Your Body Isn’t Broken — It’s Just Responding to How You Treat It

00:00The only job your body has, and it's extremely simple yet complex, is to keep you alive. Everything your body does, every craving, every energy crash, every mood swing, that is just a survival response. If you are overtraining, it holds on to fat because you signaled physical stress. Training creates, it can create a healthy type of stress on your body, but overtraining and underfueling is signaling to your body physical stress.

00:33And especially if you are overtraining, which a lot of people do, they are moving more and they're eating less. What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkie Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. And 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.

01:03I am your host, Nikkie Stott, and welcome to episode number 311. And today, my friends, I want to talk with you guys about your body and challenge you in a way that I hope gets you to think about how you know your body. Because I know how it feels to be frustrated. I know what it feels like to try everything that you can to follow every single diet, to take every kind of supplement,

01:34to following every type of workout program, to only feel like your body is continuing to betray you. And you start to think that you're the problem. You start to feel hopeless. You start to turn trust, start to lose trust in yourself, that you're able to, you know, achieve the result that you want. Or even more so, not even just the trust, but the belief that you can achieve said result that you want to achieve. Whether it's losing weight or building more muscle, or you just like, you know, think it's just long gone. But the truth is, what I want to challenge this different perspective is your body isn't fighting you.

02:08It's honestly just responding perfectly to the inputs that you have been giving it throughout the years, decades, months, weeks, of maybe trying everything under the sun, but not being where you want it to be. It's responding to what you are giving it, essentially. Your metabolism, your hormones, your energy, your mood. These are all reflections of how your body has learned to survive. Let's just be honest.

02:39Like, the inputs majority of women in the fitness space, and even in society, the majority of the inputs are eat less, move more. And then that spider webs into wreaking havoc on your hormones, wreaking havoc on your mood, wreaking havoc on your metabolism. And that's all going to spiral into just the way that your body has been trying to survive for you and show up for you.

03:09And the moment that you start understanding that, and the moment that you start recognizing and bringing awareness, you guys know that that has been the word over the course of so many episodes. Once you start understanding, once you start bringing awareness to that thought process, and you start questioning the narrative of how you've been showing up and what you've been doing, and maybe these programs aren't working specifically for you for a reason, then you start to really unpack the ways maybe of which you should be going about it the right way.

03:42And then you can start to learn, and you will start to see once you pull yourself out of the years of doing it a certain way, and put yourself in the driver's seat of learning how to fuel your body and train your body for the right way, which is eating more and training less. And then the spider webs into all those things. But you'll start to learn how incredibly intelligent your body actually is. And first and foremost, let me just say, before we even dive in, it's a total rant. But you guys are going to get an ad during this episode. I'm just being very, very transparent.

04:13I am sitting with the most incredible blanket right now on my lap. It is the bubble blanket from Cozy Earth. This has been in my office chair since the moment I got it, and it hasn't left. It's been on my lap while I'm in meetings. It's been on my lap while I'm creating episodes. And I've been thinking, I'm like, this is, it's so comfortable. It's like, it's like that material, it's like bubble on both sides. And if you guys are watching this on YouTube, you'll be able to see it in video. But if you're not, and you're just listening on audio, you got to trust that this is the best blanket on earth.

04:46And I'm not just saying that. It's going to be, it's the best holiday gift. So I highly recommend it. It's one of those, like, you know, you don't know what to get your aunt, you don't want to get your cousin, you don't want to get your, you don't know what to get your friend, you don't know what to get your, your, your brother's wife or whatever. This is literally the best blanket. So you guys are going to get an ad later in the episode. I would highly recommend that you click on that link in the description and check it out and order this for a family member or a friend. Anyway, I digress. And rant. Back to the chat. Back to the episode. Okay, so I want to start first and foremost where, like, why we believe we're broken.

05:21Why do we have this thought process? Where does this thought process even come from? Where does belief even come from? And if you really want to, like, peel back the onion and try and get to the core of it, it's probably been conditioned in you for a really long time to believe our bodies need fixing. That, you know, could stem from childhood. It could stem from the way that you saw your mom die and grow up. It could stem from the things that you saw on the internet. It could stem from books that you read. It could stem from what a teacher told you in school. It could just stem from everything that happened when you were young.

