The Hidden Ways Stress is Sabotaging Your Fat Loss and How to Fix It

00:00Stress plays a huge factor in your progress. Like, are you seeing the progress that you want to see in a state that you are in with being chronically stressed out? Are you putting in all of the work and you're still not seeing the progress and you know that you're a chronically stressed individual? Well, then something needs to change. What's up, you guys? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show.

00:30I'm here with Nikkie Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. 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, Nikkie Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode number 237. And today, my friends, what we're going to talk about is something that I feel like could be the reason why you're struggling with your fat loss, if you are, or struggling to see the progress that you want to see.

01:04And you may not even realize this, right? Like you could be tracking your macros. You could be absolutely crushing your workouts. You could be doing everything right. But you're not seeing the scale budge. Your progress seems like it's stalling, right? Pictures don't look any different from last week to four weeks ago to six weeks ago. And on top of this, you could be feeling exhausted. You could be feeling bloated. You could be feeling like I'm putting all this time in for nothing. And you could be constantly craving sugar, sweets, or all of the bad foods, right?

01:38Does it sound familiar? Like that's you guys. What if I told you the missing piece to your fat loss puzzle doesn't require you to do another workout? It isn't you going to do another workout. It isn't like you having to tweak your diet or you having to go do more cardio or you having to cut your calories even lower. The missing piece to your fat loss puzzle could be your stress levels.

02:13I want you guys by the end of this podcast to understand that stress plays a huge factor in your progress. Like if you are dealing with chronic stress day to day, that could be the thing that is keeping you stuck. It messes with your hormones. It messes with your metabolism. It messes. It starts turning you into like a cravings monster. You start to have these crazy cravings. So today, what I want to break down with you guys is one, how stress impacts your body and how that sabotages your fat loss.

02:46Number two, how you overtraining might actually be making things hella worse. And number three, what you could do to lower your stress levels and finally start to see the results that you're working so hard for. Because at the end of the day, like I want you guys to reap the rewards of your efforts. And the missing piece could be this one thing that you're struggling with, but maybe your eyes are just set on the goal and wanting to see the changes and you're hitting all your workouts, you're doing backers.

03:23But we're not addressing this one thing, right? And I want you guys to be able to walk away from this podcast today knowing how to adjust this one thing. And even just like, is this you and is this impacting you? All right. So first things first, what actually happens in your body when your body is stressed? Like when your body perceives stress, whether it's from work, whether it's from a lack of sleep, whether it's from you overtraining, it triggers your fight or flight response. And so that means basically like your adrenal glands, think of like a waterfall cortisol, like, and cortisol is your stress hormone.

04:01So your on flight or flight response on a daily basis from work or from relationships or from lack of sleep or from overtraining or for under eating. And so your body, your adrenals are like, let me just keep pushing out and waterfall amounts cortisol. And cortisol isn't bad in smaller doses from like what I understand and know about cortisol is actually super essential for your energy and for your survival. But when you're chronically stressed, when like it's being flushed in waterfall amounts of what I'm talking about, when your body is like constantly in that fight or flight mode, it starts to work against you.

04:40And here's how, so number one, stress increases fat storage. And especially for any of you guys who notice as you continue to age and as like more stressors keep compounding over each other, i.e. maybe even if you are going through menopause or other, maybe you're not even in menopause and there's just the day-to-day stressors of life. You'll notice this around your belly. Do you ever notice that like when you get super stressed, like life gets super stressful, your midsection starts to hold more fat because this is, this is what's happening.

05:16Like that's the cortisol is increasing fat storage, especially in that abdominal area. Like your body is literally holding onto fat as basically like a survival mechanism. So as these waterfall amounts of cortisol start pouring into your body from your adrenal glands, your body is going to, because it's constantly in this fight or flight response, it's going to increase your fat storage and it's going to happen around your midsection.

