How Many Protein Shakes a Day? Whole Food Protein Q&A

Nikkiey: What's up, WarriorBabes? Hey, everybody. Nikkiey here. Welcome to our live WarriorBabe Q&A time together. I am using a whole new system, so I apologize if I look like I am super confused. I just want to make sure that I'm able to see your comments coming through.

All right. I see Kim. I see Nicole. What's up, you guys? Hello. This is going to take me a little bit of time to get used to, but let's go into the group. As you're joining in, you know the drill. Comment, say hey, what's up. Let me see who's here.

You know that the more comments you leave beneath this video, the more it pushes the video to the top of the Facebook group, so the other WarriorBabes, maybe it's their first time or they're new to this group, can see this and click on it and join in live. If you're tuning in at a later date or time, then just do the hashtag replay, and please keep all of the questions that pertain to this Q&A here in the comment thread. That way Kate can come back at a later date or time and answer any questions that were left after we were done with this live time together.

So what's up, everybody? Hi. What's up, Courtney? What's up, Christy? There's definitely a little bit of a delay. So I'm going to say this right now: if you have questions, start commenting your questions in the comment thread, because we'll kick off this Q&A in just a few seconds once this lag catches up. If you start leaving questions now, I will see them coming through and we can kick off this Q&A in just a few seconds.

Before we dive in, and during this lag experience: if you're new to WarriorBabe, I am so excited that you're in here. I want to give a huge welcome to all of the new WarriorBabes who have joined us this past week. You are part of an amazing, inspiring and motivating community of thousands of women who are getting toned and becoming stronger, more confident versions of themselves with the truth of what it takes to actually change your body composition. WarriorBabe is where strong is the new sexy. So welcome, babes. I'm stoked that you are a part of this community.

If you're new, please make sure that you go through the WarriorBabe Revolution blast-off emails. They are so important for your journey here inside of this community, inside of this lifestyle. Those 14 days, one video per day, one task per day, are helping you lay down a strong foundation for yourself inside of this group and this program. They're also helping you transition into this lifestyle that you're becoming a part of. You're getting rid of anything that you've ever done and tried in the past, and you are now here learning how to rewire your whole journey as to what it takes to get to your goals. In the first 14 days, I'm helping you know exactly what you need to be doing and what you should be focusing on. It's going to create long-term, sustainable results. That way you don't need another program again. That way WarriorBabe is your last stop to the type of results that you want to see.

All right. I can see in the Facebook group right now. I'm watching myself and there's such a delay, but I won't look at that video because it's going to throw me off. So let me just open up all of these. Okay, here we go. I can see them. There we go. I think it's working. I can see everyone now. Christy, Courtney, Sandy representing Maryland. Nice. Narcissa, what's up, babe? Ashley. Nice. "Hi Nikkiey, I'm new and this is my first Q&A." Beautiful. Welcome to my new babes. I'm so excited that you are here.

All right, cool. So this is still working. I can just look at the thread. Yeah, I'm using Zoom to get into these Q&As because it's better quality. So first time doing it. First time for everything.

One thing that I do want to say before we kick off this Q&A: if you are new, please don't be the person who asks questions that can be answered inside of the application. Please, please, please. Don't flood our community with questions that can be answered inside the application. Take the time to search there. Listen to everything that I am sharing with you inside of the application. There are so many golden nuggets. Listen to the rally calls, listen to the previous Q&As. Absorb yourself in everything WarriorBabe.

If the questions you're seeking aren't answered in the application, then head to the FAQs page. That's a whole platform that my team updates every single month with common questions that we've gotten over time, and they're answered in article format with pictures and everything. So head there. Then, if your questions can't be answered there or in the FAQs, head to the Facebook group and ask your fellow WarriorBabes. The support inside this group is amazing, and somebody will be answering your question within like 30 seconds to one minute max.

And the last place you should be going is support for fitness and nutrition questions. My support team is not fit to be answering fitness and nutrition questions. They are support in terms of membership and technical problems and logging into the application and that kind of stuff. So please, if you have fitness and nutrition questions, your best bet is to keep it all inside our community, attend these Q&As, and tag Kate, who is our community manager inside of the Revolution, Kate Holly. If you tag her, she'll be happy to help. She pops in every single day to answer any questions she gets tagged in, or she scrolls through the community to see anywhere she can provide answers. She has been a WarriorBabe for years now, years, and has gone through the whole process herself and knows what she's talking about. So listen up to whatever she's got to give you in terms of support and answers to your questions.

Now let me dive into this Q&A and make sure that it's still working. Okay, it's still working. Great.

