Overtraining, Belly Fat and Bloating: Q&A for Women Over 40

Nikkiey: What's up, everybody? Hey, you guys, Nikkiey here, and welcome to our live Wednesday Q&A time together. I am excited to be here with you guys, to hang out with you guys, to give you all clarification on whatever it is that you need along your journey. So again, we are live on my Facebook page and inside of my WarriorBabe Facebook community.

So what's up, Facebook followers? What's up, WarriorBabes? I am so excited to be here with you guys today. I love hanging out with you guys on Wednesday night and answering any questions that you guys have and providing you clarification along your journey. So if you guys are just tuning in, comment. Let me know you're here. Say what's up in the comment section so I can say what's up back. We're going to have a good time tonight. If you guys want to start firing my way any questions that you do have, you can start doing that in the comment section, and we'll kick off this live Q&A in just a couple of minutes.

So comment, say what's up, and if you guys are tuning in at a later date or time, then do that hashtag replay. Comment that in the comment area and then keep any questions that you guys do have in the comment thread, so that Kate, my girl Kate, the first one right there saying "Hey, what's up, happy Wednesday," she's our community manager. So she'll come back in and she'll answer any questions that were done after the live was complete. All right, so tons of support here right now. Wednesdays are my favorite nights, hanging out with you guys. And even after this is done live, there's still support going on. So if you're catching this afterwards, do hashtag replay and leave any questions that you have that pertain to this live Q&A in the comment section.

All right, so what's up, Lydia? What's up, Jenny? What's up, Karina? What's up, Shayna? What's up, you guys? Hello. I see you are already firing some questions. Cool. So we'll kick that off in just a couple of minutes. So if you guys do have questions, go ahead, comment in the comment area, and we will fire away with the answers in just a couple of minutes.

Before we do, this is what we do every single Wednesday, you guys. Every Wednesday, I am here live hanging out with my Facebook community, the WarriorBabe community. We are meshing together to provide you guys all answers, clarification, whatever it is that you need along your journey. There's no silly or stupid question. You can ask me anything in terms of macros, workouts, mindset, if you need some tough love. What I tell my WarriorBabes is I am not here to be your friend. I am here to be your coach.

So whether you like what I have to say or not, remember I'm on the other end of the goals that you guys all want to seek and want to accomplish for yourself. So I know what it takes, and I've worked with thousands of women, thousands of different bodies, and I've helped women achieve results. So come here, ask me what you want answered, and I'll provide you the straight, blunt, honest answer that I have for you. And hopefully my goal is to help you along your journey, whether again you like my answer or not, and it pushes you to go do what you have to do in order to get to the goals that you want to.

Okay. So what's up, everybody? Hey, Barbara. Hey, Valerie. What's up, girl? What's up, Yana? Hey, guys. Yes, I love coming here on Wednesdays. Shout out to the WarriorBabes. This community keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. If you're not a WarriorBabe, why not? If you're listening to me, why are you not a WarriorBabe right now? Check out warriorbabe.com. Check out all of the reviews from all of the women that are inside there together getting amazing results, and come join us. It's such an amazing community of women that are on the same journey, that all have a goal of decreasing body fat, building muscle, and have the truth on what it actually takes.

Okay. WarriorBabe is not another fad. It's not another "hey, you're going to get this kind of result in 30 days" or "you're going to get a six-pack in six weeks." We're giving you the tools and the strategies to help you get to the goals that you want to accomplish on a realistic and sustainable measure, on a sustainable program. So that way, when you're on the journey, six months down the road you've got the results that you want and you know how to sustainably and realistically maintain those results. No more yo-yo. No more "oh, I did this 30-day challenge and now I'm over here trying this keto and now over here trying this low carb, high fat," whatever have you. None of that.

There's so many women that come into the program and they're like, it's a breath of fresh air, a breath of fresh air, because we give you the real things that need to be accomplished to get you to where you sustain those results. Okay. It's a lifestyle that I preach. It's not another 30 days to this or 20 days to this. All right. So if you're not yet a WarriorBabe, check it out, warriorbabe.com. Check out the other babes that have placed reviews on our page.

And what's up to my WarriorBabes? Well, as I always say, our community just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and I am so stoked for everybody who keeps joining us. We have a thousand-plus, a thousand and 30-plus applications that come through for our Blueprint program on a daily basis. We have a hundred women booking in on our team's calls to chat with us to see if they are a good fit for it. So welcome, welcome, welcome to all of you new babes.

