Losing 30 Pounds After Menopause by Eating More at 57

Debra: I did hire a fitness coach online who used Trainerize, and I do have to say, luckily he's more expensive than you, so he made you guys look cheap.

Nikkiey: Oh, wow.

Debra: Yeah. So I was paying him $666 a month, and he kept doing things like giving me stimulants. I took caffeine pills, I took things to try to rev up my metabolism. And after about six months of that, I thought, you know what? This isn't working.

Nikkiey: Hey, so today we have another WarriorBabe here with us. Debra is here, and she thought that the answer to weight loss was eating less, exercising more and following the latest fad diet trends. She fasted, she cut carbs, she overtrained, only to end up feeling exhausted, stuck and completely disconnected from her body. Menopause only made things worse.

And since finding WarriorBabe, she's fueling her body properly. She's getting stronger every single day and she's finally free from the endless cycle of dieting. She's proof that it's never too late to rebuild, to reset and to create the body that you love. And today, she's here to tell her story. Welcome, Debra.

Debra: Thank you, Nikkiey.

Nikkiey: I'm so excited to have you here. So, for the listeners that are tuning in, can you give a brief intro? Where are you from, what do you do for work, and how old are you?

Debra: I am from Washington State, up by the Canadian border. I am 57 years young. I'm going to live to be 100. I tell everybody that. I am a mother of two. I have two grandchildren that I watch on Fridays, pending appointments. I'm a salon owner. I've owned a salon for over 25 years, so it requires a lot of effort, hands-on, every day.

For my lifestyle, to fit it all in, I'm getting up at 4 in the morning so I can make it to the gym, because I start my work day at 7 o'clock in the morning. And oftentimes I don't get home until 6, 7, maybe even 8 o'clock at night, to fall into bed and do it again the next day. So that's the synopsis of my life.

Nikkiey: Wow. I love that you said, one, 57 years young. And two, with your career, you're on your feet all day long.

Debra: Yeah.

Nikkiey: So I know there are going to be some hairstylists or maybe even salon owners listening to this, and they're going to be like, if she can do it, I can do it too. Because your story is super cool and I can't wait to dive into it. Let's actually start there. Let's dive into where you were before. What was your health and fitness situation like before you found WarriorBabe?

Debra: I have been across the board. I started working out right out of high school, doing Jazzercise and aerobics. I've always been pretty active because I've been pretty weight conscious, I think, all my life.

I've had a steady lifetime of dieting. I remember being on my first diet when I was 12, when you're going through those awkward stages and not liking what your body looks like. So, not accepting my body, I always felt like I needed to diet and look like the thin kids in school. So yeah, I've done them all. And I'd have to say I'm pretty good at dieting. I'm a master of dieting. I do what I'm told.

I felt like I dieted until my body just couldn't diet anymore. I remember I was going through that intermittent fasting stage where people were saying they could drop 10, 20 pounds. And I fasted for freaking three days and lost zero pounds. And I was just like, what is going on?

Nikkiey: What did that moment feel like for you?

Debra: It was pretty defeating. I felt like I had done everything, hitting my head against the wall, and the scale just not budging. It's frustrating.

Nikkiey: And you mentioned that you tried so many diets and you're really good at dieting. What do you feel like was the most frustrating part about constantly switching from one to the next?

Debra: The rebound. Dieting, losing weight, gaining it back, trying another diet to lose weight, gaining it back. And honestly, I know you have competed. I was in the bodybuilding circuit for about 10 years.

I thought that was going to be my answer to handling menopause. I didn't compete to get on stage. I competed because I wanted to get a handle on food. So you go through the 12-week prep, you get down to your perfect look to get on stage, just to have it rebound afterwards. And I have to say, I cried out for help. I would ask my coach, I would ask people, how do I reverse out of this and not balloon up? And all I got was, eat normal.

