Switching Programs Is Why You're Not Building Muscle After 40

00:00When you start strength training and you start lifting and after six weeks you're looking at your shoulders like, hello, like where are you? Why isn't anything changing? Why don't I see my abs yet? I wish muscle worked like that, but that's not how it works. Muscle takes time. What if you gave yourself one full year, not 30 days, not until the next vacation that you have or the wedding that you're planning for until your birthday, but you just gave yourself one year. One year where you stopped hopping from program to program or program to program.

00:32Like one year that you followed one program consistently. One year where you actually progressed in your list. The year is going to pass anyway, so you can spend the year either training for three weeks and getting frustrated and changing programs and being exhausted and taking two weeks off and then jumping right back into something new. Or you can keep doing the boring stuff that actually works and let it compound over time. What's going on, everybody? Hey, my friends. Welcome back to another episode.

01:06And on today's episode, 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 I want to talk about expectations today and specifically expectations around changing your body composition, not just losing weight, but like the building muscle, the losing body fat, the changing your shape and creating new shape and looking stronger and feeling better.

01:36And, and, and, and all of those things that a lot of you women say, because I think one of the biggest reasons that women quit a plan that's actually working is simply because they expected their body to change faster. Like you have a woman who's been strength training consistently for eight weeks. That person's getting stronger. You know, you're eating your protein, following your nutrition, you're, you're progressing, you're getting stronger in your lifts. But I typically hear this person say, I don't really feel like my body is changing.

02:06And I'm like, okay, it's been eight weeks, not eight years, eight weeks. And I say that with love because I understand it. Like you're putting in the effort every single day. Eight weeks feels like a very, very, very long time. So I get it. You know, you're doing the workouts, you're prepping the meals, you're showing up, you're, you're getting the steps in. And you're, you've, you changed probably a lot of your habits and implemented new habits. So you're, and some of you guys are creating new lifestyle things, right? That you're, you're following every single day.

02:37I get it. You want to look different. But your expectations around how quickly muscle is built and body composition, you experiencing those changes might be the very thing that is convincing you that something isn't working. Expectations. Period. Your expectations. Okay. When something actually is working. You know, I think we've been, been trained to expect a transformation very, very fast. I mean, look at what you guys have been sold.

03:08The industry continues to sell. I mean, again, like I've said multiple times in podcasts, it's just like people just re keep repackaging things, but giving the same promise, right? Like the injections or back in the day, these, these six day transfer or six week transformations, 30 day transformation. Quick fixes. Quick fixes. You know, it's just the injections are now just the same thing, but just repackaged differently. And they promise you those, you know, you're going to tone up in 30 days. You're going to lose inches fast. And then like the before and after is like, you see someone's like, you see someone's transformation, you see photo one, you see photo two, and then that's it.

03:46Like you don't see the years or the months between those pictures. You don't see the, like I see warrior babes checking into their workouts and they're doing, they've hit 200 workouts. Like you don't see those workouts. You don't see the meal prep. You don't see like a lot of people just do the highlight reels on social media. You don't see the actual work that goes in between. That's where I think social media does a disservice. You don't see the, those, the things that are being put into place where that person is getting stronger, but visually they don't look that different.

04:16Right? You don't see the weeks where the measurements have barely changed. You don't see any of that. So when you start strength training and you start lifting and after six weeks, you're looking at your shoulders like, hello, like, where are you? Why isn't anything changing? Why don't I see my abs yet? Listen, I wish muscle worked like that. I wish that we could do a six week focusing, just hitting lateral raises and front raises and wake and wake up one morning and you got those capped shoulders.

04:49Like that would be amazing. Right? But that's not how it works. Muscle takes time. And I think women really underestimate that. Like one of the main questions that I get majority of the time is like, how long Nikki, did it take you to get where you are? I'm like, dude, I'm still working at it, but it took me a solid like three to four years. To really build solid muscle. You know, you think about what you're actually asking your body to do. You're asking it to build new muscle tissue. You're asking your muscles to adapt to this new training stimulus that maybe you've never done before.

05:25Like you're trying to progressively get stronger. You're trying to build your shoulders. You're trying to build your legs. You're trying to build your glutes. You're trying to build your back. You're trying like, and maybe simultaneously, you're trying to also solely reduce your body fat. So that you can actually see more of that muscle. Guys, what I just explained. That is a process. And it's not as easy as the things that you've done before where you get into this quick fix. Anybody can jump into that. And you're going to lose the weight. Right? You're going to see some type of change happen.

