The Uncanny Fitness Transformation of the Naughty/Nutty House/Home-Office Wife at 45+
Hi, my dear readers,
This is just the first outline of my personal, non-professional, lamer’s perspective of how to “raise the bar” fitness and health-wise at 45+ provided you haven’t done much exercise, workouts, any kind of specific sports, etc., etc. up to this (st)age.
Your feedback is extremely welcome – would you mind telling me if you found any/none of it valuable? Would it worth to tell the whole story and turn it into a book? Thank you so much in advance for reading this …
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The Uncanny Fitness Transformation of the Naughty/Nutty House/Home-Office Wife at 45+
Once upon a time I was reading Archie Schwarzenegger’s introduction to his encyclopaedia and I reached the line: “… before you visualize Granny under the squat rack…” Well!
“Hello, there” – ha-ha-ha.
It’s a beautiful Saturday in June, 2022. I’m almost 50 years young, just pausing under the squat rack and about to squat with a 55kg (121 pounds) barbell.
That provided I had my knee badly injured four months earlier after an epic ski fall.
I personally weigh about 52.5kg (116 pounds)/ I’m 163cm (5’4.17) high.
Plus, up to this moment, I had never trained with a coach; not to mention that I also never trained any sport when I was young…
So, I did it. The squat wasn’t perfect, but I got my thighs parallel to the ground – as intended – I got up and I thought: “Shall I try a 60kg barbell squat then?”
Why do I do it? Why have I been training with weights for more than three years now? Not to mention that I am not starving – I usually fuel myself with 2000-2200 calories per day; and I do next to zero cardio.
It’s because it feels good. Not good, it feels AWESOME! I feel strong, I am HAPPY, I feel ALIVE.
It all started when I turned 40 in November 2013. I wasn’t old, but I wasn’t young either. I got that feeling of depleted energy and motivation, life was a routine -eek! I needed something to get me going, something I was going to love to do… and also to help me shed those few extra pounds left after my daughter’s birth.
What did I do? The following couple of years – absolutely nothing – my life was pretty sh*tty. My daughter’s health wasn’t good, I felt a useless mother; the business had some lows and flows… but in the end things got one idea better.
One day in March 2016 I got a leaflet on the doorstep that the local gym’s giving discounts for couples 40+ years old. That’s how my husband and I ended up as gym subscribers – pure luck!
So, what did I do next? As you’d have probably guessed – I didn’t do much over the next three years. I stayed almost in the same fluffy-puffy shape, with a bit of toned areas here and there, not much energy boost whatsoever.
Life wasn’t that much in the way. I just didn’t want to spend extra time ploughing through some fitness and nutrition books, or tips online; watching workouts videos; going more than twice a week in gym. All of this seemed pretty much overwhelming and time consuming/wasting; kind of pointless.
However, fast-forward three years and a half later – well, well, – I LOVE WHAT I DO, I’m FIT, I’m a fitness freak and I LIKE IT. What changed?
Basically, just this – it hit me that making small steps would eventually lead me to bigger changes. Little by little, one small thing at a time, I was in no rush to do anything fast. I was consistent, I never stopped and I can’t thank myself enough now for the “keep going” attitude I developed over time. It affects in a very positive way every aspect of my life now, not just my fitness level, which is, let’s say, to me – it is AMAZING!
YOU are the only one who can get you in your best shape – not just body but also mind-set.
Does it make any sense?
The change launched with the “Getting into My Pants Dance.” You haven’t heard of it? You may have danced it without knowing…
After I started visiting gym twice a week, I kept boasting to my friends I was a gym subscriber. I only didn’t look like one. Disappointing! My friends kept telling me that going to tgym’s great and my husband looked quite fit. Wh-a-a-t?! What about me?
“Getting into My Pants Dance” story started with me trying to put my tight skinny jeans on. It was in March 2019, I had some 4-5 extra winter kilos – so, not exactly skinny. I kept jumping – first on my left leg trying to squeeze my right leg plus some of the love handles into the jeans, then onto my right leg trying to stuff my left leg into the jeans, and so on, and hop-on.
