Real answers from WarriorBabe's coaches
Straight answers to what women over 40 ask about fat loss, menopause, protein and lifting, drawn from every video and episode. Tap play on any question to hear our coaches and guests answer it.
Metabolism, Eating More & Reverse Dieting
Start smaller and simpler. Eat protein early, spread food across smaller meals, and use easy go-to foods and carbs that don't weigh you down. Nikkiey explains that low appetite is usually a sign of consistent under-eating. Women on the show say the stuffed feeling fades within a few weeks as real hunger comes back.
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Building Muscle After 40
Yes. WarriorBabe's coaches explain that long, frequent cardio without strength training can lead your body to break down muscle tissue for fuel, which lowers muscle mass and slows your metabolism. Pair that with undereating and you sit in a catabolic state: you may weigh less, but you lose muscle and end up skinny fat instead of toned.
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Diets, Fasting & Diet Culture
No, not for most women. Nikkiey explains that keto can work if you follow it strictly, but it isn't designed to be sustainable. Almost nobody gives up carbs for the rest of their life, going in and out of ketosis stalls progress, and cutting carbs can make building muscle much harder.
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Protein for Women
Build your cart around cheap protein staples and plan ahead. One WarriorBabe coach's example day of overnight oats with Greek yogurt and protein powder, chicken thighs and rice, cottage cheese and a banana, and a ground turkey taco bowl costs roughly $7 to $8. Adding eggs, extra rice and an evening yogurt snack reaches 160 to 180 grams for under $10.
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Fat Loss After 40
Cardio itself isn't bad after 40, Nikkiey says, but too much of it becomes a problem when it's your main fat loss tool, especially without enough food, recovery and strength training. Then it can stress your body, cost you muscle and slow your metabolism. Use it as a supplement, not the star of the show.
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The Scale & Tracking Progress
Because the scale measures total body mass, not fat. Nikkiey explains that water retention, sodium, glycogen from carbs, inflammation from hard training, stress, your cycle, poor sleep, constipation and travel can all push the number up overnight. None of that means you gained fat. Watch weekly trends, measurements and photos instead of single weigh-ins.
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Sleep, Recovery & Lifestyle
Take at least two rest days a week, Nikkiey says, and one of them can be active recovery like a walk, yoga, stretching or mobility work. She trains four days a week herself. One, two or even three rest days won't stall your progress. They help it, because rest is when muscle is built.
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Meal Prep & Workout Nutrition
A good high-protein breakfast for women over 40 pairs protein with carbs. Examples include egg whites with one whole egg and a bagel or oatmeal, a Greek yogurt and granola bowl, a protein oatmeal shake, or cottage cheese with fruit. Breakfast should anchor your protein target for the whole day.
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How to Get Toned
No. WarriorBabe's coaches explain that women don't have the testosterone levels to accidentally build huge muscles, and after 40, declining testosterone makes building muscle harder, not easier. What lifting gives you is firm, defined arms. Muscle creates tone, not size, and arms that get no training tend to lose shape and look soft.
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Hormones & Hormone Health
Often because normal isn't the same as optimal. Nikkiey explains that standard lab ranges come from population averages wide enough to include about 95% of people, including those who are unhealthy, insulin resistant, sedentary or already symptomatic. Basic panels also tend to leave out key markers, like a full thyroid panel or testosterone.
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Food Noise, Cravings & Overeating
No. Nikkiey Stott says cutting out the foods you crave usually backfires: the more you forbid a food, the louder it gets, until you eat it anyway and spiral. Instead, she recommends planning those foods into your plan in moderation, so they lose their power and you can enjoy them without guilt or losing progress.
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Holidays, Travel & Social Life
You don't owe anyone a debate or an explanation. Nikkiey's advice is to smile, take a breath and say something simple like "I feel really good eating this way," then move on. The comments usually say more about the other person than about you, so keep your confidence quiet, grounded and steady.
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Women's Health & Aging
Yes. On Ep. 142, pelvic health expert Kim Vopni says research clearly shows Kegels are an effective way to overcome pelvic floor dysfunction like prolapse and incontinence. The catch: most women do them incorrectly, decide they don't work and quit. Done correctly, consistently, and paired with resistance training, they do their job.
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Supplements & Creatine
Not on their own. Nikkiey says no supplement will get you fat loss results, and she won't recommend fat burners. On The WarriorBabe Show, her answer is that your best fat burner is a calorie deficit, strength training to build muscle, your daily steps and the cardio in your plan. Supplements may help along the way, nothing more.