05:57But to build muscle. And you're going to see the change happen fast. But to build muscle in the process that I just explained. That takes a lot of time. And I think the frustrating part is that a lot of the early progress isn't necessarily the sexy progress. Like, right? Like, early on, if you never introduced a stimulus to your body before, you're learning how to lift. You're learning. You've got to get your technique better. You're learning how to create better form. You're learning. And this is, I'm saying this to the women that are started Warrior Babe.

06:27Jeez, when I just did that in-person training experience with one of our babes. Her name was Julie. She's 70 years old. There's multiple things that I have had to help correct her with her form. And this is something new for her. Right? So just to say that, like, everything's changing. Everything that your nervous system is adapting. You're learning how to actually push yourself in your workouts. Not just go through the motion. Do you know what I mean? Like, all of that is happening. And you look in the mirror and you go, yeah. But I don't see it.

06:59Yet. Like, you don't see it. Yet. That's the part that I think that we forget. And that's the word that I want you to just ingrain in your brain. I think that if your only measurement of progress is, do I look drastically different today? That's a huge mistake. That's the wrong question you're asking yourself. You're going to feel like you're failing most of the time. You're going to feel like the program is failing. You're going to feel like this isn't working. Especially while you are building muscle. Like, think about three months ago.

07:30What were you doing then? Three months ago. And what are you doing now? Were you maybe squatting or RDLing? There's one of my two. RDLing. I'll do that because it's one of my favorite exercises. Maybe 30 pound dumbbells and now you're doing 45 pounds? That was something that me and Julie talked through on our in-person training experience. She was like, and like before him, before I got there, I looked at her training stats. And she logs her weights inside of her app. And I saw that she was progressively adding more weight.

08:01I'm like, this is incredible. Like, that alone, if only three months ago you were doing 30 pounds, now you're doing 45 pounds or you're doing more than that. That's progress. That's what's happening inside the gym. You know, were you doing maybe like eight reps of something and now you're doing 12 with the same weight? Or maybe you're even going heavier. Like, that's progress. Maybe your form for a certain exercise was a complete disaster a couple months ago and now you're actually had better form and better technique and you can actually feel the muscle mind to connection.

08:31Like, that's progress. Like, you can actually feel that pulldown instead of like your biceps doing everything. That's progress. A lot of people say like, I'm getting stronger. Like, are you training harder? Are you recovering better? Or is your, like, all, this is, these are things that matter. Because those are the things that are going to happen before you see the visual payoff. Before these, all of these things are going to happen before you see the physical changes in the mirror. And this is also one of the firm, like, firm reasons why I'm such a huge believer in you

09:06tracking your, your training. Because your brain is terrible at remembering progress. You'll walk into the gym and you'll think, I don't feel like I'm getting any stronger. And then what you can do is like Julie has, is you look back and realize, wait a second, you're, you were doing 20 pounds. Now you're doing 40. That's a massive difference. But if you ain't tracking, you ain't going to be able to tell that you've got this progress happening. Like, it's an act, it's accumulation. It's a compound effect. You're not going to wake up every single morning and see that dramatic difference.

09:37But you're stacking these training sessions and these wins on a weekly basis. And eventually all those sessions are going to start showing up physically. Okay, that's, that's, that's the thing. Like, yeah, in like a two week period, if you quick jump into a quick fix, you're gonna see changes happen. But it's like getting obsessed with a long term game when it comes to changing your body composition. Quick break. If you're finding this episode helpful so far, it would mean a lot if you could hit pause for just a second, leave a quick rating or a review or share it with someone who could

10:12benefit from it. Your support helps more women discover these tools to build muscle, lose fat and feel confident. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me. And then I also think too, like body fat can mess with your head as well. Because it's not just about like you changing your body composition isn't about body weight. It's more about and I've talked about this before the difference between losing weight and losing body fat. Because let's say you're strength training, you're building some muscle, you're slowly losing body fat, your body weight might not dramatically change.

