Menopause and Fitness: The Importance of Long-Term Goals

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. It's not going to happen by you following one training block in a program and then disappearing for three months.

00:30It requires you to be consistent over weeks and over months, and it requires you to be consistent with the right type of nutrition, and it requires you to rest and recover. If you rush this entire process by overtraining or by not eating enough, you not only risk injury by overtraining, but your body is not going to help you to recover the way you should, and it's actually going to slow your progress. Hey, everyone.

01:04Really quick before we dive into today's episode, I have an exciting milestone to celebrate with all of you. The WarriorBabe Show has officially reached 500,000 downloads. That's a half a million downloads in just a year and a half of being born. I could not have done this without you guys. Thank you all so freaking much. And now I want to hear your stories. If you could just take 10 minutes of your time to fill out a testimonial, that testimonial link is in the description below. That would mean the absolute world to me.

01:35How has The WarriorBabe Show positively impacted your life? What have you taken away from this show? How have you applied it, and what results have you gotten? Your story could be featured in one of our special celebration episodes to come. So if you could, please head over to the testimonial link. The link is in the show notes below. And share your journey with me. Thank you all so much for being an essential part of this freaking amazing The WarriorBabe Show community. You guys all rock. I love you all so much. So let's celebrate this achievement together.

02:06Again, that testimonial link is in the show notes below. Thank you all so much. Yo, yo, yo. What is going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikki Stott, co-founder of Warrior Babe. And 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, Nikki Stott. And welcome to today's episode, episode 167, where we're going to talk about a crucial concept here.

02:38The time that it takes to see results and why zooming out and playing the long game is so, so essential for sustainable success along your fitness journey. So I have a couple questions because I think we've all been here and we've all experienced this. But how have you guys have felt frustrated because you weren't seeing immediate results from like a fitness program that you were following? Maybe you're a warrior babe and you're like, hey, I've been in this for two months and I'm not seeing the results that I want to see. Keep listening.

03:08Maybe you've been eating right. Maybe you've been working out consistently, but the scale just won't budge. Or the muscle definition that you're hoping to see just is taking so freaking long, right? This is a frustration that you have experienced, I've experienced, a lot of us have experienced at some point. And it's easy to get so freaking caught up in the desire for the quick fix and the instant gratification. And like what I say is pop your body into a microwave and out in 30 seconds, you guys are expecting to have a toned body and, you know, dropping 5% body fat and seeing more muscle definition.

03:43Especially too, though, I think it's not like it's not just the instant gratification that a lot of people want. It's also the abundance of like before and after photos that everybody sees and the quick transformation stories and people's successes all over social media. Yeah, people don't show like the hard work and the behind the scenes. And, you know, if you go to my, I'm kind of faulty at this. When you go to my Instagram, you see me, what I look like now and me sharing advice and tips and strategies. But like there's no way that this present day could, I could show you other than going through all of my pictures and old videos of the eight years, nine years that I've put in, unless you've been following me for that long, right?

04:21Like a lot of people just come to my Instagram that are new and they're like, oh, like this person just has a good body. But like, no, like it took me eight, nine years to be here where I am today. And with the consistent effort and hard work over that time, I didn't have this body eight years ago, right? And so to help us like break down this topic today, I want to talk about, I just want to dive into a little bit of science and look, I did some research around this to just bring it to this podcast. But look at what experts like myself in the field of fitness and nutrition and, you know, health and all that stuff are saying.

04:53Because according to the research, it typically takes about like eight to 12 weeks to start actually seeing noticeable changes in your body composition. I'm going to say that again, just so you hear me loud and clear. Because so many people go into programs and expect like with that timeframe, what I just said, eight to 12 weeks. What I just said earlier is like maybe you're a warrior babe and it's been two months. That's only eight weeks of a journey. And you're just at the verge of maybe starting to actually see some noticeable changes in your body composition. And maybe it's just slightly, maybe even to your eye, because you see yourself every single day.

05:25You're not seeing the changes that you want to see. But like you're right there. It's like what I used to, what the book Atomic Habits says that I've talked about in the podcast before. Where he's like with habit formation, right? Like and getting the results that you want. He uses, I'm probably going to butcher this, but you guys, if you've read or listened to the book, you'll know what I'm talking about. He uses an ice cube as an example. And he puts an ice cube on the table and like the room is set to a specific temperature. And the room starts getting warmer and warmer and warmer, but the ice cube stays the same.

