Gratitude Gains: Fueling Fitness & Well-being w/ Thankfulness Tactics

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. If you right now can experience and be grateful for the fact that your body is given the opportunity and has the opportunity to work out, will you not find the motivation to go work out?

00:38What's going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkie Stott. Or if this is one of your first episodes, guys, welcome to the show. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkie Stott, and welcome to episode 106, where we are just going to sit in the weight of gratitude, being that Thanksgiving was yesterday.

01:12So I hope that every single one of you guys listening to this show had an absolutely amazing Thanksgiving. And if you're listening to this weeks and months past Thanksgiving, I hope that you guys still had an amazing Thanksgiving. All right? But for today's podcast, what I'm going to talk about has to do with the nature of Thanksgiving, and that is gratitude. So there has been, and it's going to tie into fitness, okay?

01:47So stay with me here. I think this is a very important topic for you guys to understand. Because there's so much science of gratitude connected to health, there's going to be things I'm going to dive into with gratitude and fitness and your well-being. I'm going to share some daily practices that you can take away from this podcast today and can implement into your routine that will help you to focus on gratitude. But there has been so much recent research on this specific topic that I just want you guys to know about.

02:23And I want you guys to be educated on. Because if you can allow yourself to experience the feeling of gratitude, not just once, not just twice, not just throughout this entire podcast today, not just because Thanksgiving was yesterday and you probably had immense gratitude. But like on a continual, regular basis, if you guys can allow yourself to do that, oh, I'm just going to get down to like what it does for you, okay? Let's just get down to like diving into the science of gratitude and health.

02:54And I'm only going to touch on like certain things that are correlated to your health, your well-being, and fitness. But there's like just a plethora, there's plethora of studies out there about this, about this word, and this feeling and this experience. So I'm only going to touch on like 5% of them, but like know that there's just so much out there about this. So let's just dive into it. If you can allow yourself to consistently be in a state of gratitude, it will reduce your stress.

03:26It will improve your sleep quality. It will help you to enhance happiness within your life. It will build resilience for yourself and in aspects of your life and in your fitness journey. And it will improve your relationships. And it will also just create long-term health within your body, your state of mind, and your longevity. So I want to break down each of those specific things. One being how gratitude can reduce stress. So there's been numerous studies that have indicated that gratitude exercises,

04:00which I'm going to share with you guys at the end of the podcast, how doing those exercises can lead to significant reduction in stress. So when you specifically focus on what you are thankful for, like think back to yesterday, like dude, so many thankful things to be thankful for. So many things to be thankful for. The food you had, the memories you created, the people you were around, the laughs you had, like there's so, if you can just, if you actively right now focus on that from yesterday,

04:32you engage in a positive cognitive process that will, that helps shift your attention away from like stressors of like outside things that happen before Thanksgiving and negative thoughts, right? And you can do that right now. And you can do that every single day with daily practices that focus on gratitude. And when you're able to do that, when you're able to engage in a thought that you're thankful for and grateful for, you create this cognitive, positive cognitive process, and it shifts your

05:04attention away from I'm stressed, and all of these negative thoughts, it shifts it more into a positive thing, because you are grateful, you're experiencing gratitude. And when you are able to do this consistently and consecutively over time, and it's not just one or two times, like I said, this shift can lead to lower levels of stress hormone being cortisol. And to tie that really quick to fitness and life and our fitness journey and your health and your well-being and the results that you want to see within your body, if you can lower the levels of

05:38cholesterol within your body, not cholesterol, if you can lower the levels of cortisol in your body, cortisol is a fat storing hormone. So the more that you have your cortisol elevated, the more that your body is going to hold on to fat. If that is lower, the easier it will be to lose body fat without even having to dive into nutrition, without even having to dive into exercise. You could just focus on gratitude to lose body fat. Just kidding. But it will help drastically aiding in the process of your fat loss journey.

