Fat Loss, Maintenance or Building: Which Phase Are You In?

Nikkiey: Your body is not a machine that you program once and run forever. It is a living, adaptive system that responds constantly to what you're doing and what you're eating. This means the strategy that gets you results in one season of your journey is not the strategy that is going to get you results in the next season. If you don't evolve your strategy, you are going to plateau. Not every woman starts in the same place, and starting in the wrong phase is one of the most common reasons that women don't see results even when they're doing the work.

Awesome. Hello, hello. Okay, cool, guys. I am so excited for this conversation tonight. I love seeing all the hands, and I see new faces. I see familiar faces. Guys, I'm genuinely pumped for tonight because this topic is one I have been looking forward to teaching for a while. And I think it's going to answer a question that so many of you have on your mind or have been carrying around without even knowing how to ask it.

But first, I see a lot of new faces. So really quick, if you guys are not yet inside of our free Facebook community, I want you to get in there right now. Santana just dropped that link in the chat box. Some of you guys may not be in there. Some of you guys may be in there. Some of you guys may just be getting into our ecosystem and you saw this invite pop up in your calendar, and so you're here. So if you're not yet inside that community, it's free. It's just where we all hang out. So go join that tonight. It's where these conversations continue.

It's where you get access to the resources. It's where you're going to want to be for what we have coming in May, which I'll tell you guys about at the end of the call. So if you're not in there yet, go join right now. Click on that link and get inside.

How many of you are not totally sure what your goal actually is right now? Okay, I see some hands raised too. You know you want to look and feel better, but you're not really sure if you should be losing fat, if you should be building muscle, if you should be eating more, if you should be eating less. And all of it just feels very confusing. The tongue sticking out emoji is felt. That is probably very spot on for a lot of you guys, right? Okay, I see you.

And I want you to know that that confusion is because, if you think about it, nobody really sat down with you and explained that there are actually distinct phases of a nutrition and fitness journey. And that each one has a completely different strategy, a completely different goal, and a completely different way of eating.

And most women are out here thinking or trying to do all three of these at one time. They've got to be in fat loss. They've got to be in maintenance. They've got to be in building. Or they're stuck in one phase forever without even knowing it. Or they're following a plan that's designed for a completely different phase than what their body actually needs in the season of life that they are in. So tonight with this call, we're going to fix all of that.

And this is something that I could talk about for hours. I'm going to try and give it all to you. So get a notepad. You're going to need a notepad. We're going to get into the nitty gritty of education and knowledge tonight. If you are driving, make mental notes, and then come back to the recording and take notes. Okay? Because I'm going to break down the WarriorBabe nutrition phases in plain language from the ground up. And by the end of this call, I hope that you guys are going to know exactly what each phase is, what it requires, and how to start thinking about which one is the right one for where you're at right now.

Does that sound good? Amazing. Okay, yes. Thumbs up. And somewhere in the middle of this call, I'm going to bring out a section that I really need you to stay for, because we're going to talk about something that changes everything for women who have been dieting for a really, really long time. So I just want to make sure you guys stay throughout and I don't lose you at one of the specific phases. Because I'm telling you, we're going to have some knowledge bombs drop tonight. All right?

So before we get into the individual phases, I just want to explain why this concept exists. Why do phases even matter? Because I hope that it's going to change the way that you see your entire journey moving forward. If you guys have been in our other programs, I used to joke in one of the education modules that I would have the Men in Black zapper. You guys know Men in Black, right? The zapper. They zap you and they wipe all of your memory. I'm going to try and hopefully do that tonight.

Wipe everything that you've done in the past. And then what you gain here tonight is how you're going to look at everything that you do moving forward. So why do these even exist? Why do phases even matter? Your body is not a machine that you program once and run forever. It is a living, adaptive system that responds constantly to what you're doing and what you're eating. And so this means the strategy that gets you results in one season of your journey is not the strategy that is going to get you results in the next season.

When you're new to training, when you're new to working out, almost anything is going to produce some type of result, right? Because your body is responding to a new stimulus. But as you continue to do that same thing over time, your body is going to adapt. So the same approach stops working. What you did in your 20s is not going to work in your 50s. And what you did five years ago is not going to work right now.

What you did last year is not going to work right now. If you don't evolve your strategy, you are going to plateau. You are going to get stuck. You are going to start to feel like your body is working against you, like it's broken, like it's betraying you. And it's not. It just needs something different. I'm just teeing you up for the stuff that we're going to talk about tonight, because it's all going to click and it's all going to make sense. These phases I'm going to go through are not random categories. They are distinct metabolic and nutritional strategies.

