Eating Less Is Why You're Not Losing Fat After 40 (Here's Why)

00:00If you want your body composition to look different, muscle is going to create that look. It's not about weighing less. It's not about chasing skinny. It's not about chasing smaller. It's not about chasing a number on the scale. If you're eating 1200 calories, doing cardio, adding more cardio in, and then you're trying to strength train hard, what exactly are you expecting your body to perform on? You walk into the gym, you're already depleted. You try and lift weights that are heavy, but it's hard to do because you don't have the energy reserves to back up.

00:30You're lifting that heavy weight. You're losing reps. Your recovery sucks. You can't progress in your lifts. You're dragging yourself through the workout, but then your watch is like, well, I burned 400 calories. Guys, that's not the win I want you to focus on. What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode with your host, Nikkie Stott. And 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.

01:03So, my friends, in today's episode, I want to talk to the woman who feels like she has one tool left in her toolbox. And it is a very common tool that is amongst women that are trying to get to said goal with their body. And that tool is eat less. Like, if the scale isn't moving, what this woman does is she eats less. If the measurements haven't changed, the answer seems to be eat less.

01:34There's a vacation or a wedding coming. Maybe this is you too. You eat less. Maybe if you feel like you hit a plateau or you feel like you're stuck in this stall, you cut another 200 calories. And then you cut another 100 calories. And then maybe you cut out your carbs. And then you maybe stop eating breakfast. And then you maybe add in fasting. And then you maybe add in another cardio session. And another cardio session on top of that. And then before you know it, you're eating an amount of food that you know isn't sustainable.

02:08Like, you know, in your hearts of hearts, we're in 2026, my friends. You guys know nowadays that it is not feasible to just have one meal a day. And you're hungry. And your workouts suck. And you're thinking about food all of the time. Or maybe you're a grazer. You're a snacker. But you snack, but you're still hungry. Or you're barely moving outside the gym. Like, you're sedentary. But somehow you're still thinking, like, maybe I just need to eat less.

02:39Girl, my friends, people, ladies. At some point, at some point, there's got to be another better strategy. And if fat loss is your goal, yes, we need an energy deficit. It is science. It's just matter of biology, basics, right? Like, I'm never going to tell you, though, that calories don't matter. They absolutely do matter. But there is a huge difference between understanding that a calorie deficit is required for fat loss

03:12and believing that every time your progress slows down, the answers automatically cut more food. There is a massive difference between that. So understanding science, understanding how the body works, and understanding, like, okay, I need to be in a deficit that is required, right? Because we need that energy deficit. But then if you are stuck on this other side of understanding, like, the difference between these two, where you believe that every time your progress slows or you're stuck in a plateau or you're not seeing the results that you want, that is more of like a fear-based, reactive type of mindset.

03:47The answer then is automatically you're cutting your food. Because what I want to explain to you today is what actually happens when you do diet. Why are calorie needs changed throughout the process? Like, over the 21,000 women that have been coached privately in our VIP 101 experience inside of Warrior Babe, the babe that comes in starts at a calorie-satch macro goal. I will tell you I am 95% positive that that person has not carried the same calorie or macro goal

04:20throughout her entire process of being inside of VIP or being coached by one of her coaches. So I want you to know why your calorie needs changed throughout the process. Your macro numbers change throughout the process and how constantly eating less can eventually, not can, but it will. Like, it does. It makes it harder to execute the behaviors and the drive and the goal to help you to lose body fat. So if you're genuinely not losing body fat over like a meaningful period of time,

04:52you're probably not currently creating enough of a calorie deficit, okay? And that's just, again, science, physics, how the body works. And I want to say that because I don't want this episode to become something where it's like, my metabolism is broken and therefore calories don't matter and yada, yada, yada. That's not what I want to do here with you guys. I want you to understand the number of calories that create a deficit for you six months ago that isn't necessarily going to create the same size deficit today.

05:23And what I mean by that is because you changed. You know, maybe you weigh less or maybe you've added more muscle or your stress environment of your lifestyle has gotten different or maybe you're more sedentary than before. Maybe you're more active before or maybe you have lost weight, right? So all of those things take into account. Maybe you've been dieting for months. Maybe your training has changed. Your recovery has gotten worse, right? So many things. There are multiple things happening is what my point is trying to be pointed to right here.