05:49That's one, stress increases fat storage. Number two, and this is probably if not close similar to number one that a lot of you guys may experience is that it messes with your metabolism. Cortisol makes your body less sensitive to insulin, which can lead to higher blood sugar levels and make it harder to burn fat. So instead of using food as fuel, your body stores more of it as fat, particularly when stress is never ending, when it's chronic, when you've been living in this state of flight or flight for so long and it's compounded over so many years and you haven't addressed it.

06:28These are reasons why you're probably not seen the progress that you want to because stress is basically overpowering how well you're doing with your macros. It's overpowering how well you're doing with your workouts because there's this underlying factor that hasn't been addressed. And so it's storing abdominal fat, it's messing with your metabolism, it's making you keep more of this body fat for survival and then also for fuel for when you are going to do these types of workouts or when you're going into your day-to-day of your fitness programming and your regime.

07:05Another thing that it does is it crashes your energy and it increases your cravings. So if you've ever felt drained and then you immediately reach for like processed carbs or candy or something that or sugar, that is basically like cortisol being in control. Because what happens here is high stress drives up your cravings because it wants like this quick energy from foods that will give it to you, which usually comes from processed foods or sugar or candy.

07:38And at this point, this isn't like you about willpower. This isn't about you like trying to step up and be like, no, I'm not going to do this. Like this is basically like literally cortisol is in control. Like your cravings are in control here and it's your body's way of looking for fuel fast. So again, like you could be so in control of all of the things that you are trying to do, which is eating better and tracking your macros and getting your workouts in and getting enough sleep and or all the other things.

08:09But the stress that you're experiencing in your day-to-day has compounded so much and you're constantly in this state of survival. And your body recognizes this. It feels this. Your body is so smart. And so if it's constantly in this, all of what you are trying to do to get the progress that you want to is solely going to be focused on this aspect with cortisol. It's controlling the narrative here for you. If I'm trying to make this like in layman's terms make sense.

08:41Because if stress can't be, which we're going to get to later in this podcast, you guys are going to have some tactical takeaways to be able to do things a little bit differently and better. And what I ask when we get to that point is that you guys actually take into consideration to do something different. Because if this is you and you're living in flight or flight and you're not seeing the progress that you want, this is the missing puzzle piece that needs to be addressed. So it's controlling the narrative.

09:14Ladies, 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. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results and results that last.

09:49Look, don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. Because cortisol is being flushed out in waterfall amounts, it's increasing fat storage. It's making your body less sensitive to insulin.

10:21And it's making you, it's basically pumping the cravings higher and higher and higher because it's looking, it wants fuel and wants it fast. And then the last thing is also it's what's happening here is that if you guys are in flight or flight, you already know that you're not sleeping well because stress wrecks your sleep, which in turn wrecks your progress. I'm probably going to do another episode on sleep because it's been a while that I've talked about sleep. And this is definitely something that's underrated in the fitness space and doesn't get talked to enough.

10:52But poor sleep, think about it like this, poor sleep equals high cortisol, which equals a slower metabolism, which equals more cravings, which equals harder fat loss. It is a vicious freaking cycle, my friends. And if any of this sounds like exactly what you've been experiencing, please don't worry. Like this isn't the end of your fat loss journey. You just need to understand how to start managing stress better and even as intentionally as you manage your nutrition, your workouts.

11:24As I said, you're doing all those other things right or you feel like you are. This probably needs to take, if not priority, but equal, superior to the other two things, which are nutrition and your workouts. Hey, while you're listening, if you're getting value from this episode, take a moment to tap that review button or share this podcast with a friend. It's a small gesture that goes a long way in helping more women find their way to feeling stronger and more confident in their skin. I appreciate you so much for taking the time to support this show.

11:57What I want to dive into next is talking about like overtraining, which is like, I feel like a decent amount of people do this where people train like six days a week, seven days a week. Like if any fitness trainer is telling you, putting on air programming on their own, because I've seen like clients want to do six days a week and I'm cool with that. But like, no, on the low that in three to six months, if you'll be working with me, I'm going to secretly get that number without you.