Well, when you're a person that has dieted their whole life, what is normal? I didn't know what normal was. I only knew what restriction was. So again, that weight just comes back on every single time. So I think that was the frustrating part. I did ask for help. I'm like, how do I reverse diet out of this restriction and not just regain everything I've just lost?

Nikkiey: Wow. That had to feel super defeating, in terms of trusting a coach for so long to go and do a competition with them and step on stage, which takes a lot of trust and commitment. And then at the end of it, at a deeper level, you didn't feel heard, in the sense of, what is normal? What's normal to that person and what's normal to you is completely different.

Debra: Absolutely. And they would pride themselves on giving you a meal plan instead of giving you macros. And I felt like that was just keeping you stuck, because you never learned how to figure out your macros yourself. Everything was in the macros, right? Your protein, your carbs, your fat. And even though I would try to put it in MyFitnessPal and try to figure out the macros, it just wasn't looking right to me. I had no idea what I was doing.

Nikkiey: I can resonate with your story so much, because I remember standing in my kitchen after a competition thinking, I need to get this macro game underway. But it was so hard for me to pull away from the meal plan I was doing, which was chicken, broccoli, rice, tilapia and egg whites. How long did you try to do macros on your own before WarriorBabe, and how did it make you feel when you were trying to go down that avenue?

Debra: Well, I did hire a fitness coach online who used Trainerize. And I do have to say, luckily he's more expensive than you, so he made you guys look cheap.

Nikkiey: Oh, wow.

Debra: Yeah. So I was paying him $666 a month, and he used Trainerize. He gave me macros, he gave me workouts. I do have to say, comparing them to what I'm doing with WarriorBabe, my workouts were almost too much. And my macros were probably about where I am in maintenance now. And I told him about my dieting history.

I'm not sure he knew how to reverse my macros before we could drop. So he kept doing things like giving me stimulants. I took caffeine pills. I took things to try to rev up my metabolism. And after about six months of that, I thought, you know what? This isn't working. This is not the answer.

I did join the WarriorBabe Blueprint in 2021, and I was trying to work it out myself and go through some of the modules. And I think I just kind of fell off the wagon and didn't do that. But it was after this last trainer experience that I realized, you know what? I need to work with somebody one-on-one. I'm already at the point where I can't really reduce calories, because that's not working, and I can't work out more, because that's not working.

So when I first joined WarriorBabe, I got your wonderful Monique, and she's so awesome. I love her. And the first thing she did is she said, girl, you need to slow down. We need to take away some of those workouts. We need to give you rest days. And it was the first time in a long time that I hadn't worked out seven days a week.

Nikkiey: That was going to be my next question. How many days a week were you working out, and for how long?

Debra: Seven days a week. I'd go to the gym, do a one-hour lift and then go to cardio. Or we'd go hiking for an hour-and-a-half hike on the weekends. But every day was something.

Nikkiey: And being in that state with eating, overtraining and feeling exhausted, how did that make you feel physically and mentally?

Debra: Well, physically, I felt like I was restricting and I would get so hungry. It wasn't like I would binge, but I know that whatever I would eat, because I was so famished, your body's starving, I would overeat in those moments. So I think it was just hard to balance out that restriction and that overeating, because my body was just so hungry. I just couldn't have an even keel. I just couldn't be, I don't know...

Nikkiey: Normal.

Debra: Right. So I think it was just too much.

Nikkiey: Before we dive into you working with Mo, and I'm curious to see how you handled it, you probably went through a retrain, right? So you had to go up in calories.

Debra: Yes.

Nikkiey: And I'm curious to know how you felt with the overtraining and then slashing that down. But before that, you mentioned that you felt like menopause was a monster.

Debra: Oh my gosh.

Nikkiey: And that it took over your body. Can you describe what you mean by that? What did that feel like?

Debra: Well, I was going through menopause right through COVID. So right when you weren't going to the gyms, you were walking every day and going on hikes. I was literally going through menopause through COVID. So I felt like my body was getting bigger by the day. I was more tired. I had brain fog. I just didn't like the body I was in. I would put on my clothes and I would bulge over them.

