Why Women Over 40 Fall Off Track and How to Stay Consistent

Nikkiey: Getting in shape is slow. Getting out of shape is fast. It almost seems unfair that that happens, right? You work your butt off for months, you meal prep, you track, you drink your water, you get your workouts in. That is you building momentum. And it takes so much effort to do those things. And then literally two weeks of slipping off, two weeks of falling off, the holidays, maybe you're feeling that right now, boom, you feel softer, you feel puffier, you feel heavier, your digestion is off, your energy is off.

Your energy is down, your clothes feel different, your sleep is different, your confidence dips. All of these things start to happen.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys, welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show. As you guys know, 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. I'm sure so many of you guys could probably recite that opening over and over again. But anyway, today's episode, episode number 319. Today we're going to dive into something that I believe every woman struggles with at some point in their journey, no matter what your age is, no matter what your goals are, no matter what your journey has been or hasn't been, whether you're just starting or you're in the middle or you're seasoned in this.

At some point, women struggle with this. And that thing has nothing to do with macros, nothing to do with motivation, nothing to do with willpower, nothing to do with working out. It has everything to do with momentum. And what I mean by that is, everybody wants it, but it's the one thing that I feel like most people don't know how to build on, and even fewer know how to protect it.

This episode was actually inspired by, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, I can't remember, when I posted on Instagram a simple carousel, four short slides. And this thing almost went viral. It was a quote graphic, and I'm going to expand upon each slide in today's episode.

I literally had women DMing me, women commenting on it, being like, this is facts. It hit some women in the gut. And I wanted to bring it to the podcast and talk through it a little bit more. What I feel from that reaction is, women are exhausted from falling off track. They're exhausted from starting over. They're exhausted from feeling like working out and fitness is always just slipping through their fingers the second that life gets busy or life gets stressful.

So I'm taking these graphics and I'm going to break them wide open. I'm going to talk about each of them, because each one of them holds a truth that can literally change the way that you approach your health forever. No fluff. Real talk, real truth, real identity shifts in this episode today, guys.

So let's start with the first graphic, because honestly, this one alone could be a full episode in and of itself. That graphic said getting in shape is slow, getting out of shape is fast. The reaction I got from women was like, oh, yes. But there's also a second reaction that I feel like may be happening as well, a deeper one.

And that one's frustration, because it almost seems unfair that that happens, right? You work your butt off for months, you meal prep, you track, you drink your water, you get your workouts in, you go to bed earlier, you say no to things, you change your routines. That is you building momentum. And it takes so much effort to do those things. And then literally two weeks of slipping off, two weeks of falling off, the holidays, maybe you're feeling that right now, you feel softer, you feel heavier, your digestion is off, your energy is down, your clothes feel different, your sleep is different, your confidence dips. All of these things start to happen.

I'm here to tell you something that will free you, if you let it, if you are open-minded to letting it. Listen, you don't lose your results first. What happens in this moment is you are losing your standards. The body is simply the last place that your choices show up, right? What you really lose first is your routines, your structure, your boundaries, your consistency, the promises that you're keeping to yourself. You lose the decisions that you made when you were clear and grounded, right?

Getting out of shape, or feeling what you're feeling now, happens fast because drifting is easy. You don't need effort to drift, you don't need intention to drift, you don't need commitment to drift. You just need to stop paying attention. And that's it.

And the reason getting in shape is slow is because it requires intention. It requires you to put effort in every single day, for longer than your brain even wants to give it. It requires you to be committed on a daily basis. It requires you to show up when it's boring, when it's inconvenient, when nobody is even noticing. It requires you to show up when your emotions want to quit. It requires you to show up long enough for the habits that you're instilling to catch up, right?

That's why the slow part matters. Because the slow part builds your identity, the slow part builds discipline, the slow part builds self-trust. It builds the woman that you're trying to become. Fast will never build that. Fast will only tear it down.

