The ONLY 4 Things Women Over 40 Need to Actually Lose Fat

00:00Here's what nobody talks about. When you lose fat and you gain muscle in equal amounts, you are fundamentally a different person. Your metabolism is higher, your bones are stronger, your body burns more calories just sitting on the couch because now you have more muscle mass on your body. But that scale says something completely different. It's just like, oh, no, you weigh the same. Nothing has changed. Guys, the most dramatic physical transformations I have ever coached through WarriorBabe barely registered on a scale. Muscle is what drives and keeps your metabolism on fire. So every pound of muscle you lose, your body burns fewer calories at rest.

00:37So by the time that most women are in their late 40s or their early 50s, without you doing consistent weightlifting, their metabolism now is significantly slower. And it's not because of your age. It is because of your muscle mass that you have to your body. Most women have been losing muscle for 10, 15 years before they even realize that this is happening. What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Warrior Babe Show with your host, Nikki Stott.

01:10And in today's episode, guys, I just want to talk directly to the woman, the individual, maybe it's you, that you feel like you are doing everything right. You are eating well, you're training consistently, you're staying the course, but that dang freaking scale has not moved. Yes, I'm going to do another episode around this device of a scoreboard for your journey. And I'm going to tell you why I feel like, and sending you a reminder, it is the worst measurement of progress.

01:46What is actually happening and reminding you what's going on inside of your body when that number does not move. And then I want to give you four steps that make body recomposition, that losing body fat, building more muscle at the same time, actually work for you without you having to rely on that skill. Okay, and I'm going to talk about a woman named Robin, her journey is just absolutely incredible. And by the end of this episode, I want you guys to know that you're going to understand exactly that this is how this is possible. And like how to just detach your relationship away from that skill and know how to make this happen for you.

02:21Okay, so let me start by just with something that you have probably heard before. But you may not actually believe, you know, when you step on that silly device, okay? One pound of muscle takes up about 20% less space than one pound of fat. But yet they weigh the same. If you were to put two things, two muscle fiber and a pound of fat next to each other,

02:52they weigh the same weight, but they look completely different. And they're completely different in size in your body. So what I mean by that is when you lose fat and you gain muscle at the same time, which is what body recomposition is, or changing my body composition, or getting more defined or getting leaner, right? That's terminology for you building or revealing more of the muscle that you have on your body or building more of it. So when you do that and you lose fat and you gain muscle at the same time, the scale can say nothing happened while your jeans or your clothes or your photos say something completely different.

03:31Like your arms look different, your midsection looks different, your clothes fit differently. The number on the scale did not move. And that, if you've been doing, you know, you're doing everything right and you've been doing it for three weeks, typically that is something that will cause a lot of women to quit and to give up. This is the trap that the industry has built. It built its entire model around scale weight because scale weight is easy to measure. But easy to measure and maintaining, you know, building muscle and changing your body composition

04:03and making it meaningful to your body are two completely different things. Here's what nobody talks about. When you lose fat and you gain muscle in equal amounts, you are fundamentally a different person. Your metabolism is higher. Your bones are stronger. Your body burns more calories just sitting on the couch because now you have more muscle mass on your body. But that scale says something completely different. It's just like, oh, no, you weigh the same. Nothing has changed. Guys, the most dramatic physical transformations I have ever coached through Warrior Babe barely registered on a scale.

04:43When women are dropping like two to three clothing sizes, while the scale is only showing them that they have moved like three to five pounds, that is a form of progress I don't think gets enough attention in the industry. Because I could show you two, I could show you a picture before and after of a woman who looks like she lost 30 pounds in her before and after and she only lost three pounds.

05:13By the scale not saying anything, it doesn't mean that, like, it doesn't mean it's not working. Like, that is the process working exactly as it should be working. So for this entire rest of the episode that I leaned in and talked to you guys about this, I just need to have you set that relationship that you have with the scale aside for a second. Like, mentally, maybe even physically. Like, maybe right now if you're so agitated with it, just, like, go toss it out the window or something like that.

05:44Or go drop it in your trash can. Or go hide it somewhere in your closet that you just, like, you're just going to just trust the process and let your work show it in progress orders in a different way of being able to measure, okay? And I want you just to start thinking about your progress differently because the scoreboard that you've been using hasn't been telling you the full picture. It hasn't been telling you the whole story. And it's making, maybe it's making you quit. I know it's, I know it's made so many women quit at the exact moment that your body was actually starting to change.