05:51Or maybe even it happened when you were a teenager or maybe even in your early 20s or 30s or even something that maybe you thought to believe 10 years ago. It starts to condition. That starts to be conditioned in your mind. You start to believe that, okay, my body needs to be fixed. That being smaller is better. Or that if you're tired or you're bloated or you're moody or you're struggling, that something must be wrong with you. And then you're bombarded with quick fixes. You're bombarded with diet detox teas, with extreme calorie cuts, with endless cardio and

06:28moving more. And, you know, doctors telling you that you need to eat less and eat less. And that, you know, these miracle programs that are out there are going to promise you that you are going to get six packs abs in six weeks or whatever. What I used to say to you guys is like, and what love people love is you pop your body and a microwave and out in 30 seconds comes a toned body. Like you just, you're bombarded with that type of information. And when you do try those things and then they stop working because they always do, we then think, okay, the issue is me.

06:59The issue is us. The issue is I'm broken. The issue is, you know, you put the pressure on you and thinking that something is wrong with you. And then we think that, oh my gosh, we lack discipline. We don't have the motivation. We don't have the drive. We don't have the stamina to show up anymore. Or we just have bad genetics. You know how many times I've heard that from people? But in reality, your body is just so used to surviving. It's so tired of surviving. And I know I probably have unpacked that so many times in previous episodes, but that's

07:29the truth. If you think about it from like a scientific standpoint, our bodies are machines. Our bodies need energy to survive. Energy comes from food. If we're the majority of society under eats, they don't eat enough or they're not eating the right types of food. They're eating in excess carbs and fats. And that's how, you know, people are overweight.

08:00But, you know, say all that to be said that we're not feeling our body appropriately. And one of the caveats of that is not eating enough. And that means that we go into a different, our machine starts to operate differently. You spent years telling it to do more with less. Less food. Less rest. Less recovery. And your body, like I said earlier, is just responding to that input.

08:35Your body is just listening. And it's learned how to function on minimal fuel. It's adapted to your chronic stress levels. It has figured out how to keep you alive even when you're not, you weren't supporting it. You're not supporting it. First and foremost, you just like unpack that. And what I just said, it's not, it's not broke. That's not being broken. That's being brilliant. We live in pretty cool bodies that have the ability to do that.

09:09Even when we aren't helping to operate it at it or giving what it needs to operate at its best. It's still going to show up on a daily basis and do what it needs to do and function for us. And figure out how to live and keep you alive even when you're not giving it what it needs in order to help keep you alive. Even when you're not supporting it. That's brilliant. But, I shouldn't say but because but means that none of that even means anything. I should say and, the longer that you stay in that cycle, the more that your body's like brilliance starts to feel more like it is resistant.

09:46And you think that slowing down and getting older and you just, it just slowing down in general. You think that your body's just slowing down. You think that that's happening. But, what it's doing is it's trying to save you from experiencing burnout. And, what the new term is, crashing out. Essentially. And, I think that this part that I want to, this part is so important to understand. You guys. Your body doesn't care about how lean you are.

10:19It doesn't care about how defined your abs look or like what number is showing up on the scale. It does not care about that. The one thing that your body's, the only job your body has, and it's extremely simple, yet complex, is to keep you alive. And, everything your body does, every craving, every energy crash, every mood swing, that is just a survival response.

10:49It's your body being like, yo, hey, friend, knock knock. This environment isn't safe right now. I need to adapt. And, if you're constantly under eating, your body slows down the metabolism to conserve energy, quote, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, to keep you alive. If you are overtraining, it holds on to fat because you signaled physical stress. Let me make it, and then dot, dot, dot, dot, just to keep you alive.

11:19But, let me just make a correlation there because training creates, it can create a healthy type of stress on your body. But, overtraining and under fueling is signaling to your body physical stress. And, especially if you were, well, let me just say the word again, overtraining, which a lot of people do. They are moving more and they're eating less. And, so, it's just like, okay, signal to body, I'm under physical stress, dot, dot, dot. I need to conserve fat and hold on to fat just to keep you alive.

11:52Hey, quick pause, my friends, because I need to talk about the perfect holiday gift that's actually worth giving this year. And, that is Cozy Earth. I have been using their stuff for years now. And, their new bamboo pajama set is next level. It's this soft, stretchy knit made from viscose from bamboo. It drapes beautifully. It sleeps cooler than cotton and it just feels so luxurious. Especially around this time of year, like, when nights get cooler. It's just this cozy pajama set without, like, overheating.

12:25Like, literally perfect for holiday mornings or, like, slow nights chilling on the couch. And, if you're gifting this season, grab their bubble cuddle blanket too. It is ultra soft, mid-weight, and has this plush bubble texture that looks just as good as it feels. It's literally my go-to for, like, any movie night or just a slow Sunday morning. It's like that can't-stop-touching-it kind of comfort. And, Cozy Earth gives you a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty. So, you can literally shop totally risk-free.

