Why Protein Is So Important For Muscle Building and Fat Loss

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. Eating more protein helps with muscle development. It helps with fat loss. It helps if you're eating a high-protein protocol on a day-to-day basis.

00:34Like I said, it helps you to stay satiated longer. It helps you to reduce cravings. Yo, yo, yo. What is going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkie Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. And on this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

01:05I am your host, Nikkie Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode number 174. Holy moly, we're 26 episodes away from 200. That's crazy! First of all, before we dive into the topic, yo, I just got to give a huge shout out to you guys. To you listeners, I appreciate the heck out of you. You guys are what helped me go into filming these episodes, knowing that I'm helping you guys and serving you guys,

01:38and you're gaining something from these podcasts, and doing something in your life that's going to make you better. It is one of my values, part of my mission, to leave people better than where I left them. Or when I meet people, leaving them better than where I met them from, you know? And depending where it may be emotionally, it may be strategically, it may be any which way. So whenever I come to recording this podcast, I just think to myself,

02:09the only goal I have from this episode today is just to help whoever is listening to this episode right now, help them wherever they are in their fitness journey, and whatever light bulb needs to go off, and or whatever piece of advice is going to help them move them forward in their day-to-day. So, and you guys are what make me want to show up that way. You guys are who, like, I am so excited to record these podcasts, and I do it for you guys. And I appreciate you guys so much for being a listener of this podcast.

02:43And, you know, we've reached the, I'm going to share the 500,000 episode podcast soon, and just celebrating that and reading your guys' testimonials, which I've been reading, and I freaking love them. It's so cool to hear your stories. Anyway, I just appreciate the heck out of you guys. So thank you so much. Now, today's podcast, I feel like for this episode, I have been getting, it's just been in my space of this topic. And you guys know that whenever something is just heavily in my space,

03:13I just want to bring it to a podcast episode because I feel like if it's heavily in my space here, then just more people are thinking about this, more people need to hear this, more people need to know this. And it's protein. It's just like getting deeper and understanding why protein is so important, why protein plays a huge role in muscle development and fat loss. For women, you know, if you're 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, if you're 30, if you're 35, if you're 25,

03:45if you're 18, man, like, it plays a huge role in so many aspects. And what's crazy to me is that when I'm talking about this topic with people in my space right now, it just is reassuring to me that people don't have enough knowledge about this macronutrient because what I'm hearing is people don't eat enough of it on a day-to-day basis. Like, I'm sitting down with a friend for lunch the other day and he was talking about his girlfriend

04:21and she wants to get rid of, or his fiance, wants to get rid of, she's running, she's doing these marathons, which is so freaking awesome. Shout out to you, you know, if you're listening to it. It's just, I wanted to take this to the podcast because I think there's other women that need to hear it, obviously. Um, but she wants to get rid of the pooch that's in her stomach, right? And so do so many women, especially those that are doing activities, so much as to running and doing marathons. And, um, you know, even, you know, just people that are 45 and older and dealing with a meadow pot.

04:56That's like the term that's being tossed around the fitness space for the belly that women start to get when they're in their older years. But anyway, um, it, it was, this topic was brought up and was like, what's one thing that she needs to do to get rid of that? And I was like, well, she needs, outside of exercise, like, it's not doing more leg raises. It's not doing more strength, uh, our ab workouts. While that's secondary, and yes, you should, you should do that. It's not the primary focus of what you should be doing.

05:26Um, and it comes down to eating more protein. So that's just like one little topic that came up in my space. Another one was the fact that, um, just talking outwardly to the coaching team, um, and just hearing how many women are eating only like 20 to 40 grams of protein, or don't know how much protein they are actually eating in a day. And wondering why they're not getting the results that they want. And it's because their protein intake is not where it needs to be. And, you know, I feel this to my core because this is something that I struggled with at the

05:56beginning of my journey was figuring out what foods even have protein in them. Um, and I didn't know that I was supposed to be eating upwards of my body weight and protein. I had no idea, but protein is what I call the macronutrient. God, it's the most important of all of the macronutrients, in my opinion, because it facilitates huge results. Um, so that's really what I want to talk about in this episode today is sharing with you guys the understanding of the role of protein and muscle development, the role of protein and

06:30fat loss, the role of protein, even to like in day to day activities into curbing your cravings, um, and the role of protein, how it's going to, you know, help you see the results that you want within your body composition, whether that be the little bit of stomach flap that you want to get rid of, um, the more tone that you want to see, the more energy you want to have. Guys, I can arguably say this and I can confidently say this. And this is one of the things that came up when I was talking about this at, at, uh, lunch is it's not more exercise.