I didn't feel good in anything I put on. And then I was getting to where I just didn't love myself. And when you don't love yourself, I think it's hard on your partner, because they love you unconditionally, but you just don't feel like you have much to give them if you don't love yourself first.

Nikkiey: A hundred percent.

Debra: So I was not good in my body, but I also knew I needed to do something to change.

Nikkiey: How did constantly trying to fix your body with different diets affect your mindset? I'm curious about your relationship with food, going back and forth and already having a restrictive mentality. Where was your head at with that?

Debra: Well, there at the end, that was when I was doing the intermittent fasting and extremely under-eating, because I was so desperate to lose some weight. I'm like, people, how does it come off? Because I already eat fairly well. I already eat whole foods.

I don't really do a lot of processed foods. I was eliminating foods that were inflammatory to my body. I was doing all of these things, and I was just at my end. I didn't know where else to go.

Nikkiey: What was the hardest part about trusting yourself after years of yo-yo dieting and going back and forth?

Debra: I compare it to maybe being an alcoholic, where you have to surrender yourself and go, I need help. I can't do this on my own. I need professional help.

Nikkiey: Okay. Cue WarriorBabe. How did you find WarriorBabe? What made you take the leap?

Debra: It was a Facebook ad that you put on, and I'd been listening to your podcasts. Every time I listened to your podcast, everything started resonating with me. And so I instinctively knew what I needed to do, and I tried it myself and it just didn't work. I didn't have the knowledge to do it myself. I knew that I needed to up my calories, but how do you do that?

Nikkiey: Right. What was it that stuck out to you the most about the things you were hearing? What resonated with you in that ad, and what did you keep hearing in the podcast?

Debra: I kept hearing that when you're constantly dieting, you have nowhere to go. You can't go down anymore. It doesn't work. And that was the light bulb going off.

I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm under-eating. I can't keep restricting. That's not going to work. And I kept hearing kind of my story, and then hearing that it got better, and that there were results.

Nikkiey: Love that. We do have very similar stories in the competition world for sure. I remember asking my coach what macros were and how I could apply them to live a more sustainable life. And his comment was, we don't do macros here. We eat like this if you want to be on stage and compete. And I'm like, but I see other people using macros to compete. Why can't we? It felt like it was either this or nothing.

Debra: Right.

Nikkiey: And it resonates with you, because I rebounded hard. I didn't know how to reverse, and it was all confusing at the beginning. I love that you found us, I love that those things resonated with you, and I love that you trusted us. You know my motto: trust us now, believe us later. And you're working with one of the most incredible coaches.

Hopefully no other coaches are listening to this, but everyone knows Mo is amazing. When you first started your journey, what were your initial thoughts?

Debra: I was just going to surrender myself and do whatever she said. And we actually have kind of a funny story. I don't know if Mo wants me sharing this, but in one of my training weeks, she accidentally put in two workouts and didn't see that. And just like me, I'm just doing what she says.

And I actually did the two workouts. Then she looked at it later and she's like, I'm so sorry, but I hope you didn't do both of those workouts. And I'm like, but I did. She goes, you did? And I'm like, well, yeah, I'm doing what I'm told. I said, I thought it was freaking hard and an extra-long workout, but Mo wants me to do it, so I'm just going to do it. We still laugh about that.

Nikkiey: Oh my gosh. That's so funny. So at the beginning of your journey, from what you've shared with me so far, you've been told so many different things about food and training and X, Y and Z in that realm. You seem like you're like, I just want to listen and surrender. But how hard was it to let go of preconceived ideas about all of those other things you tried? There are so many women that have tried so many things and they think, oh, but this worked before, and it's stuck in their brain. How hard was it for you to let go of all of that?

Debra: Honestly, it was hard at times, I'll be honest. But in the end, I had to let those things go, because they worked once. They were kind of a one-trick pony. And then when I tried them again, they weren't so successful. But I tried some of the same things over and over, like Weight Watchers and Nutrisystem. And the last time I tried Nutrisystem, I actually gained weight on their processed foods, because I had not been eating processed foods forever.

