Lost 18 Pounds at 63 by Tracking Macros, Not Calories

Linda: I just figured if I eat less and burn more, then I'll keep the weight off. I just looked at calories and recognized after a while that it wasn't just the calories that were important. And I really didn't have that eureka, Nikkiey, until I saw your video. And then I'm like, oh, this is interesting. Wait, you're not counting calories? You're counting macronutrients? And you can have all of them?

Nikkiey: What's going on, everybody? Today I have another amazing WarriorBabe success story to share with you guys. Linda is here. Before WarriorBabe, she had always been active and she tried to eat right. But as she got into her 60s, she realized what worked before wasn't going to get her the results that she wanted moving forward. She needed a smarter, more sustainable approach, and that's where she found WarriorBabe. Now she's lost 18 pounds, is stronger than ever, and feels better in every aspect of her life. And the best part is that she feels liberated knowing exactly what her body needs to thrive. So today we're going to dive into Linda's story before WarriorBabe, how she found WarriorBabe, and where she is now. I shared a little bit of the successes, but there are so many more. Linda, welcome.

Linda: Thanks, Nikkiey. Nice to be here. I live in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I've been here for close to 30 years now. I am 63 years old. Right now I consider myself semi-retired. I don't have an operational role in corporate America anymore, but I do board work. I'm on the board of a pharmaceutical company, which was the industry that I came from.

Nikkiey: That's awesome, and I can't wait to dive into your story. Reading your story now, being 63 years old, and the results you've accomplished so far in a very short amount of time is really cool. We'll get to that too. So let's dive into looking back. Before WarriorBabe, what was your mindset around dieting before you found this sustainable approach that you're living out today?

Linda: My mindset was always calories in, calories out. I have always been active. I was always making sure that I had some cardio. As I got older, I recognized the need to do a little bit of weight training and resistance training, so I would incorporate that as well. Go to barre classes, things like that. Yoga, Pilates, whatever I needed to help myself age appropriately, right? Stay healthy. But I did realize that I couldn't always control what went in here, despite the fact that I was working out. I had just come off of a summer where I just had fun all summer. And although I was extremely active, I wasn't losing any weight. I was actually picking up a couple pounds throughout the summer, just eating in an undisciplined way, but I still thought, hey, if I get my cardio in, everything will be fine. And that just doesn't work, particularly at the age that I'm at.

So I got to the end of the summer and recognized that that was not going to be sustainable for me. I can't keep yo-yoing back and forth and just really cutting my calories and assuming that I would maintain my physical activity and that that would allow me to lose some weight, because it just wasn't sustainable. And I think the reason for that was my macros were incredibly unbalanced, if you will. I wasn't eating a lot of protein, and I was eating heavy carbs that I thought weren't a big deal because it was a lot of fruit, a lot of vegetables. But then there were other things that counted as carbs that I wasn't really thinking about that added up on the carb list. I just wasn't having a very balanced macro diet.

So I would come to the end of the day and I would have a certain set of calories left, and it's like, oh, great, I have 200 calories. I can have this scoop of ice cream because it'll still keep me underneath my calorie level. Right? And it just wasn't the right choice. So it's not about those calories necessarily. I was never tracking my macronutrients. And because of that, despite the calorie deficit, I wasn't necessarily losing the weight that I wanted to lose, number one. And number two, I didn't feel good. That was even more important. I just didn't feel good. So feeling better was a goal of mine, and trying to find a sustainable lifestyle change and not a so-called diet.

Nikkiey: Love that. Can you unpack what not feeling good means to you? What were you feeling day to day when you were focusing on calories in, calories out, not eating enough, thinking, oh, let me get the 200 more calories in? What did not feeling good look like for you back in the day?

Linda: It was some really unexplained lethargy, thinking that I should have a lot of energy because I'm active. And eight o'clock rolled around and I was like, I've got to go to bed. And then not sleeping well, getting up multiple times, sudden awakenings. My GI tract was always pretty good, but this overall wellness was not there. Feeling like I should have more energy, I should have more clarity of thought, I shouldn't be this tired every day, and my sleep should be more consistent. I know as you get older you sometimes sleep less, and it may be more inconsistent because you're up going to the bathroom during the night, perhaps. But it just wasn't something that I was ready for or willing to accept.