12:57That says so much about their quality of their products. And, right now, Black Friday has come early. So, go use my code MACROHOUR on top of their site-wide sale for up to 40% off. These deals won't last. So, start your holiday shopping today. And, if you get a post-purchase survey, make sure to mention the MACROHOUR. Thanks, guys. All right, let's get back to the show. If you are sleeping five hours at night, four or five hours, I don't even argue six, your cortisol is rising.

13:30And, at that point, when that is happening, your hunger hormones get thrown off. That is why you experience, if you don't sleep well, why you have so many cravings the next day. Because leptin and ghrelin are all out of whack. Nothing about this is, quote-unquote, broken. And, that's what I've said in previous episodes. Like, I want you guys to know, you're not broken. If you are a warrior, babe, you've heard me say, you are not broken. If you've, you know, seen us all over the internet, and I'm saying, you're not broken. This is what I mean by that.

14:01You are not broken. Your body isn't broken. It is just protecting you. It's protective. Think about it like this. It's like a thermostat. It's regulating the temperature based on the conditions that it's been given. You can't expect to stay warm if you keep the heat off, right? So, you're thinking about it like that. Your body is always responding to its environment. And you, you, my friend, listening to this episode right now, whether you're driving, you're working out,

14:33you're on a walk, you are the environment, you in your car, if you are stressed out because you were late getting to work, or somebody in front of you pissed you off and cut you off, you are signaling a stress response. If you woke up this morning, and you did not eat, and you just were like, oh, I've just been so busy. I didn't get to eat before I left the house. You are signaling a type of signal to your metabolism to slow down and conserve energy because you're stressed out.

15:04You're getting, you got to get the day to get through. And that's the environment that your body is in. You are the environment. If you are somebody that is listening to this and has just trained six days a week and hasn't taken a day off, you're signaling physical stress to your body, especially if you're not eating enough. You are the environment. And your body talks to you every single day. But this is the thing. Most of us have forgotten how to listen to our bodies. Majority of people, I would say, because I know I'm one of them, live here in our mind.

15:39And we just go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. But our body is at a lot of times. It talks to you multiple times. So every single day, it's trying to signal you, tell you things, communicate with you. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I need rest. I have cravings. My mood is off. My body is sore. I'm having poor stool regulation with my digestion. I'm pooping weird.

16:10And I just recorded an episode about this probably a couple weeks ago. Your body is speaking to you through biofeedback. It is speaking to you through your energy. It's speaking through your sleep, your hunger, your cravings, your mood, your recovery, your digestion. And when something is off, your body doesn't just whisper. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. That little, that constant tension in your shoulders and your neck. It ain't whispering, my friend.

16:40Trust me, because I have that constantly. I am also preaching to the choir when I'm talking to you guys in this episode, hoping that I also give myself some accountability here as I'm preaching to you guys. Your body is shouting at you. When something is off, it's shouting at you. I can say right now in a very transparent way throughout this week has been very stressful for me. I'm trying to let me. It's been stressful. I should just I'm not very. It's just been a week of work, of getting ready for some big things are happening, new opportunities coming away, conversations are being had, being and having and holding space to go off away from work and be with friends.

17:24Then I leave for a vacation or not a vacation, a wedding tomorrow and the travel and then all of the chaos with the flights right now and everything like that. Right. So it's like my body is trying to be like, girl, you are stressed out. And I know some of you guys are feeling that same way, too, given some different circumstances that are happening in your world. And it's shouting at you and things and your body probably has been. It's not even just this moment. It could be the fact that you are under eating and your body has been trying to tell you something for the last six months to a year. It's shouting at you, but we've been taught to silence it.

17:59We ignore hunger because we already we already ate or I just don't have enough time and I need to run out the house. We push through feeling tired and push through the fatigue because, oh, you know, we just I need I need to show up. We just need to be tougher. Like I need to get this done. I just got to I just got to get the kids off to practice. I got to do a thousand things on my to do list. Right. You dismiss your mood swings or your irritability because, oh, it's just hormones. It's just my hormones. It's just it's just that.

18:30And we accept bloating. We accept anxiety. We accept exhaustion. We accept all of this is something that is normal. But none of that is normal. Your body is begging you for attention. And here's the truth. Your body will always communicate with you one way or another. If you listen when it whispers, it won't have to scream at you. But if you keep ignoring it, if you keep ignoring the fatigue, if you keep ignoring the cravings, if you keep ignoring the stubborn weight gain. And if you keep ignoring, you know, oh, I only eat a thousand calories a day.

