Can Women Over 40 Build Muscle and Get Lean? Real Stories

Nikkiey: What are some of the big wins that you're really proud of?

Bryn: Well, I've lost over 25 pounds, gained a lot of muscle. People are like, you're petite. And I'm like, did you know that? Well, no.

Nikkiey: So did you think it was possible to gain muscle and have these types of results at your age?

Bryn: No, I would never have guessed that I could do this.

Nikkiey: What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show. Today we're going to get right into it and straight to the proof.

You're going to hear from real women who have had incredible results in their own bodies, in their 40s, in their 50s, in their 60s. They're building muscle. They're changing their body composition in ways that they did not think were even possible anymore. So if you're in the middle of your journey right now, or you're at the start of your journey and you're wondering if it is actually going to work for you, then this episode is your answer. So let's get into it. Bryn, welcome.

Bryn: Hello. Thanks for having me.

Nikkiey: So let's go back to where you were before you found WarriorBabe. Can you take us back to that? What were you struggling with the most prior to finding us?

Bryn: I've always been pretty active, trying to find different stuff. I never really enjoyed the gym or lifting. So I walked. I did half marathons. But I never really felt fit.

I was doing those things and had fairly good endurance or whatever. I'd hit the treadmill. But I just never really felt fit and didn't look fit. And then I'd do diets and I had no idea what food to eat. So I just went up and down. I'd do a diet for a while, and then I'd get off it and I'd slowly go back up. It takes time. But I just ended up in this cycle, up and down, up and down.

I was really just looking for something that could help me, especially since I hit menopause fairly early. And I just had no idea what I was even supposed to be eating. It seemed like everything out there was very general, geared to younger people, and not to where I was at in my life.

Nikkiey: So you mentioned that you weren't much of a gym person, which is interesting. What was your relationship with it? Was it that you were just doing running and a lot of cardio and things like that? What did that look like before?

Bryn: I grew up doing gymnastics and I loved being active. But to me, the gym was just boring. I didn't really know what to do. I didn't see the benefits of it. It's intimidating going to the gym and not really knowing. I tried for a while, pre-COVID, where I'd go in and had kind of a trainer helping me.

So I did start learning how to do some exercises, how to do them right and that kind of thing. But I just never really found much joy or interest. It was always a chore. And it's easy to put off chores.

Nikkiey: Yeah, absolutely. If you're not motivated to do something and it feels boring, you're definitely not going to take a liking to it and actually do it. What are some of the big wins that you're really proud of?

Bryn: Well, I lost over 25 pounds and gained a lot of muscle, which people are really noticing recently.

I don't know why all of a sudden people are really noticing, which is kind of fun. But I just feel good. I feel confident. I haven't worn a size six since I was in high school. People are like, you're petite. And I'm like, did you know that? Well, no, I didn't. I felt kind of fluffy. So it feels really good. And for a while, I lost probably about 15.

And then I just sort of got stuck for a while. That was kind of like, OK, I've sort of plateaued. And I honestly don't know what changed in there. But Hannah just kept saying, trust the process. Just keep trusting the process. And then all of a sudden, boom, it went down. I lost another 10 and started getting all these muscles.

Nikkiey: That's what I want to highlight right there, what you just said. Because there will be the 15 pounds or the 10 pounds or the five pounds that you see that you lose. In your case, you lost the 15. Then you didn't change anything. You kept doing the same thing, essentially. Maybe there were some tweaks here and there. And you just had to allow time for your body. In the personal training world, we call it a whoosh. You experienced a whoosh where you broke through by not changing anything.

You just needed time for your body to create its own changes. What I'm trying to say is, if people experience that and they don't have a coach in their corner, they will go and try to change five things. And then you have five variables and you don't know which one actually caused a change, and you didn't need to. Sometimes you just need to let time pass and your body will be able to create the change for you. So I love that. And I love that you mentioned you're a size six now.

