Biggest Nutrition Mistake Women Over 50 Make (It's Not Eating Too Much) [Ep 77]

For decades, women have been taught that the answer to weight loss is simple: eat less, cut back, restrict more, try harder. These old rules can start working against you, especially after 50. 

In this episode of Midlife Mojo, Lisa DuPree breaks down the number one nutrition mistake she sees in women over 50 and it’s not overeating. It’s undereating protein. You’ll learn the biology behind why your body needs more protein now, how much to aim for, and how to find out if you have a protein gap without guilt, shame, or another restrictive diet.

Key Points With Estimated Timestamps

00:00 Why Eating Less Isn’t Working
Lisa opens with the frustration many women over 50 feel when they are eating clean, cutting back, and still not seeing results.

03:00 Why Protein Becomes Non-Negotiable After 50
Lisa explains anabolic resistance, sarcopenia, and estrogen decline in simple, relatable terms.

05:30 Protein and Strength Training Work Together
Protein provides the raw materials your muscles need to repair, build, and maintain strength.

06:45 How Much Protein Women Over 50 Need
Lisa shares the practical target for grams of protein per meal and per day for most women.

08:15 Why Protein Distribution Matters
Dinner cannot make up for a low-protein breakfast. Your muscles need enough protein at each meal to get the signal.

11:00 Lisa’s Own Protein Wake-Up Call
Lisa shares how tracking revealed that even with her background in exercise physiology and health education, she was eating less protein than she thought.

13:00 Three Practical Protein Moves
Track before changing, anchor every meal with protein first, and upgrade instead of overhauling your diet.

16:30 Action Step
Start tracking protein for five days, identify your biggest protein gap, and bring your numbers to a free assessment call.

Book your free assessment call with Lisa. It's 30 minutes, no pressure, just helpful discussion of where you are now and where you want to be with your fitness and fat loss goals.

Thanks for listening!

🎉 Free Resources For Building Strength, Losing Inches and Boosting Energy

Jumpstart Checklist - Download the checklist and jumpstart your journey to a fitter, stronger, more confident and happier you. Get it here!

Midlife Mojo Jumpstart mini-course to create a health and fitness plan that fits your lifestyle. Over five days, you’ll receive actionable tips to improve your nutrition, exercise, and recovery—all tailored to the unique needs of midlife.

Weight Loss Archetype Quiz - A short quiz to discover your Weight Loss Archetype and get personalized insights to help you break free from patterns keeping you stuck.

Want more between episodes? Follow Lisa DuPree Coaching for tips, encouragement, and real talk on building strength, losing menopause weight and feeling at home in your body again after 50: 

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Transcript

Lisa DuPree: [00:00:00] If you're a woman over 50 and you've been cutting back, eating clean, skipping snacks, maybe skipping breakfast altogether, and the scale is still not budging or, worse, it's creeping up anyway, it's probably not just the scale that's bothering you. It's that quieter question, you know, underneath, the one that shows up when you're getting dressed in the morning or you're looking at a photo of yourself and it's like, "Eh, what the heck?"

Like, "I've done all the right things. Like, I followed the rules my entire life. Like, why has my body stopped responding?" And the big one, especially that I had for me, is just like, "Is this just how it is now? Like, is this my destiny?" And I want you to know it's not you, it's not your effort, it's not your willpower.

And today I'm gonna show you a specific measurable place where the old rules are actually working against you. [00:01:00] And here's the twist I promised you at the end of the last episode. The most common nutrition mistake I see in women over 50 is not eating too much, it's not eating enough of the one thing, and that is protein.

So hi, I'm Lisa Dupree. I'm an exercise physiologist, health educator, and fitness and fat loss coach, and my whole job is helping women over 50 cut through the noise and figure out what really works for them for fat loss, strength, and energy. And this is the second episode in the Lean and Strong video series, and it's the first of three where we dig into one of the four key focus areas, and that is nutrition.

And so by the end of today, you're gonna have a really good handle on why protein really becomes non-negotiable after 50, the actual biology in plain language, like, no lecture hall required, how much protein you actually need, like, real numbers per meal per [00:02:00] day, and how to spot where your own meals may be falling a little bit short, because it's usually not all meals.

It's usually one or two, and knowing which one changes everything. So that's our destination, so let's get going. I wanna start with something most of us have in common. We grew up dieting by subtraction, right? Eating less. Cut the calories, cut the carbs, cut the fat. Every diet we ever tried was about taking things away, sometimes whole food groups.

And protein, it was just kind of there, you know, something that came along with dinner. But after 50, some key things change. The first one is something called anabolic resistance, and that's just a fancy way of saying our muscles get a little harder of hearing, right? The same amount of protein that repaired and built muscle when you were 25 and 35, like, it barely gets the [00:03:00] message through now.

Your muscles just need a louder signal, and a louder signal means some, if not more, protein at each meal, not necessarily the same amount that you are always eating. Okay. The second is sarcopenia, and that is age-related muscle loss. After 50, we lose muscle at an accelerating rate unless we actively work to prevent it.