They are each designed to achieve a specific outcome. And cycling through them intentionally, at the right times and in the right order, is what creates a sustainable long-term body transformation. This, if I was to put it all into a glass jar, is the WarriorBabe way. It's not a crash diet. It's not a restriction spiral. It is a strategic, intentional approach that works with your body instead of against it.

I want to mention something, because some of you guys have already gotten access to the Macro Method, and the program is walking you through exactly how to find that starting point. So you are going to hear these words, fat loss, maintenance, building phase, over and over in the program. If you're in VIP, you're hearing it there as well. And when you guys come into that program, one of the first things that you have to do is take an assessment. And that assessment is going to determine which phase you should be starting in and which nutrition calculator is the right fit for your body.

And it is an assessment. It's assessing where you are right now in your journey. Not where you want to be. Not where you were last year. Where you are right now. And not each one of you guys is going to start in the same place. You guys are getting a taste of what VIP is like without having the coach with you. Not every woman starts in the same place. And starting in the wrong phase is one of the most common reasons that women don't see results even when they're doing the work.

Okay? So you guys have access to it in the Macro Method, but I'm going to give you the foundations on this call tonight so that you can make even more sense of it when you go back into the program. Or you're going through the assessment and you're like, ah, that's right, I remember her saying this on the call, so I need to start here. It's all going to make sense. Okay?

So let's start with the phase that most women come to WarriorBabe wanting, which is fat loss. Right? We all want to be in fat loss. But I've got to address something right away. For a lot of women, fat loss has meant restriction. It has meant deprivation. It has meant cutting calories as low as possible and pushing through hunger. That is not what we are talking about here. And that's why some of you guys may feel uncomfortable going through our specific type of fat loss, because it's not something you've done before. Those approaches that I just named destroy your metabolism and they don't last.

Or else you wouldn't be trying to find another program to help you get to your goal. Right? The WarriorBabe fat loss phase is about eating in a strategic caloric deficit with the right macro breakdown while protecting and building as much muscle as possible. And for some of you that maybe don't know what a calorie deficit means, it means that you're simply eating slightly fewer calories than your body burns in a day.

And that gap between what you're burning and what you're eating signals your body to start using stored fat for fuel. That is fat loss. I love the comments in the chat box right now. I've got to stop being shy. I'm seeing, the Macro Method is working, I love it, I'm eating so much more food. That's amazing. Okay. But calories are not the full picture. You guys know this by now. We've done a couple of calls on calories and the differences between calories and macros. This is where macros come in.

And this is what makes WarriorBabe different from every other program out there. We focus on the right protein, carbohydrates and fats for your body, the three nutritional building blocks that make up everything that you eat. And in the fat loss phase, it's not just about eating less. It's about making sure that the food you are eating is broken down into the right ratio of those three macronutrients to support your body's specific needs. And every single one of you is going to have different macro numbers. So please don't go and ask what your girlfriend is eating and how many carbs she has, because you have completely different biological makeups.

Someone could consume 240 grams of carbohydrates, whereas you may be a little bit more carb resistant, or carb sensitive, and it's not going to work for you. Okay.

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So, why macros matter. Just really quick, to highlight what I've talked about before so it sticks. Two women can eat the exact same number of calories and get completely different results based entirely on the macro breakdown. You guys have heard me use the example of a woman eating 1,500 or 1,800 calories. Let's use 1,500 calories. Someone could be eating mostly processed carbs and low protein. That is going to make that woman lose muscle, feel hungry constantly and see her metabolism slow down. On the flip side, a woman eating the same 1,500 calories, but with high protein, moderate carbs and healthy fat, is going to protect her muscle, stay fuller longer and see her body actually change its shape. Same calories, different outcomes, because the macro breakdown is everything, right?

Now, you guys have heard me say that in the fat loss phase, protein is always a priority macro, because protein is what structures and protects your muscle. It's what helps your body burn fat. While you're burning the fat, you're protecting the muscle. It keeps you fuller longer, and it supports your metabolism, right? The fats, the carbs and the proteins all have a job. And all three of them are dialed in specifically for your body and your goals.

This is why, for anyone coming through WarriorBabe or through the Macro Method, each of you gets individual macro numbers and calorie numbers for fat loss. We don't give you just a generic calorie number and call it a plan. We give you a complete macro target, right? So that your body has exactly what it needs to lose the fat without losing the muscle that you've worked so hard for. For those of you that have access to the Macro Method, this information is inside of there. But let me tell you what I really want to get at in this fat loss conversation.