Nikkiey: Okay. Can you walk us through one of those diets or programs that you tried in the past? What was the experience like and what ultimately led you to stop doing them?

Linda: I never went on one of these popular diets that you would see. I don't have to name them; you guys know them all. What I would do is just say it's all about the calories that I'm eating. As I mentioned earlier, I just figured if I eat less and burn more, then I'll keep the weight off. But that wasn't doing it. Perhaps I would lose the weight and I would get down. I was never actually down to the weight I'm at now, maybe years and years ago, but not within the last 15, 20 years. I'd lose weight and get to the middle of the 130s. I always felt good if I was 134, 135. And then something would happen and I wasn't as dedicated, because I really didn't have a rule to follow. It was just calories in, calories burned. So it wasn't anything that I felt was structured enough to really be sustainable.

It's not like I went on a no-carb diet or a no-fat diet or, you know, name the diet of the month, the flavor of the month. I never really adopted any of those sorts of things. I just looked at calories and recognized after a while that it wasn't just the calories that were important. And I really didn't have that eureka, Nikkiey, until I saw your video. And then I'm like, oh, this is interesting. Wait, you're not counting calories? You're counting macronutrients?

Nikkiey: Yeah.

Linda: And you can have all of them, and they can be somewhat balanced. There wasn't this restriction on carbs, and it wasn't just, oh, high protein and everything else is going to be really low. I was always really leery of any of those sorts of fad diets or those sorts of professions that say here's a quick way to lose weight, or here's a way that's really going to work and it's healthier for you in the long run. Anything that wasn't balanced just didn't make sense to me. And frankly, I didn't want to deprive myself of any particular food. I consider myself a foodie. I love to eat. I'm not one of these people that eat to survive. I do live to eat. I don't eat to live. Right? It's a social outlet for me. I love all sorts of different types of food and I love sharing food with people.

So being on a so-called diet wasn't anything that was going to really fit with my lifestyle, which is what I love about this. Yes, I have to be particularly careful when I go out to a restaurant. You don't know everything that's going into a meal that you're ordering. But I'm just more empowered and smarter about the choices that I'm picking off the menu. And I don't feel a sense of deprivation at all, which has been really magical.

Nikkiey: I love to hear that. It's so interesting to hear that before, at the end of the day, you would just try to get to the calories, and you were like, oh, let me get to the ice cream. And you mentioned that during that calories in, calories out time, that probably wasn't the best approach. You've probably heard me say that macros are a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life. How do you look at ice cream now?

Linda: I don't look at ice cream and say, oh my gosh, I can't eat ice cream. I feel like I can account for those treats throughout the day, but I'm not jamming them in at the end of the night because I have extra calories. If it's going to be something that's heavy in fat and I don't have those fats left, well, then I'm not going to enjoy the ice cream. I'm not going to choose the ice cream. So I look at that differently based on the composition of the food. It's not to say that I can't have ice cream, but that's not going to be my choice if I've already used up my fats for the day and my carbs for the day. If I'm just looking for a little something, or maybe I need some extra protein or whatever, I'm going to throw some almonds in my mouth instead and feel completely satisfied.

Nikkiey: Got it. So you mentioned this is now more of a sustainable approach that you're following. I'm intrigued to know, with the Instagram pop-up video of me, what ultimately led you to the program. But first, before I ask you that, what were your biggest fears or hesitations about making a change from focusing on calories in, calories out to trusting that there's a better way of doing things?

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Linda: I don't know that I had a fear necessarily. My background is somewhat scientific. I have an undergrad degree in science, but I ended up going into the business side. So for me, it's following the science. And you would think, well, geez, didn't you ever know about macronutrients? Well, yes, I knew about macronutrients, but I didn't think about them as something to track in a balanced way to maintain a healthy lifestyle. So I didn't really have a fear in doing this, because not only did I listen to your video, then I started researching and found some other things online about the value of having that balance. And it just intuitively makes sense to me, particularly at my age, thinking about the need for protein.

I remember when I started with my coach and she set my protein, I forget what it was, maybe 130 grams, 125 grams. And I was so proud because I got up to 70, and she's like, Linda, you've got to eat more protein. And I'm like, but I was eating 45 grams. This is great. I nearly doubled. And she's like, no, no, no. You really have to take this seriously and think about your choices and push yourself. Which was very eye-opening to me, because I thought I'd kind of glide path into this. And she's like, no, this is a change that I want you to think about every day until it becomes second nature to you. So I needed that shove, and I really needed to see the deficit in some of these macronutrients, particularly protein, that I had in my diet.

