Why Muscle and Mitochondria Beat the Scale for Fat Loss

Nikkiey: What's up, what's up, what's up, WarriorBabe? Nikkiey here, and welcome to our Saturday WarriorBabe Revolution Rally Call. I am so excited to be here with you guys. We'll get started in just a few minutes. So go and leave a comment inside the Facebook group right now. Let the babes know that the call is getting started and they don't want to miss this one.

This is going to be absolutely fire with today's topic. It's going to resonate with so many of you. So go into the Facebook group right now and let them know that this call is getting started and they don't want to miss out. They don't even want to wait for the eight hours that it may take us to get the recording up and into the application. Say that in the comments.

If you guys are new to WarriorBabe, we do these calls every single Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. So make sure you mark your calendars and set your alarms. Get on here at least five minutes before we even get this call started. Get your headphones in. Whatever you're doing, all you have to do is tune in and listen to me get you amped up for the week ahead. You don't want to miss this. Mark it, set it in your calendar, set your alarms, because each week is a hot topic that is going to get you fired up and ready to roll into your new week. So really quick, before we get started, make sure you comment in the Facebook group. Let them know we're getting this call started. It's going to be fire.

Before we get started, let me run through some updates with you all. If you guys are new to WarriorBabe, please make sure that you are going through all of the WarriorBabe Revolution blastoff emails. They are so freaking important to you and your journey ahead, because there are a lot of mindset exercises. Eight or nine of them are mindset videos that cannot be overlooked along your journey. They're so important to set you off on the right foot. The reason these blastoff emails are the way they are is that there are 14 of them, and they're there to give you just one task per day that's going to set you up for long-term success. Make sure you go through all of them first, before you even dive into everything. I help you go through mindset, then macros, then workouts, then understanding that this is a whole lifestyle moving forward. All right?

Also, I know there are a lot of new babes joining the group. That's so freaking awesome. I'm so glad that you guys are here and so stoked for your journey ahead. One thing that I want to say is: don't be that person asking a bunch of questions that can be answered inside your application. Take the time to go through the material that I am giving you. Take the time to listen to everything that I am sharing with you. All the tools are literally inside that application. Now, if the question you're looking for is not answered inside the application, you can go to an entire resource page that I've built for you, the Frequently Asked Questions resource page. That link is at the bottom of every single module inside the application. If the question is not answered inside the app or on the Frequently Asked Questions resource page, then head to the Facebook group, and myself, Kate and all the other WarriorBabes will help you with any questions you have to give you clarity moving forward.

Also, you don't want to miss any of the Q&As that I host every single Wednesday. Those are really important too, to get clarity on any questions that you have. I will be there in real time answering all your questions.

All right, guys. Are you ready? Let's dive into this topic. It's fire. It's going to be freaking awesome. It's going to create such a massive light bulb inside your head as I talk about each and every point I'm going to share with you. So let's just dive into it.

Today's topic is the three hidden secrets between weight loss and fat loss, and why your goals should always be focused on fat loss. There is a huge difference between losing weight and losing fat. All right? Anybody can lose weight. You can jump into a crash diet where you basically don't eat anything, like every restrictive diet that is out there. And yes, you are going to lose weight. But just losing weight will leave you looking like a smaller version of a fat person, because you have no muscle tone underneath your skin. How many of you guys have experienced that already? How many of you have gone through these restrictive diets and you just look like a smaller version of a fat person? Right?

When you just lose weight, unfortunately, the weight that you lose will be a little bit of everything. It's going to be fat. It's going to be muscle. It's going to be fluid. It's going to be organ size. Losing weight encompasses all of that: fat, muscle, fluids, everything. Now, if you're only concerned with seeing a smaller number on the scale, then you may be losing valuable muscle instead. And over a long period of time, if you're constantly not eating enough and constantly doing this restrictive dieting, this can result in long-term weight gain, meaning fat gain. So how many of you guys have come off these restrictive diets and you gain that fat back instead of preserving your muscle, or you lose your muscle in the process? How many of you have gone through that? It's because there's a massive difference between just losing weight and losing fat.

Now, the ultimate goal here, as a WarriorBabe, for successful weight loss is to preserve as much muscle as possible, or possibly even gain some, while at the same time losing as much body fat as possible. So your body fat percentage is the key indicator of your success, not that number on the fucking scale. And I'm going to embed that in your brain even more with the points I'm going to go through in the next couple of minutes. So listen up. If you need to, get some pen and paper and take some notes, because this is going to drastically change your mindset around the scale and your progress moving forward along this journey.

So let's dive into these three hidden secrets between weight loss and fat loss. Number one: body weight is often used as a big indicator of your progress. Am I right? How many of you guys are scale slaves and let that number justify your success every single time you step on it? You see it go up and you're like, fuck, man, I'm not losing the weight, I'm frustrated. How many of you guys do that? How many of you let that scale control your life? Even if you don't, you still want to listen up.