05:59And that's why fat loss isn't like, okay, let's calculate my macros or my calories once and I'm going to eat this forever. However, your body responds, your behavior responds, and your energy expenditure responds. And so we have to account for all of those things. All of those things matter. So let's say you start a fat loss phase and you're eating 2000 calories, but you're getting also 10,000 steps in and you're strength training four days a week and you're losing that weight

06:29and you're losing that body fat. That's amazing. But fast forward a few months, now you're 10 pounds lighter and now your progress has slowed down. And one reason it's incredibly simple is because there's now different energy expenditure demands being met. There's less of you. There could be more muscle, right? There's different things happening. Your body doesn't require though exactly the same amount of energy that it did when you were 15 pounds heavier. But now it's like at this point when you lose weight and you spend time in the calorie deficit, your total energy expenditure can decrease.

07:02So part of that is expected because now you are different. It doesn't mean that you need to slash your calories. At some point, people will lose 10 pounds eating the same calories. But in order to create more of an energy deficient and energy deficit, you may need to continue to cut maybe another 150 calories or 200 calories to keep the process moving, right? Because now, and this is one of the places that I think many women underestimate this.

07:33Because first of all, you could see Karen having great success following the same macros for three months. And then you could, and she's losing weight, right? And so that's why I want to put this into context for you is you could be following the same macros for six weeks and need a change. Because your body is processing it differently than somebody else. So this all may be taking into effect. And that's why you can't stick with the same numbers and expect same numbers to work along

08:04the way. Because at some point, things are going to have to change is my point that I'm trying to make here. Right? And then like not on top of you, not only losing this weight, or your body changing, then there's everything that you do for the other like outside with your workout, there's your workout, there's everything that you do outside of your workout outside the 20. The 22 hours and 23 hours of the day, right? You're walking around a house, you're going up the stairs, you're standing while you're talking, you're walking around the grocery store, you're cleaning, you're finishing, you're

08:36taking your animals for a walk, all those movements require energy. And I've talked about this before, that's called your NEAT, that's your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. And so when calories get low, and you've been dieting for a really long time, you may now at this point of your journey, because I've been there, done this, you may start moving, subconsciously start doing less. Because you're tired. I remember my journey when I was in a cut getting ready for stage, dude, taking the steps, uh-uh.

09:06I'm taking the elevator, or an escalator, right? Or like instead of standing at my desk when I'm working, I'm sitting. Because your body is requiring you to hold on to as much energy as you possibly can. And so you become, like, you come home from the gym and like, you're done, you're expended. Your body isn't necessarily sending you this notification that says like, oh, hey, just so you know, I've reduced your spontaneous movement today, right? It's not like sending you these signals of being like, oh, hey, like, you know, I've,

09:39I'm sitting instead of standing, like, you just start moving less at this point in your journey. And so now, think about what's happening. Your food came down, but your movement came down too, but your body weight came down also, but your energy needs, like, all of this, you're trading output money come down. And so the deficit that you create at the beginning now may not already be smaller, because you're starting to, you're still creating this deficit as your body starts doing less, and you're,

10:10there's less of you, because you're in this cut phase, right? And so now, a lot of women's instinct is when things start stalling like this, because nothing's really moving anymore. And you meet this plateau area, people think, okay, now I need to cut more food. So you cut more food, but now you're even more tired. And now you move even more less. And now then you keep repeating this cycle over and over and over again. And this is what I want you to understand.

10:40There is now a point where continuing to take food away can create diminishing returns of a behavioral and performance standpoint. Everything starts to suffer. Your training starts to suffer. This one matters a lot to me, because especially when we like, strength training is such an important aspect of changing your body composition. And like so many women come to Warrior Babe or come to me, and they're like, well, I want more tone. And I want to, my shoulders pop. And I want my legs to look more fit and athletic.

11:11And I want abs. But you're cutting your calories and you're eating 1200 calories a day. But what you're explaining to me is you want muscle, but you're not feeding your body the demands of what's required of you to build muscle. If you're eating 1200 calories, doing cardio, adding more cardio in, and then you're trying to strength train hard. What exactly are you expecting your body to perform on? You walk into the gym, you're already depleted. You try and lift weights that are heavy, but it's hard to do because you don't have the

11:41energy reserves to back up you lifting that heavy, heavy weight. You're losing reps. Your recovery sucks. You can't progress in your lifts. You're dragging yourself through the workout. But then your watch is like, well, I burned 400 calories. Guys, that's not the win I want you to focus on. That's not the win as me being your coach, me coaching you through this episode here right now. That's not the win I want because during you being in a fat loss, one of your biggest priorities should be you preserving muscle. Like this skinniest trending again.