The fat loss phase is not forever. Did you guys hear me when I said that? The fat loss phase is not forever. And I say that because I have so much love for you guys. There are a lot of women who come in having been eating in a fat loss phase, or calorie restriction, for the majority of their life. Your body has adapted at that point. Your body can't eat in a fat loss phase forever. And as I said earlier, you have to cycle through different phases in order for this to be sustainable and long term, right?

So I'm going to keep circling back to that, because I need it to really land in your brains as we go through the rest of this conversation. Fat loss is just a season. You go in, you do the work, you see the changes, and you move on. Because staying in a deficit indefinitely is one of the most common mistakes that women make. And it leads to where a lot of women are, which is exhausted, plateaued, feeling like nothing is working anymore.

And you guys feel that to your core, right? Nothing is working, I've plateaued, I'm exhausted, I can't eat any less. If I eat any less, I'm going to be eating like a bird. I'm only having one meal a day. How much less can I eat? And you're still not getting the results you want, right? You can't be in fat loss. You can't be in calorie restriction forever. I'll say this: figuring out the right deficit for your specific body, making sure that your protein and your macros are dialed in,

and making sure that you're actually supposed to be in a fat loss phase, that's what our VIP coaches do. Getting the fat loss phase wrong is a common thing, and it costs women months of progress. So you guys are in the Macro Method, but maybe some of you want more of a personalized plan that's built for your body and your goals. I would say check out VIP. Because the coaches inside of VIP are going to tell you, you don't need to be in fat loss. I've heard conversations where our coaches have talked to hundreds of women coming into the program.

And we're going to get to this section in a bit. It's a specific phase that I haven't mentioned yet. But women come in saying, I want to lose 10 pounds in X amount of time. And we physically cannot produce a fat loss phase because they're already eating 1,100 calories. There's nowhere to go. So some of you guys need that type of call-out, that truth, to help you understand that your body can't go through that.

It's going to be like throwing spaghetti at a wall, and you get nowhere with the results you want to see. So if you want that personalized plan, I would check out VIP. But let's keep going.

So we talked about fat loss. Let's talk about maintenance. And I know there are probably questions like, how long do I stay in fat loss? It is so unique for everyone. Someone could be in fat loss for three months. It depends on your journey. I'll get into my story a little bit in a while, but I can be in fat loss for four weeks. Maggie was in fat loss for longer when she just did a competition, right? It depends where your body composition is at and how long you need to be in it. I don't like putting timelines on it because I like to be realistic with people. It depends.

Okay, maintenance. I think this is one of the most important ones. It is where you eat approximately the same number of calories that your body burns. So you're not in a deficit. You're not in a surplus. You're right at maintenance level.

And I've heard this over and over again. I know you guys are probably thinking, what's the point of being in maintenance? I'm not losing fat and I'm not building muscle. I'm just staying the same. I've heard people say this phase is so boring. But that thinking right there is exactly why so many women get stuck losing and regaining the same weight over and over again. You'll most likely go through one of the phases I'm going to talk about next, and then maybe you'll go into maintenance and then into fat loss.

Or maybe you'll go into the phase I'm going to talk about next and then into fat loss. But either way, at some point you will be in maintenance. Because like I said, it's a cycle. You have to cycle through these a couple of times until your body is fully adapted. And I promise you, you don't have to do this forever. I'm sure some of you are thinking, do I have to cycle through fat loss, maintenance and building for the rest of my life? No. But you do need to put in the work going through these phases so you can see your body adapt and change and build the muscle that you want.

Because that's the overall goal a lot of you want: fat loss, and to look toned and defined. Okay. Anyway, I digress, because I got sidetracked. When you're in the maintenance phase, what it's actually doing is giving your metabolism a reset. When you spend a lot of time in a calorie deficit or in restriction mode, like I said, your body adapts to that. It gets more efficient at surviving on less food.

And that is where your metabolism slows down. The hormones that regulate your hunger and fat storage get disrupted. This is what's happening in a fat loss phase. That's why fat loss can slow or stop even when you're still eating less. Think about it like this: your body has adjusted to protect itself. Okay. In maintenance, eating at that level tells your body, okay, we have enough food.