10:45And so you think, okay, nothing is happening here, because that's probably likely going to happen. Meanwhile, especially because I've seen warrior babes only lose three pounds, yet their progress photos look drastically different in six months. And I'll get to that in a second. But meanwhile, like, when you say nothing's happening, your legs look different, your shoulders are developing, your waist measurement is coming down, you're able to fit into the jeans that you weren't able to fit in five years ago. Your glutes are fuller, you're like, everything just feels different, your skin is getting tighter. This is why I don't want women obsessed with making the scale go down.

11:16Because if you're building muscle while you're reducing body fat at the same time, the scale isn't necessarily going to tell you that full story very well. And if you panic because the scale isn't dropping fast enough, then what you're going to do, and I've seen this happen to thousands of women, is that they cut their calories even more, they add in a bunch of cardio, and now they're potentially compromising the exact thing that you are trying to build, which is muscle. You could actually interrupt a really productive body composition phase because you were expecting

11:51weight loss result to happen pretty fast instead of paying attention to the body composition result, which is you dropping the body fat percentage and revealing the muscle that you are working, either muscle you've already had or the muscle that you're trying to build. You're focusing on doing that. You're not necessarily focusing on seeing that because muscle is more dense than fat volume. So and it takes up less space than fat volume does. So you guys have probably heard me say or you've seen it on the internet, five pounds of muscle is exactly the same weight as five pounds of, they both weigh the same volume, fat and muscle,

12:29but muscle takes up significantly less space because it's more dense. So just keep that in mind because you're focusing on building muscle, the number necessarily on the scale won't go down because muscle is more dense. Okay, this is the biggest thing you can't rush muscle. And I think that's the biggest thing that I want you to understand from this episode. Muscle is expensive tissue for your body to build. What I mean by that is it takes stimulus, it takes you having proper nutrition, it takes protein, it takes recovery, it takes time, you're not going to, you know, bully or push yourself,

13:04or push your body into building muscle faster because you're impatient. Doing more workouts isn't automatically going to speed up the process. You adding in a six day of a workout on your schedule for the week isn't going to speed up the process. Like cutting your calories down because you aren't seeing results fast enough isn't going to help you maximize you building more muscle, right? There's a point where training harder isn't the answer. There's a point where you have to do less and get more.

13:36You have to train less, not harder. And there's a point where your body needs like there's the opposite is what I'm trying to say too as well as what you've been conditioned to understand and believe over the years and for decades is the opposite when it comes to you building muscle. You can't rush that process. And so I think that you guys understanding that your journey may take a certain amount of time and it's going to look like maybe 18 months or more. If you can accept that, your journey is going to be so much better and more rewarding

14:07than you hoping that you're going to have a result in a matter of six to eight weeks. Another expectation that I kind of want to challenge with you guys is you don't always need to be actively losing body fat. I think women are just so conditioned to believe that if they're getting if they're not getting smaller, they're not seeing the number move on the scale, then you're not progressing or you're not moving forward. You know, maybe you're someone that comes into a program like I'm thinking about worry, but I'm just thinking about everything that we do with our babes. I usually tell women that 80% of them that are coming into our program don't necessarily need to be going into a deficit

14:41or a cut or a fat loss phase essentially, where we're focusing on getting smaller. Right now, maybe that for you looks like you need to build muscle, right? Maybe you need to eat around your maintenance number. Maybe your body weight stays pretty stable for a couple of months, but you're getting stronger, you're eating more, you're recovering better, your training quality is improving. You're building a better foundation so that when you do go into a fat loss phase, it's going to produce more of the results that you want because you have the foundation built.

15:14That's not waste of time. A lot of women come in, they're like, well, I just spent the last 12 months doing what I just said. I'm like, yeah, I'm not surprised because you probably needed to do it because you probably just spent the last 20 years in the deficit. Your body had no idea to do what to do with eating only 1,100 calories. You've done that for 20 years and it hasn't worked. You know what I mean? So I think if that's the case, you have to look at it as a very, in an incredibly productive phase that you need to go in. But if you're constantly chasing like that lower body fat or that lower weight year round,

15:46you never give yourself enough time or resources to actually build the muscle that creates the shape that you want, then you're doing yourself a disservice. I want to say this, but I don't want to discourage you guys. I want you to understand the body that you want might take you years. And I think, like I said a couple minutes ago, if you can think about it from that frame, it's going to be freeing for you because once you accept it, you stop freaking out every month. You stop expecting every four weeks to produce this insane transformation in your body. You stop thinking something's wrong with you and you just start showing up.