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Consistency & Mindset
No. Across several episodes, Nikkiey says your goal is to win the majority of the time, not every day. Consistency doesn't require perfection, but it does demand predictability: some days are 100 percent effort, others 10 percent, and you keep showing up. The nuance is that results tend to track how consistent you actually are.
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Strength Training for Women
Work up to a pull-up in stages. WarriorBabe's coaches recommend starting with inverted pull-ups until they feel comfortable, then jumping up to the bar and slowly lowering yourself (negatives), then banded or machine-assisted pull-ups, and finally full bodyweight pull-ups. Each stage builds the back, arm and core strength the next one needs.
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Macros & Macro Tracking
Nikkiey's answer is at least a year of consistent tracking, and often longer. Across episodes she gives ranges from one to three years, and her own journey took six to ten years. The finish line isn't a date. You keep tracking until you can eyeball a plate and estimate its protein, carbs and fat without weighing.
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Metabolism, Eating More & Reverse Dieting
Raise your calories slowly instead of all at once. Nikkiey's approach is to track what you actually eat for a week to find your baseline, then add roughly 50 to 150 calories at a time, mostly from carbs and fats. Keep protein steady and watch sleep, mood, energy and hunger before each next increase.
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Building Muscle After 40
Nikkiey says to lower calories slowly rather than all at once, and to keep protein the same or nudge it up so you protect the muscle you just built. Track progress with photos instead of the scale. Expect your strength to dip a little, and expect some hunger. A small protein increase often helps.
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Diets, Fasting & Diet Culture
No. Nikkiey Stott says intermittent fasting isn't necessary for fat loss. A calorie deficit combined with physical activity and strength training is what drives it. She calls fasting overrated for healthy women, warns that skipping meals often leads to overeating later, and says your muscle needs regular fuel to be built and repaired.
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Protein for Women
Build up gradually instead of jumping to your full target. Nikkiey suggests adding about 5 grams of protein per meal, or roughly 20 grams a day, across three to four meals. A protein shake adds 20 to 25 grams. Aim for 100 grams first, hold it for one to two weeks, then keep climbing.
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Fat Loss After 40
For most women over 40, yes. One WarriorBabe coach says walking 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day is more effective for long-term fat loss than daily HIIT. Walking adds less stress and doesn't leave you hungrier or less active afterward. HIIT can still have a small place, one or two short sessions a week, alongside strength training.
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The Scale & Tracking Progress
Daily weight swings are mostly water and food, not fat. Nikkiey explains that the scale reacts to carbs, sodium, sugar, hydration, your menstrual cycle, undigested food, bowel movements, stress, travel and sore muscles after a hard workout. A two to three pound swing is completely normal, and it usually balances out in a day or two.
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Sleep, Recovery & Lifestyle
No. Nikkiey's advice is to wear your Apple Watch for steps, movement and heart rate, but not to eat back the calories it says you burned. Trackers estimate burn from generic formulas, and studies she cites show they can be off by 20 to 80 percent. Eating that number back can quietly stall the scale.
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Meal Prep & Workout Nutrition
The rule of thumb is that after something fast-acting, like a protein shake, drinkable yogurt or fruit, you can train within about 30 minutes. After complex carbs like oatmeal, brown rice or whole wheat toast, give it about 60 to 90 minutes. They digest more slowly but keep your energy steady through the whole session.
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Menopause & Perimenopause Weight Loss
One WarriorBabe coach explains that menopause belly fat is hard to lose because falling estrogen shifts fat storage to your midsection, much of it as visceral fat that drives insulin resistance and more storage. Rising cortisol adds to it, and the usual fix of eating less and doing more cardio raises cortisol further, so the body holds on tighter.
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How to Get Toned
No. WarriorBabe's coaches are clear that you can't target fat loss to one area. Planks won't burn belly fat and tricep work won't burn arm fat on their own. What works is training your whole body, especially with compound lifts, and eating enough protein to build muscle while you lose fat overall.
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Hormones & Hormone Health
Yes. On the show, strength training is one of the main tools for insulin resistance. Nikkiey explains that building muscle improves insulin sensitivity, and Dr. Morgan Nolte says muscle is the main reservoir for the glucose you eat, so more muscle means less glucose spilling over into fat tissue and a lower insulin response.
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Food Noise, Cravings & Overeating
Constant hunger usually means your body is underfed or unbalanced, not that you lack willpower. Nikkiey points to three common causes: too little protein, blood sugar swings from fast-digesting carbs eaten on their own, and simply not eating enough overall. Small hunger cues are normal; feeling starving all day is a signal to change the plan.
