The Rise of the Superfit Sixties – here’s what it really takes

The wellness expert Liz Earle is ‘fitter than ever’ at 63, and she’s not alone.

Alison Cork, also 63, on what’s involved, and why it’s worth it.

All credit to Liz Earle, a mother of five, for looking fabulous at 63 on the cover of this month’s Women’s Health magazine. We all know women in their fifties as fit and healthy as those in their thirties, but with role models such as Nicole Kidman, 59, Halle Berry, 60, Elizabeth Hurley, 61, Jane Seymour, 75, and now Earle, it’s clear 60 is no longer a barrier to having a fantastic physique. As a woman the same age as Earle who has also worked hard to stay in shape, it is no surprise to me that it is possible to look and feel incredible going into the seventh decade of life.

Twenty-year-old me certainly wouldn’t recognise the woman I am now. Back then, I never worked out and had barely stepped inside a gym. I didn’t start exercising until I was in my late fifties. The turning point came when aged 57, I caught a glimpse of myself in a bedroom mirror and was shocked at what I saw. I was middle-aged and really out of shape, and it hit me that I faced a quiet decline in health unless I made some radical changes.

With a regime of weight training, walking and a healthy diet, I shed five stones within 18 months and I have kept it off ever since. My waist shrank from 39 to 26 inches as weight I carried around my middle – a risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease – fell away. Initially, my goal was just to look good in gym kit by my 60th birthday, but the journey taught me so much more about myself and my perspective on life.

For most women who work out in their fifties and sixties, the driving force is not to look 25 again but to be stronger, fitter and healthier than society expects us to be. Many of us have grown-up children (I have two sons) who have left home and suddenly find we have more time to devote to ourselves. It can be a struggle to start with but we soon discover that we can train as hard as – even harder than, in my case – we did two or three decades earlier.

The fitter I got, the more I was motivated by being able to still lift weights at 70 and walk up mountains at 80. Improvements in my physique, my hair and my skin were welcome by-products of how much better I felt in myself. There was no turning back. I’m proof that life is not over when you hit 60 – you can look and feel better than ever before. It’s an effort but it’s worth it, and I intend to keep it up for as long as I can. Here’s how I do it.

People think that I must spend hours in the gym each day. The reality is that I go for an hour three times a week but work hard when I am there. Consistency is the most important factor. It can be a bit nerve-racking the first time, but there are so many more older women working out than there were 20 years ago.

Being physically strong improves your posture and your self-confidence. I started off with body-weight exercises but ramped things up over time. My workouts are intense and now I lift fairly heavy weights, pushing up to 30kg in some exercises. My routine varies each week, but I include a lot of compound moves to target all large muscles at the same time – split squats, deadlifts, goblet squats, shoulder press, lateral raises, wall sits and hip thrusts are all regulars. You should lift weights appropriate for your size, height and fitness levels, but you need to challenge yourself progressively to get fitter.

Going hungry is not good for your health or your weight loss goals. In my late fifties I quickly realised that was why the restrictive diets I had tried in my twenties and thirties always backfired. I eat a good breakfast, dinner and lunch with healthy snacks – maybe some dark chocolate – and a couple of cappuccinos every day.

All women in their sixties should be getting a bit more protein than they think they need, especially if you start to exercise more. It helps you build muscle and strength and burn fat. I try to eat 0.35g protein per pound of my body weight a day to maintain my present weight of about 8st 7lb, which equates to about 41-43g a day. I get enough from consuming chicken, lean red meat, fish, eggs, Greek yoghurt and pulses.

It’s fair to say I was addicted to added and refined sugar without realising it. Only when I started to read food labels did I realise that I really had a very sweet tooth. Even the sliced bread I was eating had a fair amount of added sugar. Too much refined sugar causes inflammation and of course is not good for the waistline. Cutting down was hard initially as it was a shock to my system, but there was no looking back.

Walking really does bring many benefits to health and wellbeing and was an important part of my transformation. I clock 15-17,000 steps a day, walking anywhere I can – to the gym and back, to the shops. Sometimes I just get up extra early to walk for 60-90 minutes when I know I have the time.

I don’t eat refined carbs but I do focus on getting plenty of healthy fats from nuts, avocados and full-fat yoghurt, which are filling and nutritious. I was surprised when my trainer first suggested this as it sounded counterintuitive, but in the first week of switching from highly processed, reduced-fat options, I lost a kilogram in weight. It works.

I use extra-virgin olive oil in all my salads and in cooking, but I also drink a tablespoon of it every morning. It contains omega fatty acids that are beneficial to heart and all round health. And that daily tablespoon has done more good for my skin than any expensive face cream.

Nobody is infallible. We all slip up sometimes – the key is not to be too hard on yourself or you risk falling off the fitness wagon altogether. I allow myself an occasional glass of wine or a cake. I try to be good 80 per cent of the time.

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