Pre-Workout Nutrition for Early Morning Training Sessions
Fuel Your Strength
If you train early in the morning, you might be wondering what to eat before your session to arrive fueled and perform well. In this episode, you'll learn how to approach pre-workout nutrition for early morning workouts, especially when you’re short on time but still want enough fuel to make it through your session without gassing out. You'll learn how to factor in training intensity, how much time you have before your session, hydration, and what you did the day before. This is a practical episode for athletes over 40. What you’ll learn in this episode: How to fuel early morning...
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How to Strength Train as a Hobbyist Athlete
Fuel Your Strength
If you’re a hobbyist athlete over 40 who loves your sport – cycling, running, pickleball, martial arts to name a few – but you’ve been hesitating to start strength training, this episode is for you. In today’s episode of the Fuel Your Strength podcast, you'll hear exactly how to strength train as an athletic woman over 40 without sacrificing time for your sport. This is a simple, sustainable blueprint for building muscle, improving power, preventing injury, and staying in the game long-term – without living in the gym five days a week. What you’ll learn in this...
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How to Stop Quitting the Gym
Fuel Your Strength
Story time! I'm sharing a personal story from my early triathlon days that still shapes how I coaches lifters today. What started as a scary open-water swim became a powerful lesson about progress, patience, and why perfection is not required to move forward. In this episode, you'll reframe how you think about missed workouts, imperfect weeks, and all-or-nothing thinking in fitness. If you’ve ever felt like skipping one session meant you blew it, this episode offers a grounding reminder: that forward progress counts, even when it doesn’t look pretty. What you’ll learn in this episode: ...
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Strength Training Lessons from 15 Years of Lifting Weights
Fuel Your Strength
If I could go back and talk to beginner-me in 2010, there are a handful of strength training lessons I would absolutely whisper in her ear. Not because I did everything wrong, but because so much frustration, second-guessing, and spinning my wheels could’ve been avoided with a little context and coaching. In this episode, I’m reflecting on more than 15 years of consistent lifting, coaching, and learning the hard way. Whether you’re brand new to strength training, a few years in, or coming back after a break, these lessons will help you train smarter, progress more confidently, and stop...
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Rebuilding Strength After 80? Change How You See Aging
Fuel Your Strength
Is it really never too late to start strength training – even if you’re in your 80s and you’ve never touched a barbell? You'll hear from journalist Clare Johnston of the “Rebuilding Mum and Dad” project, about what happens when older adults begin true progressive strength training from scratch – and why the results can feel straight-up miraculous (without being magic). Clare shares how her parents started lifting in their 80s after years of mobility decline, osteoporosis concerns, and “we’ve tried everything” frustration. Together, they built a simple garage setup, worked...
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Women’s Fitness Over 40: Cutting Through the Confusion with Nikki Naab-Levy
Fuel Your Strength
If you’ve been feeling like women’s fitness over 40 is a nonstop back-and-forth debate - like you’re courtside at Wimbledon watching the ball whip from one hot take to another - you’re not imagining it. Social media is loud right now, especially when it comes to what women should or shouldn’t be doing in midlife. That noise can make it hard to trust your instincts or know what actually matters for building strength and aging athletically. In this episode, I’m joined by strength for hypermobility & nutrition coach Nikki Naab-Levy. Together, we unpack the most confusing fitness...
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How to Be More Consistent in the Gym Over 40
Fuel Your Strength
Life is life-ing especially in midlife. One day you’re fired up, smashing your lifts, and thinking the whole week will be a highlight reel; two days later you’re sleep-deprived, stressed, and wondering who parked a bus on your quads. In this episode, you'll learn a structured-yet-flexible strategy to use with your lifting to ride the wave of real-life energy swings so you can keep showing up, build muscle, and actually enjoy the process. We’ll break down how to anchor your week with strength, layer in cardio, and use auto-regulation (RPE/RIR) to dial intensity up or down without ditching...
