Why Your Weekends Are Stalling Your Fat Loss

Nikkiey: What a lot of women need to do is stop over-restricting yourself Monday through Friday. This one's a huge one. If your weekdays are too low calorie or too rigid or too all-or-nothing, the weekend is going to feel like a need instead of you having a choice.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode number 289. Today, my friends, today's episode might ruffle a few feathers, and that's exactly why I'm going to do it. I want to talk to you guys about what I feel is possibly the thing that's secretly stealing your progress on a week-to-week, week-over-week basis. I'm just going to give you guys 10 seconds to think about what that could possibly be. If it happens week over week, week after week, what could it be?

Okay. If you guys thought your weekends, then you are right. Your weekends are stealing your progress week after week. And if you're someone who says, "I was so good all week, but the scale didn't budge," then this episode, my friend, is for you. Because the truth is, you can't out-discipline your Monday through Friday just to let your Saturday and Sunday destroy it. You can't be all in it, gung-ho, determined Monday through Friday and just let your Saturday or Sunday destroy it.

And what's wild is that most women don't even realize how those two to three days are literally hitting reset on your fat loss goals. It's like hitting the reset button on your fat loss journey.

This gets me thinking. A couple years ago, I got reamed out on social media with this post. I really don't care, because it's calling out things honestly. Some people don't like to hear it because it exposes where people are falling short and need to take responsibility. At the same time, I'm not saying that to shame or to judge anybody. I'm here to just bring awareness and provide you guys facts and solutions to help you. And that's exactly what I'm going to do today. I'm going to break it all down for you.

That post was: if you count the seven days of the week, and you count the five days that you're showing up, but you go off board the two days, you take five divided by seven, and that's around 70%. In my world, y'all, 70%, especially in nursing school where you had to get a 77 or above, 70% is failing. I don't know about you guys and your schools and the grading system back then, but in my world, 70% is failing. So you are technically failing along your fat loss journey.

I don't want that for you guys. I'm sure you guys don't want that for yourselves. But that's where I'm here to call out the awareness for those that don't realize how those two, possibly three days, literally every week, week after week, you're hitting the reset button on your fat loss journey. And you're wondering why you're not seeing anything change.

So I want to be real honest with you guys, because I've heard this so, so many times. I've heard, "I eat clean all week. I get my workouts in. I don't snack. I'm super good. But then the weekend comes and I black out. I drink, I eat out, I skip tracking. And then by Monday, I'm just bloated and I'm discouraged." I've heard that so many times. Does that sound familiar for you? Because if it does, just know that you're not alone.

But what's really happening beneath all of that is that you're in this restrict-reward cycle. You're chasing, quote unquote, freedom on the weekends because you're white-knuckling your way through the week. You're like, "Man, I just got to push through. I got to do this Monday through Friday. I got to show up. I got to do X, Y, and Z. And then I can be free on the weekends." And you're accidentally sabotaging your results in the name of, quote unquote, balance. "Oh, it's just balance."

Guys, let me pull the curtain back a little bit more. Let's do some more math for a second. Let's say that you are in a modest calorie deficit, possibly 300 to 500 calories a day, Monday through Friday. That's about a 2,000-ish calorie weekly deficit. Then Saturday hits. You go out to brunch with your girlfriends. Maybe you have a couple drinks. You go have dinner out with your family. Then you have dessert. Then you have late-night snacking. Your Saturday looks drastically different than your Monday through Friday. With that Saturday, with those things that you do, you could easily eat back 2,000 to 3,000 calories in a single day.

And not because you're bad. Not because you don't have any willpower. Not because your willpower lacks. Not because you don't have any discipline. Not because you're not motivated on the weekends. It's because you're human. And those weekend environments are designed to override your goals.

So then Sunday comes. You're already feeling a little blah. So you either restrict again (hello, guilt that you may be experiencing from the day before), or you say, "Ah, screw it," and you keep going. And now you've fully erased the deficit that you've been in for the week, maybe even gone into a possible surplus. And guess what? Like I said a couple of minutes ago, that scale, the results you want, the before and after pictures, the weekly measurements, it's not moving, because you're in a cycle of undoing your own hard work.

And then the kicker. Let me pull the curtain back a little bit more. The cycle doesn't just stall your physical body results. It totally messes with your mind. Undoubtedly messes with your mind. Because you start to feel like, "Oh, man." That's why I want to bring awareness here. You guys all know about awareness.