I was complaining that I was getting old and flabby. And it's like, you have no protein in your diet to even build more muscle, even though you were doing some weight training and some resistance training. So that was really eye-opening to me. To answer your question, I didn't really have a fear going into this. I had to understand the science first, and then believe it intuitively, and then have somebody guide me through the early parts where I was a little more hesitant. Not because I was intellectually hesitant, but because my body was hesitant, because I wasn't used to doing those habits. I wasn't used to eating all that protein. I wasn't used to thinking about things that way.

Nikkiey: Right, which I find so interesting, because I feel like I've talked about this so many times. In the fitness space, protein is an unknown macronutrient in terms of the benefits and what it can do for women's bodies, our metabolism and our muscles. Where you're at now, you understand how important protein is because you've been given the education and the science of the why and the how behind it. But take me back to before WarriorBabe. What was your understanding of protein back then?

Linda: It probably wasn't anything that I was avoiding on purpose. I'm a carnivore, so I eat meat. I would stay away from red meat in particular, just because of all the commentary out there that you don't really need red meat, you can get your protein through other meats. So I wasn't really eating red meat. My cholesterol was going up over the years, not to the point where I'm medicated or anything, but it wasn't something that I was happy about, because I have a familial history of high cholesterol. So I was avoiding egg yolks and just putting some egg whites on my salad. That would be my protein for that meal. I love salads. I'm a big veggie eater, big fruit eater. So instead of thinking about maybe some ground turkey that would give me more protein, or adding some other protein-based sustenance to it, I would have my one egg white in my salad, and that was kind of it. So the protein level was relatively low. I just never thought about it that way. I would have protein at dinner. I had protein for breakfast if I ate cottage cheese or yogurt or whatever. But I did not recognize how much protein I need as a woman, and as a woman in my 60s. And just this notion of having protein on board in your body so that you can help build the muscle that you're breaking down with your workouts. That was a big aha for me.

Another thing I'll say: I was just talking to a woman in my barre class the other day about this. She was talking about coming to barre to build her muscle and to tone. And I'm like, you're not building your muscle. You're breaking down your muscle during your workouts. You need protein on board to build up your muscle. It's a myth that we all believe, that when you're working out, working on your biceps, you're building your muscle. And that's the one thing I learned with you guys. No, you're really tearing down that muscle, and you need to have that protein there to make sure that you can build it back up. So just little tidbits like that. It didn't even necessarily occur to me to put all these things together in terms of my consumption of protein.

Nikkiey: I can really resonate with the way that you're articulating that story. When I first started my journey, I didn't know how important protein was. But along the way there were little aha moments as I went through my journey, got certified and continued on with my education in nutrition and exercise. There were tons of aha moments of, wow, protein is so important. Because before, like you, I would have protein in the morning, protein at lunch and protein at dinner. Or I would buy protein bars and think, oh, there's 10 grams of protein in it. Yay, that's protein. And I think a lot of women can resonate with both of our stories. You articulated that really well. It was just an understanding of the protein aspect, and it's almost not there until you seek out and understand how important protein is to your journey.

And then the second thing you said, about the barre class and how you break down the muscle and build it up after. Society thinks, and I just made a podcast about this last week, that it goes cardio, exercise, nutrition, and you'd be ambitious to even focus on nutrition. It's totally the flip side of that. It's nutrition, exercise, and then cardio can be used as a tool and a resource. So I love that. And what we talked about before we even hit record was you spreading the word to the people in your space that you run into, even at your doctor's office, which you were sharing. Now that you've learned this stuff, you're spreading the word about how important some of these aspects are that the women you run into just don't see or understand yet. I love that.

Linda: Yeah.

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So, question. You mentioned that you saw me on Instagram. What was the initial video or words or perspective that drew you in?

Linda: It was last summer now, so I forget the exact video, but it was an introduction to macronutrients and the value of macronutrients in your personal health journey. And the fact that so many people out there, particularly women, are trying these calorie deficit diets, and as I said, put a label on whichever diet you want to choose. They may work initially, but you'll eventually gain that weight, and then you'll lose it, and then you'll gain it, and then you'll lose it. Much like you said the past conversation resonated with you, that really resonated with me, because I found myself going from 134 pounds to 148 pounds to 136 pounds to 143 pounds. And this could be over a week.

