Can You Eat More and Still Lose Weight After 40?

Nikkiey: What were some early wins out of the gate after you signed up? What did you experience?

Lisa: My weight started dropping immediately. As soon as I started fueling properly, because I never really tracked food, that scale started going down and I was like, okay, this is going to work. Right away I was thinking, this is going to be more than a year for me.

Nikkiey: Did you sign up for year two?

Lisa: Yes. And I'm going to do a third for sure. I didn't really have any structure, and I was like, well, obviously I'm going to need some help here. So I might as well just bite the bullet and get the instruction I need, because obviously whatever you were doing is working.

Nikkiey: What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another WarriorBabe story. I have Lisa with us today. Lisa is someone who has always been interested in fitness and doing what she thought were the right things for her health. But despite all the research and the workouts and the effort she was putting in, she felt like something was missing, and she struggled with her body image. She questioned whether she was doing enough to get to where she wanted to be.

She also wanted to get ahead of the hormonal changes she knew were coming. Then she found WarriorBabe, and everything clicked. So today we're going to go through her story. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa: Thank you so much.

Nikkiey: Take us back to the version of you before WarriorBabe. What were you struggling with the most?

Lisa: Oh my goodness. About a month and a half before I joined, my life went off the reservation, because I got fired from my job unexpectedly.

It was all over an honest mistake, and it threw me for a loop. I knew I was gaining weight. While I was working in a high-stress job, I was throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick to try to get ahead of it. And then I probably spent three weeks on my couch just wallowing in depression. I feel like my whole body was inflamed. I didn't feel good. And then I started seeing you online.

I started to get really inspired. And the last straw moment was that my thighs were literally rubbing together, and I could not abide that. I was like, I have to do something. It was nerve-wracking, but I thought, I'm just going to apply. What do I have to lose? And the transformation still blows my mind. I can't believe it.

Nikkiey: We're going to get there. So in the midst of losing your job and being in a high-stress environment, what were you trying to do for your health that just wasn't sticking? You felt like you were doing everything right. What did that mean to you back then?

Lisa: I have a ton of Beachbody programs, and I actually was a coach, but I don't know that I even had enough knowledge to coach another person. I always did Beachbody. And as I was getting older, obviously it stopped working like it did when I was in my 30s. So I started to explore.

I tried V-Shred, and they were talking about carb cycling. So I thought, maybe I just need to carb cycle. But I didn't really know what I was doing. I would try not to eat carbs for two or three days, and then I would try to eat healthy carbs for a day. It would jumpstart my metabolism for the first two weeks. Then I'd bounce into intermittent fasting, because I thought I had to do something extreme. Trying to do the workouts with the high-stress job, it was kind of a hot mess, I'm not going to lie.

Nikkiey: And your nutrition was all over the place. Your workouts were all over the place.

Lisa: Yes. I would just pick and choose whatever. I didn't really have any structure. And I was like, well, obviously I'm going to need some help here. So I might as well just bite the bullet and get the instruction I need, because obviously whatever you were doing is working. I had to tap into that.

Nikkiey: You were trying to do everything on your own. You were doing the work in terms of looking for research and trying to find the best thing for you, but you were the one coaching yourself through it.

Lisa: Yes. And the free stuff only takes you so far. Then you hit a wall where they want money to get past that. I bought some supplements through V-Shred, and then he started talking about macros after the paywall. But he honestly said, I don't really know how to do that. I just outsourced that to a chef. And I didn't know. Now I know that's a little shocking.

Nikkiey: Interesting. You also mentioned that you were struggling with your body image, and that stemmed from your ballet background, right? Can you talk a little about that? Because you're definitely not alone in struggling with your body image.

Lisa: Yeah, and that's where this program shines. I started ballet in elementary school, and I got my toe shoes in sixth grade. It was a very serious ballet company.

The director wanted everyone to weigh 90 pounds or under, and he would literally weigh us every week. When I left, there were girls in junior high getting eating disorders. I had to take 11 classes a week. He didn't really like me, and I would get called out all the time, because I think he thought I wasn't very smart. But it was just because my brain works differently. I'm an analytical thinker. So I had all of that in my mind.

When you get told that over and over, you start to think it's true. It took me until I was about 40 to figure out that it was just what was spoken over me, and it's really not true. I started to get really bad anxiety. I wouldn't have been able to have this conversation. I couldn't talk to anyone without really bad anxiety and horrible body image issues. And now I feel like I'm free of all of that because of WarriorBabe.

Nikkiey: I can't wait to hear what caused those big transformations inside WarriorBabe. How did you first come across WarriorBabe?