All right. Kim: "Is it okay that I'm drinking protein shakes sometimes twice a day to meet my macros?" I personally do not recommend getting your protein sources from shakes more than two times. So if you're doing shakes two times, fine. If you're doing two shakes and a bar, or two shakes and two bars, cut that shit out. You do not want to be hitting your protein sources with artificial protein.

You guys, I can speak to this right now and share my experience with you raw and unfiltered. I haven't shared this in the past week because I've been trying to figure out how to maneuver through it without needing to go to the hospital. Ever since coming back from Bali and living in an environment that I was not used to, I wasn't meal prepping all my stuff. I was going to artificial stuff. What would I be getting? Oh my God, why can't I think of it? Lunch meat, processed stuff, to meet my protein goals. And I even got a protein powder and I was using protein powder more frequently. And let me tell you, in the past week my body has been like, fuck you, I want some real food. Please give me some real food and I'll start being nice to you.

I have had the worst urinary tract infection, to the point where it was more of a kidney inflammation that led to a UTI. I'm going to go into the story with you, because you need to know this. And Kim, hear me loud and clear: you don't want to be having artificial protein sources. You don't have to be having tons of artificial protein sources. Everybody, please hear me out on that. I say it all the time. You can have a protein shake pre and post, but every other meal should be whole-food, non-processed proteins.

So my kidney started. I had left pain and then right pain. If you followed me while I was living in Bali, I had a kidney stone while I was in a third-world country and had to fight that off naturally. Anyway, I had left pain and right pain, and I'm like, oh God, I'm getting another kidney stone. But none of the pain I experienced with the kidney stone happened. So I was like, huh, I wonder what's going on. Then it started coming into my urethra and my bladder, and I started having problems urinating. And I was like, oh God, what the fuck is going on? So I was like, well, Nikkiey, your food choices haven't really been that great in terms of protein and the sources of protein you've been utilizing the past couple of months.

Needless to say, I did not end up in the ER, because I fought it off myself. I don't know if you've heard of holy basil. It's an adaptogen. It worked really well the first couple of days, and then it wasn't going away. So I researched more and found a product called Harmony. It's over there. It's a urinary cleanse, and I've been taking it for the past day, and it's literally made a world of difference. It literally saved my ass from going in and needing to get an antibiotic. I don't like taking antibiotics. I don't like taking any type of medicine, because I don't want my body to get prone to that kind of stuff. When I really, really need it, then I'll go and take it. But I felt like I could figure out how to do this naturally. So I fought it off.

But more on my story: your bodies are resilient. They're going to fight anything, but you need to be feeding them the right stuff. It came down to eliminating things and testing things out and seeing what it could come down to. As soon as I stopped drinking the specific protein that I was drinking, it stopped, on top of what I was healing myself with. I'm sorry, this went down a rabbit hole, but I felt like I needed to share this with you, because I haven't shared it yet.

You want to be eating whole foods, non-processed foods. It's your health. It may be a little bit more expensive on your grocery bill, but it's a hell of a lot less expensive than going out and spending money on dinner, lunch and breakfast on a daily basis. I went to Whole Foods the other day, I spent a hundred dollars, and that's going to get me through the rest of my week. So whole foods, whole foods, whole foods. That's the moral of my story right there. The moral of my 10-minute story.

All right. What's up, Marianne?

Nicole: "I've been doing WarriorBabe since April 2020." April, May, June, July. Three months. "I love this program. I'm currently doing 130 protein" — 133, 113 and 80. "The last two weeks or so I'm noticing that I'm still hungry." Oh, that's amazing. "What do I do? Stay at the same macros or increase something?"

I would probably recommend increasing your protein just a tad, Nicole, as protein is a really good macronutrient to keep you satiated throughout the day. But before you do that, there are a couple of steps you'd want to focus on.

Number one: if you're not drinking enough water, you are going to naturally feel hungry. One part of your brain controls both your hunger and your thirst. So if you are hungry, down some water really quick and then check back in 10 or 15 minutes. Was it that you were thirsty, or that you're actually hungry? Water is so, so important. That's my number one.

My number two: Nicole, how are you distributing your macronutrients throughout the course of your day? What I mean by distribution is, take your 133 protein and divide that by five, five being five meals, and that would be your target number to hit with your protein at each meal. Protein is going to keep you satiated. It's going to kill those cravings you have throughout the day. If you're bulking it at the beginning of your day, the middle of your day or the end of the day, you're going to notice cravings wherever you don't have an even amount of protein. So make sure you're distributing your macronutrients pretty evenly throughout your day.

And then the last thing I would go to is increasing your protein, because it's going to keep you satiated. That's my recommendation.

