Fat Loss After 50: What Actually Works (and What Doesn’t) [Ep 63]

You've cut carbs, skipped meals, increased your cardio, and still the scale won't budge. You're doing all the things, but nothing's working the way it used to. In this episode, Host Lisa DuPree shares the lessons and strategies from her own body transformation. From overcoming common fat-loss myths to revealing how she dropped 30 pounds without deprivation or extremes, Lisa walks listeners through the simple yet powerful things that actually work for women in midlife.

You’ll learn the four foundational pillars Lisa used to sculpt muscle, lose fat, boost energy, and improve her mindset during her prep for her first physique competition. These same strategies will work for your health and fitness goals as well and form the heart of her coaching and free Jumpstart Checklist for Energy, Strength, and Confidence. Whether you want to lose fat, build strength, or feel more confident in your skin, this episode gives you the tools to do it sustainably.

Key Moments

[01:00] Why conventional fat-loss advice fails in midlife
[03:00] Lisa’s transformation: results without restriction
[04:00] Pillar 1: Fueling your body
[08:00] Pillar 2: Mindset for lasting change
[13:00] Pillar 3: Exercise and strength, not calorie burn
[18:00] Pillar 4: Recovery as your secret weapon
[23:00] What you don’t need
[24:00] The plan that works with your body, brain, and life

Mentioned in the episode: The Best Exercise Routine for Fat Loss and Lean Muscle in Menopause [Ep 40]

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

Lisa DuPree: [00:00:00] Let me guess. You've cut carbs, skipped meals, doubled your cardio, and still the scale won't budge. You're doing all the things, but nothing's working the way it used to. I just wrapped up my first fit model physique competition, and what I learned from transforming my own body only confirmed what I already knew.

The habits that actually move the needle so that you lose fat, sculpt muscle, and feel amazing at the same time. They're not flashy, but they are powerful. Today I'm breaking down what actually works and how it's really simpler than you think.

Hello. Hello. This is Midlife Mojo, the podcast for women who want to be lean, fit, and energized without burning out or feeling like they gotta start over every Monday. I'm Lisa Dupree, exercise physiologist and health coach, and recently I stepped on stage for my first physique competition because I wanted to see what I was capable of.

And also to walk the [00:01:00] talk, as they say, to show what's possible when you shift your mindset, train smart and fuel your body well in midlife. And today I wanna highlight what I learned during preparation for this competition that absolutely applies to you in your health and your fitness goals.

 So whether you're working toward fat loss, toning, building muscle, or just simply wanting to feel better in your skin, let's dive in.

Let's start with the stuff that. Doesn't work, or at least doesn't work long term. The prevalent diet culture says, eat less, move more, maybe cut carbs or go long periods of time without eating, basically, you gotta suck it up and suffer through it.

Lisa DuPree: And the problem with this is that it really leads to a lot of undereating and over training. It really [00:02:00] ignores key pillars for sustainable behavior change and fat loss, and it promotes short-term results and quick fixes. That aren't sustainable and that also result in long-term burnout.

And it also ignores your changing metabolism, shifting hormones, and the mental load of, well, , life at this point. And so during my prep, I was really reminded that results come from smart and strategic, not extreme, not quick fixes. And when I first started entertaining the idea of doing a competition like this.

I just started being more focused and consistent on what I was already doing. And then when I got serious and I committed, went all in, I said, I'm going for it. Um, it was just six months ago and I really had to dial in my eating, my exercise, my [00:03:00] recovery, and I think the biggest surprise was how much I had to dial in working on my mindset.

Over these past several months, I have lost a total of 30 pounds and decreased my body fat percentage by over 10%, and I have done all of this without feeling deprived and overly restricted. I didn't follow some crash diet, I didn't do hours of cardio, and I followed the same core principles that I teach and work with with all my clients and what I was reminded of over and over is that fat loss after 50 is simple, but it's not necessarily easy. 

You don't need extremes. What you do need is clarity, consistency, and a solid foundation. And so there are four areas that I always focus on and that is whether I am training for [00:04:00] something big or I'm just, you know, in the process of maintaining a strong, energized, body in everyday life.

I like to think of them as four cornerstones or pillars that hold up and underpin the foundation for success. And these are the four exact pillars that I break down in my free jumpstart checklist for energy, strength, and confidence.

And there's a link in the show notes for you to grab your copy so you have all the details to get started. So I wanna dive into each of the four and the things that I really found that were powerful and really helped me move the needle. I did all these during prep and it's what I worked with clients on.