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The 5 Hard Truths Your Lifting Needs After 40
Fuel Your Strength
If you’ve ever heard a coach say “it’s not wrong, but it’s not right either,” you’ll resonate with this episode. Dive into the nuance that gets lost in punchy social media hot takes – especially for athletic women over 40 who want strength, muscle, and better performance without the fluff. Get insight into why your progress may feel stuck, what to do about it, and how to build muscle with less frustration. Get practical coaching on progressive overload, program hopping, hypertrophy, auto-regulation, and why DIY training isn’t actually “free.” What you’ll learn in this...
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How to Adjust Workouts When You’re Short on Time
Fuel Your Strength
Life doesn’t always respect your perfectly planned training week. If you’re a woman over 40 following a strength training program, you might be juggling sleep swings, work crunches, hormonal shifts, caretaking, and everything in between. This episode breaks down how to keep your momentum without falling into the all-or-nothing trap so you still get a damn good training stimulus on busy days. Steph explains a simple framework for structured flexibility – keeping the big-picture plan while adapting the day’s session. You’ll learn three practical ways to modify workouts using RPE / RIR,...
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The Over-40 Lifting Formula I’d Follow If I Started Again Tomorrow
Fuel Your Strength
Feeling like the Tin Man when your feet hit the floor – and winded on a single flight of stairs – doesn’t have to be “just your 40s.” In this episode, we call BS on the idea that midlife means inevitable decline and lays out a clear, doable plan for rebuilding strength, muscle, and pep in your step over the next six months. No doom and gloom here – just evidence-informed training that respects your real life. You’ll learn exactly how to structure your workouts for results: which compound lifts to prioritize, how to sprinkle in isolation work the smart way, and why adding power...
info_outlineMost women in mid-life have a common rebuttal that keeps them from taking the next step when it comes to their fitness and health journey. The pressure that women put on themselves or the expectation that they believe is there to be perfect and execute their workouts without any interruption could be limiting their ability to reach their goals.
Key Takeaways
If You Want to Show Up For Yourself, You Should:
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Stop focusing on the perfection monster mindset
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Focus on ways you can change your behavior through mindset changes
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Be kind and gracious to yourself and your workout routine
Consistency is Key
I want you to ask yourself, what does consistency look like to you? How would it feel to reframe how you think about your workouts and put less pressure on yourself to never miss a day or take a vacation? Fitness and health do not need to be another stressor in your life. I want you to challenge yourself to shift the way you think about your health and be curious about how you can reframe the way you think about your workouts. When it comes to working out, perfection is not the goal, but showing up for yourself is.
The Science of Behavior Change
If you have been holding back from working with a coach because you are unsure if you can commit 100%, I am here to tell you, that you don't need to. The all-or-nothing mentality that we have when it comes to our fitness is unnecessary, and I am here to tell you that you still get a benefit even if you can't do 10 out of the 10 workouts you want.
Showing up for yourself and your health is the first step, and making it work for you and your lifestyle is the key to success. You don't need to force yourself to do something that won't work for you, and you also don't need to do something that doesn't fit your life schedule. Doing what works for you in your here-and-now body is the best thing you can do, period.
Are you ready to start showing up for yourself? Share your thoughts with me in the comments on the episode page.
In This Episode
- Understanding the stages of change and how to approach a new idea (3:40)
- Why you should start a strength training program even if you might not be perfect at it (7:09)
- What is endowed progress effect, and how can it help you make behavior changes (16:10)
- How to avoid the perfection monster through mindset shifts (22:50)
Quotes
“I know there is going to be at least one person listening to this podcast episode, in whatever space and time you find it, who is mulling over the question, ‘Should I get a lifting program?’.” (3:07)
“Ageing is not just this linear gentle slope down in terms of the change in function, but rather, there are these punctuated times in our lives, if we are lucky enough to make it to these ages, where there are some changes going on.” (8:34)
“I trust that the women I work with, who are mostly in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, are doing their damn best on any given day.” (21:41)
“Consistency is more important than perfection. Especially when perfection is something we cannot hold onto.” (22:47)
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