Why Women Over 40 Are Losing Muscle and How to Stop It

Nikkiey: Stop asking, how do I weigh less? How do I lose weight? Start asking, how can I become stronger? Because the women who age the best are the women who lift weights. They're the women who prioritize protein. They're the women that fuel their bodies. They're women that build muscle over time. Because this isn't a six-week thing. This isn't like, I joke around about, popping your body into a microwave and now it comes out a toned body. This is a lifelong investment. I have seen countless numbers of women. We have coached over 20,000 women at WarriorBabe, and our demographic of women is 45 to 70 years old. I have seen so many women in their 40s, in their 50s, in their 60s, even in their 70s, completely transform their bodies by doing this one thing, which is building muscle.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show with your host, Nikkiey Stott. On these episodes, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. Guys, today is episode number 337. I've talked about this topic many, many, many times, but I want to dive in just a little bit deeper with you guys.

I had a community call yesterday with our bigger ecosystem of WarriorBabes, and there was a point of the conversation when I was talking to them that I just landed on, and I was like, this is actually really important for women to start to think this way in terms of their body and their longevity. I was talking about the importance of protein. I'm not going to talk about that today. But I was talking about how important it is for us as women, as we get older, to fuel our bodies like our life depends on it. And then it got me into talking to them about muscle.

You guys know I've talked about muscle multiple times on this show. But I want to talk about how there is a muscle deficit crisis in women over 40. Even women that are 35 and older, and women that are past their 50s and 60s.

One, I've seen this because I worked in the emergency room for four years. I would constantly see multiple falls per week coming from women, breaking their hips, breaking an arm, breaking a leg, breaking a rib, mainly hips and ribs. And you could just look at the individual and be like, yeah, it doesn't look like that person has a lot of muscle on their body. Sure, maybe they've worked out in their life, but they didn't do workouts that strengthen the body by developing more muscle.

After the age of 30, our muscle mass decreases every decade by 3 to 8% if you don't incorporate strength training or fuel your body appropriately. And the hard part that people have is the nutrition aspect, and I understand it. I don't really see a problem with the workouts. Most people will go do workouts of any kind. Everyone's always in the gym. But it's when people leave the gym that things unwind or unfold in the wrong way for their nutrition to support the workout they just did, and to support the overall aspects of their body that are going to help them have energy and recover.

Anyway, sidetrack on that. But today, on the muscle crisis aspect. I use the word crisis because what I see in our industry is a massive population of women who are eating less, who are doing more cardio, who are trying to weigh less, while unknowingly losing the very thing that protects their metabolism, that protects their hormones, that protects their bones, that protects their confidence, that protects their longevity. And that's muscle.

So I want to dive in with you guys a little bit on the education side today, just to open your minds. I feel like when you guys know the education behind something, it's easier for you to apply what I'm asking you to apply in a practical way. We're going to talk about sarcopenia. We're going to talk about why most women are under-muscled right now. Why muscle is one of the most important organs in your body. I want you guys to think of it like that. Just like your heart. Just like your lungs. Muscle is the organ of longevity. And why, in my opinion, strength training is no longer optional after you reach a certain age.

I want this to wake you up. But I also want this to empower you in so many ways. Because the moment you guys understand this, you'll embrace the why, and everything about how you approach your body starts to change moving forward. So let's dive into it.

Let's talk about the science first. The term sarcopenia is a health science term. Sarcopenia is the age-related loss of muscle mass. And it starts way earlier than most women think it starts. It doesn't start in your 60s. It doesn't start in your 70s. It doesn't start in your 40s. As I was saying, it starts in your 30s. It accelerates in your 40s, and it accelerates even more in your 50s and beyond. As I mentioned, if nothing is done to stop it, you will lose 3 to 8% of muscle per decade starting at the age of 30, and even faster after 40. I want you to pause and just think about that for a second.

Because most women are not actively trying to build muscle. What most women are doing is dieting, restricting, doing cardio, and trying to weigh less. So what's actually happening when they're focusing on that? They're not just losing fat. They're losing muscle too.

You guys have heard me talk about this in a previous episode, the difference between weight loss and fat loss. You can focus on all the things that I just said: dieting, restricting, doing tons of cardio, and trying to see a number on the scale drop dramatically. That is weight loss. You can dive into any diet out there that tells you to eat three bland meals a day, and you are going to lose weight if you follow it consistently. It's hard to do because it's restrictive, and you're thinking about all the other foods you're basically telling yourself you can't have.

