Incline Walking, Fasting and Cheat Meals: A Live Q&A

Nikkiey: What's going on? Hello, you guys. Happy Wednesday. We are live for our Wednesday live Q&A time with me. I am super excited to be here with you guys to come live and do this Ask Me Anything. I am live with the WarriorBabe community that's tuning in from our Facebook group, and I'm also live with the Facebook followers and anybody that follows me via Facebook.

So what's up, you guys? Welcome. As you are all tuning in, please make sure that you are commenting and saying what's up so I can see who's here and live. I just had to make sure that my audio was working, and I think it is, because I think you guys can hear me. As you guys are tuning in, comment, say hey, so that I can say what's up back to you guys. And if you guys are catching this after it has been done live, make sure that you do the hashtag replay.

Any questions that you guys do have, you can comment in the comment box, and my community managers will come back into this live Q&A and answer any questions that were posted after this was live. What's up, Allison? Thanks, babe. This is Balance Athletica. What's up, Jenny? Hello, hello. Cool. So audio is working. You guys can see me. Awesome. Happy Wednesday. I hope you guys had an awesome Easter holiday.

And now you guys are here putting back in the grind and showing up for yourself. What we do here every Wednesday at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time is I am live to answer any questions that you guys have. So if you have any questions that pertain to workouts, to macros, to lifestyle and nutrition information, to mindset and having to break through your own excuses and mentality of excuses, any way that I can help you, this is what this live Q&A is all about every single Wednesday.

So if you have any questions, now would be the time to fire them off in the comment box where you're all saying hello, because in a couple of seconds I'm going to go into that comment area and start answering questions here live with you guys. This is a perfect opportunity. I am here providing you value, providing you knowledge, providing you anything that you need help with along your journey. So what I ask you to do is do me a huge favor: first of all, smash the like button, because when you smash the like button, it gets more views inside of our WarriorBabe community. It pushes the video to the top of the Facebook group so that everybody can see that we are live and they can tune in. Plus, all my Facebook followers, if you smash the like button for me right now, I can tell that our audience just went up, the viewers are rising. If you smash the like button and if you share it, that brings more views to this video right now so that more women can chime in and listen to this live Q&A. Even if they're out walking their dog or with their kids at a game or a sporting event or they're driving in the car, they may show up here on this live Q&A and be like, holy cow, that question helped me, by somebody asking it and by me answering it.

So overall, this video can help so many women in so many different aspects if we all smash the like button and share it to your stories and your feed so that other women can tune in. That's what these live Q&As are all about: spreading the word, helping you guys, but also in turn helping other women that have no idea about myself or WarriorBabe, so that they can get more knowledge and more insight along their journey.

So if you have any questions, now's the time to fire them off in that comment box. I will kick it off in just a couple seconds. But before I do, I want to give a huge, huge welcome to all of our new WarriorBabes that have started in the past couple of days and the past week. Last week was the biggest week, the biggest days we've had as a company, with the most women joining our community, which is so freaking amazing to see. Why? Because we are transforming and impacting women's lives, and that's what WarriorBabe is all about. On our team meeting the other day, we had a poem that a WarriorBabe wrote, and I believe I did blast it off into everybody's email. How about that April Fool's email, by the way? Anyway, that was all a joke. Some of you forgot to scroll. The ones that did, good job. Make sure you continue to scroll on any of my emails. That was a little insight into my personality, which a lot of people did not like.

Anyway, we brought this poem that a WarriorBabe wrote into the team meeting that we hold every single Tuesday with the entire WarriorBabe team, and it brought waterworks to my eyes. It was so amazing to see the impact that not just I'm creating, but our team is creating. I would not be where I am right now, and our company would not be where we are right now, if it wasn't for the team that's behind it, which is so truly amazing, and the women that we're impacting. So if you're inside my WarriorBabe community, I'm sure you've seen this poem floating around our Facebook group. If you're tuning in from Facebook, definitely make sure you check out warriorbabe.com and see how impactful this is for other women. Not just listening to me and hearing it in my own voice, but watching or reading the reviews that we have from other women that are in your shoes, that are extremely frustrated, whether you're going through menopause, whether you've tried every single diet under the sun and it's not working, whether you are past menopause and everything that was working isn't working anymore, or whether you are in your thirties and not in menopause and just want to understand how to eat right to fuel your body, to get lean, to get toned and to build muscle. Definitely check out the reviews on warriorbabe.com and see what WarriorBabe is all about so you can see what you can get involved in. Nice. Thank you, babes, for sending me stars. I appreciate it.