Sandy: "Is diet the only way to rid yourself of cellulite? I have it all over." No, strength training is a big thing. Strength training. A lot of women, and this is normal, do classes or Pilates or full-body workouts. Strength training helps you focus on a particular muscle group daily. That's why we have the splits that we have. We have two leg days, we have shoulders and biceps, or chest and triceps, or back, whatever it may be for the month. Strength training on top of diet is going to help you change your body composition.

But let me tell you, cellulite is going to take time. You really have to be consistent with your training and nutrition. You really have to be all in. You have to want to change your body composition, because that's going to take time, as it does for anything to reach a goal. So get yourself mentally prepared for that for your journey.

Marianne: "I was wondering what your thoughts are on taking collagen as a supplement. Is it necessary?" Collagen, for some people, isn't digested as a full protein. So I wouldn't attribute it to your protein numbers, because you may not be fully digesting it in terms of running through your system and doing what it actually needs to be doing on the protein side. I know it's a hot new trend. I tried it for a couple of months and didn't really notice anything. If you want to take collagen, maybe just take it in pill form, so you don't confuse yourself with, oh, do I need to track this? You do need to track all macronutrients, but let me tell you, that collagen isn't being fully digested.

Courtney: "Are you and Madeline still doing Wednesday live workouts on IGTV?" I think we're going to try to connect back up next week. It's been a busy last couple of weeks for WarriorBabe, for myself and for the team. So those are definitely not out the window. We're going to try to connect next week to get one in, because I know they were so much fun, and they held us accountable and you accountable. So I will keep you in the loop with that.

Darlene: "So lunch meat is no good? Shoot. No wonder my body is not responding. What do we get that is better?" You can get lunch meat that is organic, but you don't want to get the processed shit. I went down the processed avenue, which I'm kicking myself for, because I preach this lifestyle. But it was fast and convenient for me and I just went down that avenue. And I'm kind of glad I did, because I learned that my body is just like, no, you're stronger than that, Nikkiey. Feed it what it's supposed to be fed.

And it's not necessarily that your body's not responding because of that. It can be other situations that are going on. How are your workouts? How are your macros? How's your sleep? How's your water intake? How are your hormone levels? It can cover so many different things. So don't narrow it down to that one thing, because that's not it. And if you're not having symptoms like I was having, then maybe your body is processing it. But my whole point is, you want whole foods, and there is such a thing as whole lunch meat that's organic. You don't want the processed, Hillshire Farm shit, packed with sodium. You don't want that. And I think my symptoms truly originated from my food choices, but they were made worse by the protein I was using.

What's up, Bobby?

All right. Ronna: "I am currently doing build macros. I am unable to do any physical activity for seven days. Should I decrease my macros at all during this week? Also, I have been doing build macros the last few months but have only been able to do at-home Burn workouts due to the gym being closed. Will I still be able to build with these workouts? I still don't see much change in weight or pics, but I've been afraid to do another bump up in macros due to not being able to go to the gym."

Ronna, if it's just seven days of not being able to do anything, I wouldn't necessarily drop your macros, because then your body might get adapted to those new ones, and then you're going to bump it back up. So I would honestly just stay where you are with your macros, to answer your first question.

We have a thunderstorm going on here. There's a big lightning bolt.

You can still do the Burn workouts at home, but you want to really focus on challenging yourself with the weight and getting a really good mind-muscle connection. You want to put that to use. Make sure your intensity and your volume are really high during your workouts and that you feel that fatigue really happening.

Then in terms of the change: when you're focusing on building, and I say this inside of my Blueprint program, it's really important that you're mentally prepared for the journey of building. Not only are you going to gain some weight, because muscle needs fat in order to grow, but some of the changes are going to be minimal until you actually start cutting back down and revealing the muscle you've built during that time. So you really need to be mentally prepared for eating that much food, putting in the work on a daily basis inside your workouts, and being more connected to the overall vision of what you're trying to do with your body in terms of growing it, rather than being so adamant about weekly changes. I can guarantee you, inside of a build, you're not going to see much change on a weekly basis. Your weight may fluctuate, and that's going to be some muscle weight, but you have to be mentally prepared for that side of things.

So I would stay where your macros are and continue doing the Burn, but really focus on the intensity and the volume you're pushing behind it.

Bobby: "What do you think of Shakeology as a shake?" Personally, I've never tried Shakeology, so I don't really like to preach about things I haven't done. I just know that you need whole food. Whenever I hear of the shakes, like Beachbody, Shakeology, are they the ones that keep trying to reach out to me? I keep blowing them off entirely. You need whole food. You cannot rely on shakes. Even if they're saying the shakes are whole foods, they're being processed down, so they're eliminating some nutrients when they make it into shake form. So personally, it always comes back to whole foods. I'm going to preach that. I've preached that since day one. I kind of threw myself through the wringer the past couple of months, but your body wants whole foods. So it's really important.