Fat loss is where you are fueling your body properly, aka giving your body enough protein. It's one of the most important macronutrients, in my opinion. And then while you're decreasing body fat, you're preserving the lean muscle that you have on your body. So the protein is helping you, and the strength training and hydration and everything else, good sleep.

But let me just focus on the nutrition aspect. The protein is going to help keep your body from tapping into your muscle for energy. Because when you're just focusing on losing weight, your body is trying to find energy because you're not giving it enough, so it's going to find energy in that muscle store. When you're focusing on fat loss, you're eating enough protein, and the protein is holding on to the muscle. It's keeping it safe. Think of it like that. And then it's shedding and getting rid of the body fat that is around your muscle.

Everyone should be focusing on fat loss. Because over time, if you're losing muscle too and just focusing on being smaller, I've mentioned this many times, your strength drops, your metabolism slows, your energy drops, your irritability rises, your mood is questionable day to day, and your body composition shifts. Sure, you're going to lose weight, but you're going to look like a smaller, fatter version of yourself. You're going to look skinny fat.

So think of it like that. That's what sarcopenia is. And no one talks about it from the aspect that women are not actively building that muscle. The majority of women are doing things, like I said, that are the opposite of how you build muscle to build a strong body. Counterproductive.

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Let's talk about why most women are under-muscled. This part really blows people's minds when I talk about it, because most women are not overweight. They're under-muscled. What do I mean by that? There are two very different things here. You can be 120 pounds, 130 pounds, 140 pounds, and you can still be under-muscled. You can look average on the outside, but you can have low muscle density. You can have low metabolic strength. You could have poor body composition. That's what we call skinny fat.

And I say that with love because, first of all, that was me 10 years ago. When I first started my fitness journey, I weighed 140 pounds. And I thought, wow, I'm good. I'm small. I'm lean. I'm good. But I wasn't strong. I didn't have any muscle. My metabolism wasn't powerful. I was just smaller. Fast forward to now, as I've shared with you guys, I weigh 145 or 150 pounds, but I look completely different. Completely different. I have abs year round. I have more muscle, more shape, more strength, more density to my body. And that blows women's minds.

So when I say people are not overweight, it's that underneath the fat on a body there's muscle, but there's not a lot of it, because they're not focusing on building it. And that's what women have been taught their entire life: less weight, better body. That's not true. Having more muscle equals a way better, stronger body, better hormones, better metabolism, better mood, better sleep, better strength, better longevity. And this is where I feel like the entire fitness industry has it completely backwards.

You've heard me say this before, and I've heard this from Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, that muscle is the organ of longevity. This is where I want to dive a little deeper into the science with you guys, because muscle isn't just for show. It's not just for aesthetics. It's not just for the women you see up on stage because they're bodybuilding or doing bikini shows. Muscle is not just for looking fit and looking toned and being defined.

Think of it on a deeper level with me for a second. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. It is one of the most protective systems in your body. Muscle impacts blood sugar regulation. It impacts insulin sensitivity. It impacts your metabolic rate. It impacts your hormone balance and your hunger cues. It impacts your bone density.

Another thing with sarcopenia is that later in life, women have osteoporosis, which is when they lose their bone density. So think about those two combined, and why, when I was working in the emergency room, I saw women falling and fracturing their hips or breaking a rib. Bone density is down. Muscle mass is down. Muscle also impacts your mobility. It impacts your stability. It impacts your balance. It impacts your ability to prevent injuries.

And something most women don't think about is that muscle is one of the strongest predictors of longevity. Maybe you guys have heard it, but Dr. Gabrielle Lyon basically calls it the organ of longevity: the more muscle you have, the more years you're adding to your life. It's not how thin you are or how small you are, but how strong you are. People with more muscle have a lower risk of chronic disease. They maintain independence way longer.

When I was working in the long-term nursing care unit, I worked in skilled care with dementia patients. They always said that women outlived the men. That's very true. Women live longer than men. So think about it like this: okay, you live longer than your husband. Don't you want to be able to maintain independence in a better way, a longer way, a healthier way? If you're not going to have him around, you're going to want to still be with your family, doing things with them, keeping up with them, keeping up with grandkids. This is why I say muscle isn't just a look. It is literally your body's protection.