19:01Like, you know it. You like you, especially if you're an avid listener of this episode of these episodes, you guys, you know that I said back in the damn like, you know, I can just I can talk to you guys. But I don't want to talk to you guys until you're blue in the air. Like I want you guys to actually do something about it. Go take action. There's been some incredible success stories. I've come back just by listening to this podcast of people losing 40 to 80 pounds and feeling so much stronger and better. And their health is totally done a, you know, full circle and they feel way better. So by now you probably should know you should be eating more.

19:33And I know some of you guys know that. But actually implementing it, I get can be really hard. But if you keep ignoring those things, then those whispers are going to turn into symptoms that eventually are going to force you to pay attention. So I don't want you to think about, oh, I'm not losing the weight. Oh, my body, it's broken. My body is punishing you. I don't want you to your body isn't punishing you. It's trying to be like, yo, girl. Knock, knock. Yo, I need your attention on some things. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause?

20:10It'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.

20:41Take 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. Okay, it's knocking at the door being like, girl, pay attention. I'm trying to tell you something. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause?

21:13It'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.

21:44Take 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. Okay, so maybe helping to break this out a little bit further. How your body is adapting when it's under this chronic stress, either physical or emotional. There are things women call, quote unquote, broken. But they're really just the adaptive responses that your body is going into.

22:19So when your metabolism slows down because you've been under eating for too long, that's your body conserving energy, right? When your hormones shift, like your estrogen, your progesterone, your thyroid, that's because we'll all experience that, ladies. That is because your body is trying to maintain equilibrium with limited resources that it's getting. And at that point, when you do start shifting, you know, warriorbabe was all we help women in menopause, either pre premenopausal, menopausal, postmenopausal.

22:50But we recognize, okay, this is a period of time that your body is shifting gears. Now we really have to load it with the resources that it needs. We can't continue to under eat and over train. We can't continue to go pray that every single workout is going to help us out of a bad diet. We need to double down on the resources and give it what it needs, which is a different protocol than what you were doing in your 20s and your 30s. Okay, but some other things anyway, get back on track. Like when your digestion slows because your body prioritizes survival over digestion, that's conserving energy.

23:24When you hold on to body fat, you're not because you're eating too much, but more so think about it like this because your body is like it's holding on to because it doesn't know when it's going to get more foods perceiving danger and refuses to let go of that body fat. And these are all things that women are calling themselves broken around. I'm holding on to fat. My digestion is slower. My metabolism is slowing down. My hormones are shifting. I'm broken. Your quality of your sleep drops and it's dropping because the adaptive response are all adaptive responses.

23:54These are happening because this is what's happening. Your quality of sleep drops because you're having high cortisol is keeping you wired at night, which let me just unpack that for a second because it's all a spider web. If your sleep quality is dropping because you're having high cortisol, which is keeping you wired at night. It's not just because you were paying attention to your phone and couldn't fall asleep and now the blue light is messing with your brainwaves of your mind. It's not just that. It's not just that. It could be that you didn't eat enough food during the day.

24:27And so it's going to spike cortisol in the middle of the night, which is natural adaptive response. And that's going to keep you wired. And that's going to keep you wired by not sleeping at night or not eating enough. Do you see that spider web under eating and over training spider webs into your recovery, into your digestion, into your mood, into your sleep? It's this whole mechanism of thing. Anyway, one last thing is what people say is when they think they're broken is that your cravings start to increase.

24:58But your cravings are increasing from the adaptive response that your body is begging you for quick energy. It's begging you for fuel because it's not getting enough of it. So when you have those candy cravings in the middle of the day, it's because you didn't give your body enough fuel yet throughout the day. You didn't give your body enough protein to make you feel satiated. Every one of these things that I just mentioned is an adaptation. It's not a malfunction of your body. Your body is doing exactly what it's designed to do.

25:29But it can't heal until you change the environment it's responding to. Okay, so I'm sure you guys know what I'm going to say. And this is what, you know, I said in many episodes when it comes to the tactical side of things. You will see that I'm pretty consistent in this response. And I will say this because I was just doing a success interview with a worry about the other day, which I know that you guys have been listening to some golden ones that I've been posting on the podcast platform. But this one said the other day, she was like, you know, when I first saw some videos of you, Nikki, you just resonated with me out of the gate.

