Alison Cork defies her 61 years with the gleaming skin, toned shoulders and shapely biceps of someone two decades younger. Indeed, she admits that she is in far better shape than she was in her twenties: leaner, stronger and able to deadlift more than her body weight.
Yet it wasn’t always this way. Cork clearly remembers the life-changing moment in 2021 when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and decided to change her life. “I just got out of bed one day, glanced at my reflection and this horrible realisation swept over me,” she says. “I saw this out-of-shape middle-aged woman and thought, ‘Is this it? Am I destined to live a life where I quietly put on weight every year going forward?’.” It is a realisation that confronts many in their fifties and yet Cork insists she was the least likely person to take radical action.
“At the time I was 57 and had reached that age having never regularly exercised and having barely been inside a gym,” Cork says. “I had worked as a restaurant critic and I lived to eat, enjoyed my food and enjoyed my drink too — and probably ate and drank rather too much.” Over the years, she had tried — and failed at — many diets, from Rosemary Conley’s Hip and Thigh diet in the 1980s to low-fat approaches, always ending up shedding a few pounds then feeling hungry.
• Read more expert advice on healthy living, fitness and wellbeing
Cork aged 57 (left) and 61 — before and after her health transformation
SNH FOTO
Like many people, Cork found that excess pounds crept on during the successive lockdowns of the pandemic until the scales revealed that, at 13st 7lb and with a BMI of 29.7, she was just shy of being classed as obese. A lot of her weight had settled dangerously around her middle, typically a consequence of the hormonal shifts that come with the menopause, and her waistline measured 39in (99.6cm), a circumference the NHS considers high risk for developing obesity-related health problems such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. “I genuinely felt terrified that I had left it too late to reverse my physical decline,” Cork says. “But my mother was in her eighties — she’s 92 now — so I knew I had longevity on my side and felt I had to try something.”
It marked the turning point for what was to become a dramatic transformation, the results of which are documented in a self-published book, Fit and Fabulous over 50. Cork announced to her somewhat bemused sons, now aged 21 and 24, and her husband of 25 years that she intended to start working out with a personal trainer. Her goal? To look good in gym kit by the time she turned 60. All three family members were sceptical that, as a life-long foodie — she reviewed restaurants for LBC Radio and had presented cooking items on ITV’s Home in the Country in the Nineties — she would see it through.
“My husband did say he liked the way I looked anyway, but if I was unhappy he said I probably needed to address nutrition as well as exercise,” she says. “He knew enough to realise food was a big part of my problem, although that hadn’t occurred to me.” After researching which local gym best fitted her requirements, she was first in the queue to sign up for membership when pandemic restrictions were lifted. “On the day lockdown finished I was at the door at 6am hammering on it,” Cork says. “I do remember having a panic before starting at the gym and doing some crazy ‘shake’ diet to desperately shed a few pounds before I started — a bit like cleaning the house before the cleaner arrives because you are so ashamed.”
• The man who is going to live to 180 (or die trying)
On day one of her new programme, the gym trainers dealt her a reality blow. “I had kept a food diary and when they read it, they said that I was eating 80 to 90 per cent carbs most days,” Cork says. “They told me that no amount of exercise would shift the pounds unless I also changed my diet.” Cue a drastic change in her daily eating patterns. “I realised I had to drastically rethink everything I knew and loved about food,” she says. Out went the unhealthy snacks — “I did love a Snickers bar” — and the alcohol which, although within healthy weekly limits, was simply adding empty calories and sugar.
She was told to enter every item of food and drink she consumed each 24 hours on an app and to focus her meals around a protein source — chicken, fish or dairy — with some healthy carbs and fats, along with plenty of leafy greens and vegetables every day. Her target was to eat no more than 1,500 calories a day. “Having to record every morsel I consumed was an eye-opener and made me realise I was eating much more than I thought,” Cork says. “It’s the little extras that you think don’t count that make a big difference to your daily calorie intake.”
“I don’t just look better, I have more energy, more confidence and new-found optimism”
SNH FOTO
In conjunction with her new diet plan, Cork was prescribed a workout programme that dramatically increased her activity levels. She tripled her step count to 15,000-20,000 steps a day and started seeing a trainer three times a week for intense weight training at the gym. Initially, she found it tough. “They really pushed me hard, with the weights getting progressively heavier and, in the early stages, I also had to weigh myself every day, which was a mental challenge,” she says. “Yet within months I noticed changes to my shape and my energy levels and just the way I was feeling about my body.” It wasn’t always plain sailing and there were many blips along the way. But a defining moment came when she invested in a form-fitting Lycra gym kit after months of concealing her frame in baggy clothing. “I had felt totally out of place in the gym when I started,” she says. “But I started to feel that change.”
Within 18 months, her weight had dropped by five stone to 8st 7lb and her waistline had shrunk to a petite 26in. So stark was the change in her appearance that Cork was barely recognisable to people she had known for decades. Changes in her lean muscle mass meant her posture improved and a new wardrobe was required to complete the makeover. “Friends and colleagues I’d known for many years would walk straight past me in the street or told me I was ageing backwards,” Cork says. “Everything about my body and shape had changed.”
• We changed one thing — and lost weight in 2024
Astounded by her progress, Cork’s husband and sons began to follow her example. “I proved them all wrong and they were taken aback when I started to morph into someone who looked very different,” she says. “But all three subsequently adopted the same programme and saw improvements too.”