We're safe. We're good. Your metabolism then begins to normalize. Your hormones start to regulate. That's why you can't be in fat loss forever, because your body needs this phase to have everything normalize again, to have your hormones regulate, to have your energy return, to have your hunger stabilize. Fat loss is a season, but you've got to cycle to give your body a break. And I've always said to the WarriorBabe VIP community, guys, maintenance is where the magic happens.

Truthfully. I said you may not lose fat and you may not build muscle, but along your journey, some of you can do that in maintenance. You can lose fat, lean out and build muscle during it. But I'm not going to say that for everybody, because some people just need to cycle through it to give their metabolism a break. Some of you are going through this phase and you hate your maintenance. You're sitting there for a while and you're like, I'm bored, I just want to be in fat loss. You're doing it for the internal processes of your body. You're not going to be able to see it or feel it on the outside just yet, especially if it's the first time you're going through it.

So this is where I ask for a lot of patience when I work one-on-one with clients. A lot of patience, because I'm like, I hear you. I understand you're frustrated and you want to see the results. But in order to see the results that you want long term, this has to happen. Internally, you are giving your body a break. You're having things regulate, return, stabilize, all of that. You don't necessarily feel that. But you will when you're getting the results easily years down the road. Okay? So that's why maintenance is magic, in my opinion.

Maintenance also consolidates your results. When you lose fat, your body needs time to adjust to your new body composition. It needs time to strengthen its systems, to adapt to the new normal, to build more muscle. Women who skip maintenance and jump straight from a fat loss phase into another deficit almost always, and I know a lot of you have been here and done that, regain weight quickly.

You skip maintenance, you go from fat loss straight back into a deficit, and your body never had the chance to reset. Those of you who have done yo-yo diets, where you go from one diet to the next: a lot of people get to the result, and then they're like, oh, that's cool, now I can just eat. They never follow through with the habits they learned. They start eating whatever they want, or they don't eat enough.

And I'm going to get into that when I get to the build phase. But you surplused it. You went too far. And so your body didn't have time to adapt. It never had time to reset. And then all of a sudden you go back into a deficit and your body's like, I'm stressed out. Think about your body as a machine, because that's exactly what's going on internally. The other thing maintenance does is build sustainable habits that last. Maintenance eating is much closer to how you are going to eat long term.

Personally, guys, 11 years into this, and I've talked to Maggie and to women in their 50s and 60s about this, I live in maintenance 90% of the year. I don't have to track my macronutrients anymore. And I want you to know that you don't have to track for the rest of your life either. But you have to put in this type of work first. And I can say that learning to fuel your body adequately without fear is one of the most powerful skills you can develop along this journey.

And I wish that for all of you inside all of our communities. Maintenance is not stalling. It is a strategy. Yes, the body needs to learn how to trust again. Think about macros as a skill set. I say this all the time. I'm probably going to get it tattooed on me at some point. Not really. But maintenance is a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life. It is not another diet. Or what did I say? Macros, not maintenance.

I said maintenance. Macros are a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life. Maintenance too, I guess. These are all skill sets. They're not meant to be another diet strategy or plan. It's how you develop these things and put them into your tool belt. It's the way to long-term, sustainable results.

Now, this is the phase I've been keeping quiet. It's been really hard not to say the word throughout this entire call so far. This is the core of the WarriorBabe methodology. It's the retrain. And I've seen most programs completely skip over it. I'll even say this about my earlier days: when women said, I want to lose 20 pounds, I'd say, okay, let's do it. Right? Being a naive coach, a new coach. And a lot of fitness programs completely skip over this. When someone says, I need to lose 20 pounds, they don't actually get to understand where your body is at biologically and internally, how stressed out it is, or how many cuts you have been through.

And whether you can even go into fat loss and do it successfully. Because let me tell you guys, if you go into fat loss and you're not seeing results within three months, there's a reason why. Your body is stressed out and it doesn't want to be in fat loss. It needs to go through this retrain phase. And for a lot of women in this room right now, this is the most important phase that I will explain to you tonight.

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The reality is that a huge number of women who come to WarriorBabe have been eating in a calorie deficit, sometimes a severe one, for months, for years, even decades. I think I've said it a handful of times already, right? Chronic dieting, restriction, under-eating. We all resonate with that. And what that does to the body over time is significant. The metabolism adapts. It gets extremely efficient at running on very little food. It gets disrupted hormonally. The body essentially goes into a protective survival mode. Things get thrown off. And here's the thing: you cannot just start eating more and expect your metabolism to immediately respond.

