There are some things you probably stopped doing as you got older. Staying out until 5am & wearing sky-high heels to work every day are good examples. The same applies to exercise & nutrition habits you developed when you first started training. Not all of them should stick with you forever. Deborah Moore is a 55-year-old fitness coach from Canada who says she only became the strongest she had ever been when she quit seven things. She wrote on Instagram that she never saw herself getting this strong. She was doing all the things that many people likely do. She tried to eat as little as possible while still getting through her workouts. Her value was attached to the size of jeans she fit into and whether she was as skinny as the women she saw around her. She never seemed to be skinny enough. Food was a minefield & she never thought she would break free of the body image prison she had created for herself. Then CrossFit and the barbell entered her life & everything changed. She is not sure whether it was reaching her 50s and caring less about what others thought or being tired of the exhausting negative cycle. Either way she finally decided to trust the process and trust the food to nourish her. She also decided to trust her body to perform.
Letting Go of Restrictive Rules Changed Everything
“The funny thing is, I actually believe I look better now after letting go of all those unrealistic rules I once forced on myself. One thing became very clear over time: choosing strength over skinniness was the biggest mindset shift I ever made—and it didn’t happen overnight. It was a genuine learning process.”
From Chasing Skinny to Chasing Strength
Instead of obsessing over the number on the scale, I became obsessed with how much weight I could move on the barbell. At one point, I weighed under 120lbs (54kg), had less than 15% body fat, and wore a US size 0–2 (roughly a UK size 4–6). Today, I’m about 10lbs (4.5kg) heavier, with around 5% more body fat, and I wear a US size 4–6 (UK size 8–10). But what truly matters to me now is the fact that I can lift over 100lbs on the barbell.
Eating to Perform, Not to Shrink
I also stopped under-eating and started fuelling my body for performance. I now eat roughly 2,300 calories a day, aiming for around 155g of protein, and occasionally track my macros. While it’s true that training fasted can increase fat oxidation, fat loss ultimately comes down to being in an overall calorie deficit.
Why Fasted Workouts Didn’t Work for Me
Training fasted while eating at maintenance—or above—throughout the day doesn’t lead to fat loss and can even result in fat gain. What often happens instead is that properly fuelling before workouts allows you to train harder or longer, which increases total calorie expenditure. That added intensity is also far more effective for building muscle than pushing through a low-energy, half-hearted session.
Discovering Strength Through CrossFit at 50
Today, Deborah trains CrossFit several times a week and credits it with completely transforming her life. “When I turned 50 and picked up a barbell for the first time, everything changed,” she says. “My self-confidence, my relationship with my body, and my approach to nutrition had been a mess for most of my adult life—and that’s putting it lightly.”