So you went from a size 8-10 to a size six by eating more, right? You were eating more food. Can we talk about that? You're eating over 2000 calories. You said 240 grams of carbs on a low day. Was that something you expected, to lose weight by eating more? Talk about that.

Bryn: Not at all. Not at all. It's funny, because my fiance works out too.

And he's like, you're up to what carbs now? I enjoy eating. I always knew that was part of the problem, but I just didn't know what to eat. And I think it's been nice gaining the muscle and being able to continue. I think I'm still heading up a little bit, where I feel like we haven't quite hit maintenance, but my maintenance was maybe 1700 calories the last time.

We've been trying to do a little bulk, but my body just keeps eating up these carbs and the bulk isn't happening yet. So it's like, well, we're not really doing a bulk, or kind of, I guess.

Nikkiey: You're pushing your maintenance threshold right there. You're pushing the level of what your body can consume. And that's because of the muscle that you're building too. You're increasing your resting metabolic rate by adding more muscle to your frame. So that's how you can eat more food. Isn't that cool?

Bryn: It is. It's awesome.

Nikkiey: And I also wanted to say, your transformation was shared on one of the all hands meetings that we do for the company. It's truly incredible how much your body has changed and how drastically it's changed, which is really cool. You got some muscles, girl.

Bryn: Yeah. It's kind of a little embarrassing sometimes now, because it just feels weird. I'm 58 this week, and they're like, are you getting ready for a show? And I'm like, no, I'm just doing my thing.

Nikkiey: So did you think it was possible to gain muscle and have these types of results at your age?

Bryn: No, I would never have guessed that I could do this. So it's exciting.

One of my goals was always to stay fit and be able to do stuff with my kids. My four kids are all adults now and I still want to be able to go and do physical things. And now I'm going to be a grandma. So I'm excited about being able to stay healthy and do stuff with the grandkids, and not be that grandma they're pushing around in a wheelchair.

Nikkiey: Yeah, girl. That's amazing. And congrats on being a grandma too. I love that you're thinking proactively and long-term about your health. I think about the caretaker burden when you get older, people having to push you around. You don't have to do that. You want to take care of yourself now so your family doesn't have to feel that. And you get to keep up with them. You get to do activities. You get to run around with them. You get to pick up the grandkids. That's how every woman should be approaching her later years, thinking from that lens. So I hope that women feel encouraged by listening to you say that.

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Hey everyone, what's going on? So today I've got another WarriorBabe here with us. Welcome.

Yael: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Nikkiey: What led you to realize that something needed to change? What led you to realize, OK, I've got to get a grip on this?

Yael: Well, I've always been a seeker my whole life. Starting when I was about 15 or 16, I started exercising, but I was constantly being thwarted by my body. And I'll tell you why. When I was around 10 years old, and it's weird how kids change, right?

All of a sudden, by the end of the school year, they had decided, and they totally didn't even remember doing it, they just started inviting me to play kickball with them. And I was like, really? And of course I wanted to belong so badly. But I wasn't athletic as a kid. I was born with my feet kind of splaying out and I didn't know it. So the kids brought me in, it's summertime, and I'm like, OK.

And I kick the ball and I run, but I don't realize that I'm kicking my heels. And there was a hole at the end and my foot twisted and I broke the side of my foot. I had a cast for a little bit when I was around 10. Fast forward to when I'm 16. I have since taught myself to walk with my feet straight, but back then, when I was 16, I still didn't know it. I'm like, why do I kick my ankles all the time? So I said, I'm going to start jogging. And guess what happened?

My foot twisted and went in a hole.

Nikkiey: Oh no.

Yael: And that started my lower back stuff, because my SI joint got whacked out. I started seeing chiropractors and blah, blah, blah. Then when I got to college, I had sciatica, and thank God there was this one-credit exercise class. They're like, if you strengthen your stomach, and I'm like, oh, is that how this works? So I started doing lots of sit-ups and my sciatica went away, and I started lifting weights and I'm like, oh, I like this.