For a body that's been chronically underfed, a sudden increase in calories can actually cause rapid fat storage, because the metabolism is not yet equipped to process and use that fuel efficiently. This is what happens with the cycle of: I do a diet, I lose the weight, and then I go back to eating normally.

I eat whatever. The yo-yo. You go back to eating, you significantly increase your calories, and then you store the fat. The body panics and stores it, because the metabolism isn't equipped yet to process and use that fuel efficiently. And this is where the retrain phase comes in. I need you guys to hear me loud and clear. It is a deliberate, strategic, gradual increase in calories and macros.

Over time. Over time. Some of you are in the Macro Method doing each step of the retrain phase and making the adjustments week over week. There's a method to the madness, guys. Please, just trust me now and believe me later. That strategic, gradual increase over time is designed to wake up the metabolism and teach it to function properly again before moving into any other phase.

So instead of jumping straight into maintenance or straight into a surplus, you slowly, week by week, bring those calories up. And you give the metabolism time to respond. Time to adapt. Time to start running at a higher level of food intake. You rebuild the metabolic capacity your body lost during years of restriction, years of eating less, years of cutting things out. And it's not fast.

Like I said, it requires patience. And it requires trust. Some of you have seen me in the video saying, you guys probably need to stay here for maybe two weeks. Sometimes you have to stay at one step for two or three weeks. Maybe you're not increasing every week. And that's okay. Think about it as your body healing internally. It is adjusting to this intake. Guys, if you do this right, I have seen so many WarriorBabes go through a retrain phase

and get to eat 2,200 calories, 2,300 calories. That's what this is all about. And it shouldn't scare you. It's a strategy. I can understand why it scares you, because of the years of eating less and restricting and not getting where you want to be. But I hope this is changing your mindset here. Again, Men in Black, zapping away the things you tried before. This is the way forward. And I get it, because the scale might fluctuate, and that can feel scary

after spending so long trying to control it, right? I get it. And I know there are probably some VIP members on this call who can speak to their success through a retrain phase. So if there are any VIPs on here. Oh, there we go. It's like Jen knew I was going to call on the VIPs. If you have a retrain story, that would be encouraging to the other women on this call, so drop it in the chat box. Because the women who go through a proper retrain phase come out on the other side with

a metabolism that actually works. A body that can actually handle more food. And a foundation. Hear me when I say this: a foundation that makes every phase after it significantly more effective. It is so much easier, when you do the retrain phase, to have an effective fat loss, an effective maintenance and an effective building phase. So that is why, if you are part of the Macro Method, the intake assessment at the beginning is so critical.

You can't skip over that. If you skip it and you're like, I just want to go into fat loss, guys, you could just be repeating the same cycle over and over again that led you to find us in the first place. Okay. The assessment is going to tell you whether you need to retrain before anything else. Because starting a fat loss phase when your metabolism is already suppressed is just going to be ineffective. It's going to make things worse. If you've been dieting for a long time and you feel like nothing works anymore, this is

likely why. And the retrain phase is going to be the answer. And honestly, as I've been talking about VIP, this is one of the things I'm most passionate about in VIP, because so many women have a broken relationship with food and a metabolism that has adapted to a lower intake and been through the ringer. Your coach in VIP won't just throw you into a fat loss phase and hope for the best. She's going to hold the line.

Like I said earlier, she's going to assess where you're at, meet you where you're at and build the right starting point for your body. And if you need to retrain first, she's going to hold you to it, because she knows what the outcome will be in the months to come once you successfully go through it. And there are over 80 coaches on staff at WarriorBabe. Over 80. So if you want to check out VIP, Santana will also drop that link in the chat.

Now, let's talk about the building phase. I know this one surprises women the most, because building means intentionally going into a calorie surplus. And people are like, what? Meaning you're intentionally eating more than your body burns. I know, scary AF, right? But stay with me, okay? The building phase is when you eat in a slight calorie surplus above your maintenance level. I know it's frightening. I hear you. It's specifically to fuel muscle growth, okay?

If you want muscle and a toned body, and you guys know how I feel about that word, toned, you've got to build the muscle. And I know a lot of you are afraid you're going to get bulky. It's not possible. You guys see me. I've been at this for 11 years. I don't walk around in Hulk mode. But muscle can't be built efficiently in a deficit. And I'm going to show you, even at 60.

When I was working on my flow for this conversation tonight, there was a woman who just stuck in my mind for this portion of the call, and I'm going to show you her. She's 60 years old. She was one of my clients that I coached back in the day, and she cycled through these phases multiple times: fat loss, maintenance, build, okay? But anyway, you can't build muscle efficiently in a deficit. When your body is in a deficit, its primary job is just to lose the fat and survive.