And Nicole, I personally recommend what I said to do with your protein.

All right. Sandy: "My macros are 1,475 calories, 111, 49, 148. I'm having such a hard time getting all the carbs in and always go over in fats. I have autoimmune Hashimoto's and can't eat dairy or gluten, so all my carbs are veggies. How can I get all these carbs in? What else can I do?"

Sandy, it's totally possible. Stop saying that you can't or that you're having a hard time, because your subconscious mind is just going to tell you that. It's not going to help you find answers. I'm going to help you with some answers right now, because there are so many women I work with in the higher levels who are dairy- and gluten-free. One of the coaches has celiac disease. There are gluten-free things you can purchase at the grocery store. There's gluten-free oatmeal, there's gluten-free toast, there's gluten-free everything. So I would really recommend focusing on that gluten-free stuff. And you don't necessarily need dairy.

But my number one suggestion to you, Sandy, whenever I hear "having a hard time," is this question: when are you tracking your macros? Are you tracking them as you go throughout the day? Or are you taking the time the night before to really sit down and spend some time in MyFitnessPal logging all of your meals for the next day, getting yourself within plus or minus five of each macronutrient category, protein, fats and carbs?

When I see people do the planning ahead, which you'll hear me talk about until you're blue in the ears, they are successful the next day. They have programmed their meals. They have hit their macronutrients and they're set for the next day. They have all their meals. All they need to do is pull them and eat them. When I see people who track throughout the day, they're setting themselves up for doomsday. They're setting themselves up for all of these macros to be left at the end of the day, like 50 grams of carbs, 50 grams of fats, 50 grams of protein. And they look at that and say, oh my God, this is so freaking hard. It's only as hard as you make it.

If you're tracking throughout the day, listen to me right now: you're setting yourself up for failure. But good failure, because you're going to learn. That's how you should look at failure, as a learning process. And what can you do to make it better? What you can do to make it better is track the night before and get all of your meals into MyFitnessPal.

I work with women in the VIP with Hashimoto's and in the Blueprint with Hashimoto's. And reach out to the group as well. There are babes in here who have been successful with that. Ask them what their go-to sources are. I know that you can definitely do some gluten-free, and planning ahead is going to set you up for success.

All right. Cindy: "Do you recommend carb tapering?" No.

Lisa: "Hi, I have been a member of the Revolution and the Blueprint for a while now. I have specific questions about eating. Should I ask questions during this session or the Blueprint? I haven't joined one of those Q&As yet." If you're part of the Blueprint, the Blueprint is going to be easier, because I'm able to unmute you, discuss the question you have and give you clarity moving forward. If you were new to the Blueprint, Lisa, I would recommend making sure you're going through the content if you haven't already. But you've been a member of the Blueprint for a while now, so your specific questions about eating are something you can totally ask inside the Blueprint Q&A.

Tasha: "I know you have answered this before. I remember seeing it somewhere in the emails, I believe. How long would you recommend staying in a cut phase?" It's so individualized. What I recommend is that you don't want to sit at a low caloric intake for way too long, or your body just gets adapted to it, and then you stop seeing results and you hit that plateau. So it's really individualized.

If you're in a cut phase and you reach your goal, you've lost your weight, you've toned, you see some of the definition you want to be seeing, then that's where, depending on how long you've been in this phase, I would recommend we start reversing you upwards and getting you more food. Naturally, when you do that, your body's going to respond so well if you're consistent, and you're going to start seeing even more tone happening. You're actually going to start seeing more decrease happening. So it's really individualized. If you've reached your goal, awesome. Start moving up to eating more food. That way, when you cut down again, you can cut at a different caloric intake.

Each phase is completely different. This is something I cover inside the Blueprint program. Each phase is completely different, and your methods are going to be completely different once you go through the phases. So again, it's totally individualized, but I wouldn't recommend being in it for a year, or eight months. Your body is going to get so adapted to it that you're just going to be hitting a plateau and banging your head against the wall, like, why am I not seeing results eating in a deficit? Well, your body's smart and it recognizes that. So when that happens, you need to throw it a curveball. That's why we have those cheat meals, constantly throwing the curveball. So again, it's individualized. When you reach a goal, you can stop the cut phase. If you've been in it for a while and your body's not responding, it needs a kick in the ass. You need something different.

Lonnie: "Favorite fast, simple pre- and post-workout snacks?" Pre-workout would be white English muffins with some jelly and some egg whites, or rice cakes with some jelly and some egg whites, or a protein shake in place of those egg whites. And those same two options, English muffins and jelly or rice cake and jelly, work too. Fruit is really good pre or post. A banana is really good with a protein shake. Protein shakes are fine to do pre and post. That's how I preach it: you can have two artificial sources of protein. What is going on right now?