How to Get Toned After 40 Without Losing More Weight

Nikkiey: If you are in the goal of wanting to be toned, that number on the scale may possibly go up. If you want to build shoulders, if you want to build your glutes, if you want to have defined legs, if you want to have and create definition in your back, fat loss is what's going to reveal that muscle, but fat loss cannot create muscle. Building significant muscle is really freaking hard to do. I wish it happened as easily as women think it does, but you don't accidentally wake up one morning insanely jacked because you started using heavier dumbbells.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show with your host, Nikkiey Stott. 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.

My friends, I think I've got a good episode for you today, because with what I'm seeing on social media and all of these trends that are making their way back, I just need to squash it and I need to squash it fast. Skinny is still trending out there, and this word toned is resurfacing.

A lot of women are saying, I want to be toned and I want to look toned, but they're doing strategies that aren't going to get them to that type of physique. I'm hearing, I want to tone up, but I don't want to get too bulky. I want my arms to look more toned. I want my legs to look more toned. I want my abs to be more toned. I want to lose weight and I want to tone up. And listen, I know exactly what you mean when you say that. I get that you want shape. You want definition. You want to be leaner. You want to look more athletic. You want your shoulders to pop a little bit more. You want to see the definition and the lines. You want your legs to have shape. You want your glutes to look like they're lifted. I get it.

But what I need you to understand when you're saying that, or when you're seeing a lot of women on social media claiming that this is the look they want: you cannot tone a muscle that you haven't built. You can't tone a muscle if a muscle isn't there. That's what I mean. Muscles can grow. Muscles can shrink. You can gain body fat. You can lose body fat. And the combination of how much muscle you have underneath your body fat and how much body fat you're carrying is largely what creates the look that women describe as toned.

So if you've spent 10, 15, 20, 25 years, multiple decades, trying to get to this smaller, skinnier, toned look and you're still chasing that toned body, we need to start having a completely different conversation. And that's what I hope to have with you today.

As I've said in previous podcasts, you may not have a fat loss problem. This is specifically talking to the women who have 5 or 10 pounds to lose, maybe even 15, and they're chasing that. They're saying, I need to lose fat, but I want to look more toned. That's the woman I'm speaking to here. You may not have a fat loss problem at this point. Maybe you've lost the weight. Or even those of you who have 50, 60, 70 pounds to lose: you have to lose that weight, but there's going to be a part in your journey where you can no longer afford to lose more weight. You have to start building muscle.

So you may be at that crossroad where you think, okay, I have 5 or 10 more pounds to lose. But do you really have that problem, or do you have a muscle building problem? That's what I want to get at. I want you to think about the body that you're trying to create, because this is where I feel a lot of women get stuck.

When a lot of women say, I want more defined arms, okay, I hear you. Think about this: what is creating that definition? Muscle. Or, I want capped shoulders like you, or I want rounded shoulders, I want to create that definition. What is creating that? Muscle. I want my legs to look more athletic, or my arms to look more athletic, or my biceps to be more toned. What's creating that? Muscle.

Almost every single physical characteristic that women rattle off when they tell me they want to look more toned requires one thing. It requires you having enough muscle underneath that body fat to actually create that shape. Does that make sense? Like I said, you can't tone a muscle that you don't have.

So if you are somebody who is chasing skinny or chasing being smaller, there will be a point in your journey where you just become a smaller, skinny-fat version of yourself. I've been there, done that. That was my challenge 12 years ago, and the cause of a lot of frustration, confusion and overwhelm. I was in the position a lot of you are in right now, seeing all these trends and all these things on social media, and it can be so overwhelming knowing what to actually do, because they all tell you to do something different in hopes that you'll get to the goal you want.

And there are two different strategies, like I've talked about before. There's weight loss, where you focus on losing the weight. And then there's the fat loss strategy, which is making sure that you're eating enough to build or preserve lean muscle, which is going to decrease the body fat around the muscle. It's going to reveal more of the muscle that you either need to build or that you have underneath the body fat. It just isn't showing yet.

So with every characteristic I just rattled off, if you want to be toned, you have to have enough muscle underneath that body fat to actually create the shape you're seeking. But what have women been taught to do? The industry has pointed women to eat less, do more cardio, and get that number on the scale down, which has caused a lot of confusion and overwhelm.

I'll be the first one to tell you, if you are in the goal of wanting to be toned, that number on the scale may possibly go up. I started my journey at 140 pounds. Now I'm 155 pounds. I've gained 15 pounds over the decade of my journey. A lot of women would derail themselves if they went up even two or three pounds. So I'm painting a picture here: if you do go up two or three pounds along your journey, please don't let that get in the way of you being successful and reaching the outcome you want, which is being more toned, because it's going to happen.