It's to preserve energy. It's not really focused on building new muscle tissue. You can maintain the muscle you have in a deficit with enough protein and strength training, but to truly build significant new muscle, to create that definition, that shape, that strength, and to change your body composition at a fundamental level, your body needs extra fuel, and that comes from food. That's what the building phase provides, okay?

Now, I want to be clear about what the building phase is and what it is not, because this is where women get scared. A building phase is not eating everything in sight. It's a very small, intentional, controlled surplus, and you're combining that with strength training. So basically, you're using the extra fuel you're giving yourself to power you through the workouts and to put that metabolic stress on your muscle

so that you break down the muscle fibers, and then the food you're eating post-workout repairs the muscle fibers and helps them grow. Think about it like that. I saw that question; I'm going to save questions for the end. So in a build, to create the conditions your body needs to build muscle efficiently, you're in a controlled surplus. You're eating intentionally. You're combining it with strength training.

And let me just say this. Yes, your weight is going to go up slightly. I almost said significantly, which would probably scare the bejesus out of you. Your weight is going to go up slightly during a building phase, but what's going up is muscle, and more muscle means a higher metabolism. It means more definition. It means more shape. It means more strength. It means an easier, more effective fat loss

the next time you cycle into one. I'm going to share my screen really quick and show you this woman that I coached back in the day. I'm sure you guys have seen her. Can you see this? My girl, Cheryl. She is a beast. She's 60 years old in these photos. I think she was 57 when she started and 60 by the end photo. She came in knowing that she wanted to go into a build. And I'm like, okay, you sure about that?

You ready for that? She's like, yeah, I want to build muscle. I'm like, okay, I love that. So look, we got her up to eating around 2,500 calories as her surplus. She cycled through many times. We did a couple of different builds. At one point she got up to about 3,000 calories, because her metabolism was just on fire from the muscle she had built. The middle picture is her at her highest point in her build. She gained weight.

But look at her body in that last picture. She built muscle and she decreased the body fat in that cut. And that cut was a lot easier for her. She stayed around 2,000 calories. She did exactly what we laid out. She was the best student. She just listened. And then she cycled in and out of a couple of builds, and she looks even more incredible to this day. Now she's doing it all on her own, which is really cool.

But I say this to encourage you that, yes, you're probably going to gain weight when you are in a build. But what's going up is that muscle. And the more muscle you have, the more it's going to help increase your metabolism and give you more muscle definition. And I'm saying that because a lot of women ask, can I do this when I'm older? Yes, you can. If anything, it's the most important thing you can do for yourself.

And I say that about the cycling too, because she did that and then went into a fat loss phase, and it was much easier for her because we didn't have to cut her down to 1,300 calories. Her metabolism was just revving. This is the compounding effect of phases, by the way. Each cycle leaves you with more muscle and a stronger metabolism than you had before. And your body composition improves in a way that is simply not possible if you stay in a deficit forever.

That's the main thing I want to say. I know a lot of women are afraid of eating more, and they've been in the cycle of eating less and less. And that's why I tell people you don't need to eat less. You need to eat more. You need to train less. The training is another call for another time. But the building phase is honestly one of the hardest things to navigate without a coach. You will get in your own way. I've seen it one too many times with women. Because eating more on purpose, watching the scale shift and trusting the process

is genuinely difficult when you've spent years being told less is always better. So in the VIP program, your coach is going to walk you through every phase so you understand exactly what's happening in your body and why. You guys have access to the Macro Method, yes. And yes, there's a component of it where you can do it on your own. But at some point, you may need to get one-on-one with a coach so that you can get out of your own way and have them do the steps for you.

Okay? So now let's put all these phases together and talk about how they work together, because there's a strategy behind moving from one to the next. It starts with an assessment. You're going to see assessments everywhere in the Macro Method, and that's for a reason. We're going to figure out where you are right now. You're going to figure out your body composition. You're going to figure out your metabolic history. You're going to figure out what phase makes sense for you, your body and your goals. And I saw some questions asking, how do I even know what phase to go into?