Nikkiey: Really?

Linda: If I had a weekend where I wasn't really focused, I could gain three pounds in the weekend. And then there's what that does to me mentally and emotionally. It's like, oh my God, you work so hard for the week, and then you take a little break on the weekend and you gain it back. I know there are all sorts of things with water weight and salt and retention and all that kind of stuff. But mentally, what it did to me was, that week I just blew. All that hard work was gone, done for nothing. And I felt like I always had to start at ground zero again, which makes it a little less motivating for someone like me to continue doing something like that.

As I mentioned to you earlier, before we started recording, this is a life change for me. It's not even hard anymore. It was hard in the beginning, just to be that disciplined to track things and to learn. I consider myself a lifelong learner. My dad said to me years and years ago, go get your education. Nobody can take away your education. So I got my bachelor's degree, and I got my master's degree when I was 48, because I felt like at work I wasn't growing anymore. Let me go learn from somebody else. My kids were in high school and we were doing our papers together, right? Because Mom would go all day and have an executive position and come home and do her master's at night. But nobody was going to take that from me. That was going to be value for myself that I could keep forever.

And I see this as the same thing. My journey has been one of education, and not just action, which has to go along with the education, but it's foundational and it's educational. And nobody can take that from me either. Being able to use that education, things that I've learned through WarriorBabe, through you, through my coach, through all the other resources that you provide, which, as an aside, is wonderful, because there are so many that I can opt into or not opt into. That's education for me, and that's an investment in myself. So it has been a totally different mindset for me. Even though I did not track on Christmas Day and I did not track on Super Bowl Sunday, the next day I was back at it and never felt like I missed a beat. In the past I would have felt like it was for naught, like I ruined a whole week's worth of effort.

I think that's because I feel empowered, because I have knowledge that I didn't have before. I don't know that I always had knowledge going into either my own program of just tracking calories or something else that somebody would suggest. Did you consider doing this or consider doing that? I wasn't fully knowledgeable about those things. And with knowledge comes power, and I feel totally empowered moving forward.

Nikkiey: Wow. That's amazing to hear. When you first started the WarriorBabe journey, what were your initial thoughts out of the gate? You invested the money, you talked to one of our enrollment advisors, they talked to our customer success team, and then they got you to your coach. Initially, out of the gate, what were your thoughts?

Linda: It's all on me. It's all on me. It is an investment. You have to decide to make that investment in yourself. I talked to my husband about it, because it's not a small amount of money. And with his support, we both agreed: if I'm going to invest, I'm not going to fail. That means you've got to put the work in. You've got to do everything in your power to learn as much as you can and to absorb it. And you can't dismiss things that don't fit into your schedule or don't fit into your way of thinking. I think it's been really important that I stay open-minded. So if my coach says something, or you say something on a video, or somebody says something on the community call, and it's not what I believe or agree with, I can't pooh-pooh it. I can't dismiss it. I have to stay open to continuous learning so that I can stay dedicated to this investment, because this is a return on investment in me. And I refuse to fail. Refuse to fail.

Nikkiey: I think everybody needs to adopt that mindset, Linda, because that's a very profound mindset to have. You're turning it onto you, rather than, hey, this program is just another program. It's on me to make it successful. It's not the program's fault. A lot of people blame the program, or say the program's not working for me. But it's like, did you work the program? And you can successfully say that you have. You've been in the program for how long now?

Linda: Five months.

Nikkiey: We'll jump ahead really quick and then jump back. What are some of the successes and top achievements that you've had so far?

Linda: I hate to start with weight, but I will. This morning I was 128.9, so well below even my goal weight of 135. I have continued to track my macros, with the exception of those two days that I told you about. I think there were maybe one or two days in those five months where I didn't hit my macros. I had some left over because of travel, or eating out with people, or for whatever reason I just can't shove something else in my mouth. It's now 11 o'clock, and I have to go to bed and get up for a meeting the next morning.