Even though I was still in the Groundhog Day of the overeating and the undereating. I didn't even know anything about that when I was 19 or 20 years old, and I was massively binging at that point. But over the years, I kept being physical. I kept going up and down, up and down, in and out. Tennis, martial arts, hiking, biking, loving being in my body. And then all of a sudden something would happen.

My knee would go out and I'd have to take six months off because I couldn't walk. I found out only later it's because I'm hypermobile and I didn't know it. So yoga is the worst thing for me, because they're like, look how bendy you are. And then I'd hurt myself without knowing it, because I wasn't stretching the right things. So fast forward. It wasn't until my forties. I had a boyfriend who went into a 12 step program for smoking.

He said, would you come with me to a meeting? I said, sure. So I was listening to these people in the meeting. I'd never been to a 12 step, never heard of it. And I thought, oh my God, if you just took out tobacco and put in sugar or food or eating, that's me. So I actually went into Overeaters Anonymous and learned that it's not about overeating. It's about all these other things. I would go in and say, hi, I'm an over and under eater and a compulsive thinker. That's what I said.

And that program was really the start for me. I saw this chart of the pancreas, of what happens when you eat too much sugar. And I said, oh, everybody in my family has diabetes. I'm on the road to hell right now. I've got to do something. Even then it hadn't stopped, but that was a big part of my journey. And it's just gotten ever better from there.

Until I got to WarriorBabe, when I realized I was kind of fooling myself still, not in the same ways, but I was fooling myself that I was actually eating enough.

Nikkiey: Oh, interesting. So you were fooling yourself that you were eating enough when you were in that program, thinking that you were getting enough. But then when you got to WarriorBabe, you saw you weren't eating enough. What are some of the goals that you've accomplished so far with WarriorBabe?

Yael: Like everyone else, I wanted to look good, right? And one of the things I can say is that I haven't worn shorts that exposed my legs for 25 years, and all summer I've only worn shorts, and that's felt really comfortable for me. And there's the strength. It's fun to be stronger. I was at an event where we were picnicking and I was carrying the cooler with ice and stuff up the stairs.

And then this other heavy bag with plates and stuff in it. I was carrying it up the stairs and it was heavy, and I was nearing the top of the stairs, and this man said, oh, would you like some help? And I said, no, thank you. I lift weights. And he said, I can tell. And I was like, that's fun. So just having the strength. As we age, this is the way to age gracefully, to have more muscle.

If I'm walking and there's a wire and I trip, I land in a squat. I've been working out most of my life, but the difference now is that my hand is healed, and having to be adaptable. So it's been slow, slow and steady. And there have been plenty of times when I've been like, well, I don't look like that woman or I don't look like that woman, and I'm not getting the definition that I want here, or this and that. But it's been good for me, a little bit against my will. It's been the best thing for me to go slow and steady.

When I first signed on for WarriorBabe, I was like, one year. I'm never going to do more than one year.

Nikkiey: What year are we on now?

Yael: I have three more months left of my second year and I'm definitely signing on for my third year. If you had asked me that even last year, I was like, oh my God, no. Look, I can go away and travel now. I know what four ounces of rice looks like, and that's cool.

I still weigh my food periodically. I still weigh my food at home just because I like to know. But the other thing is, I'm in the gym and I'm like, oh wow, I can see definition in my arm. And it's just fun. Don't get attached to it, right? Like it, but don't get attached to it in a way that's dysfunctional. But it just feels good at 60.

Nikkiey: Wow, you're 60.

Yael: Yeah, I am. Thank you, I appreciate that. Zoom does wonders for the wrinkles. We can just talk on Zoom. And I jumped on my bike yesterday, and normally on this one uphill I'd be struggling. I stood up and pedaled up the entire hill. I'm like, well, dang, I guess my lower body stuff is doing pretty good.

Nikkiey: Wow.

