How to Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle: 3 Key Rules

Nikkiey: What's up, WarriorBabe? Hey, everybody. Nikkiey here, and welcome to our Sunday WarriorBabe Revolution Rally Call. I am so stoked to be here with you guys and spend the next 15, 20 minutes getting you fired up for a new week ahead. We'll get started in just a few minutes on today's topic, so go leave a comment for the other WarriorBabes inside the group and let them know this call is getting started.

This one's going to be a little bit more informational in terms of macros and making sure you're on the right track with your goals than talking about mindset. All right? I know you guys love the mindset side of things. It's really freaking important, really valuable for your journey. But I thought I'd throw in an important reminder to ensure that you guys are on the right track with your macronutrients, and just the overall course of your journey here.

So we'll get started in just a few minutes. Go leave a comment and let those other WarriorBabes know that the rally call started. I love seeing them inside the group after these calls end. But before we dive in, I want to give a huge, huge welcome to all of the new WarriorBabes who joined us this last week. You guys are now part of a community of thousands of women who are getting toned and becoming stronger, more confident versions of themselves. Guys, WarriorBabe is where strong is your sexy. So if you guys are new, I'm stoked that you're here, a part of this community.

You are collectively working together with other WarriorBabes towards the same goal. You guys have the same things that you want to achieve, and you can heavily lean on this community for support, for inspiration, for motivation. That's why we have the accountability partners, which I will talk about in a second. But welcome to all the new Babes. I am very excited for your journey here, and I love being able to see your transformations inside of our community.

If you guys are new to WarriorBabe, we do these rally calls every single Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So if you are new, immerse yourself in everything WarriorBabe. Listen to me, hear my language, hear how I converse with everybody. Tune in to these rally calls. Tune in to the Q&As every single Wednesday. Make sure that you show up for yourself here inside of the community too, other than just showing up for yourself on a daily basis. The more, the better. So mark the calendars and set your alarms for these rally calls. Set your alarms for five minutes before this call starts. All right?

Really quick, before we dive into today's topic, again, go let the Babes know this is getting started. But I do want to run through a couple of normal things that I run through with you guys. If you are new and this is your first rally call, and really the veterans too, please make sure that you guys are not ignoring my emails on a daily basis. Make sure you are going through the first 14-day email sequence that I'm sending you, because each day you are being sent one task to complete that's going to set you up for long-term success here.

I like to think of it as your transition here to WarriorBabe: eliminating anything that you've ever done or tried in the past, and being able to reframe the mental side of things about the new journey that you're embarking on here moving forward. Those blast-off video sequences are going to entail going through and setting your goals, setting your why, knowing what you're here to accomplish, and then diving into how to get your macros set, and then diving into workouts. So don't ignore those blast-off emails. Go through them. They're so freaking important.

And then the last thing before I dive into this Q&A. I just got done with Q&A. The last thing before I dive into this rally call is, if you guys are new to the community, don't go into our Facebook group and be the person to ask questions that can be answered inside of your application, okay? Take the time to search there. Listen to everything I'm sharing with you. There's tons of golden nuggets inside the application. There are videos to watch, less than five minutes, that will get you to understand the questions that you probably do have just starting off.

If the question that you're looking for is not answered inside the app, then go to your home screen and click on Need Help, and that will bring you to our Frequently Asked Questions resource page. It's an entire platform with all of our most frequently asked questions that my team updates every single month with an article, with pictures and stuff like that, that answers the question that you may have.

Now, it's not likely, but if your question can't be answered inside of the app or the FAQs, then you can head into the Facebook group and ask your fellow WarriorBabes, or tag Kate, who is our Community Revolution Manager, and she will be able to get back to any questions that you have in particular about your journey or wherever you need support within 24 hours. She's always super active inside of our community and helping you guys out. All right?

So the last place that you guys should be going is to support. Support should be the last place you go to get your questions answered, all right? Because they're not on the nutritional or fitness side. They're more on the technical side, the membership side. So if you have questions, make sure you're going through the application, make sure you're checking out our Frequently Asked Questions page, and then ask your community whatever questions you have starting off. All right?

Okay. So today's topic that I want to talk about, I've shared this before on Instagram. Maybe you don't follow me on there, so I want to bring it into our community right now. I feel like it's a really important concept to understand when it comes to how you can lose your body fat without losing muscle. It's a common thing that I hear women talk about when they're starting their journey: they think that they're going to lose muscle as they're losing weight. And that is a common thing.