06:20So before I get into giving you guys four steps, you need to also just understand what actually is happening in your body. Because if you don't understand the why, you are going to keep doing the same things that stopped working a decade ago. So the first change that you're going to see is muscle loss. This is what's happening in your body. If you don't do anything and you let that scale dictate your entire trajectory of your journey, you're going to see muscle loss happening. Because without resistance training, you lose somewhere between 3% to 8% of your muscle every decade after 30 years old.

06:54That is, like, that is what drives your metabolism. So it's not just you, like, looking appearance-wise different. Muscle is what drives and keeps your metabolism on fire. So every pound of muscle you lose, your body burns fewer calories at rest. So by the time that most women are in their late 40s or their late or their early 50s, without you doing consistent weightlifting, their metabolism now is significantly slower. And it's not because of your age. It is because of your muscle mass that you have to your body.

07:26Most women have been losing muscle for 10, 15 years before they even realize that this is happening. And they think, oh, you know, well, you know, I just don't really eat. And my metabolism kind of just really just, it just slowed with age. It did not, it did not slow with age. It slowed because you lost the muscle that was running it and keeping it active and keeping it on fire and keeping the furnace lit, right? So that's the first thing that happens that's happening in your body after 40.

07:58You're losing muscle. 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. The second change is hormonal. So estrogen starts declining. Cortisol, yes, it tends to run higher. The body starts just storing fat differently, especially around your midsection.

08:31This is that belly fat that showed up in your late 40s out of nowhere and does not respond to the things that used to work. And well, to some of you guys, it may be a mystery. But to those like personal traders and people in this space, we understand that this is declining inside of your body. But again, that's not something that you can tangibly see. You cannot see these things. That is a hormonal shift with a direct physiological explanation though. So your estrogen is starting to decline. And in your early 20s and 30s, you had estrogen. Estrogen was holding your muscle mass together.

09:01It was distributing your fat all throughout your body as it was meant to and supposed to. When it starts declining after 40, it stopped doing those things. It stopped redistributing fat in the body in an even way, right? And it tends to hug in your midsection. So that's what's happening. The second thing is hormonal changes. The third involves the hormones responsible for building muscle and burning fat simultaneously. And that is your testosterone and your growth hormone.

09:31Women have small amounts of both of these. And both decline after 40. Which means that body recomposition is still absolutely possible at 40. I've seen it happen thousands of times. But you cannot do it in the way that the internet is telling you to do. What I mean is like the strategy that worked for you at 30. Like the eat less and do more. And I need to just like not eat protein or like not it's not that you're not eating protein.

10:01It's just that the awareness of how important nutrition is, right? And so I'm just on this next diet, this next diet, this next diet is telling me, well, I can only have 1200 calories. My fitness pal is only telling me I need to eat 1200 calories. And I'm just going based off of what like these apps are telling me. That strategy doesn't work. And then doing more cardio. Well, maybe it's just if I burn more calories, like that'll help. But it's like, well, you're not really eating the calories. So it's like, you know, like, it's not a lack of information because a lack of information out there. I would say it's like the ability to be having a personalized plan for you by someone telling you

10:34this is exactly what you need to do and having somebody in your corner holding you accountable for it. That's what we offer in Warrior VIP. But like knowing that this strategy just doesn't work for you anymore. It's now actively working against you. And it's burning muscle that you cannot afford to lose. The less muscle that you have, the harder everything else becomes. So now the deck kind of feels like stacked, right? But here's where, you know, I know from coaching, there's one 21 over 21,000 women have come through our VIP program.

11:07So we've coached women through this body recomposition after 40 is not only possible, it happens consistently when you have these next steps I'm going to put into place for you, okay? Number one is probably the one that is going to make you the most uncomfortable though. And but it is the one that will make the biggest difference. And I've said this in so many episodes, and I'm going to say it again until I'm blue in the face. Please stop under eating. If you've been eating very low calories and wondering why your body won't change, this is why.

11:38Your body cannot build muscle without the raw materials. You cannot construct a building without the bricks. You cannot build muscle without adequate food. So when you eat too little, your body does not just burn fat. It starts breaking down muscle for energy. Remember what I talked about earlier? Muscle is your metabolism. So on a very low calorie diet, you are literally eating your metabolism away. And then this is what maybe you've heard of before. This is called metabolic adaptation. Your metabolism now slows down because you've been eating too little for too long.

12:13And your body thinks, well, shoot, this human isn't giving me food. So it drops your metabolic rate. It holds on to fat more aggressively. And it burns muscle because muscle is expensive to maintain. And your body is trying to survive on what you are giving it. After years of being on very, very low calories. And you know, let me just like, because I hear women say, I can hear a woman interpreting my ear right now. Because I've heard this over the decades so many times.

