Best Fitness Mindset Advice for Women Over 40

Nikkiey: Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.

What's up, you guys? What's going on, you guys? I'm your host, Nikkiey Stott, co-founder and brand personality of WarriorBabe, where we talk about mindset, methodology, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

Welcome, my friends, to episode number one, all about welcoming you guys to The WarriorBabe Show. We'll dive into who this podcast is for, who it's not for, and what it's all about. I want to share my fitness background with you guys, the backstory of it all, the birth of WarriorBabe, and then I'll explain this podcast's release schedule and its structure.

So let's talk about who this podcast is not for. This is not for anybody who is a quick fix seeker. You want to hop into something that's going to get you results in 30 days, and expect that those results are going to be life-changing results. This is not for you. This podcast is not going to give you quick fixes. This podcast is also not for people who are instant gratification goers. I'm going to pop my body into a microwave, press 30 seconds, and out comes a toned body. Wanting results like yesterday. This is not for you. I am not going to speak to instant gratification tactics. This podcast is for those who understand, or want to understand, that building muscle and changing your body composition is a long-term game.

Weight loss and fat loss. These two concepts are misunderstood. So first of all, let's talk about weight loss. Weight loss refers to the decrease in overall body weight, which can be caused by a variety of factors, such as a reduction in muscle mass, water weight, or fat. So anybody can lose weight. Anybody can jump on to the newest crazed fad diet that's out there that's speaking to weight loss. And you're going to lose weight because those put you into calorie deficits. But this is the thing. You're going to lose a variety of different things, like I just spoke to. You're going to lose muscle mass. You're going to lose water weight. You're going to lose fat. Your organ sizes are going to get smaller. This is how I like to explain it: if you're just focusing on weight loss, you're going to become a skinnier, fatter version of yourself.

This is all part of the progress. It's that controversy that your mom may not understand what you're doing, right? Your husband may not understand what you're doing. All of these people have all of these things that they have to say to you. The people you work with may not understand what you're doing because you can't eat the french fries at lunch. Not that you can't, you just choose not to. This is part of the sacrifice, which is a part of the progression. But most importantly, sacrifice versus investment. This is an investment in yourselves. I don't want you to think about it in terms of a sacrifice. Start thinking about it in terms of an investment into you, into what you want, and into the goals that you want to accomplish. It is all of that. It's not a sacrifice, because how you speak to yourself is how you act.

You've probably got a flock of opinions from your loved ones, your friends, your distant cousins coming into play right now that may be drowning you and may honestly be the reason why you aren't progressing forward. Please don't take anything personally. Seriously, whatever happens around you, don't take it personally. Some of you may experience somebody, say a friend, a family member, a husband, a partner, saying, hey, you won't or you can't accomplish that goal. Guys, it has nothing to do with you when they're saying that, but everything to do with them. And if you take it personally, then it's safe to say you believe that you can't accomplish the goal. And if that's the case, then you're super easily influenced by somebody else's opinion.

Okay, if somebody says, hey, you won't or you can't accomplish that, and you believe that, then you're easily influenced by that person's opinion. Yet that person's opinion has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with the thought processes going on inside their head. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with themselves. All people live in their own minds. They are in a completely different world from the one that you live in.

A lot of people often use terms like diet and lifestyle change interchangeably. And while they may seem similar, there are some important differences between the two. So I just want to distinguish those differences. A diet is a temporary approach. You guys know that. It's a temporary approach to food that's usually focused on achieving a couple of things. Like the physical aesthetics: I want to lose 10 pounds in two months, so I go on this low carb keto diet to lose all of this weight in X amount of time. Or someone has a specific health goal, or they're fixing a particular health issue. For instance, some people may adopt a low carb diet because their doctor tells them to go on it, or a gluten free diet to manage their celiac disease, right? So the doctor says go on this diet because it's going to get to the root problem, which will help alleviate the symptoms, which will then fix the problem.

A lifestyle change is a long-term commitment to living a healthy, balanced lifestyle. That's what a lifestyle change is. This involves a holistic approach to health that encompasses a variety of areas, not just your diet, not just what you're following, and not just, I'm going to hop on this bandwagon. It encompasses diet, exercise, stress management, proper sleep and sleep hygiene, staying hydrated, all of the things that are just so important. So it's not just about what you eat, but also how you live your life on a day-to-day basis.

So many of us are so afraid to fail. And then when you do fail, you're less likely to pick up and get right back to it. Failure runs the trajectory of your entire nutrition focus. If you're stuck in this hamster wheel, it is because failure is getting the best of you. I just want you guys to seek failure. I want you guys to be friends with failure. I want you to know that you are going to fail and it's okay. It doesn't mean that you need to quit and stop and give up on what you're trying to go after. Okay, it's just a part of your journey.

Big transformations demand a willingness to make mistakes, you guys. If you want a big transformation with your body, if you want to build muscle, if you want to change your body composition, you have to have a willingness to make mistakes with yourself. And you have to be okay with that. If you screw up on macros the first few weeks, if you miss a workout because your day was poorly planned, that's okay.

Hey, I just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you're enjoying it, and there's so much more to come. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons. It would also help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too.

And why you have an unhealthy metabolism is because you're no longer getting hunger cues. It is so important for your body to still get hunger cues. That is a sign of a healthy metabolism. And this is also where I want to bash people over the head with a book who say, I don't want to feel hungry when I'm going into a cut or when I'm decreasing my calories. Dude, feeling hungry is a sign of a healthy, strong metabolism. So when you don't get those hunger cues, it means something is off. These are things that are so important to get fixed. And you can naturally fix it by eating the right amount of food. And usually it's a little bit more food than what you've been eating to date as an under-eater.