Yael: So for me, it's always been, how do I be fit for life? How do I make sure that if I do fall, my bones are stronger because I have more muscle? And most of the time, you're limber, you're in your body. I'm a dancer as well. I just want to be able to be active until the very end. And I'm in that last stage, and the last stage could be 30 more years, so it's not that last. But I just want to keep doing that. From the time I was 25 years old and first started strength training, I was like, bingo, this is the key to growing old gracefully.

And now that my hand is healed, I told Kaza my secret goal. I said, I've never been able to do a pull-up. I want to do one, but I'd love to do 10. She's like, OK, then we're doing it. So we're actively working towards that as a goal, and I really love having that as a goal.

Nikkiey: I love that. I can't wait. Can you do one yet? Are we at one yet or no? OK. That's a great goal to work towards.

Yael: On the assisted machine I'm now at 45, and I could go to 40, but they don't have it. So we're just going to keep working on it. But I started cracking up, because I did it on 30 and I hung there and I tried to move and I started laughing.

Nikkiey: Oh, I love that you find humor in it too. That's great. And I love that slow and steady is good for you, like you said. I love that you said it's against your own will, but sometimes that's how it's meant to be, right?

Yael: Totally.

Nikkiey: Today I have another WarriorBabe here with us, WarriorBabe Angie. Let's talk about where you were before you found WarriorBabe, a little more fleshed out.

Angie: I'm 47 years old. I had previously worked out in my twenties to my thirties, a cardio queen, as they would call it. So not really a muscle builder. And then before finding WarriorBabe, I was 10 years out of a routine workout practice.

I became a nurse and then a nurse practitioner, and I'm a single mom. And I was in a marriage that I never should have been in right before starting the program, and I was extremely depressed. I wasn't moving, wasn't eating well. I wasn't overweight necessarily by BMI, but my body composition was not where I wanted it to be. I was just in a funk.

Nikkiey: Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with the body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, WarriorBabe is here for you. We've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle and understand their bodies better, with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results, and results that last.

Don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com/apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com/apply. All right, let's get back to the show.

You were averaging how many steps a day?

Angie: Oh, 1300, maybe.

Nikkiey: And how many grams of protein were you eating in a day?

Angie: 80, maybe.

Nikkiey: And it's crazy too, because of your background, right? Specifically, you're an NP.

Angie: Yes.

Nikkiey: Go ahead and elaborate.

Angie: I do medical weight loss, medically supervised weight loss, and it's a protein-predominant program. Cardiology is my background, and hormone replacement therapy. So I know all about it, and yet I was not helping myself at all. I couldn't. It just wasn't working for me.

Nikkiey: OK, let's talk about the training. So you started eating more food coming in. You were noticing things happening within the first week to two weeks, depression lifting, moving more. What does your strength training or workout protocol look like? Obviously you were doing a lot of running, you said. So what changed in that realm once you came into WarriorBabe?

Angie: I don't do cardio. My cardio is walking. That's it. And it's beautiful. I tell everyone.

Nikkiey: And your knees love you.

Angie: I hate cardio. I've never loved it anyway, but I was like, you're supposed to do cardio. So any women I meet, especially over 40, I'm like, just walk, please. I don't need you to be doing sprints and hardcore 180 beats per minute heart rate cardio. That's not what's good for us at this point. I walk only about a mile and a half. Annie actually told me not to worry about my steps, because I was so focused on getting 10,000 steps.

Sometimes I'll just drop in the living room and do some squats and pushups, because that's the time I have in that moment. I don't lift heavy, heavy. I had a shoulder nerve injury that I had an open repair on. Before this program, I could hardly even lift it above right here. And after this, I'm able to literally cut down my trees and throw logs and stuff that I just never expected I would be doing at this age.

I'll switch: upper body push, pull, lower body push, pull, core. I do a lot. And never really heavy. I've just never been a heavy lifter.

Nikkiey: What would you say about working with Coach Annie? How is having someone there to guide you and hold you accountable? What does that look like for you along the way?