They give you the little prepackaged meals. And I'm like, how do you freaking gain weight when somebody makes your meals for you? How does that happen? And then it dawned on me: I was probably eating less than that before. And now I'm eating crap processed food, more calories. So I'm just like, oh my gosh.

Nikkiey: Debbie, I've talked to so many WarriorBabes throughout the years, and I don't think there's been one that has tried as many things as you have, and speaking to the different aspects of it, even that part, doing Nutrisystem and gaining weight when somebody was making your meals for you. You were in a lot of confusion, going back and forth: what is real and what is not, and what should I do?

Debra: Yeah. Like I said, they worked the first time. Every time, the first time, or at least earlier on, diets worked for me. But as I've gotten older, and after so many years of chronic dieting, you just get to a point where they're not so successful.

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So, for context, because people are probably wondering, and without sharing your results yet, because we're going to get there: how overweight were you? What was your weight, what was your height? Where were you at?

Debra: I'm five-four and I was pushing 180 pounds.

Nikkiey: Wow.

Debra: So I was feeling like a chubby bunny.

Nikkiey: Yeah, totally.

Debra: Not feeling good in my skin at all.

Nikkiey: I'm sure. So you were working with Mo and you joined WarriorBabe. Were you skeptical about eating more and training less? And how did your mindset shift over time?

Debra: No. Because from some of the research I've done, I realized that when you're at such a deficit, you can't go down from there. So at some point you have to push those numbers up, and safely. And I know there's a system to that. That's just not in my realm of knowledge, and that's where I knew Mo would come in. She would help me with that.

And I do have to say, as much as I trusted her, going up after I felt like I was already at my max was still hard. I spent eight, nine months in retrain. And I knew it needed to take that long, but it was hard. I won't lie.

Nikkiey: What was hard about it?

Debra: Actually eating all the food. I had to make myself eat the food. I wasn't hungry, but I'd get my macros in, and that was hard. It's like force-feeding yourself.

Nikkiey: So, super hard. Where were you calorie-wise when you started, and where did you get to in retrain?

Debra: Oh gosh, I'd have to look back, but I know when I started I was at about 1,200 calories a day, and she had me at, I would say, maybe 2,200.

Nikkiey: That's double.

Debra: Yeah. And working out less. So that was the super confusing part. I really just had to trust her, because I felt like I had nowhere else to go. I'd tried everything else. I had nowhere else to go.

Nikkiey: What were your results when you got through retrain? Did you gain a little bit of weight initially? Did you lose weight?

Debra: I gained a little bit of weight, and then you'd have that fluctuation throughout the week. I'd go up a few pounds, down a few pounds. And I think through all of retrain, I may have gained five pounds. So not bad, right? Only gaining five pounds.

Nikkiey: How did you feel doing that?

Debra: Even gaining the five pounds, it was still uncomfortable. I felt like I was going to bulge out of my skin. My breasts were getting so big I was getting rashy underneath every time I would work out. I was super uncomfortable. But I knew that in the next stage it would come off, because I did all that work. So as uncomfortable as it was, I just had to trust that that's what my body needed to recover.

Nikkiey: I hope that a lot of women are listening to this, in terms of you trusting the process. You had a knowing that you were being guided in the right direction, you just had to trust the process, and you had confidence in your coach. Because there are a lot of women who go through the retrain phase and back out, and they'll try to revert back to said X, Y and Z diet they've tried, thinking that's going to fix it.

Debra: Because you're getting in your own head and you're trying to control the situation. I mean, for me, if I'm going to pay money to hire a coach, I should probably listen to what they have to say. Otherwise I might as well just pay myself to do whatever.

Nikkiey: Can you say that louder? For those in the back. For those in the back, can you please say that louder? So, okay, how many days a week did you start working out? You went from seven to what?

Debra: Four.

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Wow.