So if you do have any questions that pertain to, like I said, macros: this isn't a call where I can prescribe macros for you. It's a very, very detailed process. I get questions all the time: Nikkiey, what should my macros be? What's the best macro calculator to follow? And you know what, guys? Fuck those macro calculators. Honestly, it's in your best interest and your time is well spent to invest your time and energy into somebody that's going to tell you what to do after you get those macro numbers. Because I'll tell you right now, I see so many women that fill in those calculators and they have no idea what to do and they're extremely overwhelmed. They don't know how to break down those macros. They don't know how many meals they're supposed to have a day, what kind of meals they're supposed to be eating, what kind of food they're supposed to be eating. Something that WarriorBabe is all about is teaching you how to be in control of your body for the rest of your life while using macronutrients and understanding what macronutrients do. So don't ask me about calculators and calories and where your macros should be. I would invest and see what WarriorBabe is all about, so we'll teach you how to use those macronutrients and what to do after you get them.

Anyway, if you have any questions in terms of best meal choices, or why this food does that, or why macronutrients versus calories, whatever you have for me in terms of workouts as well, mindset, like I just can't get through not wanting to show up, or what happens when you're coming off an injury, that's what these live Q&As are all about. I'm super happy to answer any questions that pertain to that.

So I see a few coming through, so I will definitely start kicking it off. Thank you guys for the shirt compliments. I appreciate it. It is Balance. If you check out Balance Athletica, I am highly obsessed with this brand. They might as well just take all of my money, because every single launch they do, I pretty much give them the majority of my money. And I've got to say, it's super high quality and very, very similar to Lululemon, but just not as expensive as Lululemon. So definitely check them out. I'm probably going to regret saying that, because launch day, you guys, is no joke. You've got to show up at 2 p.m. when they're about to launch all their products, because specific items go out of stock within seconds. Anyway, that's a side note. Now let's get to these questions.

Danielle: is this program good for someone with pre-diabetes? 150,000%, Danielle. If you are somebody who is in that arena, you get your lab work done and your doctor says, hey, you're pre-diabetic, that's a huge wake-up call to get your shit in gear and start getting those levels leveled back out. And you do that by honing in on your nutrition: what and when to eat, why you're eating specific things, what can keep pre-diabetes from spiking up into diabetes. And also incorporating specific workouts that are going to make sure that everything is level internally in your body. So hands down, yes, it definitely can.

Caitlin: how intense or hardcore does cardio need to be for fat loss? Is simple treadmill walking enough? Yes, simple treadmill walking is enough, at a high incline, either a 15 incline or a 10 incline. If you can't go that high, do an 8 incline, at a speed of like 3 miles per hour, 3.5 miles per hour, 4 miles per hour. Now that's pushing it. But that's enough.

Honestly, you guys, when it comes to HIIT versus steady state, first of all, before I dive into the science behind the two of them, they each work for specific, unique body types. So I may say steady state is awesome, and I also may say HIIT is good for some individuals as well. Now, backing it down, I will always lean more toward steady state cardio. Why? Because it's less stressful on your body. HIIT is very high intensity, 20 minutes, 30 minutes going full blown out, and that can add a lot of stress to your body. Humans are already stressed as it is, and strength training is adding stress to your body. So there are other variables added in. Why add another variable to your stress level? And they basically do almost the same kind of thing.

The one case where I would lean more toward HIIT for people is if you have a higher, higher carbohydrate intake, because your body's going to use those carbohydrates for that HIIT workout. Whereas when you're doing steady state, you're focusing more on a steady, slow burn. Your body's going to start focusing on fat to utilize for that specific activity, for that cardio. So that's the difference between the two. I will always, always lean more toward steady state cardio.