Okay. If you guys have questions, let's kick it off. Let's fire off this Q&A. Leave me any questions that you do have in the comment section and I will fire away with those. Friendly reminder, you guys: if you are a part of my program, the Blueprint, we have a live Q&A at 7 p.m. tonight. So in exactly one hour I will be live with our community, and I am able to talk back and forth with you. So it's different than this kind of Q&A. In this Q&A I'm just reading and doing my best to answer these questions without being able to speak to you directly. Inside the Blueprint we're able to talk directly back and forth. So if you're new and you didn't know that, I'll be able to talk with you in one hour. So if you have any questions that revolve around the Blueprint program, I'll talk to you in an hour. Okay.

All right, Carrie, first question of the night: "Would you consider anything over and beyond what's outlined in the Build program as overtraining? Trying to determine if some extra workout or cardio I do is more detrimental than helpful."

Carrie, babe, I would say anything that's outside of my programming is overtraining. I have programmed these types of workouts, and how much cardio you should be doing, with a specific mind frame set around the goals that you are working to accomplish. Okay. It may feel like the Build program could be easy on that day, but think about progressive overload over time. Think about next week. You're going to progress in weight. The week after, you're going to progress in weight. Okay. So there's a reason why the Build program is built the way it is. You're supposed to progress over time and get stronger over time. So it may feel easy in the moment and you may want to add in more, but don't do that, because it could be detrimental.

It could be detrimental to your results. It could be detrimental to your energy levels. It could be detrimental to your recovery. It could be detrimental to your sleep. Moral of it is, it could be detrimental, so don't do it. And especially if you are trying to build, I wouldn't recommend any type of cardio outside of what my recommendation is. Okay. Because with cardio, when you're trying to build muscle, you don't want too much of it, because then your body is getting adapted to more endurance and it's not being adapted to the strength training that you're trying to put it in.

They are two different worlds, you guys. Strength training and cardio are two different worlds. Cardio is endurance. You're giving your body the ability to adapt to endurance. With strength training, if you want to build muscle, to be toned, to have that beautiful hourglass, strong, athletic physique, that's strength training. That's what you want your body to get adapted to. Okay. So keep that in mind. All right. Moving on.

And Yana: "I'm back on my macros." Good, babe. Good. Now make your consistency a little bit longer. I know you, and I know it kind of goes like this. Challenge yourself to be consistent for longer periods of time.

Jenny: "My belly isn't toning up as everything else is. Not sure if I could lose some more weight. That won't budge either. I'm doing the Burn at home, trying to find HIIT without impact as I have bladder issues, but still get that intense burn to torch more calories. What do you suggest?"

So there could be multiple different variables here with how I could answer this kind of question. Let's do one case scenario. If you hold your stubborn body fat in your stomach, then it could be the last thing to go. Okay. So keep putting in the work, keep showing up on a daily basis, keep hitting your macros, keep doing your workouts, keep doing your cardio, and give it a little bit more time. It could just need a little bit more time for it to start eating away that type of body fat. Stubborn body fat is really, really annoying, and you just got to keep hammering away and let it be a patience game at that point.

Number two, the case that I could answer this with is: where are your macros? What are your macros like? Could they call for a little bit of an adjustment? Could you come down in carbs a little bit? Could you come down in fats a little bit and maybe increase your protein a little bit? That could get things to move a little bit more, and facilitate your body to burn different energy stores, aka go in for the body fat, that stubborn body fat, and use different energy stores for your workouts and all that jazz. So that would be number two, an adjustment with your macros. And this is something that I do inside my Blueprint community, inside my Blueprint program. The babes have their macros laid out for them, but it also goes into depth about how to adjust the macronutrients to facilitate more results. So you guys know exactly how to decrease in macros. And it all depends on what your body type is. It's super personalized to you and can give you that kind of answer.

Number three, maybe HIIT isn't your thing, Jenny. Maybe HIIT cardio is too stressful on your body, so it's actually causing your body to hold on to more body fat. That's why I don't really like HIIT that much. I like steady state a lot better. It could be a little bit that it's intense. Okay. And anything that's intense causes more stress on your body. And if stress is on your body, then your cortisol could be elevated. And if your cortisol is elevated, well then, you know, we've just got this whole spiral of shit going on on the inside. So hey, maybe it's not your thing.

