How to Start Fat Loss Postpartum: Eat More, Lift, Go Slow

Nikkiey: Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.

Guest: Here's the interesting thing. We can build muscle as we get older, too. We used to think, no, we're done with building muscle at a certain age. That's not true. Is it harder for us? Yeah, it probably is going to be a little bit harder for us, but we can always do it. And so it's too important not to even try, especially this bone density thing, which I don't think we talk about enough, because how many times have we seen elderly people fall and break a hip?

Nikkiey: You're literally speaking my language right now. I speak about this all of the time. Osteopause, postmenopause, all of the estrogen is dropping. As I shared with you, I used to work in the ER. I was in a long-term nursing care facility for nine years. And the amount of people that I saw coming into the hospital with hip fractures and falling, it's scary.

Nikkiey: What motivated you to start this journey to getting better and on your road to recovery? What motivated you, and what were some of the biggest obstacles that you faced along the way?

Guest: I'm not proud of this answer, but honestly, when you have an obsessive personality and you pour everything into one thing, it's hard to continue with it if there's something else on your plate. I'm all in. And when I started dating my husband, I became obsessive about the relationship. He was a Pro Bowl linebacker in the NFL, he was at the height of his career, and I had no self-worth. So I spent my days finding message boards where groupies would go and write about their little flings with players. And I would type his name in that search bar every day. When he was in the shower, I was in his phone, and I became completely obsessive about that. And my eating disorder kind of fell away.

The actual bulimia, throwing up my food, I wasn't doing that anymore because my obsession shifted. Now, if there's a firstborn obsessive perfectionist personality listening, I'm not saying go stalk your boyfriend or your husband and then your eating disorder will stop. But I am saying, if you have that kind of personality, try channeling your obsession somewhere else, somewhere positive. Think of something that you love to do, or teach someone how to do something. Once you can channel that obsession away from it, it will fall away.

I did not get treatment, and I will also say that because I didn't get treatment, I am called on a lot by the eating disorder community for using fat-phobic language. And maybe I don't say things the right way. Had I gone to treatment, maybe I would say things the right way, but I'm just sharing my story. When I started obsessing about the relationship, my eating disorder fell away. So I wasn't physically abusing my body. But like I said, I was severely restricting my calories and working out two times a day, only cardio.

And there was this moment of clarity when a trainer at my gym said, "I see how frustrated you are, and I want to help you." And I'm like, "You can't. I'm doing everything right. I work out every day. I barely eat and I can't lose weight." And he said, very casually, "Well, yeah, you're over-exercising and you're under-eating." Like, obviously that's the problem. And saying that to someone who wouldn't eat carrots at one point and used to throw up her food, eating more to lose weight was not even something I would consider. But at that point, Nikkiey, I had tried all the diets. I had had eating disorders, done everything. And like I said, I was about 20 pounds heavier and frustrated, because I felt like I was doing it the way women are taught: calories in versus calories out. So as long as I'm barely eating and over-exercising, I will be thin. But you can get your body to a point where it's not going to get thinner.

It's going to shut off because it doesn't trust you and you're not fueling it enough. And I know you had a similar situation with restriction and over-exercise. Women think that's how to do it. When I was living that way, I was 20 pounds heavier. I was miserable and frustrated because I was doing it the "right" way, in quotes, and it wasn't working. So he convinced me to download MyFitnessPal and figure out my macros, which I still have PTSD about when I see macros, because I used to be obsessive about it. But I will say that learning my macros and learning that I was under-eating by 900 calories a day shifted things for me. It made sense. I could see the numbers. He said, "You are under-eating. Once you start eating again, your metabolism is going to turn back on, because your body is going to trust that you're going to fuel it." And I had nothing to lose.

So I trusted this trainer, and I started eating maybe double what I was eating before. I was super cautious about it. I was eating really healthy, but I was eating a shit ton, every couple of hours. And in maybe a month I lost five pounds, and for the scale to budge at all was astonishing to me. I'm eating more and I'm losing weight, and I felt hungry again, and I turned on my metabolism. So that trainer telling me to eat more, that I was over-exercising and under-eating, which I thought was the way because women are taught that's the way, changed everything for me.

And the other component was lifting. I thought women were supposed to do their cardio and the men were in the weight room. But I will say it right now, Nikkiey: go to the gym next time, look around and find the woman with that ideal body. She's not on the cardio machine. She's in the weight room.

Nikkiey: Hell yeah. Women are taking over the weight room, by the way.

Guest: Because muscle is the most metabolically active tissue in your body. And the more you have, the more you burn, even when you're not working out. Women picture the big bulky bodybuilder lady, but your body's not going to do that. Naturally, your body will tone when you lift.

I was not lifting heavy because I just wanted to tone, and I had zero tone until I started lifting heavier. I'm not a trainer. I'm just a mom who figured this out and needs other women to trust me: if you are shying away from weights because you think you're going to bulk, or you're sticking to fives or tens because you don't want to bulk, you are not going to get that muscle tone unless you lift heavier. And putting muscle on your body is going to stoke your metabolism. You don't even have to work out as much. Putting muscle on my body and eating more were the game changers for me.