Now, for me personally, and please nobody take this for themselves, this is me personally, because I understand my body and I know how it works: since it's nice outside, it's been 65-plus degrees here in Pennsylvania, I've been just making sure that I'm getting outside for a certain duration of time or hitting a specific number of steps for my cardio. I'm not on the StairMaster or doing a treadmill anymore. I've adapted my body to the point where I can just go do leisure walking outside. Now, that's me personally. But again, to answer that question, you don't need intense, hardcore cardio for fat loss.

Brittany: during retraining, how much should you be losing? So, Brittany, and for those of you following me on Facebook who have no idea what retraining means, that lingo, that verbiage: retraining is retraining your metabolism, which is so highly underrated in the fitness industry. It's why people are bashing their head against the wall and not seeing progress: they've been in a deficit for so long that their metabolism is shot. So you need to retrain your metabolism to get it to speed up and work with you instead of against you. That's pretty much, in short, what retraining means.

Now, when you are in the retraining phase as a WarriorBabe, you may not lose or you may lose. This is the thing, you guys. I preach to all of my WarriorBabes: don't focus on exterior results when you're retraining your metabolism. How much weight am I losing? Am I losing inches? Blah, blah, blah. Is that scale going down? Focus on internally healing your metabolism. It doesn't matter about the external results when you're in the retraining phase. What matters internally is that you are steadily increasing your calories and your macros, and whether you're not moving or you're dropping, everybody's different. If you are steadily increasing and you're holding tight in your physique and your energy, and if energy is improving, that's the ultimate goal as well. But the main goal is that internally your metabolism needs to heal, so that when you go into further cuts, or further fat loss, or you bring your macros and calories back down, your metabolism will work with you instead of against you. That's the issue for the majority of the population: being in a caloric deficit for far too long. Cool.

Joy: carb cycling versus the same macros to trick your metabolism. This is my take on carb cycling. It may work for some people, it may not. Again, it's very unique and very individualized. How I do my carb cycling is through refeeds and/or cheat meals. It's a higher surplus on any given day that you're doing a refeed or a cheat meal. For a cheat meal, you're adding in a meal with an untracked window of food. So in general, my long-short answer to that is I don't do carb cycling. I do what I call cheat meals and refeeds.

Gianna: I had to change my workout time from 6:30 p.m. to 3:45 a.m. What is the best meal to eat quickly before lifting? I live at home and have an hour before work. So: rice cakes, fruit, investing in a carb powder, like Super Carb from Nutrabio, or going to coalitionnutrition.com, who are my sponsors. Anything that's going to be fast acting: white rice, a tortilla. Then you could do an egg white tortilla. You could do egg whites and rice cakes. You could do egg whites and fruit. You could do egg whites and cereal. Yes, I said cereal, because those simple carbohydrates are going to give you immediate fuel for your workout. If you don't want to do egg whites, you can do a protein shake with whatever I just said carb-wise. Those are definitely my go-tos for early-morning babes who need a quick workout snack.

Tara: how often does someone not fit the mold? I'm not too sure what you mean by that. Oh, okay: does lifting weights and increasing calories work for everybody? So yes, 100%, but you just need to figure out, Tara, what works for you. That's why WarriorBabe speaks to individuality. Because you, Tara, may not, and should not, be following what a 30-year-old is following. I don't know how old you are, but you know what I mean? Or what a 20-year-old is following, or a 50-year-old when you're 30, or vice versa. You shouldn't be following the same exact thing. You need to figure out what works for you. That's why in WarriorBabe we speak to individuality in terms of what your macros need to be. And depending on where you are in your age and the lifespan of your hormones, and how you are managing that, we speak to the specific workouts that you should be doing. So yes, in short, it does, but you've got to find what works for you. And if you haven't yet, I would definitely check out WarriorBabe.