12:13I talked about this recently on my Instagram and so many women are chasing this number of being smaller when it comes to the scale. Please stop chasing the scale being smaller. What you're trying to do, yes, you're trying to lose body fat while keeping as much lean muscle and lean tissue as possible. And if you're eating less, you're trying to push yourself into strength training. What strength training does is it provides an important signal to your body like we need this muscle. But if you're not eating enough, you're not feeling your body enough, what your body is

12:43actually signaling is like, wait, let me go into this expensive tissue and pull from it because I'm not getting the energy demands from nutrition to give this person the energy she needs in this workout. So I need to pull from the energy, which is your muscle. But you need enough of that to train productively. And your calories get too low. Your macros get too low. That quality of your training is going to fall apart. And that's something that you need to pay attention to, especially if you're also not eating enough

13:14and you're not eating enough protein. I've talked about this in so many episodes prior. Like now you're potentially creating an environment where you're not just losing fat, but you're also now losing lean muscle mass that you want and need. Like you don't just want to weigh less. You want to look different, right? I kind of just said that. If you want to look different, you don't, you need muscle. Muscle matters. If you want your body composition to look different, muscle is going to create that look.

13:49It's not about weighing less. It's not about chasing skinny. It's not about chasing smaller. It's not about chasing a number on the scale. Quick break. If you're finding this episode helpful so far, it would mean a lot if you could hit pause for just a second, leave a quick rating or a review or share it with someone who could benefit from it. Your support helps more women discover these tools to build muscle, lose fat and feel confident. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me. And then there's this. There's this that like, this might be the biggest one because we can create the most perfect fat loss scenario planned on paper.

14:25But if you can't follow it, like you guys hear me loud and clear. You need to be eating more and you need to be doing strength training. But if you can't follow what I'm saying for you to do, it doesn't matter at all. So let's say you're eating 1800 calories and you're losing body fat. Then your progress stalls for a week. This is the point that needs you to hear me at. You panic. So then you drop 200 more calories and now you're down to 1600. And then you're perfect Monday through Thursday. You're on point with your meal prep.

14:55But then Friday comes around and you're hungry. And so then you go out to dinner and you're overeating. And this is where a lot of the perfection of our progress comes into play. Is where you don't have to be perfect, but you need to be consistent with your progress. And so the weekend falls apart. And so Sunday rolls around. Now you're picking up food all day long because you already feel like you blew it. And then Monday, now you're back to 1300 calories. And then you tell me, I don't understand. I'm eating 1300 calories, but I'm not losing weight. Are you? Are you eating 1300 calories?

15:26Because, or are you eating 1300 calories four days a week? And then you're significantly eating more on others because that 1300 or that 1600 or that 1200 or the 1100 or whatever number it's at is not sustainable for you. This, and that's a very, and I've had this conversation so many times with women. That is a very different conversation. And I'm not saying that to beat you down or to shame you, but I'm saying it because you following the program honestly and applying adherence to it matters more than what your

15:58macro targets say that you are following consistently on a daily basis inside of an app. Your body doesn't just like reset calories at midnight. Your weekly intake matters and consistency matters. And so somebody that's saying, well, I'm eating this, I'm eating 1200 calories, but actually I'm actually eating 2000 on a weekly basis. And you're wondering why you're not losing weight. So then you think you have to cut calories even more is because you're not following the plan.

16:28Honestly. That's why lower isn't always better. My point making here is lower. Isn't always better. The best calorie deficit isn't always a large calorie deficit. And then being like, can I survive on this calorie deficit number? The deficit that you can consistently execute while also preserving your lean muscle and you giving performance to your workout. That's the type of deficit that you need to exit that you will be able to execute to stay sustainably. And then going back, because now I feel like I'm just on a rant here right now,

16:59um, to the plateau, because those of you guys that want to change things so quickly, like if you weigh yourself on Monday and then nothing happens and Tuesday, nothing happens. And then Wednesday, now you're up two pounds. And then by Thursday, you're texting your coach. You'd be like, this isn't working. I'm gaining weight, girl. Oh my goodness. You are four days into your week, four days into the plan. It's Thursday. Give your body a second. Scale weight. Guys, that can be so, such a noisy aspect to your journey.