And I haven't missed a workout. I do three workouts a week. I know others may do more than that, but as I talked through with my coach, I'm a big-time walker. I get a lot of steps in during the day. I go to barre class and I love the variety. So for me, it's a lower body, an upper body and then a full body workout where I can fit them in. If I travel for my board or whatever, I can change dates on things. So I'm really proud that I've never missed a workout. Even when I had a little bit of a back injury, I wanted to make sure that I was doing what I could. I didn't want to be silly and risk further injury, but I wanted to make sure that I kept the progress going. Those are the things I'm most proud of: it's been consistency, consistency, consistency.

Nikkiey: Yes. There'll be a picture of your before and after attached to this interview. That was what initially made me reach out to you and say, Linda, I need you to come and interview with me so I can share your story, and you can share your story. What blew my mind is that you were eating, what, 400 more calories from the first picture to the second picture.

Linda: Yeah.

Nikkiey: And you've dropped, you said, 18 pounds so far, and you're way past your goal weight. But the most important thing that I saw in there, and we can attribute it to what you were saying about protein, is that you're looking way more toned in your shoulders and your upper body, and even your core is tighter as well. So it's not just the weight. I think the pictures tell the biggest story. While you may have dropped that weight, you're also toning and keeping more dense muscle on your body. And as you continue to age, the denser your muscle is, the healthier it's going to be, and the healthier you're going to be. So to add to your accomplishments, those would be some additional ones I'm seeing just from a transformation photo, which is super cool.

Linda: Thank you. I certainly do feel that. I don't remember being down at this weight in decades, but even when I was losing weight and I would get into the mid 130s, I did not have the physique that I have now. Yes, does the skin sag a little bit more? Has gravity set in at 63? But I did not have the tone that I believe I have now. So that has been really fulfilling for me, because that was one of the goals that I talked to Hannah about when I first started. I want to be toned. I've been an athlete in the past, whether it was in school or afterwards. I've always been active. And I want to have that athletic physique again, even at the age of 63.

Nikkiey: I love that. Not many people can say at the age of 63 that they feel the way that you feel right now. You should be very proud of your hard work.

Linda: Thank you. I am. Thanks.

Nikkiey: Was there anything in the first couple of weeks when you joined WarriorBabe where you thought, oh, this is different, or this is actually going to work for me? Was there any moment like that at the beginning, and what made you feel that way?

Linda: I think the workouts. I love the fact that there are videos with the workouts, so I can take a look at each of the sets. I do it in my basement. I don't go to a gym. I have a mirror down there and all my equipment down there, so I can really look at my form and study the form on the videos first. That was really helpful. I wasn't just jumping into these sets thinking that I know how to do it, because I did not want to get injured. When I saw that, I thought, boy, this is serious stuff. This isn't somebody just throwing out these sets to me and saying, okay, ready, set, go. There were explanations to it. And my coach was great, saying, if you have any questions whatsoever, send me a video, make sure your form's right. I just felt like the support was there from the beginning, which you just don't always get, even when you have a personal trainer. You may get that when you're in the gym with them, but I feel like this is 24/7. I have access to resources around the clock.

So I knew it was going to work early on, because I felt like the focus wasn't pushing me too hard in the beginning. It was trying to get me acclimated to how my body was going to work with weights. As I said, I had done some resistance training, but with really small weights, certainly not the big dumbbells or the equipment that I'm using now. And even the resistance bands, using them in different ways, which I love. So I think that was it, Nikkiey. I felt like it was structured and supportive and gave me everything I needed, provided that I was going to take advantage of it and leverage those resources.

Nikkiey: I love that. That's amazing, just hearing your entire story. I think it's so cool to know where you were before, where you are now, and the level of education and knowledge you've gained that's going to carry you to continue doing this as a lifestyle in a sustainable way, rather than calories in, calories out or a different type of approach. If you hadn't jumped into WarriorBabe, where do you think you would be now?

Linda: I would be in my size eight jeans instead of my size four jeans. Probably pushing the tens. When I yo-yoed back and forth, I would move the big clothes to the other closet in the guest room and then bring them back out. Once I had some early success with this, I just said, no more big clothes. I gave them all away. I never would have done that before, because I always thought there's going to come a time when I may need this. And I'm so confident in the change that I've made that they're gone.

Nikkiey: Did you donate them?