12:44Well, Nikki, I eat healthy. And really, you know, nutrition isn't a problem for me. Guys, if nutrition wasn't a problem, hands down, you would be where you would want to be physically with your body right now. 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.

13:21At 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. Look, 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.

13:51That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. So somewhere we need to be just brutally honest with ourselves and take a real true look at the nutrition and see, hmm, well, maybe, maybe I am eating healthy, but I'm just probably not giving my body enough of what it actually needs to do everything that Nikki is talking about here in this episode right now. Because after eating, after years of doing low calories, your body's got really extremely efficient at running on almost nothing.

14:28And that sounds like a good thing, right? But it's actually the complete opposite. Your metabolism has now downshifted to match your intake. That is metabolic adaptation. This is where there's nowhere left because women are like, well, I think I just need to cut. I'm like, cut what? There's not, there's, there's nowhere left to cut. But like the women that come through warrior babe, who have the hardest time with body recomposition are almost never eating too much. They're the ones who have been eating too little for years.

15:01And what I mean by that, maybe I want to put it in context because like, I'm doing these live weekly trainings every week. And I bring in three women from that call at the end of the training to do hot seats. And I coach them live. And for at least three of the last five times I've done this, the women are like, well, this is what my, like, this is what my day looks like. Like, I think I'm eating healthy. So I just want to give you a little bit of context. Like, these are the women, like, that we're helping who, they're like, I think I'm eating enough and I'm eating healthy.

15:31But they, they're literally not eating enough. So this is what I mean by this. Because a lot of people think, well, no, I overeat. Well, yeah, you probably do on like the weekends. But like your day to day, come on, let's be real. Like, this woman was saying she had an avocado and toast and walnuts for breakfast. And then she would have a salad with some chicken for lunch. And then come dinner, she would have like a protein and a vegetable. And I'm like, bruh, you probably just rattled off like a thousand calories if that.

16:02Yeah, you're eating healthy. You're choosing. And that's where I'm on the call with them. Like, you're choosing great options. These are great healthy food options. But we gotta up the quantity. And I know that's really scary. And like I said, this one's going to make you uncomfortable. But your bodies are holding on to everything because they have been in this like, well, this person, I'm, this person's not giving me enough food. So I'm gonna just, I'm gonna adapt downward to match her intake. Right? This is like, again, things that you cannot tangibly see.

16:32But you will feel. And you will see it years later. And I know that the fear of eating more is so real. Like, every woman that I've coached through this had that moment where she just looked at her plate and she thinks this is going to make, this is going to make me game late. I am going to get fat. And then six weeks later, her clothes are looser and she cannot believe it. Okay? So there's anything that I can say from this. Number one, like, food is not the enemy. You are sending your body the wrong signal by choosing to eat less and eat less and eat less. And follow these programs that are telling you to eat less or do these injections that are quieting your food noise to eat less.

17:06But when you give your body enough food consistently with the right breakdown, dude, that signal changes. And your body starts to respond. Now that's step one. Stop under eating. Step two, if there's one change that matters more than all of the others combined, it's this one. Most women are significantly under eating in protein. When I was on this live training last night, a woman was like, well, I'm getting my protein in the morning. And I'm like, where are you getting your protein from? I didn't hear any protein in that meal.

17:38And she was like, well, I'm getting protein from avocado. And I'm like, no, you're not. Protein is not in an avocado. Maybe there's a gram or two. It's a high fat food. Meaning there's more fat grams than there are protein grams. So women are not eating enough protein. And then also people, women have fears of eating protein because, oh, it just made me feel constipated. Yeah, it's because your body isn't used to this protein until yet. You've got it just like your metabolism has adapted and you've gone through this metabolic adaptation.

18:09Your body needs time to be able to adapt to something you've never given it before. So yeah, your digestion may be a little bit upset. You may experience the protein farts. But it doesn't mean that you're going to end up being constipated over a period of time. Drink water and allow your body to adapt to this new thing that you're doing for at least two weeks or three weeks before you completely write it off. But the most important thing I need you to understand is women are significantly under eating protein. And protein is literally the building block of muscle.

18:40Without enough protein, your body literally does not have the material to build or maintain muscle tissue. Regardless of how hard you work out. You can lift five days a week. And if protein is low, the muscle literally cannot build. Like the material is not there to help the recovery process of you breaking down the muscle fibers in the gym. So like that's why somebody can be working out and working out hard. Sometimes working out is not the thing that women need to fix.

