Signs You're Not Eating Enough as a Woman Over 40

Nikkiey: When you don't eat enough, your body literally doesn't have enough glucose to power your brain, to power your organs, to power your muscles. You are literally running on fumes at that point. What's crazy about this overall is when you consistently do that, especially if you've been doing it for decades, your body has adapted to that.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show. Or if this is one of your first episodes, welcome to the podcast, my friends. On these episodes, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott.

On today's episode, episode number 308, we're going to talk about something I see in multiple conversations I have with women on their fitness journey, some conversations I see their coaches have with WarriorBabes, and some conversations I've had with WarriorBabes back in the day. It's a sneaky problem that I see with women, especially those who think they're doing everything, quote unquote, right. And what I mean is, you're eating healthy, quote unquote. You eat salads, you skip the dessert, you hit the gym, you stay disciplined. You do all those things, but you're still tired all the time. You feel puffy, you feel constipated, you're moody. And you're not getting to where you think you would be by eating, quote unquote, healthy and doing all of the right things. You feel like you've hit a wall and you can't figure out why.

That's why I want you guys to hear what I say. I know I say this a lot, but I truly mean it from my heart: your metabolism isn't broken. You're not broken. The concept I really want to nail home is you being underfed. And I know you're like, I think I've heard you talk about this on multiple podcasts. Well, guys, listen to me when I say this. I will repeat things over and over and over again. And I think that's what makes a really good coach, because even though it may be on the same topic, I may use different words or different analogies or educate you differently in a way that resonates with you more than it did the first, second or third time you heard it.

One of the biggest psychological successes I've seen with women in WarriorBabe is that the thing I said the first time didn't necessarily land, but maybe by the fifth or sixth or tenth time I said it, maybe in a different way, light bulbs finally start to go off. You guys are aware with this topic that you may be under-eating. So I want to go in depth a little bit more, because I want you to know the signs that you're not eating enough, even if you think you are. I hear so many women say, I eat healthy.

And I'm like, OK, what does that look like for you? I get curious with them. And they're like, oh, I don't eat breakfast. Then I have lunch, and I'll just have chicken on top of a salad, and the salad has all the fixings. And I don't eat anything again until dinnertime. That's you being underfed. That's you thinking you're eating healthy and doing all the right things, but you're not seeing the results. And then you think, maybe I'm just not pushing it hard enough, or maybe I didn't really get my workouts in last week or the week before, so maybe it's a motivation thing. When really it's a metabolic one.

It's truly your metabolism. A lot of women think, I eat healthy. And it's cool to eat healthy. But are you eating enough? Because the truth is most of you are eating way below what your body actually needs to function, let alone to be in that thriving state. So if this is speaking to you, if you've been, quote unquote, eating healthy and doing all the right things, but you're still spinning your wheels, still feeling exhausted, still feeling irritable and still feeling stuck, I hope this episode is going to be a wake-up call for you.

I want to start first with the why, because this didn't just happen overnight. This is decades of conditioning. You grew up being told that you had to eat less and move more. Doctors are telling you that if your thyroid is low or your hormones are off balance, you need to go exercise and put yourself on a healthy diet.

But it's so broad. What does it actually mean? A lot of women think they need to eat less, especially when they hear something is metabolically wrong or their hormones are off. And a majority of women are overweight, so it's like, oh, okay, I just need to eat less. And in this society, women have been told to take up less space. Women have been praised throughout the years to be tiny, to not be strong, to be the smallest version. Magazines back in the day. As I said in an episode when I was talking about Ozempic, even in the mental realm of things, it's the same thing through the decades. It's just being repackaged differently.

Magazine covers, fitness ads, influencers online are still saying the message of lose weight, smaller is better. I know some of you guys are like, well, I follow people that are changing that narrative. And that is very, very true. You follow me and we're changing that narrative. But there's a small little group of us in a very big ocean. That's why I think this message is so important to continue to nail home and bring to you guys.

Because you've learned to fear food. You've learned to label foods as either good or bad. And some see hunger as something to continue to fight instead of something to learn to listen to. The result is an entire generation of women living in bodies that are running on survival mode. Because when you under-eat for way, way, way too long, your body starts to go, well, I don't know when this person is going to feed me again, so I'm going to start conserving this energy so I can make sure I have energy to still survive. And that in turn slows your metabolism and messes with your hormones.

