'I'm 63 and a Size 0—Here's What a Typical Day of Exercise Looks Like for Me'

Emily Laurence
·6-min read

Jodi Harrison Bauer has made a career of empowering women to live their best, most fabulous life post-menopause. She regularly shares advice on everything from healing an unhealthy relationship with food to hormone balancing on her podcast, Fearlessly Authentic and has written an ebook, Eat To Look Younger.

Bauer herself is a living inspiration. She’s 63 and as healthy as she’s ever been. While she’s a size 0, Bauer emphasizes that she eats—a lot. She also works out almost every day, which is key for maintaining her healthy physique. What does this look like? Keep reading to find out.

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Bauer says that strength training is central to her workout routine and she’s been doing it for 43 years. “Strength training is crucial for maintaining muscle mass and bone density as we age,” she says. “I just had a bone scan and I’m 75% muscle. I don’t have to work as hard building muscle in my 60s because I spent my 30s and 40s doing it,” she says.

Bauer says that she focuses on different parts of the body on different days. “On Mondays, I do legs. On Tuesdays, I focus on arms. On Wednesdays, I do glutes, Thursdays are chest and back and Fridays are legs again,” she says. In addition to strength training five days a week, Bauer says she does 15 to 20 minutes of cardio after her weekday workouts, which is typically walking on the treadmill.

Want to work out like Bauer? Below are her favorite strength training exercises. You can do them all as a circuit, or you can focus on certain body parts on different days as Bauer does. Either way, you will transform your body.

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1. Get down on your hands and toes, with your feet slightly apart. Alternatively, you can rest your forearms on the floor instead of your hands.

2. Hold for as long as you can before gently letting the entire body come down to the floor.

1. Grab two dumbbells and hold one in each hand, with your palms facing up.

2. Bend your elbows to curl the weights up, keeping your elbows close to the sides of your body.

3. Lower back down to the starting position. Do two rounds of 15 reps.

1. Stand up straight, holding a dumbbell in each hand. Raise your arms to "goal post position," with your elbows bent at 90 degrees.

2. Push your arms straight up.

3. Using control, come back to the starting position. Aim for 8 to 12 reps. As it becomes easier, increase the number of reps or the weight.

1. Stand up with your feet staggered, with one foot slightly in front of the other. Bend slightly forward.

2. Hold a dumbbell in one hand and bend your elbow 90 degrees. Your hand holding the weight should be facing toward the floor.

3. Straighten your arm to bring the dumbbell behind you. Do 8 to 12 reps. Then, switch arms.

1. Lie down on the floor. Your arms should be out straight, on either side of you. Place your feet on the floor, hip-width distance apart, and bend your knees to 90 degrees.

2. Squeeze your glutes and abs to lift your hips up off the floor. Be sure to keep your back straight.

3. Hold for a couple of seconds and then come back down to the starting position. Do two rounds of 15 reps. You can make this move harder by placing a dumbbell on your hips.

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.

2. Sink your hips back as if you are going to sit back into a chair. Your knees should be in line with your toes.

3. Use your glutes to pull the body back up to the starting position. Do two rounds of 15 reps.

1. Get into “plank position,” with your hands and toes on the floor. If traditional push-ups are too difficult for you right now, you can bring your knees to the floor.

2. Slowly bend your elbows to lower your body to the floor, going as low as you can without touching the floor.

3. Push back up to the starting position. Aim for 15 reps.

1. Stand up straight with your feet slightly apart and hold a dumbbell in each hand. Let your arms hang straight on either side of you.

2. Lift the dumbbells up until they are in line with your shoulders. Do two rounds of 15 reps.

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Besides working out five days a week, Bauer says diet is key and says she prioritizes protein, making it the focus of all meals and snacks. “To figure out how much protein you need to eat a day, aim to get the number of grams of what your ideal body weight is. For example, if your ideal body weight is 135 pounds, aim for 135 grams of protein each day,” she says. (Parade readers can get 50% off Bauer's meal plan by using the code PARADE at checkout.)

Bauer says she eats lean proteins in particular, such as chicken breast, lean beef, salmon, eggs, tofu, cottage cheese, lentils and chickpeas. She says she also eats lots of vegetables and fruit.

Personally, she prefers to have five smaller meals a day instead of three big meals. “I eat every three to four hours to keep my blood glucose levels steady because this helps with metabolism and hormone balance,” she says.

Bauer also says she doesn’t eat healthy all the time. “It’s not about perfection. It’s about doing what works for you,” she says. For her, this means eating nutrient-rich foods 80% of the time and less healthy foods 20% of the time. “You don’t have to do anything extreme to [lose weight], like exercise all the time or eat a restrictive diet,” she emphasizes.

Of course, eating healthy most of the time and exercising five days a week takes discipline. How does Bauer stay motivated? “It’s so automatic [to me] that I just do it,” she says, speaking to the power of routine and habits. “Exercise for me is something I do to stay healthy and can be around for a long, long time because I don’t want to miss anything in life. I want to live it to its fullest,” she says.

Now with her workout routine, you can follow in her footsteps!

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