Debra: It was super crazy. I would even just walk my dog around the block, because they're tired of not getting their walks in.

Nikkiey: It's pretty mind-blowing, right? You were overtraining and under-eating. And even in the competition world, I don't know if you did, but we worked out twice a day. I was doing cardio in the morning, then I went back to do my lifting session, and then I had to do cardio after that.

Debra: Oh, yeah. I had an hour lift, 45 minutes of cardio, and then a second 45 minutes of high-intensity cardio six hours later. And so going from two times a day, I felt like once a day was a break.

Nikkiey: Right. From where you'd been.

Debra: Right. I felt like seven days, once a day, was giving my body a break. So that's where my head was at.

Nikkiey: Okay. So you're eating more. What phase are you in now?

Debra: I'm in maintenance.

Nikkiey: You're in maintenance. What do your maintenance calories look like right now?

Debra: I believe they're around 1,700, 1,800 calories.

Nikkiey: That's amazing. So, 57, eating 1,800 calories.

Debra: I think through maintenance I've actually lost a couple of pounds. So it's just inches down a little bit. I'm not really watching. I don't really care, because I'm just enjoying having my food.

Nikkiey: So what's that mindset shift? Because at the beginning, you were fasting and the scale wasn't moving. And now you're like, I don't even care. I don't even look at it. It's a huge shift.

Debra: I don't have to really think about it. I just prep my food, I make it, and then I throw it in the fridge and make sure I get it in.

Nikkiey: I love that. That's a huge transformation. Okay, now we can talk about your results since you joined WarriorBabe. Where are you at in your journey now?

Debra: I actually just weighed in this morning at about 149. So yeah, I just broke that 150 plateau. And I'm in maintenance, and Mo's talking maybe somewhere down the road we might do a fat loss phase again. But you know what? I could do it again or I could not do it again. At this point, I'm thrilled.

Nikkiey: So it's 30 pounds down.

Debra: Yeah.

Nikkiey: How does it make you feel?

Debra: You know what? I feel amazing. I feel like I'm on cloud nine. It's pretty incredible. And I have only you guys to thank. I just wish I would have listened to you earlier, when I was looking at the Blueprint. That's my only regret. But I don't think I was in that headspace. I was still me driving the boat. I was still driving the ship.

Nikkiey: A hundred percent. It clicks when you're ready, when you're ready to hold it and take it on. And I think it came at the perfect time for you in your journey. Let's talk about some of the top achievements you've had. That's huge. What else could you look at and say, I'm proud of myself for accomplishing this?

Debra: Oh my gosh. Just getting back into some of my clothes that I'd set aside in the closet. I had these beautiful boots that don't have zippers.

And I remember trying to put them on and they wouldn't even go up over my calves. It was so frustrating. I didn't know how I was ever going to get some of my favorite clothes on again. And now I slide them on and I can put my fingers down in that space. So it just feels so good to go shopping and not be almost repulsed at what you see when you're trying on clothes, or the size.

Nikkiey: How many sizes have you dropped?

Debra: Oh gosh. Well, I was wearing size 10s, but they were super, super tight.

Nikkiey: Yeah.

Debra: And now I think these last ones are a size six.

Nikkiey: Let's go. You also mentioned that you learned how to give yourself grace in the journey. How has that changed your approach to food, your approach to training and your approach to your progress?

Debra: I've learned that if I'm super tired that morning or I've had a bad day at work, I can take a break and do that workout later. I don't have to force myself to get up and do it no matter what, because that was the mindset I was in previously. No matter what, you just did what you had planned. And now I give myself permission to change the plan a little bit.

Nikkiey: Oh, man. I love that. People need to hear that. People worry, whether it's five days a week or four days a week, that the program says I need to do a workout on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. And let's say they wake up Tuesday extremely sore and tired and they push themselves to go. That's probably not the best bet. You can move that to Wednesday.

Debra: Right.

Nikkiey: And have some breaks in between. I love that you've learned that.