And if you're on the journey of trying to get the scale down, and you finally reach the number you thought would give you that dream body and it doesn't, you're disappointed. You're smaller, but you're disappointed. You're more of that skinny-fat version. And it's not your fault. It's what this industry is telling you to do. I remember feeling the same confusion. I was thinking, wait, I'm doing these things. I'm doing more cardio. I signed up for three half marathons that first year of my journey, and I was eating less. And I still wasn't where I thought I would be.

These things don't give you the shape you wanted. And when you get to that skinny-fat place, you think, well, maybe I just need to lose another three pounds. But maybe not. Maybe losing another five pounds is taking you further away from what you actually want, because, like I said, the scale may go up. And if there isn't enough muscle underneath, then there's nothing there to reveal. That's something I wish more women understood.

To put it into context for you, there are images on my social media of me at the start, at 140 pounds, and where I am now. And this is where two women can have the same weight. If I was to lose 15 pounds and be 140 pounds now, I would be stage-ready lean. But let's say you put me next to somebody else who is 155 pounds. We could be the same weight yet look completely different. That's what I wish a lot of women understood more.

You can take the same height and the same body weight, we could both step on the scale and be the exact same number, but our bodies would look dramatically different. Why? Because of our body composition. I would have significantly more lean mass, developed shoulders, lean abs, definition through my back, muscle in my legs, because my body has shape. The other woman might have less muscle but a higher percentage of body fat. Same exact weight, completely different physique.

This is why I keep telling women that the scale does not tell you what your body is made up of, and that matters. That number on the scale is not telling you how much of your weight is muscle. It's not telling you how much water weight you have in your body that day. It's not showing what time of the month it is in your cycle. And all of that matters. Because if your entire strategy is based around making yourself smaller and getting a smaller number on the scale, you might actually be sacrificing the very muscle tissue that is going to give you the exact look you want.

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This is where I see people on a hamster wheel. I see this pattern all the time. A woman decides she wants to tone up. Usually this is right around March or April, because summer is around the corner. So she starts dieting. She brings her calories down. She starts getting outside because it's warmer and doing more cardio, maybe a 5K every morning when she wakes up. Maybe she's doing some type of strength training, but she's still thinking about her workouts primarily as a way to burn calories.

So she loses maybe 10 pounds, and she looks smaller, but she's not seeing the definition she expected for doing as much as she's doing. When this happens, typically she cuts more calories and adds in more cardio. Then maybe she loses another 5 pounds, but she still doesn't have the shape she wants. Now she's very frustrated. I'm literally speaking from experience here.

I'm sure so many of you listening are resonating with this or know somebody in your circle who is doing it. You're frustrated. She's frustrated. I was frustrated back then. And now we're thinking, okay, how much smaller do I have to get? Which is a trend right now, the trend to get skinny. Can we stop this trend and get focused on being stronger?

If someone asks me, how much more weight can I lose? My answer is: you don't have to lose any more weight. You might need to stop trying to become a smaller version of you and start trying to become more muscular.

I know that term scares so many women, because the second they hear more muscular, an image comes into their brain that looks completely different from what I'm actually talking about. I'm not telling you that you need to be a competitive bodybuilder. I'm not telling you that you need to step on stage. I'm not telling you to gain massive amounts of muscle.

I'm telling you that if you want to build shoulders, if you want to build your glutes, if you want to have defined legs, if you want to create definition in your back, fat loss is what's going to reveal that muscle, like I said. But fat loss cannot create muscle. That's the distinction I need you to understand. And that's why I'm saying you probably don't have a fat loss problem anymore. If you're at that crossroad, you have a muscle building problem.

So think about it like this. Think about a sculpture. Imagine you're sculpting something and you're removing material. You're constantly removing, removing, removing. But eventually there has to be something underneath worth revealing. That's what happens with your physique. Fat loss is revealing.

I used to say all the time to our WarriorBabes that if you go through the muscle building process first, you may gain some weight, and you're obviously going to eat more food, because fuel is the energy that gives you the ability to build the muscle. Then once we go into decreasing your calories and your macronutrients, it's like Christmas morning. You're in an appropriate fat loss phase and you start revealing the muscle.

But if there's nothing underneath worth revealing, what has to happen is the creation process, and muscle building is the creating. Those are two completely different processes. In one, you have to eat the calories, you have to eat the food, you have to build the muscle. In the other, you are revealing it. Two different strategies. I've talked about the difference between weight loss and fat loss. There's also a different strategy between fat loss and muscle building.

