Barbie Turns 50: 5 Ways To Have a Barbie Body When You’re 50 Too

March 11, 2009 - PRLog -- Barbie turned 50 on Monday, and she’s still turning heads.  Many women think that turning 50 is the end of their life as “hot.”  Washington, DC personal trainer Josef Brandenburg says, “While you can’t actually be Barbie – 7 feet tall with a 25inch waist – any woman can have a great body into her 50’s.”  

Josef’s mother had gotten quite fat by the age of 56 – she is a very small woman, who was wearing 12’s and 14’s and not very pleased.  She started working with her son as her trainer and was down to 6’s and 8’s by the time she was 57.  Now, at 58 she just bought her first piece of size 4 clothing from Anne Taylor.  Here are Josef’s top 5 tips for being fabulous after 50:

#1.  Step away from the treadmill:  Josef claims that aerobic exercise is essentially a complete waste of time.  “In study after study we have seen that 3, 4, 5 or even 6 hours of aerobics per week makes almost no difference whatsoever in how a woman looks.  Everyone in the gym does hours of ‘cardio’ because that’s what they see everyone else doing.  It’s the blind leading the blind,” says Brandenburg.

#2.  Go heavy:  “If a woman even goes into the weight room, she usually picks up the lightest weights she can.  This is especially true of women over 40 or 50.  Your muscles will stop at almost nothing to avoid change.  You have to give them a good reason to look better, and that reason is almost always heavier weight – with good form of course,” says Brandenburg.

#3.  Skip the yoga:  Josef asserts that while yoga can be a relaxing experience it will give almost no one a “yoga butt” or any sort of toned body-part.  He says that if you are short on time, then trade your yoga time for hard and heavy lifting time – this will get your body fat melting and your muscles toning.

#4.  Just say “yes” to steak:  “I’ve never had a female client come to me who was actually eating enough protein to have a great, toned body.  Usually they come in eating yogurt and granola and are wondering why they have so much fat around their middle,” says Brandenburg.

#5.  Throw away the scale:  While going from 12’s and 14’s all the way down to 6’s and the occasional 4, Josef’s mother only dropped about 12 pounds on the scale.  Josef had her focus on body composition – trading muscle for fat to rev up metabolism, and to help keep the fat off forever

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Josef Brandenburg is an award winning Washington DC based personal trainer and author of the body you want. He specializes in helping normal, busy people create the bodies they want in the time that they actually have. www.thebodyyouwant.com