19:12Women have no problem working out, especially if you're doing strength training. It's this part. You're not giving yourself the protein to do the building process of the muscle that you're breaking down inside the gym. And then protein has the highest thermic effect of any macronutrient. What I mean by that is your body burns significantly more calories just by digesting protein than it does digesting carbs or fat. Which means high protein intake is actively accelerating your metabolism every time that you eat it.

19:45And then protein stabilizes your blood sugar. It keeps you fuller longer. It reduces your cravings. It prevents the insulin spikes that drive fat storage around your midsection. Like protein is the macronutrient king of the three macronutrients. Now the goal is to spread your protein across your meals. Not like don't front load with carbs. Don't back load all your protein at dinner. Your body can only use so much protein at one time for building muscle. So you need to spread it out. You gotta have it at breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner.

20:17And have things like eggs, chicken, salmon, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese. Like this is the you need to front load all your meals with those. That is your foundation. So you need to build everything else around that. And then the third one is most women just avoid. And it's literally the one that changes everything. Which is compound, real compound movements with real resistance. So what I mean by that is compound movements are exercises that work multiple groups at a time. Right? You know this. A squat works quads, glutes, hamstrings.

20:48A deadlift works your entire posterior chain. A row works your back and biceps. An overhead press works your shoulders, your triceps, your core. These work better than isolation exercises for body recomposition. Because they're going to stimulate more muscle fibers in less time. More muscle fibers working in less time means that more muscle can be built by you doing the first two that I gave you. And then more muscle being built means that you're going to burn fat. That's literally the whole equation.

21:22So you guys have heard me talk about progressive overload. You got to do progressive overload. You can't be lifting the same like three, four, five pound dumbbells for six months at a time. Because your body will adapt to whatever you give it. So if you've been lifting the same weight for six months, your body has no reason to change. You have to challenge it. You have to add a little bit more weight when that current weight feels like, you know, it's starting to feel manageable. That's the whole concept. So you need to like, the last two to three reps of a set should be challenging for you.

21:55If it's not, you need to increase your weight. And then because we've worked with so many women through Warrior Babe, and I hear this all of the time, just directly addressing it, you're not going to get bulky. Women don't have enough testosterone to build bulky muscle. The women that you do see who look extremely muscular have either been doing this for a really, really, really long time. Or they're using performance enhancing drugs. Lifting three to four days a week with compound movements is not going to make you bulky.

22:29And you will not just get bulky by suddenly picking up a dumbbell. It will, though, make you lean. It will make you defined and strong. Trust me. I have coached over 100,000 women, and not one has accidentally gotten bulky. So train two or three to four days a week, 30 to 45 minutes per session, doing compound movements, doing consistent progressive overload. You do not need to live in the gym. And yes, you were old enough for this still to happen in your body.

22:59You just need to show up consistently and you need to challenge your muscles enough that they have a reason to grow. And then the fourth step is what most women skip because it feels like you're doing absolutely nothing. But this is where your body actually builds the muscle that you trained for. And this is what I was talking about earlier. Training tears down your muscle fibers. Recovery is when that building process happens to make them stronger. So if you are training six or seven days a week and you're wondering why your body is not changing, this is probably the reason.

23:34You are breaking down muscle faster than you are building it back up. And when your body cannot recover, it produces more cortisol, which is that stress hormone that drives that fat storage directly to your midsection. Like some cortisol is good, but if you're chronically living in that chronic elevated state of cortisol, this is what's happening. You can't be training seven days a week. Guys, rest days are not lazy days. They are literally building days. They are the days that your muscles grow. So I want you to just like repaint that narrative around because I know there's women that I've coached before.

24:06They're like, I have to work out six to seven days a week. I'm like, why? And then they just they go more of like instead of a factual logical statement, it's a feeling based statement. Okay, let's be logical about this because rest days are where you literally are going to build the muscle. So getting enough sleep, literally your body releases the highest levels of growth hormone during deep sleep. And that growth hormone is what is going to repair muscle tissue and burn fat while you sleep. So if you're constantly on getting like five to six hours of sleep, you're not you're cutting your recovery time in half.

24:38So I would just highly recommend you focus on like the seven, eight hour mark. And then if you are somebody that likes to be active, okay, you don't need to lift six or seven days of the week. But you can on those maybe like two or three other days of the week instead of lifting, go for a walk. Three to four lifting days. That's all I would say. Walking on your off days. Seven to eight hours of sleep. That is your recovery plan. It's simple. Most of them skip it because it feels like, oh, well, I'm not doing enough and I'm driving myself crazy and I need to move. But dude, rest is a part of your plan. Okay.