06:14If you can lower your stressors within life, and you could just do that by practicing daily gratitude. So I'm going to share a couple of examples too, when I talk about diving deeper into like physical and well-being and all that kind of stuff. I'm going to share examples of how I've seen this play out in my life and also in the Warrior Babes lives that are part of our community and our program. If you don't know what Warrior Babes is, definitely go check out warriorbabe.com to learn more about it. So that's one way that practicing gratitude can, with research and studies,

06:46has been an improving factor of one's life is reducing stress. Another one is improving sleep quality. So research has also shown that gratitude can improve sleep quality. By just a sheer fact of you keeping like a gratitude journal, or simply reflecting on like a positive aspect of your life, before you go to bed on a regular basis, it can help to quiet your mind and ease into sleep, right? So think about how many times you maybe just got done watching a TV show,

07:20and then you bam dog diggity go and lay down in bed and expect to fall asleep right away. That ain't gonna happen. You probably experience your mind is racing all over the place. Or if you don't watch Netflix, and you just go and lay down to go to bed one at night, and you just find your brain is just, it's just like thinking about the day, it's rewinding the day, it's thinking about the things that you have to do tomorrow, it's causing a little bit of stress, because like maybe you're behind on a project, or maybe you forgot to do this one thing. And so you, you just you have a hard time falling asleep. But if you can do this specific exercise of just writing in your journal at night,

07:55or before you go to bed or writing on a notepad, doesn't have to be a journal, can be a notepad, it could, I was gonna say could be your phone, but I don't want it to be your phone, because you don't you don't want to be looking at that light before you go to bed. It's side note that can make you falling asleep even harder. But even just you reflecting on a positive aspect of maybe the day that you just had, or positive aspect of your life, and you're experiencing gratitude for that one thing, before you go to bed, it's going to help to eliminate all of these stressors that are ruminating in your mind.

08:26And for you just focus on this one positive thing that creates that cognitive process, that will help you to move away from negative stressors, negative thoughts to more of a way of quieting your mind and being able to ease into sleep. And again, this is particularly because it's affected because gratitude reduces negative feelings and worrying thoughts, which often lead to the inability to sleep, it leads to insomnia, right? So like what I mentioned, with all your thoughts being all over the place,

08:57when you go to bed at night, which is for like majority of the population, you probably have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. So if you can just focus on one thing that you're grateful for, or a few things that you're grateful for before going to bed, it will put you in a positive state of mind, help quiet the mind, and allow you to ease into sleep. So that's another way of what's been scientifically proven, of how gratitude can help improve your life by improving your sleep quality. And then like two of these things are both directly correlated to a fitness journey too as well.

09:30If you can reduce stress, it's going to be a little bit easier to see results. And if you can improve sleep quality, it's going to be a little bit easier and quicker to see results. This third one, gratitude not only reduces stress, but it also helps the psychological resilience, like enabling you to better handle future stress and adversities, which overall enhances your happiness. Hey, hey, just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show.

10:01It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it and there's so much more to come with it. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons. And also it would help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too. So gratitude has been proven that if you can lower these things that we just talked about, you build resilience around specific stressors. And so that enables you to better handle future stress. And that leads into point number to the other, to the other aspect of what I had talked about earlier with building resilience.

10:34When you do build this psychological resilience, you cope with stress and adversity better, but it also is linked by you practicing gratitude. It's linked to lower rates of stress-related disorders. So these two enhancing happiness and building resilience are correlated together because the more that you build on the psychological resilience of yourself, the more that you reduce stress, the more that you focus on gratitude, you are able to handle future stresses and adversities better

11:05and also lower the stress-related disorder to pop up in your life. Gratitude is a powerful freaking thing, you guys. And then another thing that science of gratitude and health has been proven is the improving of your relationships. So by just merely experiencing and focusing on things that you are grateful for, it strengthens your relationships, it leads to enhanced mental health, it deepens your social bonds.

11:36So like if you and your husband or you and your partner, you and your friends focus on something that you guys are grateful for, for the friendship the friendship brings you or for what the marriage brings you or for what you guys are grateful for, for something that you guys have done in the marriage together, by focusing on those things, it deepens your bond, right? And this is such a huge, important aspect of mental well-being. And when you have improved relationships, and let's say you're on a fitness journey, you're able to create these bonds within that community of women or people

12:10that are also into fitness, which just strengthens your ability to get results as well. And then long-term health. A grateful mindset can lead to a healthier heart, to an improved immune system, to just overall longevity. So if you can practice gratitude, not just once, not just twice, but on a regular basis, and consistently, consecutively over time, this can create,

12:41just a ripple effect into long-term health for yourself. It makes every aspect of your life and your body and your mind and, and, you know, the longevity that you want to create for yourself, it, it, it, it helps to improve all of those aspects, your heart, your immune system, the longevity, everything to your mental well-being. So those are a few things to unpack the science side of things, with gratitude connected to your health. Something that I want to dive in a little bit deeper now is gratitude in fitness,

13:16right? I touched on like a couple pieces that are correlated to fitness within like the science side of things, and those aspects that can, when you focus on gratitude, it can be improved in your overall life. Like they all direct, they all in some ways tie to results, and you getting results. But when you focus on gratitude and fitness, and like a physical well-being, it boosts motivation for you to actually do the things that you want to do, and should do, that are going to get you the results you want, like working out and eating right. It fosters a positive outlook on the physical challenges that you may encounter along your journey.