And so the first pillar is, is eating how you fuel your body, right? And, not punishing yourself and not starving. Like that is key, . Um, and, and the first thing is prioritizing protein. I actually have protein at [00:05:00] every meal, and this is because it's essential for muscle growth.

It is essential for helping with your metabolism and keeping hunger in check. Protein was always at the center of every meal. I actually ended up eating much more food. Than I usually do because I was prioritizing protein and whole foods.

And so the volume of food I was eating was a good bit more, but the calories were less, so I was in a small calorie deficit, and so prioritizing that protein helped with that. And then also eating whole foods and getting that fiber from the Whole Foods. So fiber from Whole Foods is the second thing within kind of how you fuel your body.

Fiber helps keep your digestion running smoothly. It boosts gut health, but it also helps with feelings of satiety, satisfaction, feeling full, feeling full for longer. And so, [00:06:00] uh, those foods that I prioritized were vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Essentially carbohydrates, right?

We need carbohydrates. Your body absolutely needs them. They are the main energy source for your body, and they also are where, fiber comes in. So, fat does not contain fiber. Protein does not contain fiber. Those vegetables, the fruits, the whole grains, the non-processed grains are where you're gonna get that fiber.

And so between the eating the whole foods, getting that fiber and the protein, I was able to feel full and feel satisfied, every single day with my eating, even being in a calorie deficit and ramping my up exercise routine.

 And something else with fueling your body, that I noticed that really made a difference was hydration. I know it, it gets talked about a lot. [00:07:00] It's just one of the things that people always say, like, drink more water. I think that it just, we hear it so much that a lot of times we just don't take any stock in it.

Lisa DuPree: The fact of the matter is that most people are walking around under hydrated. And when you are increasing your exercise, you're increasing the amount of fiber that you're eating, you're increasing the amount of protein you need that water to keep everything working well, to keep your digestion going and able to get all those nutrients out of the food that you're eating.

So want to make sure you optimize that. And once I started paying more attention and being more, consistent with how well I was staying hydrated, I felt the difference when I slipped back a little bit and I maybe wasn't drinking as much water, or I was drinking caffeine a little bit more.

And that tends to be a diuretic and flushes out water. I really noticed the difference when I was under hydrated. My energy [00:08:00] dipped, my cravings ramped up. I wasn't able to recover as well from my exercise sessions.

So the things in pillar one, protein, fiber from Whole Foods, and hydration. Because when women over 50 hit a plateau, these are usually the first places we clean up. And if you're not seeing results, these are some of the first places that I would look.

The second pillar is how you think, your mindset. I would say. It's a game changer. And even I would go even further in saying it's kind of a multiplier in what you're doing. So if you're, if you are changing your habits and you're starting habits and you're getting some traction, but your mindset just isn't dialed in in a couple of different ways, then you may not be seeing the progress that you could be seeing. 

So when you get your mindset aligned and you're focusing on that and how you're thinking about things, how you think about the changes that you're [00:09:00] making, the habits you're building, the lifestyle that you're building, who you are becoming, when you think about that strategically, then I really do think it multiplies your successes and it multiplies your gains.

And so this applies to whether your goal is just to lose a couple of pounds, or not even necessarily paying attention to the scale at all, but you wanna walk into your closet and feel good in anything that you put on, like your mindset is key to this foundation. And it's what helped me stay focused. The first thing was a growth mindset because you know how you look at your experience determines how you experience it, right? How you think about it. Um, how you feel about what you're doing, what you're going for, what you're experiencing.

You know, it makes a huge difference in your actions. And then you're gonna have challenges. You're gonna have setbacks and detours. I had challenges with, injuries. And [00:10:00] getting sick. I was sick for like about four weeks.

I had some plantar fasciitis flare up, things like that. So, you know how I thought about it, I took that and I framed every challenge as a way to, course correct. I took it as data, right? It's not a failure. It's giving me information, I can learn from, I can change, I can pivot, and I continued to improve and not lose ground.

So framing that challenge, looking at those challenge and setbacks as is learning opportunities and experiences that are giving you data that is important for you to continue to to move on. The second thing is like how we talk to ourselves, our internal dialogue and having that positive self-talk or generating positive self-talk.

I think about it as like your body hears everything that you are thinking. You embody everything [00:11:00] that you are thinking about it, right? And, seriously, nobody thrives under constant criticism and shame.

I like to say you can't shame or hate your body into a body that you love. Think about that. A lot of times we will try to shame ourselves or we get down on ourselves, or we criticize ourselves because we're not doing something or we're not seeing the results that we want, or we feel discouraged or like a failure or something like that.

It sets you up from a perspective that you're not able to have that growth mindset, right? And so paying attention to how you talk to yourself makes a huge difference. And then the third thing that I did, and I really practiced this, a good bit, was visualization.