You guys have heard me say these things before. It downregulates your thyroid. It says, basically, if she's not feeding me, I'm not going to waste energy burning any more body fat. I'm going to conserve. I'm going to hold on. I'm going to store it. You're going to store the fat. Even if you're eating 800 calories, your body is going to store that food instead of using it in the way that will fuel you to thrive. That's why you can eat so little, 800 calories, and still see no change.

That's basically what's happening metabolically. It's holding on to the food, and also your body doesn't trust you. It's not trying to kick you while you're down. It's not trying to sabotage you. It's not trying to say, ha ha, you can eat as low as you want, I'm still not going to get you the results you want. It's not trying to do that. What it's trying to do scientifically is protect you, to keep you safe. But that comes at a cost. It costs your energy, your health to some degree, your strength, your sleep, and your sanity. Because so many of you are spinning your wheels asking, why am I not getting the results that I want?

Now, the first sign I want you guys to be aware of when it comes to recognizing that you're not eating enough, even if you're eating healthy. Let me remind you of that concept: you could still be not eating enough even if you're, quote unquote, eating healthy. The first sign is you're tired. You're fatigued. If you're dragging yourself out of bed, if you can't wait to get that second cup of coffee or the third, or that energy drink, or you're hitting that afternoon crash, or you're relying on that pre-workout just to function, just to get through.

That's you under-fueling. That's not just you being like, oh, I'm just so busy, I do so much in my day. That's not you being busy. That's you under-fueling yourself. When you don't eat enough, your body literally doesn't have enough glucose to power your brain, to power your organs, to power your muscles. You are literally running on fumes at that point. What's crazy about this overall is that when you consistently do that, especially if you've been doing it for decades, your body has adapted to that.

And it's going to normalize the fatigue to protect you. So you could start thinking, well, maybe I'm just tired because I'm getting older. No, you're tired because you've been dieting since your 20s and your body hasn't had a break. And the crazy part is when women finally start eating more, they realize how bad they actually felt before. Because you've been doing this for so long, it's become normalized within the confines of your body. It's your homeostasis.

Your body is just used to this. It doesn't know what it feels like to feel better. So when you actually interrupt the pattern, give it what it wants and eat more, you start to know what it feels like to thrive. And you look back and go, holy cow, I didn't realize how bad I actually felt before. I thought that was just normal. When you start fueling your body, your energy skyrockets and your focus gets sharper.

You feel powerful again. Your workouts feel powerful. You're sleeping better. It's like flipping the lights back on, because your body was never meant to run on empty. Again, my story this past year: I was waking up so tired, feeling like I could sleep again after sleeping eight hours, and having afternoon crashes. My body was trying to tell me something, and I was like, oh, I'm just getting older.

I'm just used to it. And then I'm like, no, no, no. I know from my education, from my background, from being in this space for 10 years, that this is my body signaling me to focus on fueling my body the right way, which I do, but I needed more of it. And my hormones were off, so I needed to get that aligned. I know we shouldn't feel that way. We're not meant to feel like we're running on empty.

We're meant to feel like we're thriving. And that's where I was like, I've got to get things checked out, and I did. If you haven't listened to my life update podcast, I think it was maybe 10 or 15 episodes ago, the story is there. So that's the first one: fatigue.

The second sign I want to talk about is your mood, because that one's sneaky. You wake up fine, but then by noon you're anxious and edgy and snapping at people for no reason. Dude, that's not you being stressed. That is your blood sugar tanking, because when you under-eat, your blood sugar spikes and crashes throughout the day.

For those of you who skip breakfast, then grab a snack, then have lunch, then grab a snack again, and you're eating mostly carbs with no protein, that is what your body is doing internally. And what you're secondarily feeling with your mood is your blood sugar spiking, then crashing. This is where you get irritable and moody. Then it spikes again, then it crashes, spikes again, then crashes. With each crash, your body is releasing cortisol.

It's releasing that stress hormone, basically signaling to your body that we're in danger. And secondarily from that, you feel wired, restless, anxious, on edge. Then you go grab another coffee thinking this will help. But it just spikes your cortisol even more. It's this constant roller coaster, up, down, up, down. And it's exhausting. It's why so many women feel emotionally unstable even when everything else in their life looks totally fine.

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Yes, we experience emotions and moods. 100%. But if that's you all the time, that is a sign of being malnourished. Because when you start eating enough and fueling your body with the right balance of protein, fats and carbs, the roller coaster flattens out. It's like being at an amusement park where you get on the train that takes you all around the park. Your brain gets stable, smooth energy. Your mood evens out. You're even-keeled the whole way on the ride.

