How Women Over 40 Can Stop Tying Self-Worth to Weight

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You don't become worthy when you hit that goal weight. You don't become worthy when you fit into a certain type of jeans. You don't become worthy when someone else validates your progress. Your worth is not something you have to earn. It is already yours.

Hey, what's going on, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. 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, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode number 223. It is the first podcast that I'm recording this year. First of all, happy 2025. I hope you guys had an amazing holiday season, an amazing Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's and anything in between that you celebrate. And I hope you are ready for today's episode, because this is something that I'm really excited to share with you.

I hope that if you are open and ready to receive today's message, at the end of this podcast you will feel different. And you will carry on, hopefully for the rest of this year, the type of energy that I'm going to exchange with you here on this episode.

So with that being said, what I really want to talk about is something that my intuition was screaming at me in the month of December. It came out of nowhere. I'm on my 100th day of meditation, and this is something that came to me from being able to sit in silence and hear what my intuition is telling me. Basically, this book kept entering my brain. I don't even remember where I heard or saw this book in my space. This specific book is called Worthy, and it's by Jamie Kern Lima. She is the founder and CEO of the makeup brand IT Cosmetics.

What I want to talk to you guys about today is worthiness, because I believe it is the foundation of everything that we do, not just in our fitness journeys but also in our lives. If I was to define a chapter of 2024, it was recognizing that I felt unworthy in myself. And I am working to reclaim my self-worth. I'm going to dive into a little bit about that today.

There's a specific chapter, I think it's actually chapter one of this book, called Worthy Starts Here. And let me tell you, it hit me in the deepest way. It is all about recognizing your inherent worth, the worth you've had since day one, the day that you were born. Not because of what you achieved in life, what you look like or how others perceive you, but simply because you are you.

There's something specifically in that chapter where she says, no matter all the things that you go through in life, all of the accomplishments, the jobs, the marriage, the kids, the achievements, the body that maybe you get after you lose weight, all along the way, you take you with you. And I'm like, oh my God, that hit so hard.

I believe that ties directly into what WarriorBabe is all about. We're here to help you become strong, confident and empowered. Not because of some external validation, but because you're stepping into the version of yourself who already knows her worth.

This is going to come up in today's episode too, from the last 10 years of my fitness journey. There was a point where I probably felt the way you guys feel: when I hit a specific goal, I will feel happy. When I look a certain way, I will feel happy. And today I want to tell you that you are already that. That starts here, that starts right now. And embracing that mindset can truly transform not just your fitness journey, but your entire life.

Because this truth is hard to hear, but it's so real, and I've been in your shoes when I say this. You don't become worthy when you hit that goal weight. You don't become worthy when you fit into a certain type of jeans. You don't become worthy when someone else validates your progress. Your worth is not something you have to earn. It is already yours.

But how many times have you guys felt, and I know I felt this way, like we've attached our sense of worth to external achievements, external goals? We tell ourselves, like I just said, I'm going to feel happy when I look this way. I'm going to feel confident when I look like that. I'm going to finally love myself when I achieve losing 10 pounds, or when I achieve being able to feel good in a bikini.

What Jamie Kern Lima talks about is how we've been conditioned to believe that worthiness is tied to doing. And that hit home for me. She talks about, I believe in the first chapter as well, the difference between self-confidence and self-worth.

What I realized is that over the last 10 years, I have unwavering self-confidence. You guys probably feel that in the way that I talk to you, show up for you and have poured into WarriorBabe and into the clients that have come into the community. I know I have a high level of self-confidence. I know that I have skills that I've acquired over the years because I put myself in those situations to develop them. I have traits that I didn't want to have, but I have now because of the situations I've been in. And I have a stature of confidence because of the things that I've accomplished with my body, with winning titles, with degrees.

Maybe you've felt, in some way, that you've tied your worthiness to the doing of things, the achieving of things, to proving to ourselves that we can do these things. I felt that same way, and I've always leaned on my self-confidence.

But here's the thing. There's a massive difference between the two. Self-confidence is everything that I just said. But as soon as something hits that self-confidence, or something goes after one of those things and you lose it, it plummets.

It's the same thing with motivation and discipline. If I was to draw a parallel, your self-confidence is just like motivation. It ebbs and flows depending on external situations. Discipline is something that you inherently have regardless of the external factors that come at you on a daily basis. Regardless of whether you feel like doing something, you just do it because you have a promise that you want to keep to yourself. You've made a promise, and regardless of what's happening outside, time, kids, partner, X, Y and Z, you still show up for yourself.