Leg days. Yana: I'm at home now. Going to the gym seems daunting. Is a 40-pound kettlebell and two 30-pound dumbbells enough for leg building, for sexy legs? My weakness is fat in my thighs. I know this involves a calorie deficit, but do you recommend going back to the gym, or is staying at home enough? You can do a mean-ass workout with dumbbells, but let me tell you, there is something about squats on a barbell, there's something about hip thrusts, there's something about kickbacks. There are other individual exercises that are going to help tone those legs. So if it's coming down to it just being daunting, Yana, in my tough love to you, get out of your own way and show up how the person you're wanting to become is going to show up. Break through that mentality.

Alicia: I miss a gym atmosphere. I've always had difficulty working out at home: motivation, too many distractions, not enough versatility, et cetera. Advice to get myself to just freaking do it? Yeah, just do it, right? We're our own worst enemies. We stand in our own way the majority of the time. And to be truthful and honest, I just preached this to my VIP community: if you know you have too many distractions, turn your phone on airplane mode, turn your notifications off, only use it for music and put it somewhere far away from you. It's you versus you. You're the one that's in control of knowing what is causing you to be distracted and how to eliminate it.

And then motivation. Look, guys, motivation is going to come and go. I say this all the time. You've got to learn how to be disciplined, because when you learn how to be disciplined and that motivation isn't showing up for you, you know that you've still got to get it done. I always think about the person that you're becoming, and start showing up as her. On the day that she knows she needs to work out and she's just tired or lazy, not a day where she knows she needs a rest day, she's going to show up anyway. She's going to get it done. She has a goal. She needs to meet that goal. She's going to show up for herself.

And then versatility: invest. If you have a home gym and you're not in one of the states that's opening up anytime soon, invest in some bands. On Amazon there are some good, versatile bands that can be added to your equipment at home.

What I love to say to my communities, and this can speak to Yana as well, is get rid of the excuse mentality. Get rid of the excuse mentality. I can't, or I'm going to hit the snooze button. I'll tell you, you guys, that's not a winner's mindset. If you want to show up and you have goals to reach, you've got to break through that comfortability, get uncomfortable and show up for yourself. And when you do start showing up for yourself more and more and more, it gets easier and easier and easier. How do I know that? Because I have been through it. But understand, you guys, not every day is going to be perfect. You're not perfect. You're imperfect. But if the majority of the time you can show up for yourself, you're winning. If you're showing up for 48 out of 52 weeks of the year, you're winning. So just freaking do it.

Charlie: what's your opinion on intermittent fasting? Look, if you're in the goal mentality of wanting performance, wanting a lean, toned body, wanting to build muscle, wanting to develop your physique and have an athletic figure and more muscle and be more toned, intermittent fasting is not your go-to. Why? Because your body, your muscles and the mitochondria in your muscles need fuel, food, for energy and for recovery and all that kind of stuff. So intermittent fasting is not good for that. And plus, especially for females, you guys, studies on intermittent fasting have mostly been done on males. Not many have been done on females. We have hormones that males don't have, and intermittent fasting can really start whacking out those hormones, just like keto can too. There's nothing wrong with following a well-balanced nutrient plan.

Now, that's in that arena, if you want performance and you're showing up to be more toned, decrease body fat, have a more athletic figure and build muscle. If you have specific health factors that need to be addressed before you have the goal of performance, then yes, that may be something that works for you. Again, all these different things work. It's just what works for you and your body and the goals that you're striving for. And whatever that one thing is, focus on it. Focus on just one damn thing. It all works. But whichever one you need for the goal that you want to accomplish, just focus on that one thing.

Michelle. Hello, babe. Hi. I'm wanting to gain some healthy weight and maintain it. Beautiful. I love that. I don't have any health issues, but it's a bit of a struggle picking up the pounds. I need to stay in a healthy range. I'm not active workout-wise. I need to find balance with my work schedule. I may just need a balance in meals and workouts. Any advice?

Let me step back for a second. You definitely want to incorporate exercise into your routine for health benefits, for goal benefits, for building muscle, what have you. Exercise is really good overall. Now, in terms of having a healthy weight and maintaining it, if you're going to be eating a lot more food, you definitely want to have an exercise base to fall back on with the food that you're eating. And my advice to you would be to start slowly working yourself up. First of all, become aware. If you don't know how much food you are eating right now, become aware of it. Download MyFitnessPal, start logging your foods on a daily basis and see where you actually fall. That's really eye-opening. If you don't do it, I would highly recommend that you do, anybody that's listening, just for you to be aware of where your food intake is at.