I'll say this is what I've learned in my personal life, literally today. I didn't want to hear what I heard today. I needed to hear what I heard today to put me back on the right track. I didn't want to hear it. Oh, trust me, I was in tears. Didn't want to hear it. But I needed to hear it. And that's what I'm hoping this awareness does for you guys. You don't want to hear me saying this because I'm exposing some things. But I wouldn't be doing you guys a service if I didn't try to change the way you think about your journey and call out your blind spots. That's what a really good coach does. And that's what I'm here to do for you guys, because I love you guys.

But like I said, it starts to mess with your mind, because you start to feel like your body is broken. You start to feel like, "Man, something's wrong with me. I'm not seeing any changes. Why am I not seeing it?" To circle back to that thought really quick and close the loop: what I said earlier is that some women don't even realize those two to three days are throwing them completely off track. And that's where it starts to mess with your mind. Because when you don't have awareness of it, you start to feel like, "Something's wrong with me. My body's broken." Or you even start to question the methodology. You start to question if macros even work. "All this tracking, all this work that I'm doing, does it even work?"

Let me put a pin right there, because macros have worked for thousands of people. It's not the system. It's most likely the human that's trying to work the system. And again, I'm saying that with love.

Another way it messes with your mind is that you start to feel frustrated. You start to feel so defeated. And that's literally when you start to have those feelings of, "It's not working. I'm frustrated. I just want to give up." Those feelings will fuel more of your screw-it behavior. But your body, my friends, is just doing its job. It's literally responding to the inputs that you give it on a daily basis. So again, some more awareness to take responsibility and ownership if all of this is speaking to you. Because your body's just responding. It's not your body's fault. Again, it's the human operating the system.

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This is why I say that fat loss isn't just about what you do Monday through Friday. It is about what you consistently do over time. Day in, day out. Hour by hour. Decision by decision. Consistently over time. Even all of these small things that you add on the weekends can slow your progress. Even these occasional binges can reset your metabolism and your rhythm.

So let me pause here for a second, because I want to get a little bit more into the why. "Why does this happen, Nikkiey? Why do I do this?" I want you to think about that. Why do we do this? I want you to think about that honestly, and I would even encourage you to journal it if you need to. Because most of the time, this pattern is a response to over-restriction. You're spending the week being, quote unquote, perfect. But that's not sustainable. We know that's not sustainable. It's not enjoyable. We know that's not enjoyable. It's an all-or-nothing mindset. So the weekends become your escape. Your dopamine hit. Your release valve.

And the more this happens, the more your nervous system expects it. The more your brain craves it. And the harder it becomes to change. But the answer isn't that you need to be more perfect and restrict more and go all-or-nothing even more, or push even harder, or force all of these things. It's more about the balance. It's freedom being baked into your plan, not outside of it.

At least I can speak for WarriorBabe, because I know what we do inside of WarriorBabe. You have a plan. We meet our babes where they're at. If we know this is something you struggle with, I'm not going to be like, "Yo, cut that out immediately because it's sabotaging your progress." I see that you struggle with that. Valid. You don't really have any other knowledge or support or accountability that has helped you navigate that. So while it's valid that you've had that experience, I'm here to help change it. We're going to bake it into your plan, where we learn, and I'm going to talk about solutions in a second, to maybe have flexibility on the weekends. Okay?

So let's dive into the solutions. Here's how you break that cycle.

Start tracking the weekends without any type of judgment. Don't change your habits yet. Just allow yourself to be. Give yourself grace, because you're learning how to fix it. Just track the weekend. Bring awareness to how much you're actually eating, or how much you're actually not eating, because it can work both ways. Like I've said numerous times, awareness equals power. So track the weekends.

Another thing: plan for flexibility. If you know Saturday night is a date night or a night you go out with your friends, or Sunday is a family brunch, work that in. Shift some macros around earlier in the day. What I would say is just make sure you nail your protein intake for the day. Because more likely than not, that family brunch is going to be overloaded with carbs and fats. You're probably going to hit your fat number just in that family brunch. Maybe not your carb number, but probably definitely your fat number, or at least half of it. So the rest of the day just needs to be focused on getting enough protein in, getting some veggies in, and maybe sprinkling a little bit more fat and carbs into the meals.

If you have to, pre-log the meal. Some of you know about searching restaurants and looking at their menu. Some restaurants nowadays have the macro breakdown. It may not be perfect, but at least it's something for you to track. Have a plan. And if you don't even know where to start here, if you don't have a plan, if, like I was saying earlier, you don't have the knowledge or the experience or the accountability, that's what we have at WarriorBabe. We have that for you. It's literally a click away in the description below this podcast. We've got your back there. Go check it out. WarriorBabe.com.