Debra: Yeah. And for me, sometimes it's my work schedule. If I got home way too late, and then I'm getting into bed and the alarm goes off at four in the morning and I've only gotten five hours of sleep, I will literally wake up with a headache now if I don't get my sleep. So if I'm waking up with that headache, I'm just like, you know what? I'm going to shut the alarm off. I'm going to sleep. And then maybe I'll switch that workout to Saturday.

Nikkiey: Love that. How has WarriorBabe changed your overall outlook on aging, on menopause and on long-term health?

Debra: Wow. I feel like it makes it so much easier. I'm post-menopausal now.

So I feel like I need to keep doing the program. It never stops. But I've learned so much that it makes me want to take care of my body and keep it healthy. I want to be active, to be able to do things with my grandkids and live as long as I want to live without falling or being fragile or any of those things. I feel like it's really going to be the key to youthfulness.

Nikkiey: Yes. I love that. And you've been in the WarriorBabe ecosystem for four years now, right?

Debra: Yep.

Nikkiey: How long have you been a VIP member?

Debra: Just for two. It's my second year.

Nikkiey: Wow. And you've been with Coach Mo the whole time?

Debra: Yep.

Nikkiey: If you had never made the change, where do you think you'd be today?

Debra: I think I would still be struggling. I think I would still be searching for the right thing that works. And maybe even researching post-menopause, because it was a lot harder. I do have to say, after menopause, it's a lot harder. But you've got to fuel your body, and properly fueling your body is really the key.

Nikkiey: So thinking about you being post-menopausal now, and you've been in the ecosystem for four years, you were going through menopause when you joined WarriorBabe's ecosystem.

Debra: Yeah, I was in the perimenopausal stage.

Nikkiey: Wow.

Debra: Yeah. I was there for quite some time.

Nikkiey: Wow. That paints a different picture in my mind too, in terms of you losing 30 pounds during this journey. A lot of women think of this as doom and gloom. Like you mentioned, menopause is a monster. Everyone experiences it, but they think there's no way out. They think this is it, and the doctors are telling them this is stuff you just have to accept. What would you tell the woman listening to this right now who may be perimenopausal or in the midst of menopause? What does she need to hear?

Debra: Well, you guys do a lot of great podcasts addressing hormones and cortisol, and I did tackle that first. Because I was going through perimenopause, I was getting a little crazy in the head and I was feeling a little unstable. I talked to my regular doctor and she said, oh yeah, you're just going to feel that way for a while. And I thought, oh, no, no, no. Somebody is probably going to die, and that's not going to be me, because I'm a loose cannon.

I felt it inside. I felt like I could go off at any time. So I ended up working with a functional medicine doctor, and we got on some hormones and I felt a ton better. But it's not a quick fix. Just being on those hormones didn't make the weight fall off. So it really does take a lot of effort. You really have to pay attention to the detail: the macros and the workouts and the rest.

It's all of it.

Nikkiey: Less is more.

Debra: Yeah. Right. When you come from, it's never enough.

Nikkiey: Yeah. Now, I'm thinking about macros. How long does it take you to do your macros in the day now?

Debra: How to do them?

Nikkiey: How long does it take you to do them?

Debra: Actually, for work, I pretty much pre-do my work week, because I eat the same thing for four days. And on my days off, I already have my food list there. So I don't know, two minutes.

Nikkiey: Let's go. That's awesome. Because so many people think it's going to take forever, that it's time-consuming, that it's so frustrating because it takes so long.

Debra: But like anything, you have to do the work for a couple of weeks, and then you get faster and faster. And then you get to know what you like. So you keep all the things that work within your macros and that you like in your house, in your fridge and your pantry. And it makes it so much easier.

Although I do have to say, Coach Mo gets on my butt about having too much dairy, or, oh, you're having too many shakes in a day. I get a little lazy on the weekends and I start doing two protein shakes, and she'll be like, okay, now that's enough.

Nikkiey: Oh, I love that.