I know when I talk about lifting, for a lot of you guys this myth is still out there: well, if I lift weights, I'm going to get bulky. It's shifting. I know a lot of you listening now are like, yeah, I don't really believe that anymore. But there are still some of you listening who are like, yeah, I feel like if I lift weights, I'm just going to get big. That's not going to happen. I want you to rewrite the narrative from thinking that's going to happen to knowing it's not going to happen. And I want you to look at lifting as a non-negotiable after you turn 40 years old.

Because again, this is where that shift starts to happen. After 40, the game changes. Hormones shift, recovery changes, metabolism becomes more sensitive. I'd even argue it starts earlier. You guys know I shared on a podcast last year, man, I woke up at 35 years old and all of a sudden it was like, bam, things were different. I'm grateful that I'm very intuitive with my body. If something is off or something isn't right, I know there's something wrong or something is changing. I woke up one morning, and for three or four weeks straight I was not feeling normal. It's a real thing.

And I know you guys are nodding your head like, yeah. When I do Pilates, I was talking to one of the girls in the class this morning, and she said, 45 hit, and man, everything changed. So we all experience it differently. But man, the game changes when we get older. And if muscle isn't being actively built or protected, the body will slowly lose it.

Pilates is great. I do it. Walking is great. Yoga is great. But they are not enough to prevent muscle loss. Strength training is the ultimate stimulus the body needs to build muscle, to maintain muscle, to protect muscle. That means picking up dumbbells and barbells and creating metabolic stress on your muscle. Unless you are doing that, you're not building muscle, you're not maintaining muscle, you're not protecting it. Without that type of stimulus, the body is going to adapt downward. It's going to lose muscle, it's going to lower your metabolism, and it's going to store more fat.

And women think, okay, now that I'm getting older, I just need to eat less, I need to eat less. How much less could you eat? Guys, you can't live off of just one meal, or snacking throughout the day, or eating these small yogurt-and-fruit meals and salads with chicken. You can't live off of that. You don't need to eat less. What you need to do is build more muscle.

So the real mental reframe I want you guys to have is: stop asking, how do I weigh less? How do I lose weight? Start asking, how can I become stronger? Because the women who age the best are the women who lift weights. They're the women who prioritize protein. They're the women that fuel their bodies. They're women that build muscle over time. Because this isn't a six-week thing. This isn't, like I joke around about, popping your body into a microwave and now it comes out a toned body. This is a lifelong investment.

I personally am so grateful that I started this journey 10 years ago, in the middle of my 20s, and understand the importance of this, because this is a lifelong investment for me. If you're 50, 55, 60, 65, it is never too late. I have seen countless numbers of women. We have coached over 20,000 women at WarriorBabe, and our demographic of women is 45 to 70 years old. I have seen so many women in their 40s, in their 50s, in their 60s, even in their 70s, completely transform their bodies by doing this one thing, which is building muscle.

And once they incorporate and understand this and they're fueling their body, they're not eating these 1,200-calorie restrictive diets. Maybe they're not dieting, but they're just trying to eat less. They're not doing that anymore. They're bringing awareness to how much they're eating, and then they start incorporating the strength training.

And it's not like you need to be repping out one-rep maxes, guys. Don't think of it like that either. You need to get in the gym. You just need to get some dumbbells in your hand. You need to get a barbell in your hand. And you need to do repetitions of about eight to 15 reps and challenge yourself, so the last three reps of a set are challenging. Not to the point where you're going to hurt yourself or you're throwing weight around. Proper form is so important.

But the more you create that stimulus and build the muscle, the easier everything is going to get. You're going to have fat loss more easily. You're going to have more energy. You're going to have more confidence. You're going to have better mobility. Everything.

If you're not into strength training, you don't need to go full bore in week one. Just get into the gym two times. Buy some dumbbells off Amazon and put them in your garage or in your living room, and get up three times a week and do some dumbbell exercises. Join WarriorBabe. Have a coach do the programming for you.

If this episode hit home for you guys, I want you to sit with this as I log off. You don't need to be smaller. You don't need to lose weight. You need to get stronger. Because when you do, strength is going to change everything for you. And the earlier you start protecting your muscle, the more powerful your future is going to become. I'll leave you on that note, guys. I love you very much, and I'll see you in the next episode. Peace out.

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