Another thing: ditch the good versus bad mentality. It's not "I was good all week and bad on the weekend." That's totally shame-based. Shaming yourself. Instead, it's, "Was I aligned with my goals? Did I feel good afterwards?" Those are more awareness, honesty, and responsibility questions you could be asking yourself.

And then what a lot of women need to do is stop over-restricting yourself Monday through Friday. This one's a huge one. If your weekdays are too low calorie or too rigid or too all-or-nothing, the weekend is going to feel like a need instead of you having a choice. Remember, first and foremost, if your fat loss plan, if your fat loss journey, is not flexible, it's not sustainable. If you are following an end-of-summer fit plan and it's extremely restrictive, it cuts out carbs, it tells you you can't do these things, that's not sustainable. What I'm saying here is, we recognize that you struggle with the weekend, so we're going to work that into your plan. Call it what it is. And our coaches are all designed to have that same type of mentality.

So, the solutions. Start tracking your weekends. Bring awareness to it, please. Awareness equals power. Plan for flexibility. You know Saturday night is going-out night or Sunday is brunch day. Plan it. Shift some macros around. Focus on your protein. Have a plan. Ditch the good versus bad mentality: "I was good all week. I was bad on the weekend." Stop that. That is so shame-based. Be a little bit more honest: "Was I aligned with my goals this week? Where can I do better?" And then stop over-restricting. If your weekdays are too low calorie, you're going to be wanting and needing the weekend. And that's not flexible. That's not sustainable.

I want to share something really quick that I see that's really powerful in the WarriorBabe community. Some of the most successful WarriorBabes, the ones losing fat, the ones keeping it off, the ones feeling so in control, what I see and what's so cool is they're not perfect. They're consistent. They don't blow up their weekends because they're restricting Monday through Friday. They build in wine night. They log pizza. They make it fit. Or even if they don't log the pizza, they are aware that they ate the pizza. It is what it is. They're not going to guilt themselves into their workout the next day.

You don't have to live in the type of prison that the fitness industry and diet culture have made it feel like. You don't have to live in a food prison. You just have to live more in alignment. And I know that may feel like, "Well, I don't even know how to do that, or where to start, or what to do first. I haven't ever lived in alignment, so I don't even know the first step." And that's okay. That's where you would seek help. Ask for help to get into alignment.

The way I look at it is, what if your weekend didn't feel like a rebound? What if it didn't feel like a break from your goals, but just a continuation of them with flexibility? That's what it's all about. You don't need to feel like, "I'm taking a break from my diet." It's not about a diet. It's about a lifestyle that you're building for yourself with new habits.

So here's your permission, straight from your coach, straight from the WarriorBabe team. Plan the burger. Have the burger. Log the wine. Enjoy the wine. Enjoy the dessert intentionally. And then wake up Monday with no guilt. That's freedom. That's balance. That's results. At least I can speak to the women of WarriorBabe: that's a result for them, because of the way they used to look at food previously, or feel about food previously, or feel about the guilt or the shame previously.

So guys, if this episode hit for you, I want you to leave with this. You need more grace. You need more planning. You need more awareness. You don't need more willpower. Your weekend doesn't have to wreck your results unless you let it. And you don't have to start over every single Monday. You just need this new rhythm, and it's exactly everything I'm saying here. And if you want help building that rhythm, you already know where to find us. That's what we do every single day at WarriorBabe. WarriorBabe.com.

All right. So I hope this was the tough love, wake-up call, ruffle-some-feathers type of vibe that you guys needed. Again, I do that with love. I say this with love. It's what you don't want to hear, but you need to hear it.

And one last thing. I recorded a pretty dope podcast. It's going to release on Monday for you guys. It's a little bit of a life update. I haven't really been showing up on social media as much as I used to, and there's a reason why. I still show up here. I love the podcast. Podcasting is where my jam is at. I feel like I can be everything that I am here with you guys. But I get a little bit more vulnerable and open about why I've been feeling off lately, as I've been sharing on Instagram with you guys. So tune into that on Monday. I would love it if you guys did. It would mean a lot. And hit me up afterwards if that episode resonates with you.

But anyway, I hope this one resonated with you guys, if you needed that tough love. I love you guys so much, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Hey, really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If 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 their 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.