Lisa DuPree: Athletes do this a lot as they're practicing and preparing, and so it's the mental game. During this process, I saw myself [00:12:00] succeeding. Before I saw results, like I saw myself succeeding at completing this workout, getting through this next phase of a little bit more challenging workout, I saw myself, meal prepping successfully and having everything organized in the refrigerator so I could go in, grab what I needed, and make my life.

Easier make, at least make it easier to do the things and stay on my plan. I saw myself stepping onto that stage , and being confident and walking across it proudly, making eye contact with the judges, and smiling and looking throughout the crowd. I saw all that in my mind before it ever happened.

When I was posing every morning when I would get up and I would practice my posing, I would see myself as strong and confident and worthy of being there and taking up that space on the stage. And the same goes for you, you know, no matter what your goal [00:13:00] is, if you can create a picture of that end goal, that desired outcome, really hold that picture in your mind.

And, flush that out, you know, add color to it. What does it really look like? What does it feel like? What is around you when it's happening? What is that experience like? When you can do that, you naturally begin to align your thoughts and actions to move into that reality, because it seems possible and it seems tangible.

And so these are the mindset things. A growth mindset, positive self-talk and then visualizing your success. 

All right, so the third pillar. Is how you move, like how you're, how you're moving your body. We want to train for strength and not focus so much on calories, right? In some instances, the ladies that I've worked with, they're like, well, if I eat, this dessert, then they're, [00:14:00] in there calculating in my fitness pal, how long do I have to exercise to burn off these calories, right? 

And, and so that, that mindset, again, mindset kind of, it sets you up for looking at things from a more restrictive or a more punishment, angle, cardio definitely has its place, but strength training is where the magic happens after 50.

If you look and you compare cardio to strength training in calorie burn in that moment, a lot of the times you are not gonna get as many calories burn in strength training as you are in cardio for that session. Like if you're doing 30 minutes. But your calorie burn and your metabolism boost over time with the strength training is gonna give you more benefit in the long run than just that one cardio session.

Now you do need to have both. Right? But that overemphasis on cardio and doing long distances [00:15:00] and long times, I think it's to the detriment when we are in midlife 'cause muscle. Muscle is metabolic gold. And yes, it takes effort to build muscle, but it is a hundred percent worth the investment in strength training to do it.

So strength training, that's my most powerful fat loss and confidence tool out there. Lifting weights, ideally two to three times a week or three to four times a week, whatever works. If you need to have shorter sessions than three to four times a week.

If you have a little bit more time per session , two to three times a week. The second thing is adding your intensity when you need it. So every workout does not need to leave. You wiped out. Yes, some workouts do need to challenge you because that's how you're gonna improve. You're gonna boost your cardiovascular health, you're gonna boost your fitness level, you're gonna boost your endurance.

Um, you're gonna be able to lift warm weight, right?  And so that's where the variable in your workout of intensity [00:16:00] comes in, and the right mix matters. So you need to have strength training lifting heavy enough weights to where you know you are, you're able to feel it at the end of your set, do enough sets to where you've got muscle fatigue.

And then when it comes to cardio, you need to do a combination of, of low intensity and moderate intensity, steady state exercise, and also. Mix in high intensity interval training. So you're hitting low intensity, moderate intensity, and vigorous intensity. There's a way to do it to where it all, works together.

And so I went into more detail on this in a prior episode, so I will drop the link in the show notes if you wanna check that out. And then the third thing when it comes to kind of how you're moving and activity is how you're moving throughout the day.

That's another thing that really helps move the needle. Our bodies weren't designed to just sit all [00:17:00] day, every day and then get up and crush a couple of 30 minute workouts on the weekend and call it a day, you know? We really can make a difference by moving more throughout the day, and that's where NEAT comes in, non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

And that just means any kind of movement, any kind of activity that is causing you to expend energy that is not a structured exercise. Things like taking the stairs, walking your dog, doing a few stretches between meetings, utilizing a standing desk for work so you're not sitting, adding in short walk breaks.

You know, all those things add up and over time they play a big role in fat loss, overall energy and in reducing your sedentary time, which has shown to be a risk factor for heart disease. And so really the take home here is more isn't always [00:18:00] better. Better is better. Smart, consistent movement throughout your day, across the week is what is gonna help move the needle.

And so the fourth pillar is recovery. And this is what, I like to think of as like the secret sauce. If you are transforming your body, you are building muscle, you're toning your physique, you are losing fat, you're getting leaner, it's not just about what you are doing actively, it is about how well you are recovering from that activity.