It's not one-size-fits-all. This is exactly what the Macro Method intake assessment is designed to determine for you. From there, the path is going to be different for every single one of you. But here's the most common starting point, and you're going to hear it inside that program, from a VIP coach, and continuously inside the WarriorBabe ecosystem. If you have been chronically dieting and your metabolism is suppressed, and please don't skip doing this assessment,

if you're in the Macro Method, do this assessment. But broadly speaking, if that is you, you likely need a retrain phase before you do anything else. Because jumping into another phase without this foundation will likely not produce the results that you're looking for. If you have a depleted muscle base, meaning you've never truly fueled your body for building, maybe you're in that skinny fat phase, right?

That's kind of where Cheryl was. She had some tone at the beginning, but she was skinny fat, and she wanted more muscle. That's why she said, I just want to go into a building phase. For you, the building phase may come before the fat loss phase. That's if you need to truly focus on building muscle, which I believe every woman over 55 should do first, because the results of fat loss are only as visible as the muscle underneath them. And if your metabolism is healthy, you have a solid muscle base, and fat loss is your primary goal,

this is for the women who say, I just want to lose five pounds. I'd say, okay, if your metabolism is healthy, you have a solid muscle base and fat loss is your primary goal, then a properly structured fat loss phase followed by a maintenance phase is most likely your starting point. But do you see how this can be uniquely different for everybody? So when people ask me what their macro numbers should be, I say, I don't know. I need to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you and really get to know you before I can honestly answer that question. And then you cycle.

Fat loss, maintenance, build, maintenance, fat loss. Retrain, fat loss. Retrain, maintenance, fat loss. The cycle is different for everybody. But each cycle is going to leave you stronger. It's going to leave you with more metabolic resilience. It's going to leave you closer to the body you're building toward. It's not a straight line. It's a strategic loop. And this is what creates results that last.

What that loop builds over time is freedom. I've seen it in so many of our WarriorBabes. You can go to warriorbabe.com and look at the success stories. You can watch the videos of women who are on the other side of this. I want every woman to be on the other side of this. That kind of freedom where you're not tracking obsessively. You're not pushing through another diet. You're not starting over on Monday. You are just living. You're eating well. You're feeling strong.

You're maintaining a body that you're proud of, because you put in the foundational work to earn it. Think about how many years you've been searching for an answer that actually sticks. I've heard that so many times from the women I've talked to. For some of you, that's been five years. For some, it's been 20. For some, it's been decades. What would it feel like to be done searching, right? That's what this methodology builds.

It's what it helps you build toward. It's not a quick fix. It's a body and a metabolism that finally work for the rest of your life. And you may be thinking in the back of your head, well, I'm in menopause. Cheryl was post-menopause, and she did this. Yeah, I see a lot of you smiling. Don't think I don't see you. All of our women are in perimenopause, menopause or post-menopause, and they're still getting these types of results. It is possible. You can do it.

I want to leave you with even more ammunition walking out of this call. I've coached over 20,000 women inside of WarriorBabe and been 11 years in the industry. I've seen these mistakes, and I don't want you making the same ones. Number one is living in a permanent fat loss phase. Zap, we're done doing that. Men in Black, zap, we're done living in a permanent fat loss phase. That's finding a deficit and staying there forever. Your body is going to adapt.

Your results are going to stop. And instead of cycling out, women just cut more and more, and they go to the gym and do tons of cardio. That is where a lot of women are today, and it just makes everything worse. So let me see if you guys are paying attention. Fat loss phases work because they are what? First one out of the gate, right there. Temporary. Yes. Fat loss phases work because they are temporary. They're not forever. What are they? They're a season.

Mistake number two is never eating enough to build muscle. I know a lot of women here relate to chronically under-eating for years. Internally, you have almost no metabolic capacity to build muscle. And then you work out harder and wonder why nothing changes. The answer is eating the right amount, a slight caloric surplus, to help you build muscle. And the retrain phase is how you get there safely. Another one: don't ever skip maintenance.

Going from one deficit straight into another deficit without a reset. Don't do that. It's the most direct path to a tanked metabolism and yo-yo results. It's the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over again. From talking to women, I can say that's where a lot of women are when they come to WarriorBabe. They've been doing the same thing over and over again. Eating less, eating less, eating less. Okay.

Don't panic during a building phase. That's another mistake. When the scale goes up, even slightly, I get it. I feel you. I can empathize with that. I understand being on it and controlling it. There's a whole other call I could do on the emotional relationship with the scale. But during a building phase, when women focus on the scale, they abandon the build before it even has a chance to work. Because the scale moving up during a properly structured building phase is not fat gain.