It was a difficult wiggly-wriggly job, a comic sight, at best done without spectators. I only realized that my husband had been watching me for some time when I heard him laughing b, “Are you playing the Getting into My Pants Dance, or something?”
That was s-o-o embarrassing, and also infuriating! After slapping my man a big black for-dot on the For-and-Against-a-New-Husband-list that kept accumulating in my mind, I started thinking. I was doing something not quite right in gym.
Et voilà, one day, soon after The Dance, it struck me. My husband got previous gym experience; he had trained with a personal trainer before. Obviously, he knew what to do. All I got were my son’s feeble instructions – it turned out the workouts were mostly back and legs focused, but I didn’t know that at the time. So twice a week – 10 minutes run on the treadmill, some back, some legs, and next time – same – for three years.
Apparently, it was high time I started ploughing through the fitness subject and that’s what I did – googled it, youtubed it, you name it.
Why didn’t I consider using a personal trainer myself? I don’t know – maybe because I have always taken going to gym as my hobby, my relaxing time. I DO NOT want to follow any other person’s instructions but mine. I DO NOT want to feel obliged to fulfil someone else’s expectations, but mine.
Does it make ANY sense?
What’s more, I was afraid that a gym instructor would give me “age appropriate” exercises, whereas I wanted “fitness level” relevant ones.
Being 45+ didn’t mean to me that I couldn’t train like an athlete. It meant I should take it easy at first, and then hit it heavy when ready – just that!
Cool! Age 45+ and an athlete – is that possible?
Probably, one of the first things that would spring in your mind when you think about ageing would be the word “sarcopenia”. Wikipedia helps us with a definition: “Sarcopenia is the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle mass (0.5–1% loss per year after the age of 50), quality, and strength associated with aging.” End of it – the verdict is delivered! How can we train like athletes if we are going to lose so much muscle every year?
What I can tell you is that it would be silly to advise Sly Stallone not to lift heavy because he’s 70+, and I have seen him on YouTube training pretty heavy. Well, you might butt in here, mentioning he had trained in the past. I hadn’t.
So what? I can do as many experiments with my body as I want during my free time. And who knows my exact fitness level? I DO. Stallone trains according to his fitness level – it’s just an advanced level, that’s it. Has he lost much muscle after the age of 50+? I wouldn’t say so.
Huh, why’s that? The explanation is coming soon.
Another common misconception is that our metabolism slows down as we age. What’s the truth? Studies show that the metabolism doesn’t change between the age of 19 and 65 years old. What changes is how active we are. So, we should eat according to what we spend as calories during the day. In short, if you train with weights – you’ll burn more calories – and you need to eat more🙂. (Oh, I love this one!)
Yet another common “rule” I love to rebut is that you can only increase your metabolism, in order to lose weight, by doing cardio. Nope. Your metabolism will gradually speed up once you start lifting weights. If you want to improve your cardio-vascular system, cardio (I mean running, HIIT workouts, etc.) is good for that purpose. Otherwise, some 20-30 minutes’ walk a day is enough healthwise.
Next “old paradigm” is that our hormonal levels change with age, meaning we should eat certain foods and I avoid others; we should take some medications, or hormones, or whatever to improve our hormonal levels. I can’t disagree with the fact that our hormonal picture changes… throughout all our lives. However, the simple rule here is: if you start doing workouts with weights, slightly twitch and tweak your nutrition, then your hormones will start getting back to balance.
I learned that training with weights 45+ / 50+ and above is not a problem, but a must:
- If we train, the muscles will be rebuilt. There will be no more looming sarcopenia on the horizon; it can be delayed or even stopped. Why? After you work with weights, your body “cleans the mess” after you – in terms that it repairs and replaces the damaged muscle fibres and the muscles build back stronger in order to meet the new strength demands. This happens at ANY AGE – you demand, your body rebuilds. PERFECT!