07:03It's not that you have to go and do more running. It's not that you have to go and do more strength training. It's not that you have to go and do more leg races. It's not that you have to go do more with working out. It's that you have to pay attention to your nutrition. You have to pay attention to what you're eating on a day-to-day basis. And I know that I've drilled this in so many recent episodes and even just in episodes previously, um, of the 174 that we've, that I've recorded so far. Pro the, what I can say confidently is that nutrition is king.

07:38Exercise is queen. They both hand in hand are important, but I can argue that and say confidently, in my opinion, that nutrition is hands down. One of the most important pillars and also yet one of the hardest for someone to, to, uh, to dedicate themselves to, to commit themselves to, to on a, you know, on a habit basis, create better habits with it's the pillar of like going out to eat with friends and the socialization.

08:10And when you're bored, people eat. And when people need to come up with ideas and plans to do eating as a thing, there's events like there's, there's so much that eating is a part of in our society. Um, but it is one of the most important things to grasp and understand and change when it comes to you facilitating any type of result that you want to with your body composition and internally with your hormones and so much more with building muscle, with burning body

08:43fat, like with feeling better, with sleeping better, with it just, it's just, it's a pillar of the, it's just an important macronutrient, macronutrient. It's macronutrient. God, I say that through and through and all of the time. And I feel like, like I've said this before on podcasts, but it's like, it's an epidemic within the fitness space, um, of what the amount of what women are consuming on a day to day basis. I believe I talked about this in the episode with Esther Bloom, where she talked about, um, you know, people consume like 20, 40, 60 grams of protein on a day to day basis.

09:16That is similar to what like a dialysis patient, um, consumes on a day to day basis. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, Warrior Babe is here for you. At Warrior Babe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and

09:51more. 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. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause?

10:26It'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. Look, don't wait anymore.

10:57Take 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. And just to dive into a little bit more and get into the episode because I feel like I'm going on a rant right now and thanks for sticking with me, but I'm going to get to the points that I want to share.

11:29I just want to paint home if that's what you, that's you that you're struggling, you're, it's hard to get it in. You know that protein is something you need to work on. I'm just going to drill it in like why it's so freaking important and why it could be the missing link that you need to just adjust and not necessarily go do more exercise, but it's like you just need to adjust the nutrient, the nutrition aspect of your journey. And it could be an absolute game changer for you. I know that because I've coached over, you know, 18,000 women have been inside a warrior

11:59babe. Myself personally, I've had a hand on all of those babes because they've listened to videos of me, they've gone through education and then our coaches have coached the majority of 2000 of the babes that are inside our VIP program. So I can say confidently that like people usually lean on needing, thinking that they need to do more exercise. And then once we pull back on the exercise pillar and we do actually less of it, but focus more on nutrition and getting nutrition right, that's where majority of the changes start to happen.

12:32So as we get older, as even if, I mean, even if you're 18 years old and you're, you know, growing up, you, all these hormonal changes are happening, regardless really of your age, but you know, more women experience it when they're 45, 55 years old and they're going through menopause. There's a natural decline at that age in muscle mass and your metabolic rate. When you understand the importance of protein intake and you implement strategies to optimize

13:07its consumption and to eat more of it throughout the day, that can effectively support muscle growth and enhance fat loss and help to level out any imbalances that you may be experiencing with the hormonal changes that you are feeling. Like if you're going through menopause and you're experiencing hot flashes and night sweats, yes, it's a part of the hormonal shifts that you inevitably are going to happen. That's obvious. But if your nutritional intake on a daily basis is balanced out and you're eating enough of the

13:37right types of macronutrients, one being protein, you're going to help to see lesser symptoms of those that you would experience with menopause. And so just like broadly speaking, why protein is so important. One, it's a building block of muscles. It provides the necessary amino acids to repair and to grow muscle mass. And as women do age, the body becomes less efficient at utilizing protein, making it vital

14:11to ensure that you're getting the adequate intake on a day-to-day basis that would be needed to achieve the results that you're seeking. So if you're consuming enough protein, that can help to preserve the existing muscle mass that you have on your body and to prevent muscle breakdown and support the overall development of new muscle tissue. So if you are not consuming enough protein on a day-to-day basis and you are, you know, the women that I'm speaking to here on this podcast, you will see more of a decline in