12:28You can just, you're just going to agree with me along the way because it's for your best interest. We're going to get that number down. Now to get, I know there's clients that want to do six days a week, but if you have a good coach by your side in your corner, you're going to realize that halfway through your journey with them, that number got chopped. But if any fitness trainer willingly on their accord is programming six days a week for you or seven days a week for you, please run for the hills.

12:59Because here's something that might surprise you guys. Too much exercise can actually add to your stress load and keep you from losing fat. I know that you guys may be thinking like from an old school mindset, it says just do more cardio or it says like burn more calories or it says train harder or like if you don't leave feeling like you died. Did you even work out like all of that, but like the reality is more isn't always better. There's a motto that we say worry babe.

13:31You probably it's, it's not necessarily a motto to worry babe, but, and I'm sure you probably have heard it all before, but less is more. Less is more. When you over train, here's how it backfires on your fat loss. Number one, it increases cortisol levels even more. Like your body sees like high intensity training or doing training six to seven days a week as another stressor. If you're already dealing with stress from life or poor sleep, you're adding more stress from excessive exercise. That's going to push you into the state of chronic inflammation and burnout.

14:06You're going to want to give up at that point. Another thing is number two, it causes you to lose muscle. If your body is overly stressed out, it will start breaking down muscle tissue for energy instead of you burning fat. Muscle is what keeps your metabolism high. So losing it will only make fat loss harder. So if you're constantly stressed out, if you're constantly over training, if you're constantly not getting enough sleep and you're looking in the mirror, wondering why you're not seeing progress.

14:38It's because your muscle is being broken down to use for energy instead of you burning fat. Muscle is an active tissue. Muscle doesn't stop. Muscle keeps your metabolism going and going and going. The more muscle you have, it makes for a stronger metabolism. So if you're losing it, it's only going to make this whole thing that much harder for you. And on top of this, last thing too, you're going to feel so sore, constantly so sore and constantly so tired.

15:09If you're never recovering, fully recovering, like if you are constantly working out, constantly doing high intensity training over and over again, and you're not fully taking the time to recover, it is a sign that your body is overdoing it. More isn't better. More isn't better. More being smart, like that saying, train smarter, not harder. In that regard, for fat loss, you need to prioritize strength training over doing too much cardio. You need to make recovery a priority, like you taking at least two days off a week.

15:42One of those days can be an active recovery day. And what I mean by active recovery is you're doing like yoga or you're doing like mobility training or you're doing stretching or you're going out for a walk. Listen to your body. That's how you train smarter, not harder. What you want to achieve fat loss is you need to prioritize strength training, you need to prioritize recovery, and you need to listen to your body. If your body is so sore, getting a lighter workout in or extra sleep will do more for your progress than pushing through exhaustion. Okay? And I know that some of you guys are hearing that.

16:14It's going to be so hard for you to do, but take a look at it this way. Are you seeing the progress that you want to see in a state that you are in with being chronically stressed out? Are you putting in all of the work and you're still not seeing the progress and you know that you're a chronically stressed individual? Well, then something needs to change. So I understand and I understand and fully feel you that hearing me say you need to dial it back a little bit may feel uncomfortable. But at what cost?

16:46Like, are you willing to be uncomfortable to get better results? Are you willing to figure out where the stress is coming from so you can address it? And therefore, once it's addressed head on, you can deal with it and that's going to lead to better results. Right? So now that we have like, and now that you guys know that how stress is a major roadblock in your fat loss, what can you guys actually do about it? And I want to give you guys like three to four, maybe just three ways of which you can take one of those today.

17:24That's going to help you lower your stress, balance your cortisol, and finally let your body respond to all of the work that you're putting in. Because again, at the end of the day, you guys want to reap the rewards of your efforts and get and see progress. So in order to do that, if you're doing everything right, like I've been saying, you're not seeing the results and you know you're a chronically stressed individual, you need to take one of these three things I'm going to share with you and put it into action. The first thing is, you probably have heard your coach say this.

17:55If you work with a coach, you probably heard me say this. You have to prioritize your sleep, my friends. Like, your progress depends on it because it seriously does. You need to aim. And I don't want to hear it. Like, those of you that get five hours a night of sleep, where can you dial it back in your day-to-day that gives you an extra hour or two? Start there. And then try and get it to like seven to eight to nine hours of quality sleep each night.