13:50Actually, not that you may, that you will. Okay, not every fitness journey is a smooth sailing ride. And then another one is that it encourages healthy choices. Overall, it encourages healthy choices to get your workout in, it encourages healthy choices when it comes to food options, and encourages healthy choices when it comes to the mindset of your journey. So first, let's talk about how gratitude can significantly enhance motivation for you wanting to do your workouts.

14:22When you are grateful for your body, this is a great example for you to experience gratitude in this moment. Think with me on this. If you can be grateful for your body's capability, and being given the opportunity to exercise, this will often lead to greater intrinsic motivation for you to go and work out. If you right now can experience and be grateful for the fact that your body is given the opportunity and has the opportunity to work out, will you not find the motivation to go and work out?

14:55Your body is a powerhouse. It is a machine. And you have the capability and the opportunity. If you have all four legs, have good, you know, you're here on this earth, you have the ability to go and work out. You just have to make the choice. But practicing the gratitude for that capability within your body should give you some motivation to go get it done. This is your one body, the one time you have on this earth, like you should treat it the way that it wants to be treated with being healthy.

15:28And you have the opportunity to do that. It has the opportunity to exercise. The shift in mindset that transforms here from wanting to go, from like looking at exercise as like a burden and some task that you have to do to an activity of appreciation for what your body can achieve. Making that switch is huge. Like, did you follow me there? Like, if you can make that switch within your own mind, rather than looking at it as like a burrito,

15:58oh my God, I have to go do this. Do I get to go do this? That's huge. And that comes with you being grateful for the body that you have. So in that, you're in the act of that thought, you are experiencing gratitude. Perfect example. The where I just got that tagline from is like, I don't have to work out. I get to work out. That came from our warrior babe ambassador, a warrior babe inside of our community, Jessica, who came back from this tragic accident that she experienced

16:30that left her with the doctors being like, basically, you're going to have a hard time walking. Or I think it was that you may not even be able to walk again. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, warrior babe is here for you. At warrior babe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat,

17:05build 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. Visit warrior babe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warrior babe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show.

17:35And she came back from that. She proved them all wrong. And she started to get stronger, do strength training exercises. And now is on this journey of and in that moment, since she went through that tragic experience, she knows she's so grateful because then she overcame it. She's so grateful for what her body can do, what her mind can do. And now looks at it as I don't get to work out.

18:08Or I don't have to work out. I get to work out. Has a greater appreciation for what her body is capable of doing. So that's a perfect example of it. For me, for my example is I try and practice gratitude every single morning. And when I think about my body and my health and I think about long term picture for my body and my health, I know that being grateful for the body I have now and taking care of it now is so important for years and years and years in the future.

18:40So I'm grateful for what my body can do. I know it has the opportunity and the capability to go and achieve amazing things. So I don't look at it as like, oh God, I have to go work out today. I look at it like I get to go work out today, right? Just changing that, like the mindset shift from that is drastically transformed the way that you perceive and have a perspective for gratitude on your body. Another one is when you focus on gratitude, you have a positive attitude towards any type of challenge that will be associated with your journey.

19:17Okay, it encourages you to focus on progress and the benefits of the workout that you're experiencing or how you're eating right, rather than the discomfort that it might involve, the hardship that it might involve, right? Some people look at macronutrients as something so hard to have to do. But again, you don't have to do it, you get to do it. It's merely a choice. And so when you focus on like maintaining a positive attitude, no matter what hardships you encounter along your fitness journey, and that comes with being grateful that you have this experience, you have this opportunity to be involved with,

19:52this will help you to experience plateaus or setbacks differently. And having a grateful perspective will help you to foster more resilience and problem solving to these specific approaches that maybe you wouldn't have been able to if you weren't in a positive outlook or positive attitude towards your fitness journey, right? So being grateful fosters that positive outlook on the challenges that you will encounter along your journey.

20:23Again, you don't have to do macronutrients, you get to do macronutrients, which is then just going to focus on making, on having you make progress along your journey. And then all of this, all of this, like when you have a grateful mindset, it leads to having a healthier lifestyle, which leads to making healthier choices, which leads to you having greater positive outcomes with the results that you want to be seeing for yourself, right?

