Can Poor Sleep Stop Fat Loss After 40?

Nikkiey: When your sleep is off, your hormones are off. Poor sleep doesn't just make you hungrier, it actively creates a hormonal environment that works against you getting to your goals, against fat loss. You can be eating at a caloric deficit and you can still be struggling to lose fat if cortisol is chronically elevated from poor sleep. That's how significant this is.

What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show, where on these episodes we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 346.

Today we're going to dive into all things sleep. Because if you feel like you're doing everything right, you're eating well, you're working out, you're trying to stay consistent, but you feel like you're fighting an uphill battle against your body every single day, and you're not getting to where you want to be, and it's been months on end and you've been putting in this work, look, it might not be your food, it might not be your workouts. It's probably your sleep.

And I know it's not an exciting topic to talk about. It's not as fun as chatting about macros or training programs or a nutritional overhaul and how to get from A to Z, blah, blah, blah. But guys, sleep is honestly, in my opinion, the missing piece that you're looking for, okay? It's what a lot of people need, and we should be talking about it more.

First, I just want to completely shift the way that you think about sleep. Most of us think of sleep as the absence of doing something. What I mean by that is you close your eyes, your body shuts down, you wake up and you go about your day, and then you do it all over on repeat at the end of the day. This is not what's actually happening. When you sleep, your body is working incredibly hard. It is repairing muscle tissue from your workouts, it's regulating your hormones, it's processing the food that you eat, it's managing your stress and it's consolidating memory. Your body is doing some incredible things while you sleep.

Sleep is like the behind-the-scenes maintenance that keeps everything functioning on a daily basis. So it's so much more than the absence of doing something. It is so much more than you just close your eyes, your body shuts down, you go to sleep and you wake up and you do it all over again.

Why it matters for those of you on this journey of fat loss: sleep is one of the most powerful hormonal regulators your body has. Meaning the hormones controlling your hunger, your cravings, your energy, your fat storage, your muscle building, all of them are directly influenced by how much and how well you sleep. When your sleep is off, your hormones are off. And when your hormones are off, fat loss becomes an uphill battle no matter how clean you're eating or how hard you're training.

You want me to say that again? When your sleep is off, your hormones are off. When your hormones are off, fat loss becomes an uphill battle. It doesn't matter how healthy you're eating, how clean you're eating, how much effort you're putting into trying to be better and being consistent, or how hard you're working out and how long you're spending in the gym. It's not a willpower problem. It is a biological problem. And once you understand that, everything starts to make more sense.

So I'm going to directly speak to what is happening hormonally, so you can understand this from more of a hormonal standpoint, backed by the science, because I hope this is where it actually really starts to click.

Okay, so you've probably heard of these hormones in the fitness space: ghrelin and leptin. These are the two hormones I want you to know. The first one is ghrelin, your hunger hormone. It tells your brain, we need food. When you are sleep deprived, your ghrelin shoots up. You wake up hungrier, you feel hungrier all day, and your body is sending stronger and stronger feed-me signals throughout the day. Just think back to the last time you got poor sleep. If you get poor sleep on a regular basis, maybe not every day, think about those days where you wake up and you are starving, because ghrelin is shooting up.

The second is leptin. This is your satiety hormone. It tells your brain, we're full, we can stop. When you're sleep deprived, leptin goes down. Your fullness signal gets quieter. So you can eat a full meal and you still won't feel satisfied. You won't feel full. So you have more hunger signals firing throughout the day, which is your ghrelin, and you have fewer fullness signals firing, which is your leptin, at the same time. And that is a brutal combination to try and manage.

Here's what it looks like in real life. Let's take an example. You had a rough night of sleep. You wake up exhausted and you're suddenly ravenous all day long. You're reaching for snacks that you normally wouldn't touch. You're like, I want sugar. I want carbs. I want salt. You're craving those things. You eat more than you planned that day and you feel so frustrated with yourself. And let me tell you, that is not a lack of willpower or discipline or consistency. This is science. It's biological. That is your ghrelin and your leptin doing exactly what sleep deprivation tells them to do.

So that is literally just science happening. Your ghrelin is going to go up. You're going to be hungry all day, ravenous. And the hormone that keeps you fuller longer, keeps you satisfied, goes down. They're doing what they're supposed to do when you get a poor night of sleep.

And then to add another layer, there's a third hormone in this conversation that doesn't get talked about enough. It's starting to get more light out there, but it's also starting to get negative connotations. Cortisol can be positive, it can be good for your body in the right fashion, but it's also getting a bad rep. It is your primary stress hormone. Your body releases cortisol when it perceives any kind of threat, whether that be emotional stress, physical stress from a hard workout, which is the good cortisol, or the psychological stress of not getting enough sleep. And when you're sleep deprived, cortisol rises even more.