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Holidays, Travel & Social Life
Schedule your workouts before the holidays hit and treat them like non-negotiable appointments. Nikkiey says something is always better than nothing: a 20 to 30 minute session counts, with intensity over duration. Set a realistic number of days, and if you train four days a week, move sessions anywhere within the seven days.
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Women's Health & Aging
Not necessarily. On Ep. 339 of The WarriorBabe Show, reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Jaime Knopman explains that you can keep having periods into your 50s, but egg quality may be so reduced that it wouldn't lead to a healthy pregnancy. Her shorthand: menses does not equal motherhood. Talk to your doctor about your own situation.
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Supplements & Creatine
Creatine can lead to dehydration, but only if you aren't drinking enough water. Nikkiey explains that creatine pulls water into your muscles, so your body needs more fluid to stay balanced. Drink plenty of water every day, take creatine with a carbohydrate-rich drink or meal, and check with your doctor before starting.
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Consistency & Mindset
Stop trying to become someone who works out and start acting as someone who already is. Nikkiey explains that the most consistent women in the WarriorBabe community see themselves this way. They back that identity with structure: workouts blocked in the calendar, a minimum version for hard days, and small daily wins that build evidence.
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Strength Training for Women
Lift heavy enough that the last three reps of every set are challenging while your form stays good. Nikkiey says that if you finish a set thinking it was easy, the weight is too light. You don't need huge numbers. You need a weight that's hard for you, and you need to keep adding to it over time.
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Macros & Macro Tracking
No. Nikkiey Stott says counting macros isn't a diet but a skill set that serves you for life. Diets are temporary and hand you rules to eliminate foods. Macros don't ask you to cut anything out. Your numbers should fit your lifestyle and goals, and over time you learn portions well enough to eyeball a plate.
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Metabolism, Eating More & Reverse Dieting
WarriorBabe's coaches suggest adding roughly 50 to 150 calories per week, after first tracking a full week to find your true starting intake. Bring protein up first, then carbs and fats. Hold each increase for one to two weeks while watching energy, sleep, mood, digestion and your weight trend before adding more.
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Building Muscle After 40
One WarriorBabe coach says most women over 40 who lift weights three to four days a week need somewhere between 1,700 and 2,200 calories a day, not 1,200 or 1,400. Where you land in that range depends on your body. Eating too little doesn't just burn fat. It breaks down the muscle you're trying to build.
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Diets, Fasting & Diet Culture
Yes, but it's harder, and Nikkiey doesn't think it's the best route. She explains that intermittent fasting can work for muscle if you hit your calories, prioritize protein, keep your fast to roughly the overnight hours, and train inside your eating window. Long fasts without enough protein work against muscle growth.
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Protein for Women
Both. WarriorBabe's coaches don't treat it as either/or. Keep the yolk, because women over 40 need its cholesterol, vitamins and fats for hormone production, then add egg whites for extra protein without extra fat. Nikkiey's own breakfast for three years has been one whole egg plus 100 to 150 grams of egg whites.
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Fat Loss After 40
Keep it small. Nikkiey recommends starting about 10 to 20 percent below your maintenance calories, or roughly 300 to 500 calories, and many women can lose fat at just 10 percent below. Aggressive cuts speed up muscle loss, drain energy and trigger metabolic adaptation, so start small, keep protein high and keep lifting.
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The Scale & Tracking Progress
Take progress photos about once a week. Nikkiey says that's what WarriorBabe does, though bi-weekly or monthly can work better if seeing the photos is hard for you. Don't take them daily the way you might step on the scale. Pick one day and shoot front, side and back in the same conditions.
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Sleep, Recovery & Lifestyle
Sometimes, yes. Nikkiey says that if you wake up exhausted after poor sleep or a stressful day, you can push that workout to the next day and still be consistent. On heavy days, she gives permission to scale back, take a walk instead of a PR attempt, or rest without guilt.
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Meal Prep & Workout Nutrition
Meal prep should take about 30 minutes to an hour, according to Nikkiey, and under 45 minutes to an hour even when you're cooking for a family. It should not take two or three hours. At first she suggests blocking one to two hours, because it gets faster each time you repeat it.
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Menopause & Perimenopause Weight Loss
WarriorBabe's coaches explain that eating less during menopause costs you muscle, and with fewer estrogen receptors your body already struggles to hold on to it. Less muscle means a lower metabolic rate. Restriction also leaves you stuck, with nothing left but cutting further, which they say isn't sustainable. Their fix is eating more, especially protein, plus strength training.
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How to Get Toned
Bat wings shrink when you lose body fat and build real triceps and shoulder muscle, not when you add more light arm exercises. Nikkiey explains that bat wings combine excess upper-arm fat, lost triceps muscle and reduced skin elasticity. Nutrition comes first, then challenging strength training reveals and shapes the arm.