I talked about this on a rally call before, the difference between weight loss and fat loss. If you are following a program that just focuses on weight loss, yes, you will also lose your hard-earned muscle that you have been working so hard to put on, because weight loss is completely different than fat loss. But being a WarriorBabe and being inside of WarriorBabe, your goal is to decrease body fat while maintaining your muscle structure, which is essentially going to show more tone and change your body composition. Okay? So you're decreasing the body fat that is around your muscle. That's the type of programming that I have put in place with WarriorBabe and what you guys are following.

Now, I want you to understand the why and the how of losing that fat without losing the muscle. And to be quite honest, I can guarantee you that these three pointers I'm going to share with you have your name written all over them, especially with whatever you were doing before you became a WarriorBabe. This probably has your name written all over it.

And I know this because at the beginning of my own journey, I wasn't doing any of these properly. If you're just focusing on the weight loss side of things, it'll lead you to having more of a skinny fat look and being frustrated. That's exactly how I felt, because I thought that I was working really hard, but working hard and working smart are two completely different things.

Making sure that you're fueling your body with the right intake that you need to be able to sustain muscle yet decrease body fat is completely different than just focusing on weight loss and maybe just hitting a calorie number, or following a PDF, or following the same plan that everybody and their mother is following. Eating 1,200 calories, that's weight loss. Anybody and their mom can join something that's telling you to eat 1,200 calories. And maybe you'll lose weight and then be frustrated in two months about why you're not losing anymore, and you'll just look skinny fat.

So, anyway, getting to my three pointers of how to lose fat without losing muscle. The first one is you have to be eating adequate amounts of protein. And this is a common thing that I hear. A lot of women find it really hard to eat their protein, or really hard to hit their protein numbers. I can relate to this from when I first started my journey too. I was looking for easy things, the Nature Valley bars or Clif bars, things that seemed super healthy.

And yes, they have like five grams of protein, but they're also packed with carbs and fats. So it makes women feel like they're eating all this food, but they're getting nowhere near an adequate amount of protein.

Let me make my point first. If you were following a diet before WarriorBabe and you weren't eating enough protein, I can guarantee you that you probably realized your end result was just looking skinny fat rather than looking toned, right? Rather than the result that you wanted and thought you were going towards. I was there too, and I was frustrated. I wasn't eating enough protein. I didn't know how to eat enough protein.

But losing fat without losing any muscle requires that you eat enough protein to preserve the lean muscle mass that you have. In order to keep your lean muscle structure in place, you have to be eating adequate amounts of protein, because protein is a building block of muscle. It's what's going to preserve the muscle structure on your body. So eating adequate amounts of protein is key to watching that body fat shrivel off your body while your body maintains the structure that you have. All right?

So this is where your macronutrient protein really freaking matters. This is why calories aren't the important part. You'll see you don't have to worry about calories inside of the application. It's just giving you your macro breakdown, and it's already putting you in a deficit if you're focusing on toning and shaping and changing your body composition. So macronutrient ratios really freaking matter. Your protein really freaking matters.

What I recommend for anybody who really struggles to hit their protein numbers, which is a common thing that I hear, is to focus on lean protein sources, anything that doesn't have fats or carbohydrates in it. That's going to entail chicken, ground turkey, egg whites... sorry, I just got sidetracked for a second, squirrel brain. But chicken, ground turkey, egg whites, ground beef, lean fishes, and if you're a vegetarian or vegan, tofu and tempeh. Tempeh has some carbs in it.

But those, and protein powders, are really good lean protein sources where you're not going to run into, oh my God, it has carbohydrates and fats. Plus it's whole foods, and you should be eating whole foods over artificial foods. So making sure that you're getting some of those lean protein sources is really going to help you master the protein game, make sure that you're getting enough protein into your system, and hit the protein numbers that are recommended here inside WarriorBabe. All right?

Now, another way to lose fat without losing muscle, and you guys all know this by being a WarriorBabe now, but maybe you're new or maybe you've done this before and you didn't know why: you cannot shave off too many calories, okay? You cannot shave off too many calories. You cannot deep dive into a serious freaking caloric deficit where you're eating next to nothing, like 1,100 calories, 1,200 calories. That macro breakdown is like nothing.

If you're eating 1,200 calories a day, keep in mind, you guys, your basal metabolic rate, or your BMR, is just the calories that you burn sitting down, talking and breathing throughout the day. For the majority of humans, that BMR number is around 1,200 calories. And that's just sitting, breathing and talking. That's not incorporating you walking around, you running, you doing your exercise. That will then bring you up to something like 1,800, 1,900, depending on your age and your stats and that kind of stuff.