Lisa: I started seeing you popping up, I want to say on Facebook. It's been about a year, so hopefully my memory is right. You had a video where you said you were hanging out with older women who were a month out from a fitness competition and learning how to do all that. I got so inspired. I was like, I need to know more about this.

I've always thought you don't have to accept that you're just getting older and there's nothing you can do about it. I reject that with everything in me. So when I saw these women thriving in their 50s and 60s, I was like, whoa, why can't I do that? So here I am. I took the leap. I didn't know if I could get in, but I was sure going to try.

Nikkiey: Did you have any fears about joining the program initially?

Lisa: Well, yes and no. I loved that you were very forthright. Even in my first interview, she said, we're just going to chat, and I'm going to determine if this is right and if we can actually help you or not, and I'm going to be frank with you. It's terrifying, but I also really love that, because you're trying to see whether you can invest in a person to actually help them. I thought that's actually a good thing, because I feel like as a society we've gotten away from merit-based. If I'm not going to make the cut, then let's not waste everyone's time.

But it was a little terrifying, because I didn't know what I was going to do if I didn't make it. But I had to try.

Nikkiey: I love that. You mentioned that you love that we're fighting against some of the fitness industry stuff that's being taught to women. What were some of the truths that really resonated with you?

Lisa: About 10 years ago, I started really sharpening my mind and coming out of things that were untrue, but I hadn't hit the fitness space yet.

When I started listening to your podcast, everything you were saying was absolutely resonating: what the fitness industry is telling you is not working, and I'm going to tell you the hard truth. To me, that was where it's at. Pushing back against that, because if what you're doing isn't working, then you probably need to change it up. And just the truthfulness of laying it down every day: I'm going to tell you the hard truth because I love you guys.

That's very much my personality too. Let's push back against those mainstream things that are not even true, because at the end of the day, I just want the truth.

Nikkiey: I love that, and it seems like you got some of that truth. For everyone listening, we were just talking beforehand, and yesterday was Lisa's one-year mark. She's been in the WarriorBabe VIP coaching program for one year now.

What were some early wins out of the gate after you said yes and signed up? What did you experience?

Lisa: It started coming right away. On the initial interview, I think they said only about 2% of women get immediate results. Well, I think I was in that 2%, because my weight started dropping immediately. As soon as I started fueling properly, because I never really tracked food, that scale started going down.

And I was like, okay, this is going to work. I don't know how I'm in that percentile. Maybe I was just healthy to begin with and just hadn't fueled properly. About a month in, my mindset changed from I can do this to I will. This is something I will do. It changed from I can to I will. And after the first two months, when I really started to get the macro thing, it all started coming together.

Right out the gate, I had so many wins. And my coach was awesome and so supportive. I can't say enough good about Lindsay. Just to have her in my corner. I already started thinking long term right away. I thought, this is going to be more than a year for me.

Nikkiey: Did you sign up for year two?

Lisa: Yes. And I'm going to do a third for sure, and then we'll see from there. I'm going to finish the cut now, and she said in the fall we'll start a build. So I was like, I have to go through all of the cycles with you at least.

Nikkiey: That's amazing. I love that, Lisa.

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You mentioned that you weren't tracking, and then you started to track and the scale was going down. Do you remember roughly where you were starting and what you got to eating, calorie-wise?

Lisa: It's really hard to say where I was, because there were only short periods where I tracked. I had used MyFitnessPal before, but since I didn't really know what I was doing, it was a phase I went through. So I'm not sure.

I think the main thing was that my macros were just out of balance, because I know I wasn't eating enough protein. And I was eating too much processed food, to be honest, and I knew it. It's interesting: I've done a number of different programs, and every single one would start me at 1200 calories, saying based on your goals, you need to be at 1200 calories. I started out in this program at 1600.

Nikkiey: Amazing.

Lisa: And I wasn't afraid. I was all in. I thought, okay, I'm just going to follow whatever my coach tells me and we'll go from there. And then the results just came. So I was like, well, this is it.

Nikkiey: What were your thoughts around protein? You mentioned you weren't eating that much. Were you afraid to eat more protein, or were you open to the idea that protein was maybe the way you were going to get the results you wanted?

Lisa: I really wasn't afraid. I'm not one of those women who worry about bulking up. I actually kind of think that'd be cool. Just from listening to you and seeing your results, I thought, obviously protein is a major factor. But until I actually started doing it for myself, I really had no idea how key it was to the success. So now, every chance I get, I tell people, you need more protein, without being obnoxious about it.

Because now I understand.

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Okay, I love that. So you mentioned that you're in a cut phase?

Lisa: Yep, I'm just coming out. I think I have two more weeks.