And so there are three, three key things, that I really found to make a huge difference in how I felt overall. And how I was progressing. The first thing is sleep. Sleep is where a lot of the magic happens in your recovery. It's where you rebuild muscle, it's where you rejuvenate so that you're able to start the next day fresh. So aiming for [00:19:00] seven to nine hours of sleep at night. Toward the end of my training, I was really needing nine hours. I was needing that time because I needed the recovery 'cause I was pushing myself.

To make a very specific goal. And so I had to really prioritize sleep and when I did that and I was able to get good quality sleep, the right amount of sleep, I could really see a difference in my fat loss over time because I was tracking my sleep and, getting my body fat measured every four to six weeks.

I also saw a difference in my performance. When I wasn't sleeping well, I just wasn't able to do my workouts. I just didn't have the energy.

So definitely prioritizing sleep and then managing stress. Cortisol can really block your progress. When you have elevated levels of cortisol and you're consistently under stress and you're not really managing that stress effectively, then your body prioritizes storing fat in your midsection right [00:20:00] around your belly.

And so that was one of my areas where I really needed to lean out and pay attention to, and the stress management helped. For the past, I don't know, several years I was in a job that was very stressful. I had a lot of stressful things going on just in my life in general.

And so I did put on a few extra pounds around my midsection specifically because of that and being postmenopausal, that's where our bodies are preferentially going to store fat because our estrogen and our other hormones are not being produced anymore. Right? And that's where our bodies wanna put that fat on now.

I actively had to manage stress, and I did that, by doing breathing meditations. That was huge. Every morning and every evening, I did some breathing meditation. I did stretching and yoga, and then I got outside a [00:21:00] good bit just going for a walk or walking the dog.

Being in nature was extremely helpful. I'm very, very grateful that I can walk to water and see the ocean and that's very rejuvenating,

and walking outside on the beach made a difference. So I was getting in my neat that non-exercise activity and then also, it doubled as stress management and helped rejuvenate me. So that was a win-win. So finding ways to put more of that in for stress manager or whatever works for you to manage stress, right?

And then rest days. Rest days because more is not always better, especially in midlife. I found that I had to take, more rest days than I've had to when I trained for triathlons or when I was doing, ballroom competitions and dancing a lot back in my thirties and forties. Now in my late fifties, I just need more rest. That's just how it is. [00:22:00] 

And I really had to lean into that and accept it and, schedule those rest days without guilt. I really had to, again, mindset, adopt the mindset that getting this rest wasn't slacking off. It was actually like an integral part of the plan and being successful.

So when you're in midlife recovery is your secret weapon. And this is another piece that people, again, I just don't talk about enough, but it is really crucial. All right, so those are the four pillars. How you're eating, how you're fueling your body so that you are really nourishing and not starving it.

And then the second pillar is how you're thinking because mindset is that game changing multiplier. How you're moving. You wouldn't really focus on strength and variety being strategic, not necessarily focusing just on calories and you know, exercising and moving as punishment for eating.

That's never a good thing. And, and then the fourth pillar is [00:23:00] recovery. That's the secret sauce . So things that you do need just gone over. And so what you don't need. You don't need to give up all your favorite foods. I like chocolate a lot, and I will say that I ate chocolate almost every single day in my prep in some form or fashion because I love it and it makes me happy, and I was able to fit it into my plan and it worked.

I was good. So you don't need to give up all your favorite foods. You don't need to work out six to seven days a week, and. Like really punish yourself and feel like you have to just continually push and push with hours of cardio and things like that. Don't need to do that.

You don't need to have those extremes with either, you know, not sleeping, not recovering, eating too little, exercising too much, or exercising too hard, and then not being able to cover well. You don't need those extremes that put you in a position [00:24:00] that you feel like you can't sustain it, and you need to start over every Monday.

Right. What you do need is a plan that works for your body, your brain, and your current life. A plan that enables doable, consistent habits that support both your metabolism at this point in your life. And what you've got going on. So if you've been spinning your wheels, trying all the things, still not getting results, you know, maybe it is time to look at some of these foundational pillars and get back to some of the basics.

The ones that actually work and have been proven to work, and that's exactly what I put in my free jumpstart checklist for energy, strength, and confidence. It walks you through these four key pillars, these areas that we focus on when I coach my clients that we talked about today, because it gives you really clear, simple steps to start building momentum right away.

So you can head over to lisadupreecoaching.com/checklist to download it. It's totally free, and it's a great way to take what you've heard today and turn it into action and really get started seeing some results for yourself. Again, it's at lisa dupree coaching.com/checklist.

Thank you so much for being here. Until next time, get out there and keep your mojo rising.