14:46your existing muscle mass. Why do you think people get weaker as they get older? They're not eating enough nutrients on a day-to-day basis to facilitate, you know, a strong body. And so people, as people age, they eat less. And then as they eat less, like there's so many nutrients inside of the nutritional protein, fats, and carbs, and even the whole foods and all the things that give the body the nutrients that it needs to make your body strong

15:17without getting too science-y, down to the cellular process, down to the organs, down to your muscle tissue, down to the hormones, like everything like that. So when I used to work in the ER and I would see women come in or anybody come in and their health was declining, to me, one of the things I would always love to just be curious about was what they were eating on a day-to-day basis and how they were eating. And 90% of the time was that they were consuming one meal a day and that one meal was fats and carbs.

15:49And they weren't eating enough in general to help to maintain a strong, thriving body. And another thing that's important with protein too as well, secondary to, you know, preserving lean muscle and building new muscle tissue is that, one, when you burn or when you eat protein, it's a thermic effect. It's a type of food that has a thermic effect, meaning that when you are digesting the protein,

16:19you are also burning calories. Like, I forget the exact stat of it, but that should be a selling point enough for you guys to want to eat more protein because you're burning calories as you're digesting it. And another thing is, by the end of the day, think about it, this is you. You're, at the end of the day, and you're like, man, I'm hungry. Um, I want to just snack. It's most likely 90% of the time because you didn't have enough protein throughout the day to balance your insulin levels and to curb your cravings and to make you feel satiated

16:54and to make you feel fuller for a longer period of time. That's why at the end of the night, for those of you guys that want to snack and do find yourself snacking and like you're on the couch, you're watching Netflix and you're bored and you're hungry, it's because you didn't give your body what you needed to throughout the whole rest of the day. And that being protein. Protein is huge to helping you feel fuller or longer, as I just said, to keeping you satiated, to, um, to making you, you know, when you have a, when you have a meal and you're putting 20 to 30 grams of protein in that meal,

17:25you're not going to find yourself wanting to continue to snack afterwards. Like in comparison to if you're just having like a carb heavy meal, it's not going to make you feel fuller. It's actually carb heavy, regardless of it being a whole carb or, uh, um, a simple carb, you're going to have a little bit of an insulin spike. Regardless, if it's a simple carb, you're going to have a huge insulin spike, which is going to make you feel that you want to eat more. So all in all to say, like, it's so freaking important. I'm going to talk a little bit about at the end, the recommendation that I would, would recommend you guys to have a protein.

18:00I've mentioned it numerous times in the podcast and previous episodes, but I just want to, you know, I believe in repetition. I believe in repeating myself over and over and over again until what I'm saying lands with an individual. Like I've said before, like you could listen to my podcast over and over and over again, but it probably won't be till the sixth month that I said in episode 70, that you, that it resonated with you. Okay. So I'm always going to end up repeating myself. You're going to hear what I think is so important. I'm going to say it over and over and over again. But anyway, in terms of like the role that protein plays when you're looking to develop muscle

18:35is if you are, which a lot of people do this, as I said, the beginning of the podcast, you're working out, you're doing strength training, you're running, you're doing some type of physical activity, but majority of you guys have, you're not doing it with enough protein. And when you're not consuming enough protein, the key when you do have enough protein is that it's stimulating muscle growth and it's promoting the breakdown of muscle fibers.

19:07And when you're having the protein either pre or post workout, you're giving your body the amino acids that it needs to repair and to rebuild those fibers. I always say this, you're in the gym, you're breaking down the muscle. When you're post workout, you know, 24 to 48 hours outside the gym, it depends what you eat truly freaking matters and how you sleep and how you hydrate yourself and all the things. But what you eat, aka getting enough protein consumption post workout is so necessary

19:38to give your body the nutrients that it needs to repair and to rebuild those fibers that you just broke down during your workout session. Which if you're not consuming the protein that is necessary day to day for your body composition, that's not going to happen. And you're probably only accomplishing maybe 20 to 30% of what you think you would be accomplishing inside of a workout of the results that you want to see. If that made sense. Like you're only, if you're doing one work, if you're doing a workout, but you're not giving