Linda: I did. I donated them. And I'll continue to do that. I still have a bag of other clothes in there. Not many, but as I'm going through and getting more toned, I'm like, oh, I don't know that I want to pay to get these adjusted, so we'll just give these away as well. So I would have been back to a closet full of multiple sizes, Nikkiey. I think that's where I would still be.

And not only that. I don't want to make it just about the size and the clothes, although that was a big driver for me feeling good. I have a whole closet full of clothes and I could only wear half of them. But it just feels so much better, as we started with: the energy, the sleep quality. I used to get chronic headaches in my temple, and they'll still come occasionally, but not nearly as much as they did before. My GI tract, you know, as you get older some foods produce more gas. My GI tract is so much better now and functioning so much more routinely. It's just an overall feeling of being well.

And also knowing that my body is efficiently using its food. That was a big thing for me too. My coach kept checking my hunger levels, and I'd text her, no, I'm fine, I'm fine, I can't even eat this much. And then in a week I'm like, oh my God, I'm starving, you have to up my macros. It's like your body all of a sudden hit that threshold where it was firing on all cylinders and being really efficient. That was a really neat feeling, feeling like I've gotten my metabolism back. It's probably not perfect as a 63-year-old woman, but I've gotten my metabolism back to the point where we keep increasing the macros. I'm eating more calories and I'm just feeling like my body is loving it.

Nikkiey: We share WarriorBabe success stories at our once-a-month all-hands meetings, and literally my favorite wins, when the coaches share the transformations, are the ones who've eaten drastically more food, whether it's 400 more calories or a thousand more calories or 400 grams of carbs or something like that. I love those stories. I love hearing that you're eating more food. Did you think that would be possible at 63?

Linda: No, I really didn't. Coming into this, I heard that more balanced macros were certainly going to help reset my metabolism, if you will. And I thought, well, yeah, I want to be able to reset my metabolism. But I kept hearing the myth that once you're a female over a particular age, just forget it. There's no way you're going to reset your metabolism. It is what it is. It's a function of age. So I didn't have a lot of high hopes. I thought that maybe I'd lose some weight. I thought I'd get toned. I didn't know what it would necessarily mean for how I would feel. And the whole metabolism thing, the evidence of that: I don't need somebody to write a scientific paper about that. I feel it. If I feel it, I know it. So that has been really rewarding, because I feel like I'm burning things efficiently, burning the food as fuel. And it's not just calories in, calories out. It's really helping my entire system be healthier.

Nikkiey: Yes. Two more questions, maybe three. At the beginning of your journey, you mentioned that it was maybe a little bit harder to track the macros and to put the food in and eat it by the end of the day. I hear that a lot. I hear a lot of women say, oh no, this is just too much time, or it's too hard, or it's a lot of food. What would you tell that woman now, with your experience of where you're at now, having more food and making it seem easy to track your food?

Linda: Some people have different methods, right? It's how organized you are and how much variety you want. Within the community, I see people do meal planning throughout the week: okay, I'm going to make these five dinners all at once, and this is what I'm going to eat this week. I've got to have variety in food, so I don't mind tracking my food every day. Sometimes I'll do it the night before, sitting in bed. Let me just list some macros, let me plan my meals in my head, and then it's already in. So it becomes less of a hassle for me during the day. And it doesn't take that long to do it. I know I'm going to have a salad for lunch. It may change up a little bit, but I typically have a salad for lunch, and MyFitnessPal allows you to just copy it to the next date. You don't have to put in those eight or nine or ten different things that are in your salad, right? So that's relatively easy. I like variety in my pre-workout meal, and my post-workout meal tends to be pretty similar, so I can copy and paste that to the next day.

I don't find it overwhelming in the scheme of things. What I mean by that is, if you actually tracked how long it takes you to track those macros, it doesn't take that much time, if you get used to it and you find some shortcuts and some ways to do it. My coach talked to us on a huddle call about using your scale more than the measuring cup. Certain things I do use the measuring cup for, but for other things I've started using the scale, and it's made a world of difference in terms of tracking accuracy. So for people who think, geez, it's going to take too long: I think just like anything else, Nikkiey, you do it for a couple of weeks and it becomes habit. You just have to say, this is part of the process, so I'm going to track.