- Subsequently, we don’t need to have been athletes or have trained anything in the past, to get into a good physical shape healthwise.
- What’s more, we don’t need a lot of time to get into fitness routine. It will take some 2-3 months to adjust your nutrition, supplement and workout regime. The workouts themselves should take about an hour a day. You can start with as much as 3 or 4 days training.
- The next good news is that we don’t need much or any cardio to burn calories and speed up our metabolism. Resistance training regulates the production of the hormones that control our metabolism and speeds it up.
- Respectively, we don’t need to be on a very restrictive diet to lose weight, (provided we want to lose weight), only to watch our calorie expenditure, which will get higher when we train with weights.
- What about osteoporosis – can we say goodbye to it? Why not? Progressive resistance training put stress on the bones, which in turn stimulates bone-forming cells to spring into action. Bone is living tissue that responds to exercise by becoming stronger.
- The last but not least, you don’t need a personal trainer, to start seeing progress. With all the information available online free, or almost free, you only need to see where the nearest gym is and start your fitness journey. When? Well – what about TODAY?
To sum it up, age should not stop people, both men and women, when it comes to weight training. Training over 40, 50, or 60 years old should not be any different from training before that age.
Respectively, if you want to train like bodybuilders or power lifters, you can always do so. It is not necessary to go and compete, but if you want to, the age categories 60+, 70+, etc. aren’t very crammed with competitors – and you can always SHINE🙂.
In case you need real life examples, I will happily provide some:
I first came across Ernestine Shepherd (@shepherdernestine) in 2019. I saw a YouTube video called: “The 81-year-old Bodybuilder Who Inspires Others to Get Fit.” The description read: “Ernestine began her fitness journey at age 56, and at age 71 she won her first bodybuilding competition. Now she inspires others to get into fitness – whatever their age.” I was awe-struck, Ernestine looked amazing on stage. She is a fitness coach at present and I keep telling myself – oh, I want to do this (coaching) when I’m 80+!
I discovered my next hero not so long ago. I watched a YouTube video called: “This 78-Year-Old Can Squat More Than You.” Nora is a powerlifter and she, in fact, squats more than me (for now🙂). The description read: “Nora Langdon (@noraliftsheavy) is not your average 78-year-old. She is #1 in her age group for powerlifting — a strength sport that tests how much a person can squat, bench press, and deadlift. Watch Nora as she prepares for the 2021 World Powerlifting Congress World Championships and learn about what motivates her and what she hopes to do next!” Well, powerlifting is something I would gladly consider when I’m 70+.
The last amazing person I will mention is Phyllis Sues who wrote the book: “My Trip to Healthy, Active 96.” When she was 86 she stepped into her first yoga class. I came across a YouTube video: “Meet 96-Year-Old That Stays Fit with Yoga and Dance.” Believe me, I don’t think I will manage any time soon to get into that yoga peacock position she is showing in the video. Phyllis says that your life can be a beautiful journey and I can’t agree more…
However, let’s get back to my story – how to “raise the bar” of my fitness level when 45+, with no clear idea what to do?
Experience is the best teacher provided you learn from your mistakes says Archie Schwarzenegger. I had experience; it was time to learn from my mistakes.
“Trust the process!” say the wise people.
I couldn’t scroll the game overnight and enjoy the final result. Not to mention that the “end” result I wanted three years ago is not the result I want now – so goals change, too.
My goals gradually changed from outcome goals to process goals. I mean, the aesthetic goals (i.e. be leaner body) changed to achieve performance goals (i.e. be stronger). And, by the way, I’m quite lean as it is, though I don’t try very hard to be🙂.
After some research, I bought a book.
Surprisingly, it didn’t start with workouts, but with some nutrition advice. I had thought I was eating well and balanced, which turned out to be not quite right.