Please understand that. It is muscle. It is water. It is glycogen. It is a lot of other things happening. It's not just fat. You may gain a little bit of fat, but it's not just fat. And understanding this intellectually is one thing, but trusting it in the moment is another. A lot of you are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense, I totally get that. But when you're in the moment, emotions are going to take over. So trusting in the moment is a whole other thing. And that's why coaching can be everything for you in that phase.

Another one is not knowing your actual, true numbers. Without knowing your real maintenance calories, your macro targets, the right calculator for you and your metabolic history, you're just guessing. That's why these assessments are in place in the Macro Method. If you're just guessing, that's how you stay stuck. That's what the Macro Method assessment solves. It tells you where you actually are so that you can start from the right place. And don't try to gamify that assessment, my friends. You hear me? Don't gamify it.

Be honest. It's there to help you. If you gamify it, you're just going to continue to be stuck. Everything we talked about tonight, guys, the phases, the retrain, the cycle, why your body has not responded the way you hoped, this is what we are most passionate about at WarriorBabe, and specifically inside WarriorBabe VIP. Understanding the phases is one thing. But being in the right phase for your body, with the right numbers, with someone assessing your metabolic history and adjusting your strategy as you progress, is what produces results long term.

And that is what VIP is built to deliver. Some of you are inside the Macro Method working through the steps on your own, and that's incredible. I see in the chat box that it's working. But VIP is where the coach does the strategy and then you do the work. They're going to do the steps for you. VIP is for you if you've been stuck in the same pattern, losing a little, gaining it back, losing it again, and you can't figure out why it keeps repeating. VIP is for you if you've been eating less and less and your body has stopped responding.

It's for you if tonight was the first time you heard some of these words, like the retrain phase, and something clicked that has never clicked before. Or if, as I'm talking to you, light bulbs are going off and ahas are happening, then VIP would be a step I'd recommend you take. If you've been doing this alone and you're genuinely tired of trying to figure it out without anyone in your corner who actually knows your body, then that's for you.

That's your moment. All right? You get a personalized macro plan, with specific calorie and macro targets calculated for your body and your metabolic history. A custom workout plan, with progressive strength training over time. One-on-one coaching: a real coach who knows your plan, monitors your progress, looks at it and adjusts your phase. She'll say, all right, we're going into a maintenance phase, we're done with fat loss. Sometimes you need to hear that, because you could stay in fat loss forever, right?

It's happened before. You get accountability. Somebody is going to check in on you and help you understand the right phases and the right amounts moving forward. And then you have the community. Every woman in the community has been in one or all of the phases, and they're doing it alongside you. They're showing up for each other every single day in that community. All right? So if anything tonight resonated with you, if Cheryl's story resonated with you or sounds familiar, like, I want to look like that,

she's 60, I can do it, right? If these things are going off, think about it as an aha moment for you. I don't want you to lose momentum coming out of this call. I don't want you to wait and stay stuck in the same cycle for six more months. So I would say take the step and check out VIP if that's what is resonating with you tonight. I know Santana is putting the link in the chat box. Just take a few seconds. Look at it. Fill out the application. There's no commitment for just applying. But it will start a conversation so you can figure out the right phase for you and whether VIP is the right strategy for you.

All right? So check it out. Guys, there's something coming in May that I'm so excited about. We're launching the Macros Unlocked series. It's a four-week community call series, every Thursday here. Each call builds on the last one, so what we learn one week we'll build on the week after. And Santana just dropped this: we're also doing challenge sprints. So the first week, you're going to do a sprint that has to do with macros.

And the third week is a challenge focused on a specific macro. I'm not going to give it out just yet. But we're going to do these challenge sprints, which is really exciting. So we're going to go deep into macros in May. Nutrition strategy, all those things. Everything you need to actually understand to fuel your results, okay? Each call is designed to level you up from the last one, all right? But in order to qualify for the challenge sprints we're running, you need to be attending these calls. You need to be on these calls, all right?

Because the challenge sprints are where you're going to put everything you've been learning into action. Think about it as accountability. Think about us together as a community, doing this in real time. Attending the calls is what gets you in and gets you to win, all right? So if you're not inside the Facebook community, get inside it right now. And if you're ready for more than the free community, if you want a personalized plan, a coach and real accountability behind everything we're going to teach in May and everything you learned tonight, the VIP application is also in the chat.

Real coaching for your specific body and your specific results. Guys, fill out the application if it's of interest to you. It takes two minutes. Start the conversation. All right, you guys? I love you all. Love you guys more. I'll see you in the community. Ask your questions in there as well. And I'll see you next week. Love y'all. Bye.

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, 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.