And then from there, I would just slowly start increasing. I would add in 100 calories each week so that your body can absorb that 100-calorie difference over a weekly period. I wouldn't start packing on 500 calories and then another 500 calories, because it's all going to come on too fast. It's all about slow, steady, incremental increases. So that's my advice. But first of all, if you're not aware, definitely become aware.

Brittany, you're welcome, babe. Joy: how often in a month should you incorporate cheat meals? Again, this is super, super individualized. But if you have a specific body frame like mine, you could get away with having a cheat meal every week. If you have a body frame that's skinnier and needs to put on more muscle, you could get away with having two cheat meals a week. One to two. Myself, definitely one. And then anybody who's more big-boned and has a lot of weight to lose: look, my friends, I say this in a loving manner, you've been cheating for a decent amount of time. So you probably don't need cheat meals right off the bat. You need to start putting in the work, start seeing results, and then reward yourself with a cheat meal down the road. So again, it depends on where you are in your journey and what type of body frame you have, but for the majority, I say a cheat meal about once a week. It's a really good spike for tricking your body, refilling your glycogen stores from what's been depleted by your workouts, and tricking your body to burn fat faster.

Cynthia: I really wanted to jump on, but I injured my knee working out. Should I wait until my knee feels better? If you're talking about joining WarriorBabe, no, I would say come on in and join WarriorBabe, because you're going to be able to understand the nutrition part. When you get the nutrition part down, you're fueling your body with the right amount of food, and then you can start incorporating the exercise. Overall, you're in a better position if you can focus on getting your nutrition down first and then start putting in the exercises that we recommend. So come on in. That's what I would highly recommend.

Aw, thanks, Scott. Yana, awesome, thanks. Yes, babe. Jenny, what's up, babe? I'm training for a Spartan race. I get the Spartan races, but Decafit, I don't even know what that means; I wonder if that's a certain amount of mileage. I was in a calorie deficit, not looking to lose weight. Should I go up to maintenance? I'm doing more endurance-type workouts, so I'm thinking I might need to increase calories. Yes, 100%.

Michelle, what's up, babe? I'll be talking to you in what, 30-plus minutes here? This is another thing with WarriorBabe: we have live Q&As within the community, and it's not like this. It's in a Zoom setting, a webinar setting, and I'm actually able to talk back and forth with the WarriorBabe community. Myself and my coaches are involved in these Q&As, and that's another added support system that comes with being a WarriorBabe.

Okay, so: I've been using Intra Blast in my workouts, but I've noticed Coalition Nutrition just released a full spectrum intra-workout. I think you've mentioned this new product. If so, what's your opinion on it? Would you recommend it in place of Intra Blast during your workouts? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. You guys can feel my excitement, I'm sure. I'm so stoked about Coalition Nutrition's new drop of their FYOOL supplements. It's spelled F-Y-O-O-L. And yes, it is just like what I recommended with Intra Blast from Nutrabio, but it's almost two times the amount of electrolytes.

This is so near and dear to my heart because I am a woman who is prone to rhabdomyolysis. I can save that topic for another day, but if you're interested in learning about it, you can definitely Google it. Basically, when my body goes into rhabdomyolysis, my body can't filter out lactic acid as fast as it should. I've been hospitalized numerous times, and when I've been in the hospital I've gotten seven liters of fluid. Why this speaks to me is because the ingredients inside FYOOL supplements are salt, potassium, magnesium and different makeups of each of those individual electrolytes that help with your body's recovery and with performance. Wow, I can't talk. So yes, in short, that's a little science behind their new product, and I like it.