20:55So when you're grateful, you're more likely to choose good nutrition options for your body. You're more likely to choose drinking more water. You're more likely to choose getting adequate sleep. You're more likely to choose like all of these things that are critical and important for optimal, you know, performance within your workouts, performance in your day-to-day and performance in your recovery. Being grateful is huge, mainly for the positive outcome or positive attitude for your journey.

21:26And because everyone looks at fitness as so hard and daunting and like if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. So of course, there's a level of it being hard, but the level of it being hard is only defined by you. Only defined by you. And it's really like, do I have a negative outlook on my, on this right now? Or do I have a positive outlook on this right now? And then you can answer that. If you focus on gratitude, it's going to lead to more of a positive attitude towards things. And the way you can do that is by focusing on, I don't have to do this, I get to do this.

22:00And so some other ways that you can practice gratitude in your day-to-day is obviously by keeping a journal, right? Simply writing down three things in the morning or in the evening, like I had mentioned earlier, just something that you can focus on what was good that day and what you are grateful for that day. And the act, it's important to write these things down, you guys, because the act of writing them down solidifies them in your mind and makes the feeling of gratitude more tangible.

22:32So it's not that you just sit and think about gratitude and what you're grateful for. It's like, no, physically actually writing it down does something to our brain that makes you be able to feel gratitude more. Okay? So start practicing with a gratitude journal or practice on, practice of mindful connections to gratitude. Like for me, for example, I meditate every single morning. And then following meditation will write down things that I'm grateful for. But I meditate and do breathwork for 15 minutes.

23:03And in that breathwork experience, I am physically, I am mentally engaging in experiences of gratitude. And you could like being, it's not that you just have to be grateful for like your health or like what I'm talking about in this podcast, your relationships or your experiences. You can be even grateful for the crunchy things in life. You can be grateful for the tests that are given to you on a daily basis by God or the universe. You can be grateful for being sick because you are experiencing maybe needing to slow down in life, right?

23:36You can be grateful for the crunchy things. You can be grateful for so many things in your life, the challenging and the positive. Challenging because it's going to create maybe a different type of perspective shift, like a positive way you can look at that challenging situation. But these are things you can be grateful for. And you can practice that in a mindful like meditation. And then you can go ahead and write it down in your journal. And then a big one that I think this is the last one to wrap up this podcast. But how many of you guys struggle so hard to receive a compliment?

24:11I know that this is probably majority of you guys because I've coached clients through this as a part of their fitness journey, right? I used to joke with like you guys, whenever I give a compliment to my client, they would be like, but like, for example, your hair looks nice. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's full of dry shampoo today. Or, oh, yeah. I mean, I didn't even brush it today. Instead of just being like, thank you. Thank you. That is a way of expressing gratitude. It's literally just by if somebody says something nice to you in a complimented form.

24:46It's not that you need to go off on a tangent about something negative about it. It's just by you saying thank you. That is a small act of kindness and a small act of being grateful for something. And so that's just a daily practice that you can do by expressing gratitude to others. So next time you get a compliment, I challenge you guys to say thank you. You're going to feel such a nice sense of, you're going to feel gratitude. That's just the number one way. It's not number one, but it's a great tangible way that you can feel gratitude by just saying

25:18thank you for a compliment that you got. Okay, you guys. So go keep a journal. Go practice mindful exercises with gratitude. Say thank you the next time you get a compliment. And, you know, I hope this podcast helped you in understanding that, you know, we just experienced gratefulness yesterday with Thanksgiving, but these are ways you can experience gratefulness and gratitude every single day, 365 days in a year, every single year. And if you can do that, right, you obviously don't want to start out trying to do it every

25:53single day if you've never done before. Take it in stride. It's just like a habit. It's a building the habit of gratitude. And so if you've never done it before, try it tomorrow and try the next day and then like stack on the days that you do it every single week. And then you'll see that you're experiencing it consistently and constantly. And then you will see the ripple effects from it. I promise you, but you have to put it into play. You have to go take the action to experience this feeling.

26:23Allow yourself to experience gratitude. Okay. So I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. Share this podcast. If it resonated with you to somebody else, that will also resonate with. And I will see you guys in the next podcast. Peace out. Real quick. The only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review.

26:54It will take you 10 seconds and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. And I will see you guys. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time. I will see you next time.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.