Again, something that may be beneficial for you, Jenny: in the Blueprint program, I'm able to talk to you. You come into the program, you get yourself set up, and you tune into my weekly Q&As. By providing me your photos and your stats, I'm able to actually brainstorm and strategize with you, with direct communication in a group setting, on what you should be doing next. So that's what our Q&As are all about, and I can really pinpoint this a little bit better. So keep that in mind, but those are three pointers that I would suggest you try to change up on your own if you aren't inside of my Blueprint program.

Melissa: "Hi there, thank you for answering our questions." Of course, you guys, I love coming here on Wednesdays and hanging out. "I'm four weeks new and noticing a bloated feeling often. Prior to the program I was following a very limited diet plan. How do I reduce the bloat feeling and not feel so poofy in the belly, please? Thank you again. Love the program."

Awesome, babe. Again, if you guys are Blueprint members, like I said at the beginning of the Q&A, I'm happy for you guys to pop in in 45 minutes on an actual Q&A inside the program, where I'm actually able to talk back and forth with you. So I can kind of nail down a little bit of where this bloat is coming from. The most important thing, you guys, and Melissa, is: what is triggering it? Going to the root problem. Okay. What's triggering that bloat? Are you introducing different types of foods? How are you distributing your carbs throughout the day? Are you having dairy and maybe you're sensitive to it?

There could be so many different variables that could be causing that bloat. Whenever anybody says that they have bloat, I try and figure out what the trigger is. What's triggering that bloat to happen? So that's what I would suggest you do. What is it? Did you come into the program and then bump up to high calories? In the Blueprint program, we have a specific area where you have to retrain your metabolism first. Because so many of you women do keto. You do low carb. You do this intense cardio. And you're not eating enough to fulfill the kind of results that you want.

In the program, I have a specific area that is called retraining your metabolism. And you actually go through a nine-week period of increasing your calories slowly to help your metabolism recognize that you want it to work with you, not against you, by eating more food, which then puts you in a very, very optimal state to then be able to cut. And the goal is to either maintain your weight or increase just slightly in weight, by like a couple of pounds, as you're retraining. I have ladies who start out at 1,300 calories and they end up at 2,100 calories and they maybe gain two pounds. But being at that frame, at the 2,100 calories, is going to help them immensely to come back down and to do a cut, or fat loss, or decreasing body fat, in the right way.

So Melissa, that's something that I would suggest: figure out the trigger on the bloat, what's causing it. And if you aren't in the Blueprint program, maybe you jumped up your macros too high. Maybe you missed a step: you needed to retrain your metabolism to get your metabolism up to speed with you.

All right, Catherine: "Recommendations for elimination diets to get rid of bloat while using the program?" Kind of like what I just said. You find out the trigger, you guys. Find out that trigger. What is triggering the bloat? Is it that you introduced new foods? You jumped up a calorie increase too much? You are not drinking enough water? If you're not drinking enough water, your body holds on to water. Okay. And if you're jumping up in macros, both you and Melissa, maybe your body just needs a little bit more time to adapt to that. So keep that in mind, you guys. Find out the trigger.

Elimination is something that we did in the VIP program. So I have a Blueprint program and a VIP program. Blueprint is everything I've been talking about thus far. The VIP is one-on-one coaching. We have a team of six coaches who work with you individually on your programming and your macros and are there 24/7 to support you along your journey, and provide you group calls and one-on-one calls monthly. So one thing that one of the coaches did with one of the VIP women was she pulled dairy back for a week, and holy shit. I shared this on my Instagram story a couple of weeks ago. Drastic difference in just one week of eliminating dairy.

So that's not a thing I talk about in the Blueprint program. Switching gears back to the Blueprint program: how to approach an elimination diet, how do you pull things out, for how long do you pull things out, if you need to go through that process. So keep that in mind too.

Oh, Charity, "your makeup is on point today, girl." Hey, thank you.

All right, Shilpa: "How many workouts should we do in a session? For example, how many workouts for back and biceps? Thank you." You only really need to train one muscle group once per week. Or you could do it as much as twice if you really want to, but you don't need to overtrain. There is so much truth behind overtraining. It is a real thing. You do not need to overtrain, you guys. Okay. So you can hit lats one day and you can hit rows one day, which are two different areas of your back, and then you can hit biceps one day. You only need to hit biceps one day, because your biceps are a secondary muscle that are being worked. Okay.