18:25And look, I feel you on those of you guys that say that I only sleep five hours a night because of work or kids and responsibilities. Let me remind you that back when I first started my fitness journey about 10 years ago now, I was in the state of, I guess you could say chronic stress, but in more so in the responsibilities of my day-to-day. I was working in the emergency room locally here as my part-time job. And then I was also going to nursing school, full-time nursing school day-to-day.

18:58And then at the same time, I was also taking care of my sick grandmother who had a stroke and I took care of her in the morning and the afternoon and at night. And on top of that, I was preparing for my first bodybuilding competition. I don't have kids. Many of you guys maybe have kids and maybe that's a responsibility. But I can understand in terms of how busy life brings, like the situations of life brings you. But during that time, like I knew that in order or I understood that in order to get the progress that I wanted to see,

19:36I had to be able to be a little bit more better with my time, like time management in my day to be able to successfully accomplish all those things that I was doing and still make sure that I got good quality sleep at night and at least got seven to eight hours. I think it was more along with like, I was at like six maybe, but I then bumped it to seven. I stopped watching TV at night. I went to bed earlier. I woke up a little bit earlier and I just started bringing the hours of which either it was at bedtime or waking up.

20:07I started like expanding on that time and taking away things that didn't align with where I was, where I wanted to go, right? Scrolling on Instagram or watching TV or whatever it is that may be eating up some of the time that you could have by just winding down and going to bed. So aim for seven to eight hours or nine hours of quality sleep each night. Another recommendation that I can make is the environment of which you sleep in.

20:37I've talked about this on the podcast a couple of times before, but you like know at like 6 p.m. at night or whenever the sun starts to go down, it starts to get darker. My whole living area gets dimmer with light. Like it's not bright or cold. It goes from, it goes to more of a warm color, almost like an orange color. And this just helps to limit like the light, bright exposure that I see before bed.

21:08You guys can do that. And then also like get off your phone. That blue light exposure is also making it harder for you to get more effective sleep. And create like over time like to get better sleep, you're going to want to first pull out what's not support. Like pull out scrolling, put your phone away, stop watching TV like 20 minutes earlier. And then you can incorporate like a wind down routine. Like journal, do breathing, like whatever helps you to relax. But you don't need to do this all at once.

21:39Just try and do something tonight. Like go to bed 20 minutes earlier and start there. Do that for like a week. And then gradually add another 10 minutes or 5 minutes, 25 to 30 minutes before bed. And then try and focus on your true quality of sleep. Okay. Another thing that I would say, which is pretty self-explanatory, is like fuel your body with the right foods. Eat enough. Like if you've been chronic dieting, that can be just as stressful as overtraining. So prioritize protein. Choose healthy foods, whole foods. Eat enough.

22:10If you're a fight or flight response, you're not giving your body the nutrition that it needs. You're just going to be, you're adding, you're just adding more stress. You're fueling your stress fire. You're adding more fire to the stress. The third thing that I would say, and I think I do have a fourth one for you. But the third thing that I would tell you guys is to manage your mental stress. And this is way harder to do, but I believe you guys can do it. I know you can.

22:40It's anything is possible if you put your mind to it and you get a little uncomfortable to make yourself more comfortable. And that is setting boundaries. Like if work, if social media or toxic relationships are draining you, then you need to create some type of space. I recognized over the last couple of months where I've been on my own like personal journey that social media was eating me alive. It's why you guys probably have seen that I am not on it as much as I used to be. I used to be on it like 15, 20 stories a day. I'd be like, yo, what's up guys?

23:10How you doing? I've taken it to this podcast because I just, I feel like I can elongate my thoughts here. But one, at the same time, like social media was exhausting. Like I saw, and this is the first time I'm ever sharing this, but I saw external validation from social media. How many likes did I get? Who's in my DMs? Who's seen my stories? Like who hearted it? And like, that's not a good space to be in. So I needed to create a boundary. I needed to create space for my mental well-being.