05:59Like it's just still sitting there. But then all of a sudden, like that's you putting in the work. You're doing the work. The temperature, you know, if I can correlate the different, if you're understanding like the parallel here. The ice cube stays the same, but temperature after temperature, week after week after week. You're doing the work, but your body is staying the same. The temperature is staying the same. I'm sorry, the ice cube is staying the same. And then bam, all of a sudden, like with no change whatsoever, the ice cube starts to melt.

06:32And it's the same thing with you guys. Like it's, you're doing the same thing consistently over eight weeks, nine weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, four months, six months. And all of a sudden, bam, you start seeing the body composition change. And you start seeing the notable changes. However, right, that's the age of 12 weeks that you start seeing those notable changes. But true transformation, like the kind that actually sticks, can take anywhere from six months to a year or more.

07:03Depending on your lack of excuses, depending on your thoroughness and following a program and listening to your coach. It depends on your consistency. It depends if you're following the right type of plan for you. And it depends if like you're taking responsibility for your life and you're actually, you know, abiding to the strategies of which you need. And you're breaking old habits or implementing new habits so that you can get the type of results that you want. But true transformation is the kind that sticks. Like if you were adamant, I mean, the beginning of my journey, like, and this is like my personal experience.

07:37But from the onset of deciding to do it the right way, hiring a coach and then having an end goal of stepping on stage, that was like a 10 month period. And I saw an insane results. But because I was consistently like to the T following everything down to the like, I was dotting my I's and crossing my T's. Like I was your perfect freaking student. And so, and I've seen this with the women that are inside of Warrior Babe or the clients that I've coached or the coaches that are coaching their clients.

08:09The ones that follow it just like that or at least 90% or 80% of the time, they will see that type of result in that time frame. And this is because our bodies, why it takes longer, why I want to talk about the long game and why I want to talk about why the long game is so important for your long term success and sustainable success. It's because our bodies take time to adapt to any type of new workout routine. They take time to build muscle. They take time to shed the body fat in a healthy way.

08:40Quick fixes like crash diets or extreme workout routines. They might offer you fast results and maybe you've seen them in the many that you tried over your journey. But they're often entirely unsustainable and they can lead to burnout. They can lead to injury. Or I think like 90% of them lead to a rebound weight gain. Meaning that you do this for 12 weeks. You crash diet. You follow an extreme workout routine. You're doing like seven days a week.

09:10You're doing, I don't know, three miles out of five days of the week or an insane amount of cardio. And you see the weight loss. But then once this 12 weeks is done, it's not sustainable to do what you've just done for the last 12 weeks. So you go back to all of your old habits and then you rebound in your weight gain. So basically you gain back all of the weight that you've started out with. What's up everybody? Today's episode is brought to you by Paleo Valley's grass-fed whey protein powder.

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10:15Blend it into your smoothies or stir it into water after a salad workout for a post-workout drink. Also, to mention, this protein powder is absolutely delicious. And I'm not just saying that for the partnership. It's actually pretty solid. Are you ready for a great quality source protein powder? Head over to paleovalley.com forward slash the macro hour and use the macro hour for 15% off your first order. Now, let's get back to the show. So, just keeping that high level there, I want to dive into a little bit deeper why the long game is so freaking important.

10:49First, I want you guys to consider muscle growth. And I talk about this all the time on the podcast, but just, I believe in repetition. I believe in repeating myself over and over and over again because I think that's what makes the best coach, one. But two, it depends on where you're at in your journey. The words that I say to you right now may be resonating with a few of you, but some others, it may just kind of be going in one ear and out the other. But then like six months down the road, you're going to be like, oh, I remember Nikki said something along these lines on The WarriorBabe Show.

11:24And I remember hearing her say this and it's going to resonate with you at that point. So, anyway, considering muscle growth, building muscle is a slow process because it requires consistent strength training, consistent resistance training, resistance on the muscles. It requires you to have adequate protein intake on a daily basis. And it requires you to give your body proper recovery, which is hard for a lot of people.

11:54Those three things are hard for a lot of people because I typically hear the objection of like, I'm too busy and I don't have enough time to go work out or I'm too busy in the day and I don't have time to meal prep or eat, you know, enough protein. Or I don't know, I don't know what foods have protein in it. Or I don't know how much protein I should be eating. Or in terms of proper recovery, people just love to go ham six days a week. And like, you can't build muscle going ham six to seven days a week. Because muscle fibers need time to repair and grow stronger.

12:26When you lift weights, you create these tiny muscle fiber tears. And when you're working out, you're breaking down the muscle. You're not building it up. You build it out up this workout and with the recovery and the nutrition that you eat. So every single time that you work out, you're creating these tiny tears in your muscle fibers. Your body repairs those tears, making those muscle fibers thicker and stronger in the process of recovery. The repair isn't instant though. It requires consistent training over months and weeks and combined with adequate nutrition and rest.

