Forget the bikini body, exercise for your 'old lady body' – with Elizabeth Davies
Age Better with Liz Earle
Liz Earle
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Exercise is vital for maintaining strength, independence and vitality well into our later years, but it's easy to lose your fitness mojo in midlife. Personal trainer Elizabeth Davies joins Liz to talk about the power of movement – and easy ways to get started.
They discuss how fitness has been marketed as a way to lose weight or build a ‘summer body’, and why the focus should be on being strong, not skinny.
Elizabeth also explains the importance of midlife fitness for heart and bone health, tips for navigating pelvic floor weakness and how to save time by cutting your workout in half.
In this episode:
· The importance of training for our later years
· How much cardio we really need
· Protecting heart and bone health
· How to exercise with pelvic floor weakness
· Do we need to lift heavy weights?
· Ways to cut your training session in half
Links mentioned in the episode:
· WHO guidance on physical activity
More from Elizabeth:
· Follow Elizabeth on Instagram
· Order Training For Your Old Lady Body
Get in touch with a question for Liz:
· Email: podcast@lizearlewellbeing.com
· WhatsApp: 07518 471 846
More from Liz:
· Order Liz's new book – How to Age
· Follow Liz Earle Wellbeing on Instagram
Host: Liz Earle
Producer: Anouszka Tate (Fresh Air Production)
Social Media Manager: Naomi van Geelen
Content Writer: Lucy Parley
Head of Brand: Ellie Smith
Some links may be affiliate links, which help support the show at no extra cost to you. Read our Affiliate Policy for more information.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If we could see aging as something aspirational, something we want to do, then we can train for it. |
| 0:07.9 | We can look forward to it. And if I'm lucky enough to get there, being able to do all of these things |
| 0:15.5 | is going to enable me to live independently, to travel, to adventure. Because so many of us spend all of this |
| 0:24.1 | time looking forward to retirement. But if we get there with a body that can't support us, |
| 0:30.3 | can't serve us, that's a massive shame. Well, that is personal trainer, Elizabeth Davies. She's not training for her summer body or her bikini body. No, no. She is training for her old lady body. Welcome to Age Better with me, Lizelle. Now, this is the podcast that is changing the conversation around ageing. And what I'd love to show you is that small but powerful shifts in what you eat, |
| 0:55.9 | how you move, the way you sleep, the way you live, can genuinely transform how you age. |
| 1:02.3 | Our later years are the precious ones, aren't they, when we want to live well and feel bolder |
| 1:07.1 | and more confident than ever before. So today, why feeling comfortable in our own |
| 1:12.8 | skin as we age won't come from looking a certain way. It'll come from being strong, |
| 1:19.0 | energetic and mobile. So Elizabeth Davies is a personal trainer with special qualifications |
| 1:25.6 | in pre and postnatal fitness, pelvic floor |
| 1:29.1 | dysfunction and habit coaching. She's working towards a menopause coaching certificate too. |
| 1:35.5 | She's worked with hundreds of women of different ages from their 20s to their 70s. So she's |
| 1:41.1 | well aware of all the obstacles women might face in starting a fitness journey, |
| 1:45.9 | navigating those pelvic floor issues, fearing injury, finding the time and amongst your caring |
| 1:52.1 | responsibilities. But in her new book, Training for Your Old Lady Body, she makes it clear that as we age, |
| 1:59.3 | our bodies will thank us in so many ways for keeping it strong. |
| 2:06.9 | Now, Elizabeth, welcome. I was really interested. You used to be a barrister and you didn't actually come to strength training until you were in your 30s. |
| 2:15.2 | So what happened then that led you to finding exercise and then, |
| 2:19.3 | I mean, ultimately making it your whole career? Yeah, it's slightly unconventional, isn't it, |
| 2:24.1 | when I now reflect back and think about it? But at the time, it seemed like a really normal |
| 2:28.9 | thing to do to kind of give up a law career and become a fitness coach. I will cut a very |
... |
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