So if you are in a season where progress maybe feels slow, good. I know a lot of you guys are so used to wanting fast results and doing things that are going to guarantee you X amount of results in four weeks and yada, yada, yada. But I'm here to be straight and direct with you guys: that is only going to set you up for failure in the long run. It's not going to help you build discipline, it's not going to help you build self-trust, it's not going to help you build belief. It's just going to help you repeat the same cycles and the same patterns of what you've been repeating.

So if you feel like progress is slow right now, it's slow for a reason. Slow means that you are building. Slow means that you are laying down the foundations. Slow means that you are developing patience, you are developing resilience. It means that the results that you get will stay even when life gets chaotic, inconvenient and busy. Because, and I'm sure you guys know this, fast results come and they go. But when you focus on building slowly and you allow the slowness to be enjoyable, those results stay.

So that's my little rant on getting in shape is slow. Yes, getting out of shape is very, very fast. But think about why that happens. And think about how you can embrace going into the new year, especially, with "I'm okay with a slow season."

That's why I recommend, if you're starting on January 1st, dude, you've got five, six months until the summertime. That is an ideal timeframe. Rather than some of you guys that will be coming in April. You'll be good in January, but you'll fall off the tracks in February and March, and come April, and I say this because I want you all to prove me wrong, you'll have two months before you can get in shape and you're going to look for the fast results. Please change your patterns going into 2026. All right.

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The second graphic is the one that went the most viral, because this is the real truth behind why women struggle. Fitness is not a physical battle. It is an emotional battle that shows up physically. So let me break that down for a second.

10% is exercise, because the gym is not the hard part. Truly, workouts are the easiest part known to anybody. I just had a conversation with someone last weekend and they were like, I work out so hard all the time and I'm not seeing the results.

Workouts are the easiest part. 10% is exercise because the gym is not the hardest part. You show up, you move your body, you leave. It's structured for some of you guys. It's directed. It's contained. The gym is not your enemy. Your emotions before and after the gym are where the real fight comes into play. That's mainly the biggest thing. The emotions before are like, do I even want to go? I don't feel like going. The emotions afterwards are like, dang, I feel really good, right? Those are the hardest parts about getting your workout in.

Anybody can get their workout in, whether it's going for a run, going to the gym, or going to a class that you signed up for. Show up, move your body, you leave. Okay.

50% of this is nutrition, because food is where your identity patterns show up. These are the things that were in the slide as well. Most women don't have a nutrition problem. They have an emotional eating problem. They have a stress eating problem. They have a comfort eating problem.

They have a reward-myself-with-food pattern. They have an "I'm overwhelmed, so screw it" pattern. This is how food reveals your coping mechanisms. Nutrition is very easy on paper. But a human navigating cravings when you're tired, when you're anxious, when you're lonely, when you're overwhelmed or when you're frustrated, that is where the real work begins.

And then 40% is managing your emotions. This is what a lot of people were like, oh, that hit so hard.

That is the invisible battle. This is the part that nobody teaches. This is the part that no program includes. This is the part that determines whether you follow through or you fall off the program, right? Everything you do with your body is influenced by what you feel emotionally. Your doubt, your fear, your insecurity, your guilt, your impatience, your frustration, the stress that you have, the exhaustion. If you don't know how to regulate those emotions, you will always sabotage the physical work.

I've heard so many women say, I know what to do, I just don't do it. And yeah, that's because the real barrier isn't knowledge. It's not education. It's not more reading on Google or ChatGPT-ing. It's emotional resilience. Once you learn how to pause before reacting, how to breathe instead of binging, how to rest instead of thinking that you're quitting or that you should be working out.

How to respond intentionally instead of self-sabotaging, how to allow yourself to feel discomfort without being afraid of it and running away from it. Once you learn how to recognize those things, your results become predictable. And at that point, when it becomes predictable, results feel like freedom. You won't allow yourself to be influenced by how you feel emotionally. I've said it a million times before, and sometimes people are like, that's so harsh, Nikkiey.

But you know what? It's true. You can recognize that you are feeling a type of way, you're feeling stressed or exhausted or frustrated or whatever. I think every single person feels something like that on a daily basis, right? We're all tired, okay? But you're not going to allow that emotion to get in the way, one, of quitting and giving up: okay, I'm going to just rest today.