Then I read about the workouts and I realized I wasn’t training all my muscles. I wasn’t training enough.
Finally, I wasn’t tracking my progress at all and I wanted results. Sadly, I had nothing to compare over time, but a few photos.
After these “eye-openers”, everything went pretty smoothly.
One late afternoon in June 2019 (three months after the Pants Dance), I was sitting next to my husband on the benches of the swimming pool where my daughter was practising her Butterfly technique during a group training session. I knew she wasn’t going to drown; she was actually a very good swimmer; so I was reading the book on my phone.
At one point I noticed that my man was staring at ME intensely. He said, “I’ve been looking at you for 20 minutes now how you watch pictures of nice-looking guys on your mobile!”
Wh-a-a-t? I looked incredibly again at what I was viewing – a guy (one and the same by the way) in tracksuit performing some workouts, all of which explained in detail beneath the photos. I cleared the misunderstanding saying that I usually liked to watch the hot-looking guys so-to-say “live” – in gym🙂.
Ha-ha, no, I didn’t say that – it would have been quite a blow to our marriage. I explained that the book’s name was “Transform Yourself” (it’s in Bulgarian) and it’s about setting goals, tracking progress, adjusting nutrition, creating and following a fitness routine, using some supplements.
And yes, exactly in this order:
– setting goals,
– tracking progress,
– adjusting nutrition,
– creating and following a fitness routine,
– using some supplements.
I also solemnly declared that I was going to make changes on all five points! I must have looked pretty nutty-determined because my husband said, “Well, you did it with the skiing, once you decide something, nothing stops you. Are we going to starve now – to lose weight?”
Now, this isn’t the right place to tell you “That Story with the Skiing” (maybe later); and no, we have never starved, quite the opposite.
Whatever I promised my man that day – I did it, no, I’ve been doing it. It is my hobby. It doesn’t go smooth all the time, but I do LOVE experimenting.
Once and for all, I FINALLY got rid of that maddening fluffy-puffy shape of mine in just three months after I started reshaping my nutrition and fitness routine. And that was it! I never got it back! I’m Maldives bikini ready all year round! (Hubby, love, if you are reading this – I’m READY!).
July 2022 – I still haven’t got a personal trainer. However, I have a clearer idea now what I want to do in future, so I may ask a coach to give me some specific advice, but the journey will be solely mine, as always.
Taking gym work seriously really helped me improve my health (including the mental one). Learning bit by bit how to adjust my nutrition to my fitness needs, including what supplements to take, really made a huge positive difference when I look back a year, two years, three years, and still counting.
Archie says that weight training can ensure a long, active future and I’m deeply experiencing the positive effects of it.
I want to emphasize that people need to train not just to be healthy and strong, but also to be able to take up new hobbies and activities they have avoided due to some physical weakness. Be it calisthenics, kite surfing, diving, skiing – it’s all s-o-o much easier when you have the support of your muscles’ strength and stamina.
Fitness is my passion, and so is life! You must really want to live, in order to live an EVENTFUL life, not just to get by.
If something doesn’t go as it was planned, don’t think about it as a drawback, but rather as a challenge.
Challenges spur our creativity, inventfulness (I invented this word, sorry🙂) and adventure spirit. Our motivation to find a solution grows, and so does the adrenaline. As an adrenaline/endorphin addict I can vouch that when adrenaline is high, life seems s-o-o much better.
I have a dream that one day I will be 76+ years young and I will have super power lifter powers like Nora; then I’ll be 86+ and I will have Ernestine’s super bodybuilder-runner powers; and then I will be 96+ and I will have Phyllis’s super yoga powers. Gosh! And what next, what next? It’ seems that life’s just (re)started!
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Now, at 50+, I’ve learned that it’s never too late to start. Every step, no matter how small, brings you closer to the person you want to be. What’s stopping you from starting today?
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Who-is-Pulling-Whom Video🤣
P.S. Are you interested how to build muscle at the age of 45-50+?