Debra: I get a little cocky and a little lazy and push the easy button, and then she'll reel me back in and go, okay, you're getting a little bit too much of this. And then the VIP group and the macro group help, because people post recipes, and I've tried some incredible ones. The one thing I'm eating now is the protein bagel.

Who would have thought you could make a protein bagel? So now I'm protein this and protein that. I'm learning lots of new recipes.

Nikkiey: That's awesome. That's very helpful, because it makes it so you're not too repetitive in your meals. How does it feel to have a community of women behind you who are on the same journey as you, and to be in that small group and share those recipes?

Debra: Women from all walks of life, fulfilling their goals.

It's amazing. Even though I'm not always posting things, because I get busy, it's fun to just listen to the chitter-chatter on what the topic of the week is, or what the new recipe is, or what they do in their off time. It's just fun.

Nikkiey: And I think it's so cool that you have Mo in your corner. You need people like that on your journey, especially for her to be like, hey, yo, stop pressing the easy button. Let's put some better food in there.

Debra: Yeah. She calls me out every time.

Nikkiey: Love that. Shout out to Coach Mo. That's a great coach. From your perspective, why is it important to have a coach and work with a coach?

Debra: Because they know more than you. I don't know how long I'd have to go to school to learn what she knows. She's invaluable. I wish I knew as much as her. But maybe I wouldn't listen to myself even knowing what she knows.

You know what I mean? She looks at everything objectively, too. She's another set of eyes on my workouts, on my meals, those sorts of things.

Nikkiey: I love that. What would you say to somebody listening to this right now who feels like they've tried everything and nothing works?

Debra: Well, I know when you look at the price, you feel like it can be kind of spendy. But I feel like if you're willing to do the work, your coach 100 percent works. But you can't be the one trying to drive your own ship. You can't try to control things and not do what your coach says. You really do just have to listen to them. They do know what they're talking about. They're very knowledgeable.

Nikkiey: And something I've admired about you during this interview, getting to know your story even more, is that you trusted the process. So imagine someone who's afraid to step away from extreme dieting or yo-yo dieting. What advice would you give them to just trust the process?

Debra: Well, I'm kind of a controller, so sometimes I don't always listen to other people. But if you do that enough, you realize that the people who know what they're doing are worth listening to. And I listen to several of your coaches online, in the podcasts and the weekly chats.

Everybody has so much information. There's a plethora of information out there. And for women who are hesitant: if you are willing to step away and just listen, it works. But you can't undermine yourself from behind, because that's not going to work and you're wasting your money.

Nikkiey: Wow. That's some valuable insight right there, Debra.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your story. Is there anything else I didn't ask you that you'd want to make sure gets shared or said here?

Debra: No, I think we talked about pretty much everything.

Nikkiey: Super cool. And to everybody listening, just a reminder: Debra's journey, as you heard, is a reminder that doing less of the wrong things and more of the right things makes all the difference. Debra let go of restrictive diets. She trusted the process.

And now she's in the best place she's ever been, physically and mentally. Especially hearing how excited you are about your results, the work you've put in and everything you're proud of accomplishing. So if you're listening to this and you've been stuck in the same cycle, wondering if real change is even possible, take the first step. Go to warriorbabe.com. Check it out. Listen to these stories. There are so many more on the website. Just know that you're not alone, and you can figure it out with the team of coaches that we have.

Debra, thank you so much for being here.

Debra: No, thank you for having your program. It's been a lifesaver.

Nikkiey: That literally is music to my ears and warms my heart. That's why I wake up every day to do what I do. So thank you. Thank you for trusting in us.

Debra: Well, thank you for doing what you do.

Nikkiey: Real quick. If this episode resonated with you or gave you the push you needed, I'd love for you to pay it forward. Drop a quick rating and review, share the podcast with someone who might need it, and help me keep spreading the word.

Your feedback not only helps the show grow, but it might be the nudge someone else needs to kickstart their transformation. Thank you so, so much for your support.