13:02So just because you go in, I think this is like, this is what a lot of people think. I know I did the beginning of my journey, so I feel like I can say this. Is I went into the gym for like two weeks and I was like, oh yeah, like I'm going to get muscle and I'm going to be toned. And then I wouldn't go, I would go for, I wouldn't go anymore. Like I wouldn't be consistent. It requires you in order to build back those muscle fibers to make them thicker and stronger. That is a huge process to undertake and the process is an instant.

13:33It's not going to happen in two weeks. It's not going to happen in three weeks. It's not going to happen by you following one training block in a program and then disappearing for three months. It requires you to be consistent over weeks and over months. And it requires you to be consistent with the right type of nutrition that you need to be eating to make those muscle fibers get thicker and stronger. And it requires you to rest and recover. If you rush this entire process by overtraining or by not eating enough, you not only risk injury by overtraining, but your body is not going to help you to recover the way you should.

14:12And it's actually going to slow your process, your progress. So if you're doing seven days a week, if you're doing tons and tons and tons of cardio, yet your goal is to be more toned and build muscle. And then you're also only eating a thousand calories a day. You risk burnout. You risk hurting yourself. And you actually slow down your progress because you need the right type of food to recover and to build back the muscle fibers thicker and stronger. You need the consistent training and the right type of training and not doing too much.

14:49I always say, you know, a lot of people can't believe when I say that you need to do less, not more. Especially if you are in the age range of 45, 50, 55, 60, 65 or older. It's about doing less, not more. You can't do what you are doing at 20, 30 years old anymore. It's talking about a different approach, talking about a strategic approach that actually works for you in this year and your years of life rather than what worked for you 20 years ago. And you can still get the same type of results that you had 20 years ago.

15:19But anyway, and then if you're eating a thousand calories and you're not resting, this whole process can't happen. So it just slows it down. If you're doing all of those things in terms of overtraining, not eating enough, and you're doing that consistently over time rather than doing it the right way, and you think that you're speeding up your progress, you're not. You're slowing it down. So just think about you doubling the times actually going to take you to get results. So if you expect to see results in a year doing it this way, expect it to take two years. Or expect it to take even longer because depending on the body that I'm thinking of or the human that I'm thinking of in terms of whatever may be a factor into you getting the results, if you're doing this, it's going to take you longer, period, point blank, end of story.

16:06Also, okay, so that's the muscle growth process, right? Building muscle, which is a lot of what you guys want. And before I go into talking about body fat, building muscle is and can only be done with strength training, with some type of dumbbell, barbell work. Like I know a lot of people want to do like Pilates. Like I've seen older women like do Pilates and think they're going to get the body that they want.

16:37That's not going to happen. Or running and doing cardio. Cardio is good, but it's not going to help you build muscle. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, Warrior Babe is here for you. At Warrior Babe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more.

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17:49There needs to be a consistent program, a progressive overload that you are following where it's doing the boring work, essentially. I've talked about this on a podcast before. It's like you're following the same thing for four to six weeks. Yeah. And you're doing some of the same exercises. But if you're doing it the right way and you're changing up reps, sets, and time periods, you will notice by the end of the block that you're doing, the programming that you're doing, that you should be getting stronger if you're doing it the right way.

18:21When it comes to, and you need, like, muscle growth. A lot of you guys want it, but a lot of you guys won't do what's actually necessary to get that type of result. So I just want to hone that in. Okay. If you want that, then you need to be, you need to give your body the rest. You need to give your, do the consistent training over weeks and months. And you need to be eating right and giving your body the adequate nutrition that it needs to recover and to build back the muscle fibers thicker and stronger, which isn't an instant process.

18:53When you work out, it's not that you're going to work out for three weeks. I know I'm repeating myself here, but I feel like I need to drill at home. You can't just work out three weeks and disappear. You can't just work out six weeks and disappear. It has to be consistent effort over weeks and months so that you're breaking down the tiny muscle. You're breaking down, you're creating tiny tears in the muscle fibers. You're repairing the tiny tears in the muscle fibers. They can come back thicker and stronger. That process is not instant and it requires consistent training over weeks, over months. Anyway, on to body fat. Okay.

19:24Body fat is about creating a caloric deficit over time without depriving your body of the nutrients that it needs. Drastic calorie cutting, which a lot of people like to do, leads to muscle loss. It leads to nutrition deficiencies and it leads to a slowed metabolism, which I want to talk about in a second. Why muscle and metabolism are so freaking important. But if you are drastically cutting your calories, you are losing muscle and you are slowing your metabolism down, which is completely kind of productive to you wanting to be more toned and to build more muscle.