Or if you don't need a rest day, and you're just feeling the emotion, but you know you can go work out, it's leaning into the discipline of, okay, whatever. I'm not going to be tempted by these emotions that I'm feeling. I'm still going to show up no matter what, despite these temptations, and follow through. And the same goes with guilt. Guilt like, okay, I ate too much over the holidays and I haven't been working out in the last week. Okay, whatever. I'm not going to allow that emotion to get in the way of the rest of the three weeks, or two weeks, that I show up for this year.

I'm still going to, despite the temptation of feeling guilty, make some type of change today that will put me back in the driver's seat, and become resilient and disciplined to follow through for the end of the year. You get what I'm saying? Once you learn how to do that, dude, results are predictable, because you're putting in the effort at that point and you're still following through no matter what, no matter how you feel. And once you can grasp that, that truly becomes freedom, because you're going to acknowledge and recognize and empathize with the emotions you're feeling. I'm not saying to just cut them off. Know that they're there, but still act despite them, because they're always going to be there.

Okay, and then the third one, there are four of them, I think. This one is the identity shift that women resist the most. That graphic said that when you stop treating fitness like a phase and you start treating it like a lifestyle, results stop becoming stressful and start becoming inevitable. Because the second that you treat fitness like a phase, you will always feel behind. You will always feel stressed.

You'll always feel like you're just trying. You'll always feel like you're starting over, because a phase ends. A lifestyle doesn't end. Women who treat fitness like a phase negotiate every single decision. They rationalize inconsistency. They justify slipping up. They have an excuse for everything. They operate from emotion, from what I was just saying with those examples a couple of minutes ago. They expect fast results. And they rely on having motivation every single day. You could be one of those things that I just said, or you could be all of them.

You could be somebody that operates from emotion but doesn't rely on motivation.

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All right, let's get back to the show. You could be one that justifies slipping up but doesn't expect fast results.

Don't just say, oh, but I don't rely on motivation. It doesn't matter. You can be one of those other things that I said, and you're still treating it like a phase. You're treating it like it's just another program that you're a part of.

Women who treat fitness like a lifestyle, we don't negotiate non-negotiables. We don't disappear when life gets inconvenient or chaotic or busy and out of control. We don't need perfect conditions. If I'm being realistic with myself that I can only get in three workouts a week as opposed to five, I'm showing up for the three.

I don't need perfect. I don't need to be like, perfect is five workouts. No. And we don't rely on motivation. We've been down that road of struggling with the feeling of frustration and exhaustion and guilt and X, Y and Z. And 99% of the reason why follow-through and results happen is because, screw motivation, I don't rely on it. I'm disciplined enough to follow through. Right. And we don't collapse when things get really, really hard, really, really uncomfortable.

A woman who focuses on this as a lifestyle doesn't ask, how do I stay motivated? It's not even what she would ask. The follow-through strategy is just different. It's like, okay, what are my non-negotiables today? And what do I need to get done today before I deal with everything else? The phase woman I was talking about is like, I'm going to restart on Monday. A lifestyle woman is like, all right, cool, I slipped up at breakfast, but I'm going to get right back on track right after this meal.

The phase woman is going to chase results. The lifestyle woman is going to chase being in alignment with her fitness goals, which is going to put her in alignment with everything else in her life, because alignment will always produce results.

And then this last slide is one of my favorites, because it reminds you that health is not a punishment. Food is fuel. Sleep is healing. Breath is power. Nature is therapy. Rest is productive. Movement is medicine. Health is how you return to yourself.

So I want to break down each of those. Food is fuel. Food is not the enemy. Food is how your muscles grow. Food is how your hormones stabilize. Food is how your brain focuses. Food is how your mood improves. Your body is not fighting food. It's begging for the right kind.

When it comes to sleep, sleep is a very big healing component. Sleep shouldn't be optional. It shouldn't be, yeah, I only get five hours of sleep. Dude, sleep is where fat burning increases. Muscle repair happens. Cortisol lowers.