Nikkiey: Let's talk about the experiences you've had this year, physically first. What changes have you experienced physically?

Lisa: Oh my gosh. I came in with a goal weight, and I've gotten quite a bit below that. And I'm not even tied to the scale at all. When I hit my maintenance, I thought, I could hang here. I hit my goal weight and thought, I could do this.

But then I thought, well, I paid for the coach. Let's go through the full experience and see if I can get shredded. I was really nervous about being hangry, but my coach said it'll be fine, and she was totally right. She said, just keep the protein high. I got in and thought, okay, this isn't as bad as I thought. I could do this. So I'm in it for everything I can get out of this experience.

Let's just see what I can build now. When I came in, I said I wanted a six-pack and I wanted to do a pull-up. The six-pack I got. The pull-up I'm still working on, but it's coming. That will be a huge win for me.

Nikkiey: Dude, that's amazing. So you went below your goal weight, and physically you got the abs.

Lisa: Yes.

Nikkiey: And did I hear that you were losing weight while working toward your maintenance number?

Lisa: I started dropping at least a pound a week from the get-go, the entire time.

Nikkiey: That is amazing. For everybody who's not watching on video, my jaw has been dropped for the last 30 seconds. These are my favorite testimonies: you ate more food and you lost weight. Can we just talk about that for a second? Does that screw with your mind? All those years you thought you had to carb cycle and eat less, and you weren't sure exactly what to do, you probably never imagined that eating more was going to help you lose the weight.

Lisa: Yeah, I think so. I also did not know how strong I actually am, because before, I didn't really go much above 20 pounds in my workouts. Now that's almost the floor. I'm blowing my mind with what I'm lifting. So I feel like the combination of the right amount of protein with the strength training is probably what fired up the metabolism, and the weight just started shredding off.

I actually didn't know it was possible to build muscle and lose weight at the same time, but come to find out, it is. That was so motivational to me. I take my workouts as a personal challenge: oh, I did that last week, so let's up that. For whatever reason, progressive overload is right in my wheelhouse.

Nikkiey: That's amazing. How many days a week are you working out now?

Lisa: I'm doing five: four strength training days and then a full-body cardio type day. I don't really love cardio, but it hasn't been too bad. My heart is in the lifting part of it. Turns out it was what I was built for, I guess.

Nikkiey: Can I ask how old you are?

Lisa: 47.

Nikkiey: Amazing. For everyone listening: you said you thought that was just what happens as you get older. You didn't cling to that narrative, but you were hearing it.

Lisa: Yeah. And I never accepted that.

Nikkiey: I love that. You came in with the right mentality. Now I'm curious about your experience mentally, because you mentioned that's been a big shift for you as well. Can you talk about that?

Lisa: I don't quite know what the connection is between building muscle and the confidence boost, and just feeling healthier. I think I had so much inflammation that I did not feel good at all.

I was dog tired all the time. I got to where I hated working out, but I knew I had to. I would literally force myself to do Insanity while I was so tired I couldn't think straight, because I thought, this is what I have to do. The confidence, just being able to sit here and talk to you with confidence, is a huge win for me.

Nikkiey: You're crushing it. Literally.

Lisa: I don't have body image issues anymore. I smile every time I look in the mirror now, because in one year's time, this is possible.

I feel like I'm just at the beginning of my journey, and I want to tell everybody, this is where it is at.

Nikkiey: Preach it, girl. Tell everybody. Tell your neighbor, tell your coworkers, tell your aunt, tell your cousin.

Lisa: I don't want to be that obnoxious person. You know how people look at your progress and kind of get down on you? At some point I decided that just cannot be my problem. I have to do this journey for me, and you can get out of your own way and join me.

Or you can sit there and feel bad, but that's kind of on you, and it's not going to stop me from my goals. So you just have to love on those people. But at the same time, I'm going to do this. I try to be inspiring to other people and not obnoxious about it, lecturing people, because that doesn't work. I'm just going to be on this journey out in the open. And if you'd like to know about it, you can come talk to me and let's make some changes and get healthier.

Nikkiey: I love that. Not everybody is going to be receptive to your transformation. The ones who ask you questions and the ones who may have a negative response have nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

Lisa: That's just where I decided to be, because I can't control that.

Nikkiey: How has your confidence affected other areas of your life day to day, like work or family? What does that look like?

Lisa: Oh my gosh, I feel like a different person. Here's one little win. I've always wanted to be the person who, when there's an emergency, doesn't run from it. I want to be someone who jumps in and helps. And that started to happen. Obviously I used discretion, but there was a girl stranded on the side of the road. Before, I feel like I would have driven by. But I thought, it's not a guy, I don't feel like this is unsafe.