Early on, I used a different nutrition tracker that wasn't nearly as sophisticated, I think, but I was used to doing that when I was doing my calories in, calories out thing. So I was used to it. But in terms of meal prep and making sure I have variety, I like to do it almost on a daily basis. And as I said, in the scheme of things, even if it takes you a half hour to do every meal, whether it's three meals or six meals or however many you're doing throughout the day, that's not a lot of time. It doesn't even take me that long. I typically sit down while I'm having my breakfast in the morning and I plug in the rest of the day.

Nikkiey: I love that. That would be similar to how I would explain it: track the day before, track the night before. If you're in your bed, why not do that rather than scrolling on other apps?

Linda: Yeah, exactly.

Nikkiey: It's choosing the time wisely. And then it becomes easier with the more time and effort and action you put into it. Sure, in week one it may take you half an hour to go around the kitchen, put things together and think about it. But if you can consistently keep doing it, by week three or week four it'll take you five or ten minutes to put your meals together.

Linda: Yeah. And even at the end of the day, I mean after dinner, when I may have some macros left, I'm so used to what macros are in what foods now. I'm like, oh yeah, I have that many. Okay, I'll go have an orange after dinner. You just get used to it, and it becomes second nature to you. And once again, it's part of your knowledge base.

Nikkiey: I love that you keep saying that. I think that's so important. If you really want to make a profound transformation, it requires you to do things differently than what you're doing now. And that requires a level of education and a level of open-mindedness to say, hey, I'm going to grasp this information and I'm going to try to put it into action. And like you said earlier, even if you don't agree with it, you're not going to knock it down. Maybe it's something that you just haven't had that type of perspective on before. I love that you keep going back to the knowledge aspect of it, and that you're a forever learner. I really appreciate that, because that's a huge part of your success in just a little over five months. You learned this, you grasped it, it made sense intuitively in terms of the science, and you applied it and took action on it. So thank you for the hard work that you've put in, because from having this conversation with you, and the level of consistency, dedication and effort you've put in, you are a true WarriorBabe. Someone who comes in open-minded and takes action, and then you're reaping the rewards of your hard work.

Linda: Well, thank you. Thanks for that validation. I really appreciate it.

Nikkiey: Of course. One last question for you. For someone who's watching this right now and is unsure about taking a next step, what would you tell them about WarriorBabe and the impact that it could have on their life?

Linda: I would just say learn what you can, back to this notion of knowledge. As I mentioned, I heard your initial Instagram video, and then I went researching, and all the research pointed to the same sort of thing. So that's the first thing. The second thing is you've got to know you. You've got to know whether or not you are going to be committed to this. And I would say, regardless of what it is, whether it's WarriorBabe or anything else, if you aren't totally committed to it, you're never going to be successful. So you have to start there, because it's an investment in you, and it's a return on investment in you for life. Don't kid yourself into thinking that you're ready for that if you're not. But if you are, it is so well worth it. Take the plunge, make the investment, stay committed. And it's not going to take forever for you to start seeing results.

Nikkiey: Thank you, Linda. I think that's a very powerful way to end this interview. Of all the interviews that I've done so far, the consistent mention of commitment is what's coming across in all these interviews with you WarriorBabes. You have to be committed to do this program or any program that you come across. If you're not committed, that same level of energy is going to show up in the results that you get. If you're committed, you're going to get the results that you want over time. If you're not committed, you're going to have a lack in the results that you want. So thank you for being here.

And to anyone who's listening right now: Linda's journey is proof that sometimes it's not about working harder. It's about working smarter. It's about focusing on the right nutrition and the right training. She's unlocked a level of strength, energy and confidence that she never thought was possible. But the most important thing that I'm taking away from this interview today is that she was very open-minded to learning something different from what she was doing before, which was calories in, calories out. She grasped the understanding of macronutrients and then put the plan that her coach gave her to work. If you're listening right now and you're stuck, or you're not sure where to go, and you just want to stop guessing and start seeing results, take the first step today and join WarriorBabe. Linda, thank you so much for sharing your story and for your time.

Linda: You're welcome, Nikkiey. Thanks.

Nikkiey: Keep crushing it, because you've still got more than half a year left. I can't imagine what's going to come of your results by the end of it.

Linda: Thank you. Looking forward to it.

Nikkiey: Real quick, if this episode resonated with you or gave you the push that 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 just be the nudge someone else needs to kickstart their transformation. Thank you so, so much for your support.