I want to turn you into a meal prep freaking master. It is not that hard or bad to do. It's not that challenging. First and foremost, in anything and everything that I do, there's always a plan and strategy before I go and do it, right? My days: I write down what I need to accomplish for the day, then I prioritize the top things, and then I go and take action on those top things. The same thing goes for meal prepping, you guys. It's like, okay, what is the priority in my meal prep game? The things that take the longest are going to go in first. And then everything else can literally just be done while those things are cooking, right?

So, for example, pick a day of the week that you're going to do this. Pick a Sunday when you have the time. Okay, guys? I hate hearing the excuse, I don't have enough time to do this. You have the time. It's 4% of your day to spend an hour meal prepping. 8% of your day if it takes you two hours. But we're going to get that time down today. So you have the time. And plus, these are actionable items for you to start behaving like, and moving toward, the person that you want to become.

You guys think that eating less is the answer. The main thing that I always hear is a problem for women is that they are not eating enough food. And it's slowly becoming more apparent that that's not the take on things anymore, that food is fuel, that food builds strong bodies, that you need food to build muscle, et cetera. And I stand behind that message so freaking much. So a mistake that I see is women being stuck in that old mentality of eat less, needing to eat less to lose weight, and stuck in this cardio machine mentality, all of that stuff that you grew up with. You're stuck in that mentality. That's one of the biggest mistakes I see women make when they're trying to build more muscle.

So counting macros isn't what got me the results. Following a bodybuilding diet is what got me those quick stage results. But learning macros is what gave me results for the long term. Okay, why I still have the results that I do now, eight years later, is because I learned macronutrients and tracking macronutrients. But this is the funny part. These are things I wish I knew when I was making that transition away from just following a meal plan and bodybuilding stuff to learning and tracking macronutrients, with all of the different food options I now had at my fingertips. And it was a rough go, guys. It was rough. For the first couple of months, I threw in the towel at least a handful of times, for the same reason a lot of you do too. It's hard at first. It's not something that I would expect you to know in a week's time and be able to, boom, bang, done, track all of your food in one day without any frustration or any mistakes.

Protein, protein, protein. Protein is the macronutrient god. And you know what? So many people struggle to hit protein. So many women struggle to hit protein. Me too, at the beginning of my journey. I had to Google which foods had protein in them to learn what foods I needed to eat to get more protein in. Now, the importance, you guys: it plays a critical, crucial role in muscle development and fat loss. It is the essential component of a fitness regime, an absolutely necessary ingredient for women over 45 years old. I can't stress to you guys enough how important protein is. One of the biggest reasons why protein is so important for women as they age is because as they get older, their bodies undergo hormonal changes and experience a natural decline in muscle mass and in their metabolic rate.

There's a type of mentality that women have around macronutrients where you think it is restrictive. Let me ask you, how is it restrictive? Why do you think it's restrictive? Because to answer those questions from my point of view, you can really have any and all of the foods that you want to. So there's something a little bit deeper that makes you feel like it's restrictive. Maybe it's because you think that if you're going on a new eating regime, you have to eliminate things that you once had or once enjoyed because you're trying to eat better. That ain't macros, my friends.

Hear me out. You are seriously hindering your results if you are a no days off type of person, or if you're just starting your fitness journey and you're trying to ride momentum and motivation and you're diving into an X-day such-and-such program and there are no days off in there. You are setting yourself up for failure by kicking off your journey with a no days off mentality, especially if you want longevity and sustainability. And look, I'm going to debunk this popular myth in the fitness space: no days off. I understand that it may inspire dedication. It may inspire grit. It may inspire willpower. It may inspire all of these things. But no days off misses a crucial piece of the fitness puzzle, and that is the undeniable importance of rest days.

This is the thing, and it's not sexy to say, but building muscle takes time. So many of you want results like yesterday. So many of you want results within the next three weeks, and you think that cardio is going to get you there. While it may, it won't be the actual long-term, sustainable focus for you. Strength training is something you can keep doing for the rest of your life, because it is so damn good for you. That's what's going to actually create the physical changes within your body, by building more muscle. And when you build more muscle, because of the active tissue that it is, you're going to burn more calories, and then you're speeding up your metabolism. There are so many benefits when it comes to building more muscle.

So stop focusing on all of this cardio and boot camps and Orange Theory. You can go out and run. I don't want to bash cardio entirely, but make sure you're pairing it with solid strength training days, and that you're fueling your body appropriately, that you're eating right, that you're giving your body what it needs in order to get the optimal results that you want to see. And then most importantly, you want to optimize your sleep and recovery properly, because sleep is huge.

The most important thing to remember on this holiday is to be present, to be mindful, to experience and fully engage in the holidays, in this day. Being in the company of your loved ones, being in the holiday spirit, appreciating the food, immersing yourself in insane gratitude for these experiences that you are a part of, right? The conversations, the memories, the family members that maybe you haven't seen all year and you get to catch up with on this day. The friends who maybe are traveling in from all around the country to see you and your family and the kids, all of these things, right? This is your time to be fully engaged in this experience and to be extremely present for this day.

So I don't expect any of you to worry about your nutritional choices on Thanksgiving or Christmas or Hanukkah. I don't expect you to bring your scale to these outings and weigh your food. I fully believe in memories over macros for these days.

Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.