Self-worth is the same thing. It starts with you realizing that you're enough right now, in this moment, just as you are. That you are lovable enough. That you are worthy enough. That you are enough. Not because of what you've done, but because of who you are. As I said earlier, that was my awakening at the end of 2024, and I'm carrying it into 2025 and beyond.

At WarriorBabe, we talk about this all the time. Your journey isn't about becoming someone else. It's about becoming the strongest, most confident version of yourself. And that version of you already exists. She's already worthy. All we're doing is peeling back the layers to let her shine. And you deserve to have your light shine. You deserve to know that you're already worthy where you are right now.

It's just about what are the patterns or the behaviors? What are the narratives that are holding you back from being that most confident version of yourself? What are the situations, the people, the relationships that are constantly not reminding you of how worthy you are? Because that's external. You have to know that you are so worthy internally that nothing outside of you can shake you.

So that was one of the biggest things I took away from this book so far, and I'm only on chapter two. I felt like I needed to talk about this in a podcast with you guys.

I've also been dropping little comments here and there in episodes. I've been going through things, and when I'm ready, I'm going to share them with you. This is something that really rocked me in 2024 and really brought me closer to myself when I started to honor my intuition and the things that were speaking to me and yelling at me. When you ignore things that are going on in your mind for so long, they don't ever go away. They just come back louder and louder and louder. And you have to honor it, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it sends you into a spiral and you have no idea where to go from there. You just have to trust in yourself. And if you trust in a higher power, trust in God that the plan has already played out for you.

Anyway, I'm going on a little bit of a rant here. But first of all, I hope you guys are staying with me and understand that this all ties into fitness. How you do one thing is how you do everything.

So in the rest of this podcast, I'm going to help you understand why this is so essential for you and for your fitness journey. If you are chasing goals from a place of lack, where you feel like you're not good enough until you reach that goal, if you don't feel like you're happy now, you're chasing things from that place of lack. And I will tell you this right now: you are going to burn out. You are going to lose the motivation. You are going to lose the want to achieve whatever goal it is that you're going after. You're going to lose the motivation when your progress slows, or when life gets hard, or when you don't have enough time, because your goals are tied to the belief that you're fixing yourself.

And let me tell you, you are not something that needs to be fixed. Think about that for a second. Let's unpack that a little bit more.

When I think back to my journey in 2015, when I first started to do it the right way, it was this inherent desire to look a different way, to have an external accomplishment. But I was also coming from the place of having just gotten out of an engagement. I felt broken. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. But what was really beneath that was my sense of worthiness. I didn't feel enough. I wasn't enough. I felt like I was never going to be enough.

You are already that right now, and you don't need to be fixed. So if you're coming from the place of, oh, I feel disgusting in my skin, I feel uncomfortable in my skin, I'm not happy with the way that I look, I'm sad, I'm frustrated, I want you to know all of these feelings are entirely valid. But you also don't need to come from that place of being broken.

Instead, when you approach these goals from a place of I am enough, I'm worthy enough, when you recognize that you already are all of those things, you're no longer chasing something to prove your value. You're chasing something because you love yourself enough to grow. You love yourself enough to evolve. You love yourself enough to step into your true potential, into the highest version of yourself, the most confident version of yourself.

For example, let's say a lot of you listening to this episode have a goal to build muscle and feel strong. I believe that is a lot of our goals, whether it's that or to lose 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 50 pounds. If that goal comes from a place of worthiness, it's not about fixing yourself. It's about honoring your body and showing it what it is truly capable of. It's about becoming the version of you who wakes up every single day feeling energized, confident and powerful.

That's why I think it's so important to also have a why behind your goal, and I've talked about this in previous episodes. Because if your goal is just, I want to lose 10 pounds, when you say that, there's an aspect of you that is coming from a place of lack, from everything we're talking about right now: I need to be fixed, something is wrong with my body, I'm broken.

The perspective I want you to change to is that you are already all of those things. You are already worthy enough. I'm going to keep saying that, because it is so hard to grasp in the moment you may be in right now, with all of those emotions and feelings that I just shared.

But what I want to challenge you to do, friend to friend, is to think differently in that moment and change the perspective that you have on yourself. Something I've been repeating to myself over and over again for the last couple of months is: I am worthy. I am safe. I am lovable. And I am enough. When you start saying those words, your mind will start to think differently. Your perspective will change. It will think more of the energized, more confident, more powerful person that you are. And when you start thinking about your goals from that perspective, you're just honoring your true self, where you already are and what you're fully capable of.