20:11yourself the nutrition that it needs to build the body that you want, you're basically every single time you're working out, you're working out like 40 to 50% of your true potential. Think of it like that. And I just, I hope that like kind of just like that was actually like that should nail it home. Like you guys, you need to make sure like regardless, even with protein or with carbs and fats, if you are working out and you're religious and you're doing the four to five training sessions

20:41a week, but like you're not consistently following through with your nutrition, which again is the hardest thing for people to do. I think I recorded a podcast early, early on of why people can't stick to a nutritional protocol and why it's so hard. Like I did research on that and I found studies as to why it's so freaking hard for people to actually follow through on. Because think about it, if it was so freaking easy, like everybody would be doing it. Everybody would be walking around with like goddess bodies and looking amazing and feeling so good.

21:11But it's one of the hardest things to do. But trust that if you put your mind to it and you're dedicated, you will be able to follow through and get the results that you want. But anyway, so hey, hey, just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it and there's so much more to come with it. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons. And also it would help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too. Thanks so much, guys. Let's get back to the show.

21:42So that's how it pertains to muscle development is by making sure that you give your body enough protein and sufficient enough, a sufficient amount of protein grams per day. It's going to stimulate muscle growth. It's going to promote muscle breakdown. And so that afterwards, you have enough protein to repair and to rebuild those muscle fibers. There's also a slew, like I can dive into protein synthesis. And that's essentially kind of what I'm talking about here. There's other episodes on that.

22:13But it makes sure the protein synthesis is happening within your body. And it's just the building block of you wanting to build more muscle. And when you want to build more muscle, you're going to look more toned. That's like the toned word. It's just you having more muscle mass to your body and then decreasing the body fat around it, which I talk about the difference between weight loss and fat loss. Maybe I need to bring that back. Like when you think about like when you are eating enough protein is preserving the lean muscle mass

22:45that you already have to your body and then giving you the ability to build more. And then when you are decreasing body fat and focusing on losing body fat protocol, not just weight loss, because weight loss is you're losing a little bit of everything. You're losing muscle mass in that process. And you're losing a lot of muscle mass in that process. When you are decreasing body fat, you will lose a little bit of muscle mass, but not nearly as much as you would when you're just focusing on weight loss. So you're preserving the lean muscle mass. You're decreasing the body fat around that muscle. And that is what makes you look more toned.

23:16But in order to be more toned, you have to build more muscle. In order to build more muscle, you have to be eating the right amount of protein that you need on a daily basis. When it comes down to fat loss, when you, when protein is being consumed, it requires, as I mentioned, more energy for digestion and absorption compared to the carbohydrates and the fats that you eat on a daily basis. As I mentioned, this is known as a thermic effect of food. And this results in increased calorie expenditure and it boosts your metabolism

23:48when you consume more protein on a day-to-day basis. Not only as I mentioned that. So think when you eat more protein, you increase the ability to burn more calories. You increase your calorie expenditure and you are revving up your metabolism just by consuming protein on a day-to-day basis. At the same time, you're preserving the lean muscle. And when you're preserving lean muscle and you're building more of it,

24:19you naturally increase your BMR so that you can burn more calories even while at rest. So the more muscle you have to your body, which again comes from eating more protein, the more calories you burn while at rest, the more calories that you increase naturally your basal metabolic rate. Like I don't remember it. I don't know exactly because it wasn't a metric that I totally like honed in on, but I can assume that when I first started my fitness journey and two, to just plug really quick, your metabolic rate decreases as you age. So if you are productive in this sense where you are strength training,

24:53you're building more muscle, you're eating the protein that you need, you can almost like counteract that process from happening. Because the more muscle mass that you have to your body, the more it's naturally going to increase your BMR. And as you age, your BMR decreases. So if you're naturally increasing your BMR, that's going to help with metabolic processes that happen for your metabolism to still stay in like a good state where it's trained and it knows what it needs to be doing to lose body fat. So these are just like without getting like too high level and talking about it,

25:26like I'm hoping that I'm saying it in a terms that that is easy to understand. So those are things, those are ways that of which eating more protein helps with muscle development. It helps with fat loss. It helps if you're eating a high protein protocol on a day-to-day basis. Like I said, it helps you to stay satiated longer. It helps you to reduce cravings. So it supports in the overall calorie control and management throughout the day.