I've got to say it is naturally and artificially flavored, so I'm not too sure if that's a big deal for some people. And how I know it's full of salt is you can taste it when you're drinking it. I wouldn't say it's bitter. I would say it's pretty easy to put down, but that's just me personally. It may not sit well for others. But overall, I look at food for function and for energy, and I look at supplements for function and for energy. So in short, I would definitely go ahead and try that new product in place of your Intra Blast. You can drink it beforehand, you can drink it during, and you can even drink it afterwards. What I did is, yesterday I had a daunting-ass leg workout, and I drank it before, I drank it after, and then I drank it this morning and about mid-afternoon. I'll tell you, my legs are very, very sore, but for what I did yesterday, I could be way more sore. So it's definitely doing a good job.

Jenny: did you ever take a week off to give your body a break? I go months with no breaks. I'm wondering if results would be better if I took time off. Oh, babe. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Take the time away. I just recently did it when I went to Miami, Florida, for vacation. I worked out once and then realized, okay, my body needs a break. I would highly recommend that you incorporate either a full week of not working out, or a deload week where you're doing half the amount of workouts you would normally do at half the volume. But yes, 100%. The majority of building a physique, you guys, is recovery. It's rest. It's sleep. It seems like a very small thing, and it's super underrated, because we all just want to go ham and go hard, hard, hard. But recovery is of vital importance to building up and changing your body composition.

Yes, Jessica: show up for yourself, just freaking do it. Yes, yes, show up for yourself. All right, guys, I'm going to answer a couple more questions here and then I'm going to pop off, because I've got to get ready for my Blueprint Q&A in 29 minutes.

Yana: what's your go-to cardio? I know you're not a huge cardio bunny, but I'm curious what your go-to is, 20 minutes a day? So you must have tuned in a little bit later into this live Q&A. I did talk about it toward the beginning: at this point in my journey, because my body has adapted so well over the years to what I've done to it, I'm at the point where, since it's 65-plus degrees outside, I'm just making sure that I get out for a nice leisure fasted walk, and that's enough for me. I've been hitting about 10k steps a day, so that's been more my focus. I'm not on a treadmill, I'm not on a StairMaster, I'm just simply walking outside. That's me personally. I still recommend that others who need to lose fat or build muscle, who aren't where I'm at, still incorporate the treadmill or StairMaster. And if I had to pick one, it's that damn StairMaster. That thing is a beast, and it's definitely going to give you your bang for your buck when you're trying to shed fat.

Jessica: what's the best day for a rest day, or which workout day? I used to say definitely do it after a bigger muscle group, like back or legs. But as my education, my learning and my knowledge have increased: it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You can do it on a bigger muscle day, you could do it on a rest day. It's still going to facilitate the same thing, which is recovery, restoring glycogen stores and spiking your metabolism.

Joy: what is the optimal steady state cardio duration and schedule for the week? It's very, very individualized depending on your body, your frame and your goals. Somebody who's super skinny and lean and is just trying to put on some muscle probably doesn't need to do much. Somebody who's in my category, who's a little more of a mesomorph type, has broader shoulders and thicker quads, could get away with doing three days at 30 minutes. Somebody who is more endomorph style and has more weight to lose, I would recommend three days at 30 minutes or four days at 30 minutes, and it adjusts throughout your entire journey. But to start out, if I had to give a broad answer right now, I would recommend starting out with 25 to 30 minutes, three days a week, on a treadmill at an incline of 8 to 10, or 15 if you want to go ham, and a speed of 3 to 4.

All right. Nice. And you guys, if you do try the FYOOL supplements, it's fyoolsupplements.com, or they're also live on Coalition Nutrition's page. You can use the code WARRIORBABE. It still works, and you get a percentage off on either website.

Cool. Jessica, you're welcome, babe. Thank you. I appreciate you guys all being here and hanging out with me for a little bit on a Wednesday. I come here live every single Wednesday at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Any way that I can provide value, provide knowledge and help you along your journey, whether you are a WarriorBabe or not, that's what I love to do. I love to answer questions that are going to help you along your journey and provide aha moments so that you can understand what you need to or should be doing next, or just help you get out of your own way. So if you want to check out more about WarriorBabe, definitely go to warriorbabe.com. Check out our reviews, check out our programs. Until then, you guys, I'm done with this live Q&A. It's been real. It's been fun. Have a kick-ass rest of your week, and I'll see you guys next week. Bye, everyone.