Quick break. If you're finding this episode helpful so far, it would mean a lot if you could hit pause for just a second, leave a quick rating or review, or share it with someone who could benefit from it. Your support helps more women discover these tools to build muscle, lose fat and feel confident. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me.

At WarriorBabe, this is something I hold so true to our brand. We don't just help you set goals. We help you set goals that are rooted in self-love and not self-criticism. That's the key to sustainability, not just in fitness, but in life.

At WarriorBabe, we don't just say, here are your macro numbers, here's your workout program to follow. We understand the human that we're working with. A lot of you women are going through menopause, which is one of the hardest transitions in life for a woman to accept and understand. You feel hopeless. You feel uncomfortable. You feel like it's doomsday. There are a lot of emotions that come up during that time.

If we understand where you're coming from, which is a big part of what we've trained our coaches to do and how to show up for you, then we can understand the human we're working with behind the computer. We can not just set the goals you have in mind, but get to the root of them, which is: what is the narrative the human is saying behind the words?

On onboarding calls, the majority of the time the coach is listening. She's listening to understand, not listening to respond. She's listening to understand who she's working with. And when she hears things this person is saying that go against their self-worth, the things we're talking about today, I want these coaches to be able to pick up on that and deliver it in a way that's going to help this person sustainably reach their goals. Because there are behavior changes that have to happen along with the habit changes. I'm going on a ride right now, but when the person really knows that, they can create a full, wholesome transformation, not just, let's go lose 10 pounds here, use your macro numbers and your workouts. I joke around that when you work with our coaching team, you're working with life coaches too.

And then with the hormones that are changing, at the surface level there are tactics and strategies we can put into place that are going to holistically help you. You don't necessarily need to go on hormone replacement therapy or other things. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. I don't want to say you do.

Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with the 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, WarriorBabe is here for you. At WarriorBabe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results, and results that last. Don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com/apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com/apply.

All right, let's get back to the show. Or you don't, but there are other things that can support you along your fitness journey and with what I'm talking about right now.

So what I really want to give you, because you guys know I love tactics on this podcast, is how do you shift the narrative? A lot of women who come to WarriorBabe have these narratives, and maybe you listening have this narrative too: I'm not worthy enough. I don't believe in myself. How do you go from chasing worth to embracing it fully?

It starts with one simple belief: that you are worthy right now. Not because of what you've done or what you'll achieve, but because of who you are right now. Like I said earlier in the podcast, through all of the accomplishments you achieve in life, you take the same you with you. So how can you upgrade that you right now? One of the things you have to do is upgrade the narrative going on inside your mind.

So the first thing I want you to do is rewrite the story that you've been telling yourself. If you've been telling yourself, I'll feel good about myself when I lose 10 pounds, or I'll feel good about myself when I put on my first bikini for summer, I want you to flip that narrative. Instead, I want you to say: I am enough now, and I am becoming stronger, healthier and more confident because I deserve it. And I become stronger, healthier and more confident when I do achieve X goal.

That is something you need to honor right now. You have to change the narrative inside your head from, I'm going to feel good when this happens, to, I am enough right now, and when I accomplish these things, I'm becoming stronger, healthier and more confident because I deserve it. Because you do deserve it.

The second thing is to celebrate the process, not just the outcome. I've talked about this so many times. A good parallel is from Atomic Habits: focus on your systems, not on your goals, or something like that. I've probably butchered that, it's not word for word. I think it was in episode one, two or three of this podcast.

Anyway, at WarriorBabe, me, the coaches, the team, we're all about the process. Did you show up for your workout today? Celebrate that. Give yourself a freaking pat on the back. Did you make a choice that aligns with your goals today? Did you stay hydrated? Did you get your steps in? Did you do something you wrote down at the beginning of the year as a promise you were going to keep to yourself? The small things, like getting my steps in, sleeping for eight hours, reading before bed, whatever it is.

It doesn't have to be astronomical. That's why people get sidetracked. Why people don't accomplish their goals, or stop midway through the first half of the year with their resolutions, is because they try to take on too many things. They try to do this astronomical, I'm going to change everything at the beginning of the year, and it's a hundred different things. No wonder they can't freaking stick to it, because who can stick to a hundred different things?