Nikkiey: Hey, just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it, and there's so much more to come. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons, and it would also help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too.

Guest: Basically, I'm saying that exercise, strength training in particular, is the thing for all of us to be doing. And even if you're not a strength training fan and you'd rather do other things, I get it. That's cool. Do other things.

But strength training is too important not to include in some way, shape or form in what you're doing. Obviously it's going to build muscle mass. And when you have muscle mass on you, your quality of life as you get older is going to be much better. It's going to increase the strength of your bones; bone density can improve. And here's the interesting thing. We can build muscle as we get older too. We used to think, no, we're done with building muscle at a certain age. That's not true. Is it harder for us? Yeah, it probably is going to be a little bit harder for us, but we can always do it. And so it's too important not to even try, especially this bone density thing, which I don't think we talk about enough, because how many times have we seen elderly people fall and break a hip?

Nikkiey: You're literally speaking my language right now. I speak about this all of the time. Osteopause, postmenopause, all of the estrogen is dropping. As I shared with you, I used to work in the ER. I was in a long-term nursing care facility for nine years. And the amount of people that I saw coming into the hospital with hip fractures and falling, it's scary. It's just so scary.

Guest: First of all, your chances of not falling have gone up dramatically if you're stronger. You're more stable.

But even if you should fall, the chances of you breaking something go down so much, because now you've built up your bone density. So to put it all in a nutshell, I think those are all the reasons why every single one of us should be focused on building strength and muscle. And that doesn't mean you have to be a bodybuilder. I think that's another thing that we get in our heads: we're going to get big and bulky, like the Hulk or something like that. And I've got to tell you, that ain't gonna happen.

Nikkiey: Exactly. None of us have to worry about that. Ever, ever, ever.

So first of all, because you had four kids, I'm sure the audience is like, oh my God, I'm struggling right now. I just had one, or I had two. Like you said, it's daunting to them. They had their postpartum, they gained this weight, and all of a sudden they're asking, how do I bounce back and get my body back? You learned about macros, all science-based, which totally makes sense, and I love that you dove into that a little bit.

But let's talk to a mom who just had a baby and is struggling with knowing where to start. Because, I mean, 10 weeks, if you got those abs, it's fire. That's incredible. And I want to pinpoint macros as well. But what would you say to a mom who's saying, "I'm postpartum, this is what I'm dealing with, I'm inspired by Amber's story. Where do I start?"

Amber: Yeah, it's so good. The first point that I would make is don't compare yourself. I think it's really easy, especially as a mom. I'm sure there are moms listening to this thinking, well, that has not been my experience. I couldn't cut for 10 weeks and see abs. And so it's really easy to start that comparison game of, why can't my body be like that? Why can't I have that experience? One of the things that I teach women a lot in my program is that when we surround ourselves with a community of women, it can be really powerful and really uplifting if you use it in the right way.

And the right way to use it is by using someone's success as an opportunity to see what's possible for you, rather than as a comparison that makes you feel bad that you're not where that person is. What you don't hear, or maybe haven't considered, is that the 10-week cut I did in 2016 was, yes, a 10-week period of time. But I was not new to lifting. I was not new to working out. I had a physical fitness routine before that. I had put a lot of time and effort in, in the years prior, so that when I found that piece of nutrition, it all just clicked and everything came together. So I think knowing that full story is really important. Because for a mom who's just coming off having a baby, starting slow and adding one thing at a time is going to be the best way for you to be successful. What I don't want you to do is run out and feel like, I have to get a gym membership, and I have to learn how to lift weights, and I also have to add macro counting, and I probably should drink water, and I probably need to go on runs, adding all of these things.

And then take care of this little baby that sucks the life out of you for the first year of their life. I think we do ourselves a disservice, especially as moms, by feeling like we have to do it all in order to be successful. And because most of us don't want to do it all, or can't do it all, we do nothing at all. And we sit in the cycle of not adding anything that's going to move us toward our goals.

So my biggest recommendation for a woman listening to this who is postpartum and trying to make those healthy changes is to make healthy changes one at a time. That can start very small, like putting your baby in the stroller and going for a daily walk. If you want to start to get into nutrition, I always talk about pulling levers in our journey. Most women want to walk up to this big board with lots of buttons and lots of levers.

They want to push all the buttons and pull all the levers all at once. And when you do that, not only is it overwhelming, but you don't really get a sense of which lever creates which change in your body. So I love to have women pull levers one at a time. Let's start with the single lever of exercising and going for a walk every single day. Then let's layer on the next lever: if you want to get into nutrition, start by just tracking what you're eating. Don't change it. Don't modify it. Let's just get you into the practice and the habit of tracking your food and being more aware of the food that you're eating.

I know everyone always wants the fastest results and the fastest transformation possible. But I love to help women shift from the fastest transformation possible to the longest-lasting transformation. And that is done by having grace with yourself, starting slowly, adding things one at a time, pulling those levers one at a time, and really making this a habit. I know it's overstated all the time. We double-tap that on Instagram, but we don't actually integrate it, making these things a habit for the long run.

Nikkiey: Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.