20:06Okay. When you are looking to maintain muscle mass while losing fat, a gradual approach helps in this situation. Meaning that you are slowly lowering your calories, getting down into a deficit. So I can think about tons and tons of warrior babes. I'm sorry, warrior babe. Right. And all they want to do is go into a drastic calorie deficit. And some of them are already in a freaking calorie. Like they're, they're eating 1100 calories.

20:37And we're like, we can't go any lower. We're just, you're just going to like, literally I say it all the time. You're, if you are eating 1100 calories, there's no, you're basically eating the calories for you to sustain and live on a daily basis. For your, like your organs and everything to be happy and you just to live, to survive. You cannot go lower than that and hope to build more muscle and to get the results that you want to be leaner. You're just fighting an uphill battle at that point. So when, why we start people off at either increasing your calories, which a lot of magic happens in doing that.

21:12People don't understand why, but let me tell you, just trust us now, believe us later because there's a method to the madness. But people start eating more and they start losing body fat and they start seeing more muscle definition. They're like, holy cow, I didn't know I could actually do this. Yeah, leave it up to the experts. But those of you that want to go the opposite direction, it's just like doomsday at that point. It's like you're paying for a program, you're not listening to the experts and you're going to get more of the results that you already have. So a gradual approach helps to maintain muscle mass while you're losing body fat.

21:43Because in this, this helps you to make sure that you are not only staying on a healthier path, but you're ensuring that you are, there's a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing result. What I mean by that is because when you lose weight too quickly, you tend to lose muscle mass along with fat, which can decrease your overall strength. And like I mentioned, which I want to dive into, slow down your metabolism.

22:16So those of you guys that want to go into a deep calorie deficit out of the get. And it bugs my mind to put anybody in the caloric deficit because most of you guys aren't eating off anyway. So I like to always either go up in a retrain, which is the concept I just explained by you eating more or put people into a maintenance and then start giving the body what it needs because it's been in such a calorie deficit for way too long. But anyway, maybe when you've done that phase first, and then you move into doing appropriate deficit, you're coming down from maintenance, but you're coming down slowly from it.

22:48And this is because this is going to not only be healthy for you, but you're not going to lose muscle mass at the same time that you're losing body fat. Because you are holding on and preserving the muscle mass by the adequate, you know, nutrition intake that you're giving your body and the protein that you're giving your body. And so you are decreasing the body fat over the muscle because you're holding on to it. And so this is going to give you a more aesthetically pleasing result. When you lose body fat too quickly, you're losing everything.

23:20This is what happens to a lot of people where they can't become a skinnier, fat aversion of themselves. And this is why people can't perform in their workouts. And this is why people can't get the results they want because their metabolism is now weakened and slower. I should use slower, not weakened. It's just slower. And because muscle plays a crucial role in your metabolism because muscle is metabolically active tissue. And this means that muscle burns more calories while you are at rest, helping you to helping to increase your BMR. So the more muscle you have, the more muscle I have, I've increased my BMR over the eight, nine years of strength training and building more muscle.

23:56The more muscle mass you have, the higher your BMR is, which means your body will burn more calories throughout the day. I personally burn more calories throughout the day. BMR is what I was talking about earlier. Like 1100 calories is basically some people's BMR and that's all they're eating in a day. So, and that's not going to help you get the results of building more muscle that you want to be more toned. In order, the building and maintaining muscle through strength training can therefore support weight, fat loss management, and your overall metabolic health.

24:33So, when you are building more muscle, when you're eating the necessary nutrients that your body needs in order to sustain that process, and then you go into decreasing body fat, right? I talked about phase one, like phase two is decreasing the body fat. There's going to be better support in you losing the body fat. And there's going to be better support in your overall metabolic health because your metabolism is healthy at this point. Is this making sense? Like, I hope it's sticking for you guys because I feel like this is honestly the best way that I've articulated it in any podcast I've ever recorded.

25:09And I think, little pin here, but next episode I'm going to share my whole caffeine journey. I started caffeine back today. I feel so good, you guys. I went five weeks without it. Anyway, we'll talk about all of that in the next episode. But anyway, so we talked about, right, first, like the whole concept of you guys building more, considering the muscle growth for long-term success, and then considering losing body fat, the appropriate way so that you can preserve the lean muscle,

25:41and not crash dieting and going into all of that, and then not being happy with the results, and then how your metabolism needs muscle in order to be metabolically healthy. But the last thing I would talk about is your sanity. Your mental and emotional health plays a significant role in your fitness journey, more so than I think that anybody really understands. A lot of people just want the tangible result. They want the physical result, and they don't really think about the mental and emotional

26:13well-being of yourselves when you're going through the journey. The stress that a lot of people experience of unrealistic expectations can lead to insane frustration and insane demotivation. When you guys expect instant results and you don't see them, it can be easy to feel like a failure and give up. This is why it is so important to manage expectations and understand that real lasting change takes time.