And this matters because this is not just about looking a certain way or fitting into a certain size. Muscle is your metabolism. That's what keeps it running. Muscle is your independence. Muscle is what lets you travel. It- it's what lets you get down on the floor to play with your dog and get up off the floor with your grandkids, carry your own groceries when you're 80.

Like, this is about adding life to your years, not just years to your life.

And the third change that we see after 50 is estrogen. Estrogen drops, and it [00:04:00] makes it harder to hold onto the muscle that we already have. And so the amount of protein we need goes up right at the exact moment that most of us are, again, trying to eat less if we are using a restrictive diet to lose weight.

So you see the problem. And if you remember the loop we talked about in the last episode, how eating supports exercise, this is exactly what I meant. You can have the most perfectly designed strength training program in the world, but protein is where your muscles get the amino acids. Those are the actual raw building blocks, and without them, there's nothing to build with.

It's really like hiring the best bricklayer in town and giving her no bricks. She can show up every day ready to work, but nothing's getting built. So bottom line, undereating protein doesn't just stall your fat loss. It actually speeds up your muscle loss. So let that one land for a second. [00:05:00] The very strategy that most of us were taught, eat less across the board, is quietly costing us the one thing that keeps our metabolism really cranking, right?

So how much do we actually need? The target is around 25 to 35 grams of high-quality protein at each meal, building towards somewhere around 90 to 100 grams per day for most women. Now, that number flexes a bit with your body size and how active you are, but that's really just getting into the ballpark.

If you want a more accurate number specifically for you, experts generally recommend 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, and that's equivalent to about .54 to .72 grams of protein per pound, 

And that's daily to fight off age-related muscle loss. And here's the part that surprises people. The per meal numbers matter, not just the daily [00:06:00] total. Your muscles respond to a threshold at each meal, meaning they need to see enough protein at once to get a signal. And so loading 60 grams of protein into dinner isn't the same as spreading it out through the day.

You know, thinking about you have a big gap at breakfast, and it's a really big missed opportunity because it's hard to make that up later in the day. And research really backs this up that evenly distributing protein across the day stimulates more muscle building than saving it all for one meal Now let me tell you what I actually see when women I work with start tracking.

So something like, you know, coffee for breakfast, maybe half a bagel or a granola bar, a salad at lunch, maybe with a little bit chicken if it's fancy, uh, and then protein finally shows up at dinner. Adding it up and it's often somewhere like 40 to [00:07:00] 60 grams for the whole day, and that's likely half of what their body actually needs now.

Sometimes it's less than half. And so the question for you, thinking about this, and just answer it, answer it honestly in your head, think about your breakfast this morning. How much protein was actually on your plate? And if the answer was, "Well, my coffee had some cream in it," um, you're in very good company.

But stay with me 'cause it's fixable. And so now you know where we're actually aiming for, that kind of on average 30 grams of protein every meal, and it... what it looks like in real food. Four to five ounces of lean protein, roughly the size of the palm of your hand, a cup of Greek yogurt with a scoop of protein powder stirred in it, three eggs plus half a cup of cottage cheese, um, or if you're plant-based, about a cup and a half of lentils or tofu or edamame.[00:08:00] 

And so none of that is extreme. Nobody is, you know, being forced to live on protein shakes and protein powder. Like it's real food on a real plate. It's just done intentionally. And so now I wanna tell you what happened when I actually kinda turned this lens on myself because I think you might find this a little bit familiar.

Like a few years ago, my own body just stopped responding, and if you saw the last episode, you know that whole story. Uh, one of the first things I did was start tracking my protein, like honestly, with no self-judgment, like every bite in an app for real. 

And I have degrees in exercise physiology and applied biology. I taught health at a college level for 15 years. I can rattle off exactly how muscle protein synthesis works, you know, really explaining how your body turns protein on your plate into actual muscle on your body, and I was confident I was getting enough protein.[00:09:00] 

The data, though, she had other opinions. Like, my breakfast turned out to be mostly coffee and good intentions. You know? I was landing way under where I needed to be day after day, and I generally, I genuinely had no idea until the numbers were right there in front of me. And here's the principle I want you to take away from that story is...

Because this is the important part. I didn't close that gap with more information. Like, I already had that information, lots of it, decades of it. I closed the gap with tracking, with structure, and with committing to a system, so I wasn't redesigning my whole approach in my head, like, every day at 6:00 AM.

And needing structure and support is not a deficiency or a personal failing. It is literally how change works for everyone, including me. Like, we don't shame ourselves for using GPS to help us on a road trip. Structure is [00:10:00] just that map, right? And so let's make this practical and actionable. Move number one: track before you change.

Five days, ideally include weekdays and weekends, uh, and use a free app. Cronometer is one, MyFitnessPal, they both work great, and just log what you're actually eating. Don't pay any attention to the numbers that are in there yet. Just put in what you're eating. Don't change anything yet.