I'm going to pull over and see what she needs. I don't know if I would have done that before. This is part of the transformation: I want to be the person who runs into the burning building to help. That's another reason this whole thing is transformational, to have the confidence to not be the person who sits on the sidelines and watches or drives by. I'm not about that.

Nikkiey: That's so powerful, Lisa. It's because you made the decision for yourself to change where you were, and you've done the work. You put in the action, you've done the workouts, you've tracked your food, you've seen the progress, all because you made a decision and a commitment. I think it's so cool how it's trickling into other areas of your life. You're that person now: no, I'm going to show up. All it is, is a decision. It's yes, I'm going to, or no, I'm not going to. And the majority of the time it can be a yes, because then, like you're saying, you can help others or tell other people about it, and it circles back to the impact you're making.

You made an impact for yourself. Now you're making an impact everywhere else because of your confidence. And that's where it starts.

Lisa: Yes. And that's what resonated about you. I feel like you're in it for the right reasons. You literally want to help women. I do personal care right now, and there's something so rewarding about that. If I can do anything to help another person on their health journey, why wouldn't I? Being in the medical field, so much of what you say resonates with me on so many levels.

That's another reason I thought I could find a home here at WarriorBabe.

Nikkiey: Well, you sure have. It's all about helping people. I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad you're making it your home for not just one year but multiple years. How has working with Lindsay, your coach, impacted your experience?

Lisa: I don't even know if I can say how awesome it's been. The first thing: when I came in, I was worried about the cost of food, because my husband and I had done a three-week cleanse, probably in 2015, and it was $1,000 for the groceries. I was nervous because I had just gotten fired and didn't have a ton of money at that time. So I asked, do I need to eat organic? And the first thing she said was no. She said, if you want to, you can. As soon as she said that, I thought, yes, this is going to work. Where I live, people actually move away because the cost of food is so high.

So I was actually nervous. I hoped I wouldn't have to eat all kinds of weird stuff, and she was so down to earth. The other superpower she has is with negative self-talk. She has a brilliant way of turning that around. The minute I start down that track, she says, nope. She's not mean about it, but she says, we're not doing the negative self-talk here. I feel like we hit it off right away.

She's so positive. Every time I meet with her, I leave feeling so positive. It's awesome.

Nikkiey: That's amazing. That's a good coach in your corner, for sure.

Lisa: And the depth of her knowledge. I need more years just to absorb even a little bit of what she knows. And her mentality is, the goal is for you to fire me and go do this on your own. First of all, I don't want to do that. But second of all, that says a lot about this program. You're not there to pick pockets. You're actually there to change lives.

Nikkiey: Yes, I love that. What other results have you experienced that we haven't talked about yet?

Lisa: Oh my gosh, it's hard for me to even quantify the wins. They're just stacking. I never would have imagined it, because they tell you to commit for a year and you may or may not see changes right away. So I had that in mind: okay, this might take a while.

But immediately, my body just started thriving in a way I can't even tell you. I ditched so much inflammation. And the other thing was stress management. That was a huge one. I think it's a key component that doesn't get talked about enough. At the job I had, the stress was through the roof. My nervous system was literally glitching out from stress, and I do think I gained a lot of inflammation.

I've noticed now that the biofeedback is really important. If I go through a little bit of stress, I notice it kind of tanks my hunger cues for a day or two, and then I bounce back. I didn't really understand how much that affected my metabolism. I'm just so thankful I was able to put that stress behind me. It was traumatic getting fired, but I picked the least stressful job I could find.

Because I thought, I'm going to do the fitness thing and not worry about anything else. I work mostly alone, and I can just de-stress. I think that was honestly a key to a lot of the success I had: leaving that in the rearview mirror. This is not who I am anymore. I don't need this stress. So in a sense, I kind of want to write the CEO a thank-you card for firing me, because it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.

Nikkiey: Everything happens for a reason, Lisa.

I love that you make that direct correlation. If you're under a lot of chronic stress, that chronic cortisol elevation is going to shut down a lot of your hormonal cues, one being leptin and ghrelin, recognizing that you're hungry or you're full. A lot of women don't feel when they're hungry. People just eat to eat, because they think, oh, I didn't eat anything today. But they don't have that internal feeling of, wow, I'm actually hungry, my stomach is growling. That's one of the big things we hear at WarriorBabe, that a lot of people get those feelings back again.

Lisa: Yes. I had lost that. I did have a history. In my twenties, my life was so stressful. My first husband got in a motorcycle accident. A friend bought me a massage therapy session because some things had happened, and the therapist said I had knots in my shoulders as hard as bone. This was in my twenties.