"Needed that bluntness. Give it to me." You got it. Yes. "And super enzymes work really well too." But again, I don't like to quick-aid with supplements. Figure out the trigger, figure out the reason why all of this is happening, and then fix that trigger before you try to aid elsewhere.

Cool. I love seeing you guys' support on the back end there. You guys are replying to each other. "Hey, you got it." "Got you, Yana, thank you, I needed the push."

David: "Eating right means having food that has no taste." What? That is so freaking false. I eat such enjoyable food on a daily basis. I don't know, David, you sound like you're a male, and in a male's world, a lot of those males just stick to the bro diet of eating chicken, broccoli and rice and tilapia and egg whites every fucking day. Sorry, that's not my jam. That's not what I preach to the women that I work with. I'm all about finding enjoyable foods that work for you and that work with your body, and you can still get results.

Olga: "After doing a challenge and cutting macros, I fell off and got back to emotional eating and gained weight. What is your strategy to come out and get back?" Just start tomorrow. Just start tomorrow. Start fresh. All right. Don't beat yourself up. Don't think about what happened yesterday. Don't think about what happened a week ago. Don't think about what happened five hours ago. Start fresh tomorrow. It's a mindset. That's all it is. It's letting go of the failure thought process and thinking of it as a successful failure. You learned, and now you move forward from it. All right. It's all about just picking up and starting the next day. It happens.

That's what I also love about what I preach. So many things in the fitness industry talk about six weeks, seven weeks, eight weeks to this, and you guys rush to get results, but it doesn't go to the root problem of your habits, of the systems that you're putting into place. If you can get to the root of your journey and establish proper habits, that's long term. That's going to sustain you, so that six months down the road you have the foundation built for yourself and the goals that you're trying to accomplish. If you can get the habits in place, which is something that you don't get from programs that give you a timeline. Programs that give you a timeline are restrictive, and then you come out of it and you're back at square one. All right. So again, babe, start fresh tomorrow.

All right. So I have a question about retraining. What is overtraining? I'm sorry, not retraining. What is overtraining, and how much is too much? Are you guys ready? I talked about this like a month ago, I think, on a Q&A. Every Wednesday I do these Q&As.

So this is the thing with overtraining. When you say "I'm not sore this week, is that a bad thing?" or "I was really sore at the beginning of new workouts but not anymore," or "this month I'm not as sore as I was." If you hit so many different muscle groups throughout the week and you're doing too much, and/or you think that because you're not sore, you're not progressing. Guys, I need you to understand this, if there's anything that you take away from this Q&A. Understand that soreness is not an indicator of your progress. Progress is an indicator of your progress. You could never get sore, but you could constantly and consistently still build muscle and burn body fat. You can progressively overload just by a tiny bit, to the point where you don't get sore, but your body is adapting and getting stronger because you are building, you are progressively overloading. Okay. Does that make sense? Soreness is not an indicator of progress. Progress is an indicator of your progress.

So overtraining is a real thing. Overtraining is a real thing. What I mean by that is you go into the gym and you do too much. I'm guilty of this too. You get excited about the workout, you hit a pre-workout, you maximize intensity to where you can't walk for three days after leg day, which is not optimal. At that point, your body isn't adapting. You guys, if you're overtraining and you're working out too much, your body isn't adapting, which is building muscle and getting you stronger. It's just trying to heal the damage that was caused. So you can heal, but you can never adapt. So if you're overtraining, you're doing too much and you're extremely sore, your body isn't adapting to getting stronger and building muscle. Your body's just solely focusing on healing and surviving because of the damage that you've done. So again, you could heal, but you could never adapt.

The best indicator: if you're stronger and building muscle, you are progressing. Yes. If you're getting stronger, you're progressing each week, you're building muscle, you are progressing. All right. Soreness, if you guys overtrain, maybe that is an indicator that you actually did way too much. If you are really sore and it lasts for two to three days, then you probably went overboard, or you probably did too much. So just keep that in mind. Overtraining is a real thing, or people call it overreaching. How much is too much? It's if you're too sore.

"Yeah, good. Makes total sense. Got it." Cool. Yes, you're welcome. Sometimes I can really hammer things in. I get lost in my explanations.