What elevated cortisol does is counterproductive for fat loss. First, it signals to your body to hold onto more fat, especially around your midsection. So those of you in your 40s, your 50s, and your 60s who are thinking about menopause and perimenopause and all those symptoms that you go through: yes, it could be that, but it could also be how well you're sleeping and how much sleep you're getting. Because your body interprets high cortisol as a threat, and fat storage is a survival mechanism.

The second thing is it starts to break down muscle tissue for energy. So you're storing more fat and potentially losing muscle that you've been working so hard to build. So having high cortisol, in the sleep category, is counterproductive to the goals that you want.

And third, it makes you more insulin resistant, meaning your body doesn't process carbohydrates efficiently, and more of what you eat gets stored as fat instead of being used as fuel. So poor sleep doesn't just make you hungrier. It actively creates a hormonal environment that works against you getting to your goals, against fat loss. You can be eating at a caloric deficit and you can still be struggling to lose fat if cortisol is chronically elevated from poor sleep. That's how significant this is.

Hey, while you're listening, if you're getting value from this episode, take a moment to tap that review button or share this podcast with a friend. It's a small gesture that goes a long way in helping more women find their way to feeling stronger and more confident in their skin. I appreciate you so much for taking the time to support this show.

And then muscle. When you train, you create tiny tears in your muscle fibers, right? And that's literally how muscle grows. I always say that you don't build muscle inside the gym, you break it down. That's what you're doing when you train: you're breaking down the muscle fibers. Your body repairs those tears during recovery. So you don't build muscle in the gym. You build it post-workout, by repairing the muscles so they come back stronger.

The majority of that repair happens while you sleep, specifically during your deep sleep, when your body releases HGH, your human growth hormone, the hormone that's most responsible for muscle repair and growth. So if you're training hard and you're working out and you're consistent, which really isn't that hard for people to do, right? Working out is pretty easy. But if you're sleeping poorly, you're doing half of the work. You're breaking down the muscle in the gym, but not giving your body the conditions it needs to rebuild it.

That is why you can have two women follow the exact same program and get very different results. Same goes for the example that I shared in the previous episode about macronutrients and calories. Sleep is a hidden variable most people completely overlook. Y'all could be in the VIP program with WarriorBabe, and one babe could be getting four to five hours of sleep, and her fat loss is going to take longer to get to the results she wants. Whereas somebody who's getting seven to eight hours of sleep will get her results faster.

Okay. Now, getting into real life for a second, because this part is going to resonate with you guys. Sleep deprivation doesn't just affect your hunger levels. It changes the types of foods that you crave and the decisions that you make around food. Research has shown that sleep deprivation activates the reward centers in your brain, the same areas that light up with pleasure-seeking behavior. And it specifically increases cravings for high-calorie, high-sugar, high-fat foods.

So it's not a coincidence that after a bad night's sleep, you're not craving healthy food, you're not craving a salad, you're not craving your protein. You're craving something comforting, something sweet, something that gives you a quick hit of energy. Your brain is literally driving you towards those foods.

And on top of that, sleep deprivation impairs the prefrontal cortex of your brain, the part of your brain responsible for decision making and impulse control. So the cravings become stronger and stronger, and your ability to resist them becomes weaker and weaker. You are fighting your own biology at this point when you try to eat perfectly on no sleep. And I want you to stop blaming yourself for that, because if you are not getting enough sleep, this could be why you aren't getting the results. And it's not you. It's just that this mechanism of sleep needs more attention.

That's why sustainable fat loss has to include good sleep hygiene as part of the strategy. It's not a nice-to-have, like, ah, I'm typically going to get six hours of sleep, or I'm sleeping eight hours. No, it should be a non-negotiable for you guys.

I remember back in the day when I was coaching women who were sleeping four hours a night, and I was like, something needs to change. Not just because you're probably going to drive yourself into burnout in a few months because of all the other responsibilities you have, but we need to create some boundaries somewhere within the responsibilities that you have. And it's doable, guys. I don't want to hear, I can't find more hours in the day. You can, if it's important to you.

So how many hours are we really talking about? The research is consistent. Most adults need seven to nine hours of sleep per night to support optimal hormonal function, recovery, and metabolism. And like I said, I've heard people say, I function fine on five to six hours of sleep. Science is telling us that most people who believe they've adapted to short sleep have actually just adapted to feeling okay on short sleep. Their performance, their hormonal health and their body composition are still being impacted. That's just their new normal. They've gotten themselves to adapt to feeling okay on short sleep.

