Ana Iacovetta Replaces Ineffective Cardio with Science-Based Strength Training and Restoration

If there was anything that would have made me hesitate about getting started with Flipping 50 would have been just not knowing Debra herself or the program and whether this was another YouTube gimmick to get money out of unsuspecting middle aged women like me. Before working with Flipping 50, I had fallen out of exercise for quite a few years and I was working a pretty stressful job. We then went into COVID, and so I found myself with a bit more time on my hands, less of a commute and feeling that it was really time to get back into focusing on my health and particularly my fitness. And at the time, I was actually most focused on how do I get back into a cardio program? So, to be honest, it was a little bit of a departure for me to suddenly find myself intrigued by strength training. What made me say yes to working with Debra, I watched a lot of YouTube videos of Debra for many months before I took the plunge. The command she seemed to have of, not just exercise itself, but a holistic approach to thinking about stress and sleep and everything else that I was going through at that time. Before I found Flipping 50, I'd had a few years of not doing much. About a year and a half before COVID I jumped right back into spin class. I have to say it was about a year and a half of doing this once, sometimes twice a week, depending on how exhausted I was. While I was having fun in the classes, what I didn't realize was that I wasn't really making progress. I wasn't losing weight. To the contrary, I think I was actually gaining weight. So many things surprised me about Flipping 50. First, it was the fact that we did spend so much time focusing on my sleep, my micronutrient levels and other things that I thought, what does this have to do with strength training? So over time, just really learning about my body and what works, what doesn't, and getting in tune has been fantastic. And then the other thing I learned that surprised me, is that I could push myself a lot harder than I think. What I'm doing now that I wasn't doing before Flipping 50, I'm consistently working on my strength training, and I'm really in tune with when I have to just stop and "restore before more," as Debra says. Being a lawyer, one of the things we have to do is we have to work really hard, and we have to work consistently. Just have to put in the effort. That's one of those things that I've been able to port over and learn from Debra, which is, there is a level of, well, you do have to take your moments to restore, you also have to know how to stay consistent, how to make the time for the things that are important and how to prepare. There is a process by which you step by step get there. For anyone on the fence about working with Debra, I would tell you she is very approachable. When you first start to watch the Flipping 50 videos and listen to her masterclasses, you can think you're dealing with a celebrity. And so how do you approach her? She's extremely approachable. In the one-on-one sessions in particular where she could go deeper with you on your issues, I found her very attuned to listening to what you're saying and picking up on things that you didn't even realize. Thanks, Debra, for everything you've done. It's been quite a journey for me. It's almost a little over three years now and I have learned so much more about the science behind fitness and health than I could ever have imagined. And you have opened my world to so many different professionals and so much new scientific information about women who are going through this life stage that it has been tremendously educational for me and enjoyable. Ana Iacovetta, San Francisco, California