Women have spent decades obsessed with the revealing aspect, the fat loss aspect, while barely putting time, energy, investment and intention into the creating part.

So I want to challenge you with a question. Instead of asking how much more weight do I need to lose, ask yourself: have I actually built enough muscle to create the body I want, the one I'm working so hard to show off and reveal? If you know you're somebody who needs to build a little more muscle, again, I'm not asking you to be a competitive bodybuilder. I'm not asking you to put loads of muscle mass on. But if you answer that honestly, that answer could completely change your strategy. Maybe the next six months shouldn't be about chasing how many calories you can burn and how much more you can cut from your day of eating. Maybe the next six months is about you building.

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All right, let's get back to the show. For those of you thinking, I'm afraid I'm going to get bulky, let me have a conversation with you about that. Whenever I start telling women they need more muscle, I know some of you are thinking that and you're afraid of it. I get it. That's fair. There are a lot of muscular women out there on social media. I mean, the first thing I looked at, my goal, was based on bodybuilders. That's how I got into the bodybuilding world, because I felt that was the way I was going to get my dream body. Is it a path to take? Yes.

But somebody at the gym the other day asked me, oh, do you compete? I said, yeah, I used to. Then they asked, when was your last show? And I said, 2018. And they looked at me and said, oh wow, you've really maintained your body. So that is the pathway I know 95% of you want to take. Not everybody wants to be a competitive bodybuilder.

So when I hear you say, I don't want to get too bulky, I understand that. But let me tell you something. What you see online with competitive bodybuilders and people in that space is really hard. Building significant muscle is really freaking hard to do. I wish it happened as easily as women think it does. But you don't accidentally wake up one morning insanely jacked because you started using heavier dumbbells.

Building muscle requires you to do progressive overload training and to eat enough, which the majority of women don't do to begin with. It requires you to have really good recovery, which, again, a lot of women don't have. People are training six to seven days a week. You get what I'm saying? And you have to have consistency and you have to have time. I mean years.

This is why I want women to stop being afraid of it. The amount of muscle you're picturing when you say bulky isn't something you're going to accidentally acquire from lifting weights three or four times a week.

And the ironic part is that the physique you're showing me, when you say, I want to look like this, that woman probably has more muscle than you think she does. The shape you're admiring, the shoulders, the legs, all of that requires building muscle. Part of what makes someone's waist look smaller, which a lot of women want, is that she has muscle developed around it. The shoulders, the back, the glutes, it's all working together to create those proportions. So you keep asking for the outcome while being afraid of the thing required to create it.

That's why I want you to stop being afraid of this whole narrative. Especially if you're absorbed in the social media space and you're hearing, I don't want to get bulky, and you're thinking, me too, I don't want to get bulky. I challenge you to ask, what does that actually mean? Because when you understand what it actually means, like I'm explaining to you, it's really freaking hard to do. If you want the outcome, you've got to let that fear go, because it's not going to happen to you.

One other thing that drives me nuts, and I just want this one to be dead: for years, women were told that light weights are going to make you toned. So people are picking up the little five-pound pink dumbbells and doing lateral raises, hoping that's going to create the toned physique they want. There isn't a special toning adaptation your muscles make because you picked up five-pound pink dumbbells.

As I've said over and over again, your muscles respond to tension. They adapt over time. They respond to being challenged. You can absolutely build muscle across a range of reps. But what's actually going to be a challenging enough, meaningful stimulus is the number of sets you're doing, with the amount of weight on the bar progressing over time.

And if you're doing 20 reps with a weight you could have done 45 reps with, we're probably not accomplishing what you think we're accomplishing. If you can pick up heavier weights, do it. A lot of women just go in, do the motions, and get comfortable with the effort they're putting out. Your muscles need a reason to adapt, my friends. So if your body can easily handle what you're asking it to do with those five-pound pink dumbbells, or with the effort you're putting out in the gym, it's not going to build more muscle for you.

You have to invest in progressive overload. You need enough training volume. You need to push yourself to a really challenging point at the end of a set, where you're almost at failure. The last three reps in a set should be extremely challenging for you. And most importantly, you need recovery, because you're not going to build muscle inside the gym. You're going to build muscle in the 24 to 48 hours outside of the gym. You break down muscle in the gym and you build it outside of it. Okay?