Your anxiety drops, unless you're an anxious person, but it drops. You stop feeling like you're fighting yourself all day long. Because when your body feels safe, your mind does too. So if you feel moody and irritable all the time, take a look at whether you're eating enough. And I will tell you that you probably aren't. But if you implement eating enough, you can experience a drastic difference, a stabilization in your mood.

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A third sign is something I don't think a lot of people are aware of. They think it's just a part of getting older, but it's your digestion. It's if you experience constipation, if you experience bloating. This one's huge.

I want to get real about digestion. So many women think they have gut issues when in reality they're just not eating enough to keep digestion moving properly. Because when you under-eat, your body slows down everything just to hold on, like I said, to conserve energy. And one of the first systems it downregulates is your digestion. Think of it like this: if you don't put enough gas in your car, the engine doesn't just shut off right away, but it runs pretty rough. That's your digestive system.

When you chronically under-eat, you get bloated, gassy, constipated, uncomfortable. Even if you're eating clean foods, your body can't break them down efficiently because it's too busy being in survival mode. And then guess what else suffers? Your gut bacteria is the secondary thing to be affected. When you under-fuel your body, those healthy gut bugs die off. And that's only going to lead to even more bloating, even more food sensitivities and even more inflammation.

So if you're bloated all the time and you think the answer is that you need to eat less, it's the exact opposite. You need to start to feed your metabolism. If you're experiencing these signs, each of these signs requires you to eat more food. When you do that for your gut, your gut's going to thank you.

Number four, I think this one gets missed completely. I know I've talked about it a lot on this podcast, but it's sleep and terrible recovery. If you wake up between maybe 2 and 4 a.m., that's your body releasing cortisol because your blood sugar dropped overnight. Your body is literally waking you up to find food. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and your stomach is growling? Yeah. Your body is asking you to feed it with that signal.

Some of you are like, oh, man, I just have insomnia, I just can't sleep at night. But what you actually have is a food problem, a fuel problem. Your body is working overnight. In your sleep, the most important recovery happens. You are repairing your muscle. You are regulating your hormones. You are detoxifying. Sleep is such a beautiful recovery tool for our body.

And all of that requires energy. If it doesn't have enough, it can't do the job, and it can't finish the job. That's why you wake up feeling unrefreshed even after eight hours in bed. It's why your recovery sucks after workouts. It's why your soreness lingers for days instead of hours. And while I say this, because some of you know my story, it's you not eating enough, but it could also be that your hormones need to be looked at and balanced.

I'm 35 and I'm going through this now with my hormones. My testosterone was low. My DHEA was low. My cortisol was slightly elevated. My thyroid was low. And I've been tracking macros for 10 years, guys. So you could be tracking your macros and still be experiencing what I'm talking about right now. The deeper layer, if you're not getting the results you want even though you're tracking your macros and working out, would be: hey, you need to get your hormones checked.

Because that's a deeper level of understanding you're going to have with your body, and you could still be experiencing all of these things with hormones out of balance. If you're getting poor sleep and waking up unrefreshed: when you give your body enough, especially enough carbs at dinnertime, your body finally gets the fuel it needs to repair while you sleep. And here's the thing. So many women are so afraid of eating past 6 or 7 p.m. And I get that and understand it, because when you eat later at night, yes, it's going to take a little longer for your heart rate to lower in the middle of the night.

And you want your heart rate to lower because that helps with the recovery process, and it also helps you go through the different stages of your sleep cycle. When you eat too close to bedtime, your heart rate stays elevated because your body is trying to digest that food and is at work. So I get that. But some people are like, well, I can't have carbs at dinner because I've been told you should not have carbs at dinner. This is me telling you guys: please have carbs at dinner, because it's going to help you with the recovery process while you sleep, and you're going to recover faster.

And then your stress response is going to calm down. But this real work doesn't work without you fueling your body properly.

Okay, the last one I have for you is going to hit hard, because this is the point where most women panic and double down. You're training hard, you're tracking your food, you're eating clean, and the scale won't budge. So you think, okay, maybe I just need to eat less. And then, okay, I need to train more. And that's the exact moment your body goes, oh, no, not again.

Here we go. Same stuff, different day. Same month, different decade. When you under-eat for a long, long time, and this stems off what I talked about in the last podcast on Friday as well, your metabolism adapts. It becomes more efficient, which sounds great when I say that. But what it means is it burns fewer calories at rest. It becomes efficient because it recognizes that you're not feeding it what it needs.