17:30Noisy. It can derail the greatest journey that you could possibly be on right now. You could give up on that Thursday, four days into a program. Or even let's say, let's give you like, give you guys a little bit more grace. You could be four weeks in to your journey and nothing's changing. And just about the second that it's about to start shifting, you give up because the scale hasn't changed. You guys, by now that scale is weighing everything. It could change because of the water intake you had.

18:01It could change because of the carbohydrate intake. It could change because of your menstrual cycle. It could change because of the food volume. It could change because of your bowel movements. It could change from stress, from travel, from a harder leg day. One week without scale movement does not automatically mean that your journey isn't working and that fat loss has stopped. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control.

18:32If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, Warrior Babe is here for you. At Warrior Babe, 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. Look, don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women.

19:05Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. And this is why I want you to look at you like trends over time, like not you having individual weigh-ins on a daily basis. And I know that I'm saying this to a woman and a light bulb is going off and I need you to hear me loud and clear. Look at averages. Look at your measurements.

19:36Look at your photos. Look at your how your clothes fit. Look at your performance and give the plan enough time to actually tell you something. Enough time when I mean three months. Not four weeks. Not six weeks. Give your body time to respond and adapt. Because if you're changing your numbers every four days or four weeks, you don't have enough data yet. What you have is chaos. You have a lot of chaos in that mind where you think that things need to happen a lot faster.

20:08Let me just remind you. Where you got today for you to be on a fat loss journey didn't take you four days to get there. It took you five years. Maybe it took you a decade. Maybe it took you two decades. Maybe you've been doing this around about yo-yo cycle for 20 years. And you're expecting change to happen in four days. Just give yourself a little bit more time here. So a common question that I get, when should you actually lower your calories?

20:38When should you actually think about eating less? There are times when lowering your calories makes sense. I kind of already alluded to it earlier in the podcast is when you are on a fat loss journey, you will lower your intake to continue to progress forward. But some people don't have to and some people will. If you've had a true plateau for multiple weeks, I'm talking like eight weeks and nothing has changed. But like, dude, I didn't go back to the adherence.

21:09Your adherence is genuinely good. You are being honest about your food intake. You're not just doing this Monday or Thursday thing. You're not doing Monday, Thursday and your weekends are derailed. Like you are being honest. You are being consistent. You are tracking. Your tracking is accurate. Your movement is consistent. Your recovery is reasonable. But you still have body fat to lose. Then yes, what I said earlier is we would create a small calorie macro adjustment. This may be an absolute appropriate time for that to happen. Or maybe it's not just that.

21:41It could be also that your movement comes up slightly. That is normal fat loss programming. That's what we do inside of WarriorV. But the adjustment has to be intentional. It's not emotional. There is a massive difference to this. For example, my data shows that my current intake is no longer producing the desired rate of progress that I'm experiencing. So therefore, as your coach, I'm going to make an adjustment. I am not making an adjustment where you come to me and be like, the scale isn't moving this morning, so I'm cutting carbs.

22:16I will be like, absolutely not. Do not do that because we are just repeating the same behavior and cycle that you have been in for the last 20 years. You can see that one is coaching. Logical. One is panic. Emotional. You got what I'm getting at? You got what I'm saying? Also, like, some of you guys need to hear this. Sometimes the answer isn't just you doing another calorie cut. Maybe it's like, the answer is like, dude, we're done dieting for now.

22:47Not forever. Maybe you just need to give your body a break. Maybe you've been dieting for six months. Maybe you're hungry. You don't even have a hunger cue. Maybe, like, you feel so weak with your training. Maybe things are just getting harder. Maybe you're thinking about food all the time. Maybe you're just exhausted. At some point, at that point, this is where I would recommend, like, if you've been dieting for that long and, like, you have all of those symptoms, I'd be like, dude, you do not need a fat loss phase. You need to sit around your maintenance intake.

23:20That type of adjustment could be incredibly valuable for you. And, like, I say that the maintenance phase is where the magic happens because I believe the maintenance phase is where there's a, like, there's metabolic reset where, like, your body is saying thank you for giving me this food intake. It also means that you're, you're just, it's not like you bump up to 3,000 calories. You're intentional about the increase. It's, you're bringing calories towards an amount that supports maintaining where you currently are at.