Angie: She has been unbelievable. This program and her completely saved my life, I think, truly. I've told her that on multiple occasions. My mind was not in a good spot, and starting this program, with her help and all of her babes on our chat site, it's amazing how much women can come together and support each other through every stress you could even imagine. Everyone's going through something at some point. Starting this program helped me get out of the marriage that I should never have been in, and has helped me become a better mom. Annie has done nothing but cheer me on, and she's always there if I need something. She's been fabulous as a friend and a coach.

Nikkiey: That's amazing. I love to hear that. So since joining, we're kind of touching on each aspect, but what would you say are some of your biggest achievements since joining WarriorBabe?

Angie: I'm most proud of making myself a priority. It's always been hard for me, period, but especially in the last five years or so it's been difficult. But it's also important, and I've realized that as well.

Nikkiey: I'm actually going to pause you there. Tactically, how did you do that? A lot of women hear, OK, I made myself a priority. But what did that look like on a day-to-day basis for you? You're a single mom, you left the marriage, you had to show up for a lot of your work. How did you prioritize yourself in a day?

Angie: Making sure I knew what I was going to eat each meal. Prepping the meals. Making sure I put everything in MyFitnessPal, so I knew what I was getting in a day and knew what I had left to eat. Making time to walk outside, even when it was negative 10. I hate winter, cannot stand it. And I put on every piece of clothing and made myself walk at least a mile outside in my neighborhood, and came back, and it was great. And I'll do it again. Making sure that I had time to get in strength training. That makes me feel so good, strong in both mind and body. And with all of that, the depression is not as bad.

And you're able to show up for the people you care about, show up for yourself, show up for my daughter. She sees it now and she jumps in with workouts now. It just made me a happier person, to eat for my body and my mind and also move and keep track of all that. I like tracking stuff like that, so it was very easy for me to do.

Nikkiey: That's awesome. That's so cool. I would definitely say that's a solid top achievement.

Angie: Thank you. I think so.

Nikkiey: If you had to name two others, what would they be?

Angie: Healing the shoulder, and being able to lift again. I never thought I'd be able to lift anything again with this shoulder. I had complete atrophy of my entire scapula.

Nikkiey: Wow.

Angie: All my muscle went away. When that injury occurred, it really set me back and was depressing. And I've been able to build it back up, and now I'm able to do things that I didn't think I was going to do. This program helped me do that.

And I have more energy that I couldn't get before. That has made a huge difference in every aspect of my life. I used to come home from work and be like, I've got to lay down, I'm tired, or whatever, instead of being with my daughter. I also volunteer as a nurse at an overnight camp every summer. And this past summer, everyone at camp was like, oh my God, what have you been doing? And again, I only lost nine pounds.

It wasn't anything huge, but they could just tell I'd been working on myself, and I was noticeably happier.

Nikkiey: That's the cool thing. It's not going to be the pounds lost. It's going to be the photos shown. So for every woman listening to this, I think Angie's story is proof that sometimes knowing what to do isn't always enough. You truly have to believe that you're worth showing up for. What started as a decision to prioritize your health became a decision to choose yourself every single day.

What I love about your story too, Angie, is that you are laying the foundation for lasting health for those around you, which is a part of our mission statement. For your daughter, for the people that are in your life. And I would say to anybody that just heard Angie's story and finds themselves in the same boat she was in before: take that action step. Check out WarriorBabe, get inside the program, get a coach.

Doing it alone is one thing. You heard Angie was very independent, but there was a point where she needed that help. And we all, if we can humbly say it, need help along the journey. So that's your reminder that you can find your way back to you. Angie, I appreciate you sharing that story. I appreciate you opening up.

Angie: Thank you.

Nikkiey: I think it's really cool. Appreciate you. A year and a half, girl. You've got so much more time to keep changing that body, which is really cool.

Angie: Yes. Thank you.

Nikkiey: Hey, really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your rating and review make all the difference in helping more women discover the tools they need to transform their fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.