So it's going to slow down to conserve. Your body starts to burn fewer calories so it can conserve energy for a long period of time. With that, your thyroid output is going to drop. Your hunger hormones are going to be nonexistent. And your cortisol is going to start to rise. Your body isn't going to do the job you want it to, which is burning fat. It's just going to focus on sustaining your energy throughout the day and keeping you alive. So if you're chronically underfed, it's going to slow down your metabolism to protect you.

You don't want to starve your way to results or starve your way to sustainability. And it's clicking for so many women now, especially those in the WarriorBabe program or listening to our WarriorBabe success stories or even listening to this podcast: you can't cut or lose weight from an empty tank. I think I've mentioned this before, but a WarriorBabe comes in. She's eating 800 calories or 1,000 calories, even 1,200 calories. She's like, I want to lose weight. We're like, okay, but the way we're going to do it is by eating more food, not less, because we can't cut from 1,200 calories and have you eat 1,000 calories.

That's just enough to sustain your BMR. Think about it like this. If you don't move at all in the day, you're just sitting in one spot breathing, your organs and internal systems, the fact that you're breathing, even little flinches you make, that burns calories. Your organs burn calories. It ranges differently for everybody, but using 1,000 calories as an example, just by you not moving at all, your body is still burning calories because your organs are burning it.

You're breathing, making small little ticks. That's what the majority of women eat in a day. And then on top of that, people are working out. People are moving around. People have demanding jobs. People are running around with their kids. On top of that, you're probably burning like 1,800 calories and you're only eating 1,000. Logically, you'd think, well, that would mean I should lose weight. But as I've been saying, your body is adapting to the low intake. It's protecting you because it's not getting enough fuel and it doesn't know when it's going to get enough fuel.

That's why it's storing it as fat and why you're getting bigger even though you're not eating enough. Does that make sense? I hope it does, because that's the mindset that needs to be rewired so people are okay with eating more food. It's recognizing, hey, I do burn a lot of calories in the day and I need to eat to sustain that, because it's all energy, baby. It's all energy. Food is energy. The way you move is energy.

All right, let me run through those five things really quick again. The first one: if you're feeling constant fatigue and low energy, that is a sign that you are not eating enough, even if you think you are. The second sign is irritability, mood swings or anxiety. That is a sign that you're not eating enough and you're malnourished. The third sign is bloating, constipation and poor digestion. The fourth sign is poor sleep and terrible recovery. And the fifth sign is that you're stalled on fat loss and stuck in your results, or you're eating less but gaining weight.

Okay. You guys probably know the drill by now. How do you fix it? First, just recognize and bring awareness to the fact that you've been taught the wrong things. Breathe and accept it. Then, one, track your food and see where you're at, honestly, for a week. Don't try to change anything. Just track what you're actually eating, because it's going to bring awareness. Then you're going to find your baseline and slowly increase your calories. It's similar to what I talked about in the last podcast.

Literally, it's that simple. It's that basic. It doesn't have to be crazy. You're going to start focusing on hitting your protein targets. You're going to listen to your biofeedback. And most importantly, you're going to be patient. Because if you've been under-eating for years, it's going to take months to repair. But every single week, every single day that you put in the effort and you're consistent, your body starts to trust you again. This isn't another quick fix. It is literally you fixing and restoring your metabolism. And it's so worth it.

It's so worth it for the long haul. Hopefully, if you listened to the last episode, I got that point across. It's so worth it for the long term, because then you won't be on this hamster wheel of losing the same 10 or 15 pounds over and over and over again.

So I'm going to leave you guys with this. Take what you've been taught about food and the fear around it, and think about Men in Black. I love this picture for your mind. If you've watched Men in Black, they have that laser zapper. Picture me zapping that laser in front of you right now. I'm wiping all of your past thoughts around food. And now I'm saying food is fuel, and you're going to eat more food to lose weight.

I really want you guys to train yourselves mentally to accept that and not allow the fear to override you. Because you can build the body you want. You can be energetic even in your 50s, 60s and 70s. Food isn't the enemy. It's really the key to unlocking everything you've been chasing in your journey.

I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast and I hope it resonated with you. If it did, I ask that you share it with a friend, a co-worker or a family member. Screenshot this, post it to your Instagram story, tag me at Nikkiey Stott and tag The WarriorBabe Show. Leave a little nugget that resonated with you the most. I love reading those. Until next time, I'll see you guys in the next episode. Love you guys. Peace out.

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