If I Wanted to Lose 20 Pounds by 2027, Here's My Exact Plan (Over 40)

In my 20s, I was about 40 pounds heavier than I am now. Cardio every single day. Every diet that existed. Today I'm in my 50s, and my before-and-after didn't happen 12 weeks apart. It's held for 20 years, through a pregnancy at 38, through my 40s, through all of it.

So if I had 20 pounds to lose by 2027, starting today as a woman over 40? I know exactly what I'd do. Three moves.

But first, let me guess what you're doing right now.

You're Doing Everything "Right" (And It's Not Working)

You're eating less. You're moving more. You cut the carbs. You added the cardio. You're being so good.

And the scale is doing absolutely nothing. Or worse, it's creeping up, and it's all landing right on your belly.

You're thinking, "What the hell? This used to work."

And you're right. It did. At 30, you could tighten things up for two weeks and drop five pounds.

You're not lazy. You're not broken. And your metabolism did not just quit on you at 40. You're doing exactly what you were told. The problem is that what you were told was built for a body you don't have anymore.

Here's what nobody explained: after 40, fat loss has an order. It's not just what you do. It's what you do first.

Almost every woman I've ever coached starts in the wrong place. Not because she's doing the wrong things, but because she's doing the right things in the wrong order. I did it too, my entire 20s.

So here are the three moves. Number three, you're almost certainly already doing. Number two, you're probably doing wrong (sorry, I love you). And number one is the one almost nobody tells women over 40.

Move #3: A Short, Smart Deficit

Yes, you need to eat a little less than you burn. I'm not going to tell you calories don't exist.

But I hate "eat less, move more." Your body is not a calculator. You can't punch in smaller numbers forever and expect it to keep paying out.

Here's what most women do: cut hard to 1,200 calories and stay there for months. Sometimes years. It works for a while. Then it stops. So they cut more and add more cardio, and now they're exhausted, starving, snapping at their family... and the belly is still there.

Why? To your body, a long, hard diet is stress. It doesn't know you have a reunion coming up. It thinks food is running out. So it does the smart thing: it holds on.

Here's how I'd do it instead:

• Short. 3–4 weeks. Six weeks is my absolute ceiling.
• Modest. I'm trimming, not starving.
• Protein stays high the whole time.
• Ditch the hour of daily cardio. Instead, a couple of short sprint-style finishers a week: jump rope, elliptical, bodyweight moves. A few minutes hard. Done.

Then (and this is the part nobody does) I get out. I go back to eating at maintenance and let my body recover.

I call those two phases Burn and Balance. Burn for a few weeks, Balance for a few weeks, repeat until you hit your goal. That's how you lose fat without your body fighting you every step.

"But Alicia, I've done short diets and they didn't work either." I believe you. That's because of Move #1. Hang on.

Move #2: Lift Heavy Things (And Eat Enough to Build Muscle)

I said you're probably doing this one wrong. Let me show you what wrong looks like, because I was the queen of it.

In my 20s, I did cardio every day and ate like a bird. What did I get for it? Tired. Hungry. And still soft.

When you undereat and over-cardio, you don't just lose fat. You lose muscle. And muscle is where your metabolism lives. It's the most expensive tissue in your body; it burns energy while you're chilling on the couch. After 40, we're already losing muscle every year if we do nothing about it.

A diet that eats your muscle makes the next diet even harder. That's the trap.

Here's what I do instead:

• Lift heavy 3x a week. "Heavy" means the last two reps are hard. Not the pink 3-pound weights. You carry groceries heavier than that.
• At least 30g of protein every meal, starting with breakfast.

My breakfast: a couple of whole eggs plus a bunch of egg whites in a veggie omelet, maybe some leftover meat from last night, a little cheese, avocado, and berries on the side. Not a granola bar in the car. Not coffee until noon.

That one change, 30g of protein before 10 a.m., is the thing members tell me changed their whole day. The 3 p.m. crash. Standing in the pantry at 9 p.m. A lot of that is a breakfast problem.

Move #1: Calm Your Blood Sugar and Stress First

You've got a smart deficit. You're lifting. You're eating your protein. And for a lot of women over 40, it still won't move.

Here's why. Before I cut a single calorie, I'd spend four weeks getting my blood sugar and stress under control. That's it. That's the thing nobody tells you. I call it the Setup.

Why it matters so much after 40:

When you're stressed (work, kids, parents, not sleeping), your body pumps out cortisol. Cortisol's job is to get you ready to run from a tiger, so it dumps sugar into your blood for quick energy.

Great design back in the day. But now there's no tiger. You're sitting in traffic.

So that sugar floats around and your body sends in insulin to clean it up. Insulin is a storage hormone. When it's high, your body is in store mode, not burn mode. And its favorite place to store? Your belly.

Now add what happens after 40: as estrogen drops, your body gets less sensitive to insulin and more reactive to stress. The same life you had at 35 now hits your body harder.

So you're stressed, your blood sugar is on a roller coaster, your body is stuck in store mode... and then you go on a diet. Which is more stress.

That's flooring the gas with the parking brake on. You're burning a ton of energy and going nowhere.

Move #1 is releasing the brake.

The Big Four (What the Setup Looks Like on a Regular Tuesday)

1. Fiber + Protein First. Veggies and protein go on the plate first, and if you can, eat them first. Carbs go last. You're not cutting carbs; you're changing the order, and that alone flattens the blood sugar spike.
2. Walk every day, especially after you eat. Even 5–10 minutes.
3. Lift heavy 3x a week. You already heard that one.
4. One stress tool a day. Just one. Five minutes of breathing. A real bedtime. Laughing your butt off. Whatever brings you down a notch.

No counting. No tracking. No cutting. For four weeks.

What happens? Cravings get quiet. The 3 p.m. crash disappears. You sleep better. Your jeans start fitting differently. And a lot of women start losing fat right here, before the deficit even starts.

I learned this in my late 20s from a trainer to pro athletes and a celebrity nutritionist. They taught me the science, and that's when everything changed. I stopped fighting my body and started working with it. I've been in shape ever since.

Did You Notice What I Did?

I gave you those moves backwards: 3, 2, 1. Deficit, then lifting, then calming things down.

Because that's the exact order most women do them in. Diet first. Maybe add weights later. Deal with stress? Never.

The real order is 1, 2, 3: Regulate first. Fuel and build. Then burn.

Same three moves. Different order. Completely different result.

Your 12-Week Plan to 2027

We've got about 12 weeks until 2027. Here's the calendar:

• Weeks 1–4: The Setup. The Big Four every day. No deficit.
• Weeks 5–8: Your first Burn. A short, smart deficit with protein high and lifting locked in.
• Weeks 9–12: Balance. Right when the holidays hit, you're at maintenance. Eat the Christmas cookies. Enjoy your people. That's the plan, not a slip.

Real talk, because I'll never lie to you: will you lose exactly 20 pounds by New Year's? Some of you will. Some of you will lose 10 or 12, drop a size, and feel better than you have in years. I can't promise a number, because your body isn't a calculator.

But here's what I can promise: do this in order, and you won't be starting over on January 1st. You'll already be 12 weeks in while everyone else is just getting started.

Two Things Before You Go

1. Grab the free 90-Day Fat Loss Blueprint. It's this whole plan, step by step, in two pages. Send me the Blueprint →

2. Want me to coach you through it? The workouts, the meals, the whole Setup day by day. That's exactly what's inside the Stress Monkee App, and your first 7 days are free. Try it free for 7 days →

Now tell me: which number have you been skipping? 1, 2, or 3? Drop it in the comments on the video. I read every single one. 🐒

— Coach Alicia