I got tired of Lydia walking like an over-muscled person so opened CK, changed her not to use opposite gender animation and saved to new esp. Also changed her hair style and color.

Load mod before my bashed patch. She still walks like a guy. Checked in Tes5edit and she does not have the opposite gender anims in the esp so I did that right.

Only thing it could be is the save game remembers what she had before and will not let me change it. But there are mods that do.

Anyone have any ideas as to why this is not working for me?

Maybe because you have already met Lydia and so her data has been baked into your save? Try your mod with a new game or from a save before receiving her just to be sure

- Hypno

Is your Lydia mod at the end of the load order?

Perhaps you have another mod that also touches Lydia and sets things back. If you didn't look at your entire load order in TES5Edit, you wouldn't see it.

Your save game shouldn't have any effect on it working or not. I went through ( 4 hrs ) and changed all the females. And ran a midgame save file.

Did her hair color change? Check your esp and make sure the box is still unchecked.