When people attempt to change the way their body looks and they don't see pounds coming off the scale each week, they tend to get a little discouraged. Does that sound like you? Do you get discouraged when that number is not changing? And you still get discouraged even if you do see inches coming off, or progress in your before and after pictures, even if your energy during your workouts has increased or your clothes are fitting better. All of this disappointment stems from thinking that in order to change your body composition, you must lose weight. But you probably don't realize, or maybe forget, that muscle, fat, bone and water all contribute to the number that you see on the scale each second, every minute, every hour and every single week.

Also, you've probably heard that muscle weighs more than fat. If you are just monitoring your weight, you are not seeing the big overall picture. Okay? So, muscle weighs more than fat. You've probably heard that. Well, a pound is a pound. Both fat and muscle weigh the same. But one takes up significantly less space. If you put five pounds of fat next to five pounds of muscle, and I saw one of the babes share this picture inside the Facebook group, you see that fat takes up way more space and way more volume than dense muscle does. Therefore, it is possible that you can weigh the same as, or even appear slimmer than, another person who weighs the same amount, is a similar height or has the same frame as you, because there's a difference in your body composition.

So I'm 5'6" and I weigh 150-some pounds. I'm going to look completely different than somebody who's my same height, 5'6", and weighs 150 pounds but doesn't have dense lean muscle and is just fat. My body composition is completely different because I have dense lean muscle, and fat takes up more space than the dense muscle that I have. The difference is having more dense muscle than fat.

To paint this a little clearer: at the beginning of my journey, I weighed 140 pounds, but I was skinny fat and small, and I didn't want to be that. I wanted to be dense, lean muscle and strong. Now I weigh 155 pounds, so my body composition is completely different. I weigh 15 more pounds than when I started. So if you can't get comfortable with the fact that the scale number is going to go up, this journey is not for you. Get it through your head that the scale is going to change. It's going to increase. And it's because you're putting on dense lean muscle in the process. Don't let body weight be a big indicator of your progress. Let the percentage of body fat that you are losing be the key measure of progress on your journey.

So that's the first point. This is fire, you guys. I don't know if you feel it, but I feel it.

The second point I want to make is that muscle trumps fat. I know I just made a valid point about how muscle trumps fat, but let's dive even deeper into it. Muscle is vital to your success in losing fat. Mark that down. Write that down. Muscle is vital to your success in losing fat.

We're going to get a little scientific, so turn on your thinking caps with me. Muscles have these little burning powerhouses called mitochondria. Think of mitochondria as the cellular power plants that are responsible for the production of your energy. Okay? It's in the mitochondria that fat is metabolized. So the mitochondria are the cellular powerhouses responsible for your energy, and it's in the mitochondria that fat is metabolized. Now, I'm sure you're thinking, well, how the hell can I get me some more mitochondria to burn off this fat? Am I right? Am I right?

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That's how you create more mitochondria. That's how you create more energy. That's how you make the fat-burning process happen even faster. By creating a large demand for energy above what your body can already produce, your body is forced to create new mitochondria in order to be prepared for the next time your muscles call on that extra energy. Is this all making light bulbs go off inside your head?

Now, the coolest thing about the correlation between the two is that they are both active tissue. Both mitochondria and muscle are active tissue. Like I said at the beginning, if you are only concerned with seeing a smaller number on the scale, you may be losing valuable muscle instead, which can result in long-term weight gain, meaning fat gain. But unlike fat, these muscles and mitochondria need constant energy to maintain themselves. And where do you think they get that energy from? The food that you eat on a daily basis. Because muscle is metabolically active, it lights up your furnace. It keeps your metabolism brisk and burning fat all throughout the day, even when you are sitting on the couch or sleeping.

So if you just focus on weight loss, if you just focus on that fucking number going down on the scale, you're also losing muscle, which means your furnace will slow down. Your metabolism will get sluggish and the weight just keeps coming on. Guys, muscle is vital to your success in losing fat. You have to be implementing the workouts that I am providing you inside WarriorBabe. That is going to put more muscle on your frame. That is going to tone and shape your body. That's going to bring the tone out from underneath the fat. But if you just focus on losing weight, you're also losing that muscle, which just makes you more of a smaller version of a fat person.

You have to implement all the tools I'm providing you. Don't even second-guess them. Don't say, oh, I want to keep doing the workouts I'm doing. Fuck the workouts you've been doing, because obviously they're not working. You have to implement everything that I'm providing you inside WarriorBabe, because this shit works. The only way this can fail is if you don't implement what I'm giving you. Don't focus on the number on the scale, because there's a huge difference between fat loss and weight loss.