16:18Like you almost detach yourself away from the outcome of what you want. You just take day by day and what you can control and you release the control of the goal that you're trying to strive for. That's freeing. Like and you just focus on training, getting stronger, eating appropriately, getting to learn, understand your body. You keep going, right? And then one day you're looking at a photo of yourself and you're like, holy crap. My body is completely different. That is literally how it happens. Right.

16:49I've seen that happen with more than 22,000 women that have come through our VIP one-on-one coaching program. Those are some of the biggest transformations that I've seen. They're not created in six weeks. They're created in a year. And some women even join. Some majority of our women are in the program for at least three to four years. And those are the biggest transformations that work. You can't fake accumulation of your work. Okay. So what I like to usually ask women is like, what if you gave yourself one full year?

17:21What if you gave yourself one full year? Not 30 days. Not until the next vacation that you have or the wedding that you're planning for until your birthday. But you just gave yourself one year. One year where you stopped hopping from program to program or program to program. Like one year that you followed one program consistently. One year where you actually progressed in your lifts. Like one year where protein you and that intake. Like it became normal. One year where you actually only trained four days a week.

17:53And you didn't train five or six or seven. And you actually gave yourself the recovery that you needed. One year where you learned how to sleep eight hours instead of six. One year where you're going to be a routine that actually works for you. And also to get into a routine even when life happens. Even when it gets super busy and there's chaos. Like you'll go through four different seasons of life in one year. So I would ask that. And I would also ask, would your body be different?

18:24The answer is, of course it would. The year is going to pass anyway. So you can spend the year either training for three weeks and getting frustrated and changing programs and being exhausted and taking two weeks off and then jumping right back into something new. Or you can keep doing the boring stuff that actually works. And let it compound over time. I think that's really important for some of you guys to just sit with and accept. Because what I want you to do leaving this episode here with me today is before you decide

18:57that your program isn't working. I want you to ask yourself. Before you decide that or you decide that like, you know, that you're going to jump to another program. And just ask yourself some couple questions. Like, am I getting stronger? Am I progressing if you're paying attention to your weights? Am I getting better at form? Am I recovering? Am I constantly? Am I consistently? Not constantly. Am I consistently hitting my protein? Am I consistently allowing my brain to get past the narrative that eating more is going to not make me fat, right?

19:28Do my clothes fit differently? Like, how long have I, have you actually been doing this consistently? And then the biggest question is, is the plan not working? Or is my body just not changing as fast as I expected to? Because there's two completely different things. It's probably not the plan. It's just your expectations that are going into it. So that's where I would like, it's just, it's a matter of you being really honest with yourself and looking at it for the full picture, not just at weeks at a time. And I think that we need to normalize the fact that building an incredible body and changing

20:01your body composition, building muscle, that takes time. The process of that, it takes time. Losing body fat while also holding on to muscle takes time. Changing your body composition takes time. And that's okay. That's okay. I've seen women do this and change their body composition to 60 years old. You're not behind. You're not too late. You're not, you haven't missed the train. You're probably doing everything right. Or you just need to get into a program that's going to ingrain this mindset into you.

20:31And that's what we do at Warrior Babe. What I love about what we built is it's not just about the macro numbers and like your nutrition program and the coaching or the training aspect. It's the well-rounded, like we understand mindset is a huge pillar and your coaches, we have 90 coaches on our team. The coaches are going to coach you through your limiting beliefs and these narratives that you have in your mind or point blank, we're going to help you just get out of your own

21:02way and keep pushing you forward. Keep helping you, you know, get over roadblocks. And I bet you, I guarantee you, because I get, like I said, 22,000 women have come through our one-on-one coaching program. Eventually you're going to see it. You're going to see your body change. You're going to see your back look different. You're going to see your clothes fit differently. Feel your clothes fit differently. The thing is too, is I see women do this in a year inside of Warrior Babe where it would have taken them five years or 10 years or a decade or more on their own.

21:34Keep that in mind. You're not doing, I would just question some things that you're doing along the way. And before you clear a plan that's actually working because you thought you'd be further along by now, just check your expectations that you have set for yourself going into the program. Maybe you just need to give it enough time to allow it to do its job. All right, you guys, I hope you enjoyed this podcast and I'll see you in the next one. Peace out. Hey, really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button.

22:04Your rating and review make all of the difference. Helping more women discover the tools they need to transform the fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.