And you need enough time, enough consistency, long enough for change to actually happen in your body. Not two weeks. Not until you have a wedding or a vacation. Long enough for your body to change, and that's why I mean years. Not until the scale goes up two pounds and you panic and turn around. That's the hamster wheel.

You've got to let yourself lean into the uncomfortable aspects of building and changing your body composition, because every single one of you wants that outcome. It's going to challenge you to think differently, and one of those things is the scale. Like I said, it may go up. This is a big mindset shift, a big mindset shift, and I don't want to downplay it. I understand it, because we've all been conditioned to believe the scale goes down, good; the scale goes up, bad.

But if your goal isn't weight loss anymore, what if your goal is body composition? Then it requires you to look at progress differently. You could weigh more but look leaner. I know that sounds so backwards if you've spent your entire life measuring success through the scale. But again, that's what I would ask you to be aware of: what is that weight made of? If over time you build more muscle and improve your body composition, the number on the scale may not tell you the full story. You think it does.

What will tell you is that your clothes fit differently. Your measurements will change. Your shape is going to change. You're going to have more definition. You're going to have that toned look you want.

So when someone tells me, I just want to lose 15 pounds, I ask, why? Why do you want to lose 15 pounds? What do you think is waiting for you on the other side of that number? Because maybe what you're describing isn't a weight. It's the body composition you want. When I ask people that question about their weight, they typically gravitate toward, well, I just want to be more lean and more defined. That's a drastically different approach. They're not the same goal.

So if there's anything I can say with this podcast, it's that maybe some of you need to build muscle first and reveal it second. That's the easiest way I can explain it. You don't have to constantly be in an I-need-to-lose-fat phase or a cut phase. In fact, when women come into WarriorBabe, the majority of y'all don't need to be in a fat loss phase. You probably shouldn't be.

There are seasons where the goal is building. There are seasons where the goal is maintaining. And there are seasons where the goal is to lose body fat. But if you're constantly trying to lose body fat or weight year-round, you're never giving yourself a real opportunity to build the muscle tissue that is going to change your overall body composition, which is what so many women want.

And this is where it's funny. When I was on a WarriorBabe community call, I told them I was going to pray over them for patience. And everyone said, you should never pray for patience, because then you'll be really tested. But that's the whole reason I want to pray over you for patience, because this is where patience comes into play. And if you're being tested in it, that means you need to rely more on developing that patience muscle.

Fat loss can happen relatively quickly. But muscle building is much slower, and that makes it harder psychologically. You might train for weeks without seeing something dramatic happen, which a lot of people are used to seeing with weight loss. But the payoff is that you're getting stronger. Your technique is improving. You're doing progressive overload. Even though you may not be able to tangibly see the changes, there are changes happening.

Then month after month, when you eventually look back, and you should be taking progress pictures during this time, because again, the scale is not going to tell you the full story, you're going to say, holy crap, my shoulders look completely different. My shape has improved. My back has definition. The majority of women will see changes from the top down. You ever notice how people say, wow, are you losing weight? Your face looks different. Yeah, you literally start losing weight from the top down. So you're going to start seeing your shoulders get defined, your biceps get defined. And that's why some people get impatient, because the belly isn't changing yet. But I promise you, over time it will. You're building muscle. This isn't built in a 30-day period, and it's not built in a 30-day or 60-day challenge.

So the next time you catch yourself saying, I just want to tone up, please translate it to: I want more muscle development and I want less body fat so I can see the shape I've built. Or, if you need to build the shape, remember that you have to go through the season of building.

Once you understand that, everything can change for you. The goal won't just be about weight loss. It won't just be about fat loss. It won't be about how many calories a workout is burning. Your goal is to make yourself strong and to build muscle. It's not going to be, how can I be as small as possible? It's to reveal the muscle you are building. You have to create the muscle, and the fat loss will reveal it. Or if you do have muscle underneath the fat, the fat loss will reveal it, and the muscles will create that look. And you cannot reveal something you never took the time to build.

So please make sure you're lifting the weights. Make sure you're challenging yourself. Make sure you're fueling yourself. Make sure you're eating enough protein. Make sure you're recovering properly. Make sure you're tracking your progress with more than just the scale. And stop being afraid of building muscle. Stop being afraid of being too bulky.

If there are accounts you follow on social media saying those things, unfollow them, because they're not supporting the narrative in your mind toward your goal. And if you find yourself following somebody and thinking, wow, that person's way too big and she's bulky, unfollow them, because that person may be doing something in her life that you won't necessarily be doing on your journey. Okay?

The toned body you've been chasing has been muscle this whole entire time. Period. All right, guys. Love y'all, and I'll see you in the next episode.

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