26:03I know that like you say that like, you just reword things over and over and over and over again. You probably say things differently, but they're pretty much the same concept. But it may resonate with one of you guys at a different time. Maybe you've heard me say what I'm about to say six months ago, but it didn't resonate then. But you're like, this is landing right now. My mind is locked in. Everything you're saying is making sense. And maybe what I'm going to say next is going to be like the light bulbs are going off, even though I've been saying this in every single episode.

26:35But that's what it makes it all worth is I don't care when it lands. I just hope it lands. So what do you need to do? What do you need to do to create the sense of like trust and safety? Something that your body can feel safe in the environment. It's not about feeling comfortable. It's about giving your body what it needs to function optimally. What do you think I'm going to say? Feed it. Stop starving yourself. Eat your protein. Eat your carbohydrates. Eat your healthy fats. Your metabolism needs that energy to burn energy.

27:08Our bodies are machines. Think of our bodies as cars. What do you put in a car to make it run? Gas. Okay. In the parallel to our body, gas is fuel. Gas is food. The next thing we say is rest it. If you are 1000% exhausted, no workout plan or supplements going to fix that. Rest is not like some luxury, you know, and you got to you got to earn it. Like if you are working out and you're doing the work and you're feeling your body appropriately, I need to say like, then you deserve that rest.

27:39Rest is a requirement. But you need to make sure that you're doing, you're eating, you're moving your body, you're eating right and you're resting. And you should know that eight hours of sleep isn't something, it's not selfish. It's literally hormonal therapy. Like the stages of sleep that your body goes into helps to the recovery process of healing your body and your hormones. You got to work out. You got to, but you got to train smart. It's not about overtraining. It's, it's lifting, doing strength training, like building your body up, not, not like breaking it down with too much cardio or overtraining and doing seven days a week.

28:17And you don't earn your, you don't need to earn your food by working out. I know a lot of us have that mentality. That was me back in the day too. You need to eat so that you can train for strength and longevity, not you punishing your body at the end of the day. Stress. You got to manage your stress. Your body doesn't care if it's had a hard workout or it's busy at a job and there's emotional chaos. It all looks the same internally. And you can't live in fight or flight and expect to lose fat and to build muscle.

28:47So like taking it seriously, like meditation or deep breathing or prayer or, or walking outside or journaling or just sitting in silence. Like man, that is just easy ways to manage your stress. And then you got to give yourself grace and you got to be patient. You have spent years ignoring your body. It'll take time to rebuild that trust. You just have to be patient.

29:17It's not going to happen in a month. It's not going to happen maybe in three months, maybe in six, if you're consistent, maybe in a year, if you're consistent, but you got to be patient with yourself. You got to look at like every meal, every night of rest, every moment of just slowing down. That is you, that is you signaling to your body that says, okay, cool. We're safe now. We're slowing down. We're not going on. We're not in fight or flight. We're not, you know, having a lion chase after your nervous system. And once your body believes that it's, it'll start responding the way that you want to.

29:50Okay. So I hope all of this is clicking for you guys. And I hope that it's helping you guys. And that you're like, oh, this is really like, you know, this is really hitting home for you. I want you to leave this episode knowing that you are not broken. You don't need fixing. You just need nourishment. Your body isn't your enemy. It's, it's, it's honestly, your greatest teacher is trying to show you these things. It's trying to be like, hey girl, knock, knock, pay attention to me. It's constantly giving you this feedback and it's constantly adapting every single day.

30:23It's constantly trying to protect you, even when you're working against it. Every symptom that you've hated, every plateau, every craving, every mood swing, every, every pound gain has been communication. Think about it like that. My body is trying to communicate to me and it's not, not, it's not punishment. It's not you failing. It's not you being broken. It is communication and you don't need to fight harder. You just need to listen to your body better. You need to give it what it needs. That is eating more and training less, moving your body with intention and having the appropriate

30:56workout plan that's going to support your goals, which is going to spiderweb into all of the other things like your nutrition and your sleep and your recovery and yada, yada, yada. Okay. So feed it, move it with love, rest it with intention. Speak to your body with respect, slow down. All right. Cause remember your body's not broken. Your body is so brilliant. It's so smart. And once you start treating it that way, then you'll finally feel like I got control and

31:28I feel confident. I'm stoppable. I'm stoppable now. All right, everyone. Hope this helped you. I love you guys. And I will see you. Oh yeah. Check out that cozy earth blanket. No joke. It's still on my lap. I freaking love this thing. All right. Love you guys. See you in the next episode. Peace out. 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 the fitness and their confidence.

32:01It 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.