25:09So really quick before I start closing down this episode with you guys, I want to tell you about Robin because her story is the best evidence that I have that everything that we just talked about is so real. Robin is a warrior babe. She's 60 years old. She went through surgical menopause. So meaning she had her ovaries and Philippine tubes removed and she literally lost her hormones like overnight. It took a year and a half just to get her hormone replacement therapy sorted out. And during that time, literally a nutritionist, she said, had her eating at about 1100 calories a day and she was training five days a week.

25:47And her body just kept changing in the opposite direction that she didn't want it to go in. She literally said that she was looking in the mirror and she didn't know who this, she didn't know who this person that she was looking at was. She was hiding in baggy clothes. She didn't want to go out. She was at what she called like the lowest point of her life. And she like genuinely believed like 60 years old. Okay, this is over. This is just what I have to accept now. When her warrior babe coach told her that she needed to eat more, like naturally this happens all the time with the women who come into our program.

26:19Robin thought she was crazy. She pushed back. She pushed back for six months. And every time her coach was like, just stress process. Just stress process. And Robin was like, no, there's absolutely no way. Right. So there's like this is also the pillar of like I want to talk about mindset here because our coaches don't just give you a nutrition program to follow and a workout program to follow. It's like interested in the human behavior of why you're saying certain things. Like where is this coming from? Where is the story being evolved from? Right. Is it factual or is it something that you're just made up or it has been made up?

26:52Right. So like I just wanted to point that out because it took her six months. Like she pushed back for six months. And too, she'd been told her entire life that eating less was how you lost weight. So within three months of finally getting on board and eating more food, Robin saw the difference. And she didn't understand how it was even possible. She was eating more food and she was doing less training, but her body was changing. So 14 months in the scale moved four to five pounds. That's it. Four to five pounds. But her friends looked at her and her before and after photos and they were like, holy cow, you must have lost 20 to 30 pounds.

27:27Her clothes were completely different. The aches and pains were gone. Right. Like she was squatting with she couldn't she didn't even she couldn't even squat the bar at this at her start of her journey. She went out and bought new bathing suits. She started buying clothes down to show her body instead of hiding it. But but that's the number I want you guys to hear is four to five pounds on the scale. A completely different body. A completely different life. That is body recomposition. And if Robin can do it at 60 after surgical menopause, you guys better believe you can do it too as well.

28:02So really quick, just to set your expectations, because body recomposition is not a 30 day transformation. You guys know it is. If you've been listening to me for a while, it is a rebuild. And the timeline matters, because if you do not know what to expect, you will quit during the phase where the most important things are actually happening invisibly. So I've talked about this before, but like weeks one through four, this is where you're going to feel it before you see it. Then like six to eight weeks, like one month in and then through three, this is like where the mirror catches up.

28:34Your arms starts looking different. Your shoulders start looking different. Like something looks different about you. The scale may not have moved much. And then the rest of it is like where the transformation becomes undeniable, where like the full body recomposition happens. But I'm like every diet that you've ever tried, the results actually last. Because you didn't starve your way to them. You built your way to them. Okay? So to wrap it up, step one, stop under eating. Give your body enough food to build. Step two, prioritize your protein every single meal and spread it across your day.

29:06Step three, lift heavy. Do compound movements three to four days a week with that progressive overload. And step four, recover. Have your rest days. Do walking. Make sure you're sleeping well. But start with the food. Your body cannot build anything if it's starving. And I know that that is so hard for a lot of women to do. But just trust me now and believe you later. You got to fix that foundation first. Everything else will work better once that is right. And if you guys want to go deeper on exactly like how to put this into practice with your body, your stage, your history, your specific situation.

29:41I would highly recommend that training that I was talking about earlier in this podcast. Every Thursday, I go live at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. And I literally go live and work through this with women just like you. And it's completely free. And it's like literally I would highly recommend it's the best next step that you can take right now. So in the link or in the description show notes below, there's a link there. Go register to it and come to that training. All right, guys.

30:12I'll see you in the next episode. I hope this helped you. If it did, share it with a friend and leave a review if you guys haven't. I haven't mentioned that in a really long time. If you guys haven't left a review, I would just really appreciate it because it just helps spread this podcast. To other women that maybe haven't heard any of these episodes before. So I would just appreciate you guys could take 30 seconds to do that. Cool, guys. Love you all. See you in the next one. Hey, really quick before you go. I have one small favor to ask.

30:42If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your 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.