23:41So if you guys need to do that too, do that. Because let me tell you, you'll sleep much better at night when you have those type of healthy boundaries supporting you. Another thing would be to breathe, like to manage your mental stress. Like just how many times, like I've noticed this is I don't breathe throughout the day. Or like I do, obviously, because I'm living, but like I don't recognize that I'm breathing. So let me take a second and just focus on a breath. Focus on three breaths. Focus on doing nine breaths.

24:11Whatever is going to help you midday just to take a breath for your mental sanity. Those simple techniques can lower cortisol in literal minutes. Like for me just taking a breath, like everyone just take a breath with me. Wow. Do you guys feel that shift? You feel a little bit more aware? You feel more present? You feel a little bit calmer? It makes a huge difference.

24:43Do that more often in your day. And then the fourth thing that I would say, you guys, is stop overloading yourself with unrealistic expectations. Like your body, it's a hella smart. And it is a machine in certain regards, but in this respect, it is not a machine. You can't outwork chronic stress. You need to put into practice some of the things I've been sharing with you inside this podcast to help manage your stress levels better so that you can see the progress that you want.

25:14And fat loss isn't just about, you know, you hitting your macros and you doing everything right with your workouts, you crushing it and showing up. It's also about the environment that you create for your body. And like I said, like this could be the missing puzzle piece and you don't even know it. And I'm hoping that this podcast like brings maybe some type of awareness or light to that. Hey, I'm chronically stressed. I'm always in fight or flight mode. I have abdominal fat. I'm always constantly craving things, even though I'm putting in hard work.

25:47My metabolism feels wrecked. Like all like I don't feel like I'm recovering well. Like it's not that you need to tweak your diet. It's not that you need to do more workouts and more cardio. It's like, yo, let me try and like prioritize some strategies to reduce my stress. Okay, because here's the big takeaway. Fat loss isn't just about macros. It's not about workouts. It's about at the same time too. Like it's also not just about consistency. It's about you managing your stress. If you've been stuck in a plateau, despite you doing everything right, ask yourself, am I prioritizing my recovery?

26:23Am I fueling my body properly? Am I taking care of my emotional and my mental health? Because your body won't let go of fat if it thinks it's in survival mode. And survival mode is a real freaking thing. A lot of people live in survival mode. If you can switch it over, which this is, again, a harder thing to do as well, to thriving mode, which is a way deeper concept and thought process and journey to go on that is not enough to fit in this episode. But if you can switch over to that and you can give your body enough sleep, you can hydrate it, you can feel it right,

26:58you can manage your stress levels, you can breathe a little bit more, move your body a little bit more, doing mobility work or yoga or things like that, that's going to be the way that you can start to enter into thriving mode, step by step. So this week, you guys, I want you to focus on, instead of thinking like, what else can I do? I feel like I'm doing everything right. What else can I do? Should we tweak my macro? Should I cut my carbs? Should I just ask yourself, how can I support my body better?

27:28And I promise when you guys give your body what it actually needs, you'll start seeing the results you've been working for. Okay? So if this podcast hit home, please share it with someone who needs to hear it too as well. And if you're ready to ditch stress, if you're ready to finally make progress in a way that feels sustainable, if you're ready, because like what we do at Warrior Babe is all encompassing. It's not just macros. It's not just workouts. It's not just here's your plan and calendar.

28:01Go follow this. We meet our babes where they are at when they join us. So we get a whole encompass of your lifestyle. How stressed are you? Why are you stressed? What does work look like for you? What's your, do you have support systems around you? What does that look like? We get down to the bare bones of understanding you as a human and what's going to help to fuel you the best way with a personalized plan for you in all of those areas.

28:32Okay? So check out Warrior Babe if you're ready to finally ditch the stress and make progress in a way that feels sustainable. All right? Until next time, you guys, ask these questions to yourself. How can I support my body better? And take care of your body. And it will take care of you. All right? Love you guys. Peace out. See you in the next episode. 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.

29:04Your 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, so much for your support.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.