your body's just not producing it anymore.

[00:08:22] That and then along with like having that disruptive sleep, it was making me tired. It was making me cranky, but it was also throwing off my hunger hormones and overall my glucose control. So here's what I changed. I prioritize strength training instead of relying solely on cardio, especially a lot of high intensity cardio because after 50 we lose about 1% of our existing muscle mass per year without intervention.

[00:08:51] And this has a direct and negative impact on metabolic rate. , I needed to definitely address that since I was gaining weight, I was gaining body fat. Um, so I, I also cleaned up my nutrition. I focused on adding in that protein, making sure I had anti-inflammatory foods.

[00:09:08] Cutting out a lot of the processed foods, cutting way back on alcohol because I know it was disrupting my blood sugar patterns. It was messing with my energy and my focus, and I got serious about sleep and stress management, , I had to take a really, really serious look at like what was going on and then.

[00:09:26] Stepwise implemented specific evening routines and mind-body practices that really worked with my changing hormones, but also my lifestyle. I also began optimizing my metabolic function. And that was through strategic meal timing and addressing gut health issues .

[00:09:46] Uh, for me. I've always had several gut health. Things going on but it really, , ramped up during perimenopause. And so those are other hidden factors that were affecting weight loss. And so those are not uncommon, especially, you know, for women over 50. And so, fast forward to now, I'm turning 59 in a couple of weeks and I am looking forward to that birthday so much.

[00:10:15] And I'm also about 12 weeks out from my very first ever bodybuilding physique competition. So if you had told me a decade ago. That I'd be so freaking jazzed about stepping on stage in my late fifties in a bikini in heels, feeling my most fittest and most confident. I would have never believed it, and I would've most likely said like.

[00:10:42] Bless your heart, you've lost your mind, but here we are and it's happening and so here's what I know for sure. It is absolutely possible to lose fat. It's absolutely possible to get stronger, build muscle, feel amazing in your fifties and beyond. I mean, I'm planning on the and beyond for real, and the trick isn't just about doing more workouts or more intense workouts. It's about supporting your whole body, your hormones, your stress, sleep, metabolism, all the things that the quick fix diets and the mainstream programs ignore. And so when you shift your focus to more of that full picture, that's when everything starts to change.

[00:11:27] And I know this with my whole entire being at this point. I am so confident in this and that's why I'm dedicated to coaching and working specifically with women over 50. And if, if this is something that's resonating with you and you want to take the next step, I invite you to grab my five day Midlife Mojo Jumpstart mini email course where I'll walk you through some of the strategies I use with my clients to help them get stronger, leaner, and more energized. So you can get that at lisadupreecoaching.com/jumpstart or use the link in the show notes.

[00:12:06] And if you've got a question you would love for me to answer on a future episode, shoot me a text using the link in the show notes. I would love to hear from you. And until next time, get out there and keep your midlife mojo rising.