25:56Whereas like if you're not eating the protein that you need for your specific body, this is where you will want to, you have cravings. You want to, you know, eat whatever you want to at the end of the day. And that's where you can get in like a bad area of a territory where you don't want to be when you want to facilitate results with your body composition, because that can easily throw you over your calorie requirement for the day. So some recommendations for you guys that you can take leaving this podcast.

26:30Obviously it's that you need to eat more protein. Like what I would suggest you guys do, and this is what we do for all of our warrior babes when they're first joining our program, is just to, because you probably have no idea how much protein you are eating right now. And that's okay, that's normal. But the key to finding, is to finding out how much protein you are and being able to adjust from there. So if you just pay attention, normally how you're eating for seven days, log it inside of MyFitnessPal.

27:02Like this is where you need to really start taking it seriously, because the only way you're going to facilitate the results that you want to see is by changing what you're doing now. And the first step is, the second step is awareness and like taking action on the process. So download MyFitnessPal. You can do the free version. And you can just log your food that you're consuming for the next seven days, as you normally would. Don't try to do anything different. Don't try and start to eat any more protein. Just log as you normally would, because it's going to give you a true, honest baseline. Then after seven days, you can be like, you can look at the average inside of MyFitnessPal and you'd be like, wow.

27:38It would be entirely eye-opening, entirely shocking. I guarantee it. And then you'll be able to see, okay, I'm only at an average of 60 grams of protein a day. Maybe you're at 80. You're definitely under 100. I can definitely say that. For the people that are above, that's freaking awesome. Now you just need to get to your body weight. But for those of you that are under 100, you should just make it a goal to try and get to 100 grams of protein in a day. What I would recommend is that you get to your body weight.

28:08That can be your North Star. But it's going to feel overwhelming at first to try and get from 60 grams to, say, 160 grams. Like, that's not ideal. And if you're like 250 pounds, you wouldn't be eating 250 grams of protein. You would come down to what your ideal body weight would be and start eating there with protein on a day. But anyway, try and just aim for the 100. And then don't move. Don't go up in grams on a day until you hit the 100 consistently for at least 7 to 14 days.

28:43And then you can talk about moving it up and getting to your body weight and going from there. But you have to consistently follow through. And you can't just go like two days eating 100 grams of protein and then try and bump it up because you're just going to do it too fast. And also, it could disrupt your digestive tract. It's a little bit consuming more protein. And that's normal because your body is just not used to it. So you may get like what people call the protein farts. That's totally normal. So do that. Find out where you're at right now.

29:14Bring awareness of the situation of how much you are consuming on a day. And then make it a priority to get yourself to 100. And make that a goal. And that's a short term goal. You should be able to do that within another like seven days. And then just follow that for 7 to 14 days. And then go from there. Join Warrior Babe so you don't have to think about this. And we can just help you get to these goals by working with a coach one-on-one. And she can give you the protocol. And all you have to do is follow it. That way you don't have to think about it or overthink it, which a lot of people do.

29:46Or get in your way and not actually do it. That's what a coach is for. They're going to be able to hold your hand and be able to guide you and support you along the way. And call you out wherever you need to. And celebrate you wherever you need to. Okay? The links, it's a warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. But anyway, to wrap this up. Protein is so freaking important, my friends. It is so important. If there's ever days that like I'm intuitively eating, which is majority of what I do right now. Because I've gone through the macronutrient world, which I praise this and want you guys to just get macros down as a foundation.

30:20Because it will serve you for the rest of your life with eating and nutrition and all the things. But if I'm, you know, going through a day and it's a hectic day of meetings. And I wasn't able to eat all the things I need to eat. I will just slam protein. No questions asked. So, yeah. Anyway, I hope that that helped you guys focus on your protein. Get more protein. It's so key and so crucial for muscle development. Which is what you need in order to look more toned. To change the way your body composition looks.

30:50And to facilitate fat loss. And to do it in a way that it's enjoyable. Alright? So, hope you guys enjoyed that podcast. Appreciate y'all. See you in the next one. Peace out. Hey guys, real quick. If you're interested in taking your body to the next level. Lose body fat. Build more muscle. Feel more confident. Do it alongside one of our 30 plus professional coaches. Work one-on-one with her to eliminate all of the guesswork that you may have. And all you need to do is just do the work that she tells you to do to get to those goals of yours.

31:23Now to learn more, click the link below this podcast. And apply to our VIP program right now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.