23:52And then we focus on some other things. We focus on your training, your workouts, your performance, your recovery, you building, rebuilding consistency, you having more energy back. Because that is all a skill set as well. And then if another fat loss phase is in your future and it makes sense later, then we absolutely dedicate time to going into that decision. But from a much better place. For your body being healed through a maintenance phase. So, this is a mindset shift that I want you guys to make here.

24:23When women want, when, if you want to lose weight, right? They, a lot of women immediately ask, well, how, how much should I eat? Like, that's like the wrong question. Because a lot of people are coming from the mindset of like, why need to eat less, right? From that. It's, how much can I eat while also making appropriate progress towards your goal? Which the goal is you building muscle and not getting smaller. That's the game. Because if you can lose body fat while eating 800 calories, which I've seen that happen from over thousands of women.

24:55Why would you immediately, why, like you, why would you put yourself at 1400 calories? We didn't, there's nothing happening. You're hungry, your training is going to suffer. The quality of life might suffer. Like, your adherence is going to become harder. Because now we just have less room to adjust if we go to 1400. I want you to be at the highest intake that allows you to make actual appropriate progress. Because I need you to understand, food is not the enemy. Food is fuel. Food supports your training. Food provides you the protein that you need, the carbohydrates that you need, the fat that you need, in order to achieve the goals that you want.

25:26Food supports the life that you're trying to live while you're also trying to lose body fat. The goal isn't to prove how little can you survive on. The goal is to create results that you can actually sustain and maintain. So, if there's anything that I want you to take away from this episode is that your macros matter. Food matters. A calorie deficit, yes, macro deficit is required for fat loss. But sometimes calories need to come down as your, calories don't need to come down as your body changes. But there may be at some point where you are actually eating more calories than you thought you could,

26:01you would ever need to. But what I'm trying to say here is that eating less is a tool. It's not the only tool though. So, when I said at the beginning of the podcast, a lot of people go to, oh, well, if I want my body to look different, if I need to lose weight, if I need to lose measurements, I have a vacation coming up, immediate thought is to eat less. That's not the only tool. It is a part of your tool. It's not the only tool. And it shouldn't be your automatic response every single time that your progress is slowing. Because eventually taking food away is going to affect your training. It's going to affect your movement.

26:32It's going to affect your hunger, your recovery, your ability to adhere to the program, your ability to actually sustain the plan. So, sometimes, yeah, you make a small adjustment. Or sometimes you maybe need more movement. That, if I could just sum it up and not overcomplicate things, that is you either make a small tweak to numbers or you add a little bit more, maybe five minutes to or a change in rep scheme or lower rest periods like to your training, right?

27:04Or sometimes you just need to accurately track better and be honest with where you're at. But most importantly, I think people need, women need to stop dieting and stop thinking that eating less is the goal. Your goal isn't to see how little foods you can eat. Your goal is to build a body that you love and a way of eating that you can actually live with and sustain. And in order to build a muscle, you need to be able to eat more food. And mainly looking at the bigger picture, right? Bigger picture of this. So, maybe you guys say, I want sculpted arms.

27:34I want abs. I want toned legs. That is muscle. In order to get there, you need to fuel your body appropriately. You need to stop eating less. And you need to learn how to let go old narratives and beliefs that have been driving you to think that gaining, you're going to gain weight or get bulky. And you're going to, you need to learn how to, and which is only going to happen by you taking action, by you trusting me now and believing me later. And by incorporating, and this is where I would recommend checking out Warrior Babe, because we've done this for over 21,000 clients one-on-one, over 120,000 women have been inside of our programs.

28:11So, if you need this extra help as to like, how do I personalize this for me? What numbers do I need? That's where I would recommend that you go to. And have somebody look at the bigger picture for you. Because eventually, like, eating less has to stop becoming the answer. And I pray and hope that that just continues to spread all throughout the fitness industry. Eating less is never, is not the answer. And some, it may be intentionally, strategically, but in the broad scheme of how women are looking at it, it's not the answer.

28:42Think about the bigger picture of the goal that you want to get to. All right, guys. I hope this helped you. I hope that some knowledge was obtained or some light bulbs went off. And if it did, share this with somebody or repost it to your Instagram and tag me, at Nikki Stott. I would love to see some takeaways that you guys had. Maybe if it was this episode or previous episodes. And I'll see you guys next episode. 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.

29:16Your rating and review make all of the difference. Helping more women discover the tools they need to transform the 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.