Like, that's super important. This is just gathering data. It's not a diet. There's no judgment here. Just be objective. And you need that objective data because that'll help you decide, kind of, what is the gap, right? And you can't close a gap that you haven't measured. Move number two is anchor every meal with protein first.

So when you are putting together your plate, start with the lean protein and build around it. So protein first, then the [00:11:00] vegetables, then everything else. And for most of us, breakfast is the biggest opportunity. It's usually the meal where protein is missing, um, and so think about that.

And move number three is upgrade, don't overhaul. Like, you do not need a whole new diet. Add Greek yogurt to the breakfast you already eat. Swap the toast and jam for a couple of eggs. Throw a scoop of protein powder into a smoothie that you're already making. Like, small upgrades repeated beat a drastic overhaul every single time, because you still want to be doing this six months from now.

And one heads up, because I don't want this to catch you off guard, the first week of two of actually hitting a protein target feels like a lot of food, and this is normal. I hear this all the time, and it's 'cause protein is very satiating. It's filling. It's actually one of its superpowers, and that's how, like, the [00:12:00] appetite management piece works.

Like, you're gonna feel full. You're not doing it wrong. Your body's just not used to it, right? 

Now, I wanna say something that most fitness content on the internet will not say to you, and I think that you deserve to hear it. You now know more about protein after 50 than probably 90% of the people around you. Genuinely. The numbers, the biology, the how-to, like you have it. And after decades of working with smart, capable women, here's what I know to be true: knowing the number and hitting the number consistently are two completely different things, okay?

Think about what consistently actually has to survive. It has to survive your real schedule, your travel, the week your mom needs you, the week work explodes, the stress, the hormones, your entire history of dieting whispering the old rules in your ear.

That's the actual arena that we're playing in, [00:13:00] and information alone does not compete well in that arena. And the real gap for most of us isn't the knowledge. It comes down to really personalization, having a plan built for your body, your schedule, your history, not some generic template made for the masses.

And then there's implementation. You wanna turn a target into a repeatable weekly rhythm that survives real life. Not a perfect week, we're not shooting for perfect, but one that is reasonable and repeatable. And then there's support, because research on behavior change is clear, like structure and support gives you small wins over time, and that builds self-efficacy. That is your belief that you're capable of doing the thing, and self-efficacy is what makes behavior change last. So here's my honest framing, and it's the truth. A video like this can hand you the map. It can't ride in the car with you, and that is not a flaw in you, and it's not a flaw with the video.

It's just the difference [00:14:00] between information and structured support. And once, you know, one gets you pointed in the right direction, but the other one is what actually rides with you and gets you there. Protein is one piece of the four key focus areas of nutrition, exercise, rest and recovery, and mindset.

And if you have tried everything and you still feel stuck, the problem has probably never been how much effort you're putting into it. It's been the approach in trying to do it all alone. Ooh. All right, we covered a lot today. We started with why protein becomes non-negotiable after 50, anabolic resistance, sarcopenia, estrogen decline.

Your muscles need that louder signal, right? Then we got more specific, 25 to 30 grams of protein per meal, building towards somewhere in the ballpark, 90 to 100 grams per day, spread across the day because dinner can't rescue breakfast. And then tracking, finding out if you have a [00:15:00] gap, getting your own personal real-time up-to-date data.

And finally, the things that matter most is putting all this knowledge into practice with structure, personalization, and support. And so here is, uh, your one action step I invite you to take, and it starts in the next 24 hours. Start tracking your protein. Five days, don't change a single thing. Just look, just track.

Those five days are gonna show you your gap. And what you do with that gap, that's where the real work starts. So if you finish your five days and you want help, help making sense of what you find, that's exactly what my free assessment call is for. Bring me your numbers. It's 30 minutes. There's no pressure.

There's no sales script. We'll just look at your data together and map out what a plan built for your body and your life could really look like. The link is right down in the description or in the show notes. [00:16:00] And then before you go after a couple days of tracking, I would love to know which meal is your biggest protein gap.

Is it breakfast, lunch, dinner? Maybe it's a snack. Drop it in the comments. It genuinely helps me be able to create more videos around what you actually need. And if you haven't grabbed it yet, the free Lean and Strong Jump Start checklist has the protein habit as action item one, and then it also has all four focus areas laid out with specific things within each one so that you can check them off as you build them into your routine.

And you can get that at lisadupreecoaching.com/checklist. Then, of course, the link is always in the show notes and the description as well. Next episode, we're gonna take on that second nutrition lever, and it is, uh, probably my favorite one because it's the one where you get to eat more food while losing fat.

Like, who doesn't love that? We're gonna talk more about high-volume whole foods, and if you've spent decades believing [00:17:00] hungry is just the price that you pay for losing weight or staying lean, like, this episode is gonna be very pleasantly surprising.So follow the podcast if you're listening on audio, or if you're on YouTube, subscribe and tap that bell.

The series here builds piece by piece, and you don't wanna miss one. Until then, get out there and keep your mojo rising