Restoration is increased. Hunger hormones stabilize. Emotional regulation resets. And your ability to wake up charged and ready to go happens. The thing is, you can't outwork sleep deprivation. You need to get good quality, efficient sleep on a regular basis, or everything I just said is going to be the opposite. Fat burning decreases. Cortisol elevates.

Muscle repair takes longer to happen. You're going to feel irritable, tired and angry the next day. Okay?

Breath. Your breathing. Dude, your breath. If I was just taking a breath right now. Everyone take a breath. Your breath is basically telling your brain, hey, we're safe, we're good. Your breath turns off your fight or flight. It increases your patience. It stabilizes your cravings.

It grounds you when you feel like emotions are getting elevated and they're about to spike. Some people will say breathwork is spiritual, breathwork does X, Y and Z. No. Listen. Breathwork is physiological. It is something that can naturally calm you down in whatever situation feels elevated or charged. Literally, how do you feel right now after taking that breath? I feel great.

The other one was nature is therapy. So walking outside, getting sun on your face, a quiet moment in fresh air. And I know it's probably hard to do because it's so cold right now. The other morning it was 16 degrees, and I don't want to complain because I'm sure people are experiencing even colder, but to me that is very cold. I know it's probably hard to get outside and enjoy that coldness, but try to, because that can lower your cortisol. It can reduce your anxiety. It can boost your mood. It increases your dopamine. Nature can literally fix what overstimulation will break.

The other one was rest. Rest is productive. Rest is not weakness. Rest is strategy. You make better choices when you are rested. You train harder when you are recovered. You regulate your emotions way more easily. You show up more consistently. Dude, rest is a part of the discipline to develop. You being okay with taking a break, that is strategy.

And then the last thing on that slide was movement. Movement is medicine. Movement changes your biology. It improves your metabolism. It improves your hormones. It strengthens your heart and your mind. It's not punishment for what you ate. It's a celebration of what your body can do. That's how I want you guys to think about it.

The truth behind all of these graphics, the message that I want you guys to feel the most in your bones right now, is that getting into shape is an emotional, mental, spiritual and physical process.

Falling out of shape is simply the absence of that process. Getting into shape and staying in shape requires you to develop discipline, patience, self-awareness. There's that word again, guys. Awareness, emotional regulation, identity shifts, pattern breaking, changing the narrative in your mind, consistency, being honest with yourself, taking responsibility. Falling out of shape requires nothing. Just drifting away from that. But I want you guys to not drift away from that, especially going into 2026.

Don't drift. You're awake now. You're aware. You're choosing. You're more intentional. And you're becoming a woman that is so powerful and makes these standards non-negotiables, right? And two, because I feel like a lot of women have been driven this way and that's a narrative that's in their minds, I just want to break it. Fitness is not about looking good. Fitness is about becoming someone that you're so proud of. Fitness is the foundation. It can catapult you into so many amazing other things once you just show up for yourself.

Do these things I'm talking about. Honor yourself. Follow through. Keep the promises you make to yourself. Build momentum instead of waiting for it. Build it. Don't wait for it. Don't quit on yourself just because life gets hard. Guess what? Things are going to happen in January and February and March. Things are going to get hard. You know what's going to be the biggest transformation? Even when things get hard, follow through. That's it. Don't quit. Just follow through even when it's hard. Even if it's not perfect. It doesn't need to be perfect. All right? Because progress is progress.

Slow is progress. Consistency is still consistency. Every rep matters. Every step matters. Every walk outside matters. Every walk on the treadmill matters. Every tracked day with your nutrition matters. Every small decision adds up. It adds up to a big, big identity shift. A you shift. All right? So show up today. Follow through. Make it happen.

I hope that this episode spoke to you guys in the ways that you needed. If it did, screenshot it and tag me on Instagram, at Nikkiey Stott, at The WarriorBabe Show. I would love to see the light bulbs, the things that you needed to hear. Recap a sentence of what stuck out to you the most. All right? I love you guys. I'm proud of you guys. Let's finish this year strong. All right. Bye.

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