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Hormones & Hormone Health
No, not necessarily. Nikkiey says that if your goal is to build muscle and lose body fat and you have no underlying health issues, you don't need to intermittent fast. She has worked with people reversing insulin resistance who ate macro-based meals that included carbs, ideally with guidance from someone who understands this.
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Food Noise, Cravings & Overeating
Stop feeling guilty after overeating by naming the regret, offering yourself a self-compassion statement, reframing it as one moment rather than your whole story, then pivoting to one helpful action in the next hour. Nikkiey's point: a few days off plan is not failure, and punishing yourself with less food or extra exercise is not the fix.
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Holidays, Travel & Social Life
You're hungrier the day after drinking because alcohol wrecks your sleep, and poor sleep throws off your hunger hormones. Nikkiey explains that ghrelin, the hormone that drives hunger, goes up while leptin, the one that signals fullness, goes down. The result is a bigger appetite and junk food cravings the next day, sometimes for several days.
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Women's Health & Aging
Nikkiey's take: don't wait until 65. That's the standard recommendation for a DEXA scan in women of average risk, but she considers it too late. She suggests asking your doctor for a baseline scan in your 30s or 40s, and pushing harder if you have risk factors or are in perimenopause or menopause.
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Supplements & Creatine
Creatine can make the scale go up, but it doesn't make you fat. Nikkiey explains that creatine pulls water into your muscles, making them look larger and fuller. That extra weight is mostly water, usually temporary, and sometimes new muscle. Track your progress with photos instead of the scale so the number doesn't throw you.
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Consistency & Mindset
Keep asking yourself why until you get past the surface goal. Nikkiey says losing weight, toning up or looking good in a bikini are fine goals but superficial. Ask why you want them, again and again, until you reach an emotional reason, like being a role model for your kids or keeping up with your grandkids.
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Strength Training for Women
Nikkiey's starting point is 60 to 90 seconds between sets for compound lifts like squats, deadlifts and presses, and about 45 to 60 seconds for isolation moves like curls. On heavier compound work she'll go up to two minutes. Above all, time it, because four or five minutes of scrolling breaks up the training effect.
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Macros & Macro Tracking
No. WarriorBabe's coaches explain that another woman's macros or meal plan were built for her metabolism, muscle mass, hormones, activity level, stress, sleep and history, not yours. You need your own numbers, based on your age, weight, muscle mass, activity level and goals, and those numbers should be adjusted as your body changes.
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Metabolism, Eating More & Reverse Dieting
If you've been dieting for years, usually yes. Nikkiey explains that if you're eating 1,200 to 1,400 calories and not losing, have been in a deficit for years, can't feel hunger, or keep losing and regaining the same weight, cutting more isn't the answer. Retraining your metabolism up to maintenance first makes the fat loss that follows far easier.
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Building Muscle After 40
Yes. On The WarriorBabe Show, coaches and guests agree that some fat usually comes along when you build muscle. That is the cost of a build. The goal is to maximize muscle and minimize fat. Nikkiey adds that much of the scale increase is muscle, water and glycogen, not just fat.
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Diets, Fasting & Diet Culture
Not by itself. Nikkiey explains that weight gain comes down to your total calories and energy balance for the day, so eating at 8 or 9 p.m. is fine if you're in a deficit. The real catch is sleep: some women sleep poorly when they eat close to bed.
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Protein for Women
A complete protein contains all nine essential amino acids, the ones your body can't make and must get from food. An incomplete protein is missing one or more. Complete sources are mostly animal-based, like chicken, eggs, fish, Greek yogurt and whey. Incomplete sources are mostly plant-based, like nuts, beans, lentils and oats.
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Fat Loss After 40
Nikkiey says sustainable fat loss might average 0.5 to 1 pound per week, and some weeks you'll see nothing because water retention, your period or stress can mask progress. Judge the trend over months, not days, and don't measure yourself against anyone else's timeline. Moving slower is how the women who keep it off got there.
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The Scale & Tracking Progress
The extra weight the day after leg day is water, not fat. Nikkiey explains that hard training creates tiny tears in your muscle fibers, and your body pulls water into those muscles to repair them. Legs are among your biggest muscles, so a temporary rise of a pound or two is normal.
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Sleep, Recovery & Lifestyle
Not really. Nikkiey explains that fitness trackers and heart rate monitors estimate calories burned with generalized equations that don't account for your individual metabolism, so the number is a rough estimate at best. She goes further: that calorie figure isn't directly linked to your metabolism, so judge your training by strength, measurements and how you feel instead.
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