So you cannot deep dive into a serious caloric deficit, which is what most women think they need to do in order to get toned. They think they need to eat less. Look, listen to me loud and clear, and I hope that this just breaks your belief system, because so many women come into WarriorBabe and they're like, I'm so afraid to eat this much food. And if you don't eat this much food, clearly you're going to keep getting the results that you were getting. So trust me now, believe me later.

Trust me now, believe me later. And I love, love it when you do trust me now and believe me later, you commit to eating more food, and your belief system is shattered. That's what's going to elicit change for you. All right?

So listen, crash dieting, putting your body into a serious caloric deficit, is putting your body into starvation mode. Like I said, your body needs to be able to function and live off at least the 1,200 calories, because that's what you're burning by breathing, sleeping and talking. So if you're deep diving lower than that, your body is going to go into starvation mode. And at that point, guess what? It's going to start metabolizing your muscle. Restricting your calories too much is literally counterproductive to what you're trying to fucking do, right?

It's going to start metabolizing your muscle if you're eating 1,200 calories. And the muscle that you're trying to build to get you toned is going to be shriveled away. It's going to be eaten at to try and keep you alive. Plus, restricting your calories too low means you won't be getting the appropriate amount of vitamins and nutrients that your body and muscles need to recover. So it's counterproductive to what you're trying to do, right?

Think about this. Think about a time where you didn't eat enough and then you absolutely pushed yourself to the max during your workouts. How freaking sore were you afterwards? Insanely sore, right? It's because you won't be able to heal or recover from your workouts when you're restricting yourself from food, and then you won't be able to get the toned body that you want.

So it's completely counterproductive if you are eating at an 1,100 or 1,200 calorie deficit. And if you are here inside of WarriorBabe and you are still in your own ways of fearing food and looking at food as an enemy, you're going to get the same fucking results, right? So just do what I'm telling you to do and eat more food. It's as simple as that. Get the fuck out of your own way. And I say that in a loving way. You guys know my personality here.

But anyway, the last thing that you guys need to do is you need to eat fucking carbohydrates, okay? You need to eat carbs. Please, please. I've literally helped thousands of women, and you guys are a majority of them. Many of them have tried keto. You guys have come in having tried keto or low-carb plans. It's all short-lived success. You have short-lived success and then you pile the weight back on. You just gain the weight back. I'm talking to you. I know I'm talking to you.

And this leaves you frustrated and back to square one, not only losing the weight again, but also having to balance your whacked-out fucking hormones. So this type of diet, keto, may work short-term, but long-term it's not sustainable. And it's restricting carbohydrates, which are a key macronutrient needed to build and recover muscle, and building muscle will get you toned. All right?

So you have to eat carbohydrates. You need them for the types of intense workouts that you are doing. And you need them if you want to be able to get toned and build muscle, which, like I just said, is what gets you toned. Carbohydrates are your friends. They are not enemies. So please enjoy your carbohydrates. Look at them as something that is fueling the change in your body composition, because that's exactly what they're doing.

One of my babes in the VIP, Cheryl, shared inside the Facebook group that she came in eating 270 grams of carbohydrates and lost weight. I'm trying to maintain her weight, so I bumped her up to 300 grams of carbohydrates, and she's still maintaining pretty well there. So I bumped her up again to 330 grams of carbohydrates. She's 57 years old, so fuck the age excuse. You guys can get your metabolism there if you just give your body what it wants, which is food. It needs food, especially to reach the goal of changing your body composition and building muscle, which gets you toned.

So to summarize the three points that I just shared on how to lose fat without losing muscle: make sure that you are hitting your protein numbers. Getting adequate amounts of protein is essential to preserve your muscle mass, or else you're just going to look skinny fat. Do not deep dive into a caloric deficit, okay? If you're coming to WarriorBabe and you're afraid to eat more food, trust me now, believe me later. Break the belief system that less food is going to get you toned, because it's not fucking true. And the last thing is you've got to eat carbohydrates. If you want to build muscle and you want to be toned, you have to make carbohydrates your friend and not your enemy, all right? You have to learn to appreciate that carbohydrates are fuel for your metabolism and fuel for building the body that you want.

All right, babes, on that note, I'm going to end our rally call. If you guys enjoyed it, please let me know inside the Facebook community, and tell me if a bunch of light bulbs went off in your head. I appreciate the feedback. I will see you guys on Wednesday. Remember our new time for our Q&A on Wednesday: 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Mark your calendar and set your alarms for that new time, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Kate will be notifying you guys inside the Facebook community that the new call time is taking place this week.

All right, rockstars, start your week off strong. Set your macros and plan ahead. Get that inside MyFitnessPal tonight and be on track tomorrow and the rest of your week. All right, babes, see you later. Bye-bye.