So did you show up for your workout today? Cool. Let's go. That's amazing. Celebrate that. Being worthy isn't about being perfect. It's about showing up for yourself every single day. It's about keeping the promises to yourself every single day. And you don't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to happen every single day. But is it happening the majority of the time? Then great. Celebrate that.

Don't just strive for the outcome. Don't just say, when I lose 10 pounds, I'm going to feel great, because I promise you, you're not going to feel good then. What matters is how you talk to yourself throughout the process.

The third thing, and I've talked about this many times in previous episodes, is visualizing your higher self on a daily basis. I talked about this in the episode on how to align your 2025 goals with your higher self, or one of those episodes, about three ago. Seriously, this is such a powerful tool that I think goes underestimated. Just take five minutes. Tell me you don't have five minutes for yourself on a daily basis. You have five minutes. Five minutes is not going to make or break your day.

Close your eyes. Picture the version of you who is living the life that you want. Who is that person? I'll tell you this: she's confident. She's strong. She's unapologetically herself. See her, feel her energy. Know that she's already a part of you. If you can see that truthfully, your mind doesn't know the difference in time. That vision is already there. It's already a part of you. You're not creating her from scratch. You're stepping into her.

And the way you step into her is everything I've shared with you guys. It's what you do on a daily basis. It's the actions you take, the words you say, how you show up for yourself. That's how you step into that person you can see. If you can see her, she's already there. You just have to do more of what you see her doing.

So far, the tactical things to shift this narrative are: rewrite the story you're telling yourself, celebrate the process and not just the outcome, and visualize yourself on a daily basis. The last thing is that you need to surround yourself with supportive people. You need to be able to take how you're feeling and confidently share that with people who are going to support you, and either challenge you, uplift you or give you advice from a friend's perspective.

One of the most powerful things you can do is surround yourself with people who empower you, inspire you, lift you up and challenge you. And that's exactly what we do at WarriorBabe. That is exactly what we're here for. We're here to remind you that you are capable of everything you deserve, and that you are worthy of it all, even on the days you forget that you are.

I think that's what's so cool about our community. There are women in there who you'll see are on a similar path to you, given how you feel, your experiences, your environment and the situations you're in, and you're feeling the exact same way. At the root core of probably every single human being, we don't feel enough, we don't feel worthy enough and we don't feel lovable enough. I want you to know those feelings are entirely valid, but you can also change them.

So after this episode, I want you to grab a journal and reflect on this specific question: If I knew I was 100% worthy, how would I show up for myself today?

Would you treat your body with more love? Would you fuel it with more nourishing foods because it deserves to feel strong? Would you prioritize that workout because you know you're worth the effort? Would you get those 7,500 to 10,000 steps in because you know it's a promise you made to yourself and you're keeping it? And that proves to you that you are deserving of all the other things you said you would do.

The answers to these questions are your guide. Because when you lead with worthiness, every choice becomes a reflection of the love and respect you have for yourself. Watch how things unfold on a daily basis from there.

So all in all, what I want to say with this episode today is that you are worthy right now, exactly as you are. Your fitness journey isn't about proving your worth or fixing yourself. It's about up-leveling the you that you are right now and turning her into a more empowered, more confident version of you. That person already exists.

All right. So reflect, and write down how you'll show up for yourself this week. Know that you're already enough. Know that you're already worthy enough. And remember, worthy starts right here, right now.

Guys, if this resonated with you, I'm one person and you're many. So please take this episode and share it with somebody who needs to hear this message too.

As I said at the beginning of the podcast, I want 2025 to be the year for everybody listening to this episode. And I want you to understand that you can't do it alone. If there's anything I've recognized along my journey, it's that I've always had somebody helping me along the way, whether it was a coach or a support system of friends or family. Even me right now, I've been sharing on my Instagram about stepping into more faith, and I found a group to do it with. It says it in the Bible: when there are two people, so much more can be done together. Imagine having 5,000 people behind you, which is what you have inside the WarriorBabe VIP.

So if you're ready to step into that and have the support of a community that truly gets it, check out WarriorBabe for coaching. The link is in the description below.

Until next time, you guys, do these things. Reflect on these things. Because if you're experiencing any of the feelings I talked about in this episode today and you don't do anything, you're just going to stay the same. But no matter what, right now, you are worthy enough, and you deserve to up-level who you are to get ready for the next stage of your life, whether it's life, fitness or a transformation you're going to have.

All right. Love you guys, and I'll see you in the next episode. Peace out.

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 in helping more women discover the tools they need to transform their fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.