Okay, so that was the second point: how vitally important it is that you focus on building muscle with the tools I'm giving you. And to stem off from that, what do you think I'm going to say next, with fuel being the energy source for these muscles and mitochondria? They need constant energy to maintain themselves, and that constant energy is food. You have to make sure you're eating the right amount that your body needs. So what do you think I'm going to say next? Nutrition is key. Dialing in your nutrition is so vitally fucking important. You have to be filling your body and muscles with enough food to produce these effects inside your body and get these powerhouses to metabolize your unwanted fat.

Now, I know it's a huge shift in mindset, because we've all been trained and conditioned to think that the only way you're going to lose weight is by seeing that number go down on the scale. That's why the mindset exercises I provide inside this program are so vitally important, to understand that this is completely different from everything you've ever done before.

That was point number two. Point number three: fat loss progress is far more linear than weight loss progress. Fat loss is a far more steady development, as opposed to a constantly fluctuating one like weight loss. With fat loss, you are going to see a steady development of losing body fat. It's going to go in one linear line, as opposed to weight, which is always fluctuating.

For example, our body fat percentage or lean muscle mass does not fluctuate when we drink a glass of water or eat a big meal and then step on the scale. Only the body weight fluctuates there. If you weigh yourself at the beginning of the day and then again at the end of the day, you can see several pounds of difference. Right? If you get on the scale in the morning and then at night, yeah, your weight is going to go up. But hold up. That doesn't mean you actually put on all that weight and fat throughout the day. Get that through your head. You cannot put on, say, three pounds of fat in one fucking day. It's a combination of so many different factors, like water weight, like sodium intake, like inflammation from working out, which cause your body weight to fluctuate so intensely.

Keep this as a reminder: the next time you step on the scale, do not let that number justify your success. More often than not, it will leave you feeling so fucking defeated, like you're not making any progress whatsoever. Guys, if this doesn't make you want to throw away your scale, I don't know what will. Put that thing in the closet, put it underneath your bed, or build a better relationship with it. Only weigh yourself every two weeks or once a month, because now you know that weight loss is so different from fat loss.

The way you can successfully focus on fat loss without getting hung up on the number on the scale is by taking accurate measurements of your body using a tape measure. I provide you a video inside the mindset modules showing exactly how to measure your body the right way, so check that out. Or get an analysis of your body fat done through body scans like Bod Pods or InBody machines. Those are not 100% accurate, but they at least give you a starting point, and then you can use that as your measure throughout your journey.

Guys, to look like a fit, healthy person, losing fat, having muscle and eating enough to preserve that muscle is absolutely necessary. In this process, you will be losing fat but gaining and preserving lean muscle mass, which in turn is what will change your body composition. If you just keep doing more of what you've been doing, with a restrictive diet and just focusing on the number on the scale, like I've said three times already, you're just going to be less of a fat person. Your body is going to look like a smaller version of a fat person. But if you focus on what I'm sharing with you right now and everything inside WarriorBabe, losing fat while gaining and preserving lean muscle mass is what is going to change your body composition. It's what makes the muscles pop out from underneath the fat, with body fat decreasing where you don't want it to be.

So during that, the number on the scale may increase, which is absolutely okay. It's just the dense muscle that you're putting on. Guys, trust the process. I can't say this any more. We're going to make T-shirts or something of it, or have a banner that says trust the process. Everything inside WarriorBabe focuses on fat loss, to preserve and build a body composition that you love. The only way it will fail is if you don't do the work and take action with the tools, with the mindset, with the macros, with the training, with everything that I have provided you. Show up for yourself every day and fall in love with this journey.

It is drastically different, and I can say that with confidence. It is drastically different from what so many of you have done. This is not a restrictive program. This is not focusing on weight loss. This is focusing on fat loss while preserving your lean muscle mass at the same time, and building muscle in the process. So fall in love with this journey. One day, as long as you put in the work and show up for yourself every single day, you will see your hard work show. Mark my words on that. I promise you that. But the only way that's going to happen is if you get the fuck out of your own way, throw away the scale and start implementing the right things that are going to get you where you want to be. And that is inside WarriorBabe. Woo!

So, guys, that concludes today's rally call. Please let me know inside the Facebook group if you enjoyed today's topic, if it really hit home, if it resonated with you. Promise me that you are going to stop looking at the number on the scale as a measure of how your progress is going, and start implementing what I just shared with you today. And let the other babes know how powerful this topic was, so anybody who missed it makes sure to catch the replay inside the app. Every single WarriorBabe has to listen to this topic today, because it is going to drastically change so many people's mindset moving forward.

All right, guys, I'm going to tune out for now. Let me know what you think inside the Facebook group, okay? Have an awesome rest of your day. Kick ass and keep showing up for yourself. Bye, guys.