So I tanked my thyroid and my adrenal glands a long time ago. The fact that my body is so resilient after all of this, that I can come back and thrive and be as healthy as I was when I was in ballet, I can't even wrap my head around how resilient the human body is with what we put it through. If you just take care of it, I feel like it will bounce back. You just need the knowledge.

For me, this is holistic: the biofeedback you guys do, the stress management. I think there's literally nothing my coach couldn't help me with. I told her I have lordosis of the lower spine, and she said, I can help you with that. I was like, oh, really? My posture was all crazy in my first pictures. Muscle imbalances. I just tell her, and she says, all right, let's make a plan.

Nikkiey: So would you say WarriorBabe is far more than just getting your macros and your workouts?

Lisa: It's a whole community of like-minded women on the same journey. I feel like I'm a lifer.

Nikkiey: I love that, Lisa. Be a lifer. Stay with us until you feel fully confident and you know you can take it on. That's the goal. And I love that Lindsay said the goal is for you to fire her.

People will stay for five, six years, and that's awesome. Then you feel like you have the tools you need to take it long term, and you trust yourself. When I was working with clients, there got to be a point where I'd say, okay, cool, you tell me what you think. If I was working with you and you were in year five, I'd be like, Lisa, what do you think? I'd start helping you develop trust in your decisions so you know the steps to take.

Because by that time, you'll get to the point where you know it, and you'll be able to work collaboratively with Lindsay like that. So that's super exciting.

Lisa: That is incredible to me, that knowledge base that you guys teach. Who else does that? I don't know.

Nikkiey: That's why we're trying to stand out as often as possible.

Lisa: You definitely do. This is unlike anything. I've explored a lot of things because I was on a journey of, let's just figure this out. And when I found WarriorBabe, that's when all the pieces came together for me.

Nikkiey: That's amazing. It makes my heart happy. If somebody is watching this right now and they're feeling stuck, or like they're overworking, or they're not seeing results with all the effort they're putting in, what would you want them to know?

Lisa: I think it's really important, and it's what I did at the very beginning of my journey: I had my coach send me a sample meal plan, and I still use it to this day as the structure, because I didn't really know how.

It's a lot of whole foods. And the best thing in the world is there's not a lot of cooking involved if you don't want there to be. It's just chopping vegetables, maybe cooking some chicken. It's a lot easier than I thought it would be. I think there's something to that: in the beginning, if you don't have any experience tracking macros, ask for a meal plan. She gave me a two-week meal plan, and I build around it.

I don't follow it 100% every day, but it gave me the structure, the training wheels, to see, okay, this is how you do it. I just hit repeat every day. I don't like to eat the same thing every single day, but with two weeks, I can cycle through and it keeps me from getting bored, until it gets easier to understand how the macros work. That was probably one of the most valuable things she gave me right out the gate. It was overwhelming at first, but you just have to do it.

Jump in there.

Nikkiey: I think that's great advice, and I love the honesty of it. It is overwhelming. You're learning a new skill set. It's like riding your bike for the first time. You're doing something you've never done before, and you have to give yourself grace and space to learn it. And I love that you mentioned the tools. Your coach will give you tools to help you be successful. It's not just, okay, you signed up, here's your plan. It's, let's take this step by step so you can implement it along your journey.

Lisa: Yes, and that's honestly priceless. You cannot put a price on that tailored, custom plan. That's what I would say: don't let the price tag scare you, because the value of it is more than you can even imagine, if you just commit and follow the advice of the coach. I'm sure if you hit a wall and it's not working, the coach would know enough to change it up. They're not going to just leave you there. I didn't really have that. We hit the ground running for whatever reason.

She set my macros and it stuck. I don't know how long I went before she even upped it, but it was a while. Right out the gate, she just nailed it. So I thought, she knows what she's doing, obviously. This is her profession. From the get-go she just sticks the landing, and then you just repeat every day until it gets easier and easier.

Nikkiey: Love that. Lisa, thank you for being here and for sharing your story. This was a really cool conversation, and it was great getting to meet you and chat about it. For everyone listening, let this be a reminder that Lisa's transformation wasn't about doing more. It was about learning what actually worked: understanding how to fuel her body, challenging old beliefs and trusting the process. And she gained far more than just the physical results.

She gained confidence and clarity. She gained a sustainable way forward in life. So if you've been feeling stuck despite your best efforts, let this story be proof that the right guidance, having a coach in your corner, can change everything. Go check out warriorbabe.com and apply for VIP coaching, because this could be you a year from now after implementing the VIP coaching program. Lisa, thank you.

Lisa: Thank you so much. Likewise.

Nikkiey: Really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take 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.