Cork appreciates how easy it is to let things slide in midlife. “Women have so much going on in their fifties — there’s the menopause, the emotional wrench of children leaving home and trying to get back to work yourself after years of bringing them up,” she says. “On one level it’s no wonder we put on weight and get stressed.”
But three years on from the decision to change her body for the better, she has not looked back. Cork turns 62 in July and says she sees her sixties as a new beginning. “The biggest lesson I have learnt is that life is not over when you reach your fifties,” she says. “The fallout from changing my diet and exercise habits is that I not only look better but have more energy, more confidence and have new-found optimism and positivity.” It is, she says, never too late to change for the better.
Alison Cork’s golden rulesDownload an app to help you
It has been hugely important for me to record my food intake from the start. I use an app called MyFitnessPal (although there are others), which is downloaded on my phone. I input all of my food and drinks, and it not only calculates calories but breaks them down into carbs, protein and fat. I also use it to log my daily steps, exercise programme and weight, which I monitor weekly.
Carbs are not off the menu …
Some carbs are essential as they are an important energy source for the body and brain. But eating more carbs than you need means the excess will be stored as fat, so it is important not to overdo it. Choose whole carbs, such as those found in vegetables, fruits and pulses, as opposed to refined carbs.
… but do avoid beige food
Anything beige is probably bad news. Beige foods, including cakes, pastries, biscuits and lighter coloured bread, tend to be highly processed and some contain lots of sugar. Instead, focus on “eating the rainbow” or getting as many fruits and veg of different colours in your diet as possible, which means a wider variety of vitamins and minerals.
Eat more protein than you think you need
Protein is critical and super-important for women in the second stage of life. It helps you to build muscle, strength and stamina, preventing falls, but indirectly helps you to burn fat by curbing your appetite and enhancing metabolism. All women over 50 should be getting a bit more protein than they think they need — I try to eat 0.35g protein per pound of my body weight a day if I want to maintain my weight. So, at my current 8st 5lb, that would be 41g a day.
If I want to lose weight I’d increase that to 1g protein per pound of my body weight, daily. Good food choices are chicken, lean red meat, fish, eggs, Greek yoghurt and legumes. But I also keep different flavours of whey powder on standby to use in baking or with dairy foods. And I love the PBfit brand of peanut butter powder, which has 87 per cent less fat and one third of the calories of traditional peanut butter but with similar amounts of protein. I add it to yoghurt and use it in cooking for a protein boost.
• 14 foods you should eat every week (including chocolate)
The drink has to go
As much as I enjoy a glass of wine, there’s no getting away from the fact that alcohol contains sugar and calories. If you want to lose weight, you do need to cut it out. I stopped buying alcohol and now don’t keep it in the house. I’m an all-or-nothing type of person so I knew I had to break the habit completely. There are plenty of low-calorie and alcohol-free drinks that are better options. Four years on I do have the occasional glass of red wine or champagne — maybe two glasses a month at the most — but I absolutely love the alcohol-free drinks that are popping up, especially products such as Think Wine, a low-sugar, low-calorie prosecco.
Take photos before you start on your journey
The gym trainers took the horrendous “before” photos of me before I started. I was too scared to show them to anyone else. But now it really helps to look back and think “that’s what I saw in the mirror at 57”. To think I could change that drastically in 18 months still amazes and motivates me — because I never want to get back to looking like that. It also helps me to prove to others that it is never too late to change.
Ramp up your daily steps
Walking more has made a huge difference to my fitness levels. I clock up between 15,000 and 20,000 steps a day, walking to the gym and back three days a week — 8,000 steps there and back — and getting up early to walk for 90 minutes on other days, whatever the weather. It’s become such a part of my life that I sold my car and now try to walk anywhere I can.
Lift heavy weights
For women, changing your body shape is all about lifting progressively heavier weights. To start with I did some body weight exercises just to perfect my technique under the guidance of a trainer, but from there, training with 1kg dumbbells in each hand is not going to have a massive impact. Start with what you can manage to do the set number of repetitions and build up the weight gradually. If you are training at home I’d suggest getting a dumbbell starter kit with 3kg, 4kg and 6kg weights, a yoga mat and some resistance bands with handles. I follow women in their seventies and eighties who are lifting weights, so anyone of any age can do it.
Vary the exercises
My trainer, Harry Purvis, recommended I alternate between two upper and lower body workouts during the week. In each workout I did three sets of each exercise, with 12 reps in each set. These include a lot of compound moves that target multiple large muscles of the body at the same time. My routine tends to include split squats, deadlifts, goblet squats, single arm row, shoulder press, lateral raises, wall sits and hip thrusts.
Aim to be good 80 per cent of the time
Once you make life-changing habits that work, it is much easier to stick with them. I aim for consistency of good habits most of the time to maintain my shape. I still track everything on an app on a daily basis, still do my daily steps, still follow the same diet plan and have a weekly weigh-in to make sure I’m staying on track. I plan and shop for food a week in advance so that I always know what I am going to eat every day and don’t get tempted to stray too often.
But do cut yourself some slack. There have been moments where I have slipped up, but my advice is not to give up when that happens. Being good 80 per cent of the time will see you through in the long term, so don’t beat yourself up about an occasional glass of wine or Snickers bar.