26:45And if you can adapt, adapt and adopt, you can adapt your mindset to change it from where it is to get it on board with a long-term mindset, and you can adopt the long-term mindset, and you can cultivate patience, and you can celebrate small victories, and you can maintain your motivation and develop self-discipline. Each step forward, no matter how big, no matter how small, no matter how many days, is progress. I've always said this. Once you can accept that your journey is going to take 12 months, 18 months, 24 months,

27:22once you can accept that and you can have the long-term mindset, your journey gets so much more enjoyable. That mindset shift allows you to appreciate the journey, to stay consistent no matter what, to understand that, like, oh, maybe I didn't get in four workouts this week, but I got in three, but, like, I'm still going to do, I'm still going to show up for myself the next day. Actually, great little point here, so I can sum it up to make sense for you guys. I was walking the trail. I ran into a, I walked,

27:52I walked the trail every morning with Maverick by my, by my place, and I ran into a friend on the trail, and he was on vacation and, you know, went, like, enjoyed himself, and then suddenly, you know, come, came back, and he was right back to it. But a lot of you guys, if you mess up with my point when I just said, like, oh, I only got to the gym three weeks, like, oh, God, I'm not gonna, I can't do this, like, I can't do this next week. A lot of people will kind of fall off, and they don't get right back to it, regardless of if you didn't get your workout and your nutrition in the next day.

28:25I have the ability to, if, like, I go off track a day or two, to get right back on the next day. A lot of people will wait till Monday, or they'll wait till the new month. And so, if, even if you, like, when you shift that mindset, it's no longer about quick results. Like, people want the quick results, and they're like, oh, I screwed up, I need to start over again. No, it doesn't matter. You're going to screw up, right? And as long as you can accept the long-term mindset, right, and you can, like, when I know this is just my life, like, it's just a journey that I'm on, and fitness is just me,

28:58then no matter what, if I'm inconsistent this week or consistent the next week, or if I'm inconsistent the day before, I'm consistent the next day, right? And when you can shift your mindset to that, like, oh, I messed up yesterday, I'm gonna get right back on board today, but, like, 90% of the time, you're consistent, and you, your mindset shifts to, like, I appreciate this journey, I'm gonna stay consistent, I'm gonna avoid the burnout that comes with trying to do too much too quickly. So, it's not just, like, oh, the aesthetics and the tangible results, it's also, like, huh, it's my emotional and mental health that I experience when quick,

29:34quick fixes give me unrealistic expectations and lead to frustration. They've done it over and over and over again. So, if that's the case, and it's like, Einstein's quote, the definition of insanity is doing things over and over and over again, expecting different results. Well, you can't keep doing quick fixes, so something needs to change. So, then you need to, oh, maybe I need to just really, truly adopt this long-term mindset, and I need to cultivate patience, and I need to celebrate small victories, non-scale victories, and I need to maintain motivation throughout and just stay consistent.

30:11And that, man, that gives you realistic expectations, and that gives you an understanding that real, lasting change takes time. So, all in all, you guys, I think that's really freaking important to understand. That concept of playing the long game and zooming out is so essential for sustainable, long-term success. All right, my friends?

30:41If you enjoy this podcast, share this podcast. I feel like so many people need to hear this, and I'm one person. You guys are many, and sharing this with somebody that is either a friend, a relative, a cousin, girlfriend, you know, a friend's girlfriend, I don't know. Share this. Let's spread the freaking word, because people need to hear this, and they need to adopt this mentality and this understanding, okay? Appreciate you guys. Love y'all, and I'll see you in the next episode. Hey, everyone. Thanks for sticking around to the end of the show.

31:11I hope you really enjoyed that podcast. Really quick, if you're a woman aged 45 through 65 and finding menopause challenging, listen closely. Warrior Babe is here to help you reclaim your body and your confidence. At Warrior Babe, we've empowered over 18,000 women to lose stubborn body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better. Our personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more ensure you get exactly what you need to see real results and real results that last.

31:42Imagine feeling stronger, more energized, and in control of your health. Don't let menopause hold you back any longer. Head over to WarriorBabe.com forward slash apply and join our amazing community today. That's WarriorBabe.com forward slash apply. The link is in the show notes below. Thanks again for listening to the episode, and I'll see you in the next one.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.