Guys, it's like driving on a slightly deflated tire. Yeah, your car is still going to move, but it's not performing the way that it should. It's wearing unevenly, and eventually it's going to give out, and you're going to be on the side of the road with a flat tire.

And I want to acknowledge something. I know some of you are moms. Some of you work night shifts. Some of you have life circumstances that make seven to nine hours feel impossible right now, and I get that that's real. But if sleep is chronically limited in your life, it is showing up in your fat loss results as well. And it's worth treating as seriously as your nutrition and your training. It's worth looking at ways you can prioritize getting more hours of sleep, and I'm going to get into some practical steps you can implement.

Okay, so let's actually talk about that. What can you actually do? Because information without action doesn't help anyone.

You need to prioritize sleep consistently. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, and that includes weekends, is one of the most powerful things that you can do for sleep quality. Your body has this internal clock. I'm sure you guys know it. Some of you are like, yeah, I wake up and go to bed at the same time. I hear people say, I have a hard time sleeping in on the weekends because I just have this internal clock. Consistency trains it to fall asleep faster and reach deeper, more restorative sleep when you are in that consistency cycle.

You should also build a wind-down routine. Your nervous system needs to transition from go, go, go mode to rest mode. And I'm saying this partly because I need to coach myself into this, because, guys, I'm not perfect, right? In over a decade of being on my journey, you ebb and flow with these things. And you're reminded how important these things are when you're feeling the weight of not getting enough sleep. So I'm reminding myself, because I can be in go, go, go mode and then wonder why I can't fall asleep. It's because you can't go straight from go, go, go mode to rest mode.

Even 20 to 30 minutes of low stimulation before bed, like no bright screens, no stress, don't doom scroll, maybe some light reading or some stretching, signals to your body that it's time to shift and start to wind down. It doesn't have to be this elaborate thing. It just needs to become consistent.

And this is something I've started to notice over the years of getting older: watch your evening nutrition and your caffeine intake. Large meals way too close to bedtime will disrupt your sleep quality. Alcohol, even though it helps you fall asleep, fragments your sleep cycles and reduces your time in deep, restorative sleep. You fall asleep faster, but then you wake up and your heart rate's racing and you're hot.

And caffeine has a half-life of about five to six hours, so that 3 p.m. coffee is still very much in your system at 9 p.m. And I know there are some crazy people out there who can have caffeine and go right to bed. Yeah, you probably can do that, but what does the quality of your sleep look like? Are you actually staying asleep? Some of you can do that. And some of you maybe need to look at that and be like, yo, I need to stop that 3 p.m. caffeine.

And then something I love and I do is optimizing your sleep environment. A cool room. I love the room to be at 67, 68. Oh, that feels so good. I have blackout curtains, because even small amounts of light can disrupt melatonin production. So blackout curtains and keeping your phone out of the bedroom can generally move the needle faster on your sleep quality. My phone is in the living room. I don't bring it in my room. I don't have a TV in my room. So these are things to think about to see how you can optimize your sleep environment.

And you don't have to implement all of these at once. I would just say pick one, start there, start small, and these small, consistent shifts will create real results over time.

Okay, so just to bring it all together: fat loss is not just about calories in, calories out. It's about how you eat and how you train for your body, and it's about how you sleep. It's about your sleep quality. It's about keeping your ghrelin in check, how your leptin functions, how your cortisol is regulated, how your growth hormone does its job, and how your brain makes better food decisions naturally when those things are in alignment. When you don't sleep well, every single one of those things works against you, and no amount of willpower or perfect eating will ever be able to fully compensate for that.

Sleep sits right at the center of it all. It's full body, it's hormonal, it's a lifestyle process. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to say back in the day, sleep faster. Sleep's not lazy. Sleep's not optional. Sleep is a fat loss strategy. So start treating it like one. Get enough hours to get quality sleep. All right?

If this resonates with you today and you're thinking, I need more information, I need a real plan, I need someone in my corner, I need someone to pay attention to my sleep, I need to pull all of these resources, from sleep to training to nutrition to hormones, into one place, that's exactly what WarriorBabe VIP is for. Personalized one-on-one coaching, the whole jam, real accountability. It's not just about your macros, it's about a whole strategy built around your entire life. The link is in the show notes, or you can go to warriorbabe.com/VIP. Check it out, and if it feels like the right next step, then apply. Get yourself inside.

All right, share this episode with a friend who needs it, and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Peace out.

Real quick, if this episode resonated with you or gave you the push that you needed, I'd love for you to pay it forward. Drop a quick rating and review, share the podcast with someone who might need it, and help me keep spreading the word. Your feedback not only helps the show grow, but it might just be the nudge someone else needs to kickstart their transformation. Thank you so, so much for your support.