Carrie: "Recovering from a disordered eating experience triggered by the pandemic. My lowest was 98 pounds or 4% body fat." Holy moly, babe. "Now at 135. I thought I'd feel so much healthier, but the mind fuck is real. Any advice?"

The advice I can give is, when I first started my journey I was 140, I got to 123, and now I'm 150. Talk about a mind fuck. Do not place a number on you. Do not place a number on yourself and let that rule you and rule your success. Focus on how much better you are probably feeling at this point of your journey, that you have gained a healthy amount of weight, and you're here in this journey learning how to do it the right way. But never, ever, ever forget you are so much bigger and better than the value of a number of weight. It's going to change. Your body is going to fluctuate as you build muscle. Coming from me firsthand, like I said, I was 140 when I started, I got as low as 123, and now I'm 150.

That is pure muscle. But you guys have got to understand that muscle is more dense than body fat, so muscle is going to weigh more, and that scale, no matter what, is going to go up. That scale is going to increase. Don't place that number as an indicator of your success. Don't, because it's going to mess with you mentally. It's going to drive you insane. "Why am I gaining three pounds? I want to lose 10. Why am I gaining?" There's so many different variables that come into play. If you're lifting weights and you're new at lifting weights, you're simultaneously building muscle and losing body fat, and that number could never change. So keep that in mind. You guys are so much bigger and better than a number on the scale, and that number is going to fluctuate.

All right. Olga: "Thank you for the reminders. One step at a time. Not failure, a lesson." Yes, yes, yes. Same to you, Carrie. It's a lesson. The pandemic, we all went through it. We all experienced different emotions. What did you learn from it? How did you come out a better person? Cool. Yeah, I hope I answered the overtraining question.

All right, rock stars, anybody else have any more questions for me? I love coming here. I love providing you guys clarity. I love being honest, because there's so much that's out there, and you guys can get lost in what's right, what's real, what should I be paying attention to, what's the ultimate way to get there. Here's a secret. The ultimate secret of getting to where you want to be with building muscle, getting toned, changing your body composition, is tracking your macros, being well aware of the food that you're taking in, and consistency over time. That is literally the secret. There's no "I need to get waist trimmers, I need to put this type of oil on my body, I need this supplement." You don't need any of that. You just need to track and be consistent. Take it from me, guys. I'm six years into my journey now, and those are the main strategies I put into place.

Charity: "Eating more carbs seems to make me crave them more. Is that normal?" Well, then I would question where your carbs are coming from. What are the sources they're coming from? Are they simple carbohydrates, ones that can immediately spike insulin levels and turn that craving on, such as cereal or Pop-Tarts or white rice or anything with white flour in it? Those could trigger cravings. They immediately spike your insulin levels and they don't make you feel as satiated as complex carbs do. So try and see where your carbs are coming from and choose more complex over simple.

Jessica: "I just did a call about your VIP. I'm wondering if I can chat with you before I sign up." I typically don't take calls, but I'll talk with the team and see how we can make this work.

Tanya: "What is your take on carb cycling? That's what I do and I love it." I don't do it. I don't recommend it. I talk about consistency over time, and I add in cheat meals or refeeds one time per week, so I kind of consider that like you're bumping up into a surplus, mainly coming from carbohydrates. But personally, I don't recommend it and I don't do it. But if it works for you, the question is, is it getting you the results? Is it getting you where you want to be? If not, then you've got to figure out whether it's time to try something else.

Christine: "What do you think about creatine?" I love this question. Again, I'm in the middle. I don't recommend it for some people and I do recommend it for other people. It's good for individuals like vegan people who don't eat animal protein. Animal protein has natural creatine in it. Anything that comes from a mom and a dad, like a chicken, has natural creatine in it from natural sources. So I don't see the reason to supplement, adding more supplements, when you're getting it naturally from animal products. Now, if you don't eat animal products, yes, that's where I would recommend it, because you're missing out on that supplement that can help you on your journey.

And then I also do recommend it for people who are older and need to maintain the lean muscle mass that they do have in their body. That can help them with their strength and the strength training and the workouts that they're doing. So I'm in the middle. If it works for you, it works for you. If you want to take it, sure, go ahead. But I'm all about natural. I'm all about finding the trigger of things and taking things naturally before adding in all the other stuff. Sometimes I don't see why it needs to be added in.

Yana: "Can't work out without macros, or macros without workouts. Yes. Mixed simple carbs and brown rice mostly." So try to lean more towards the complex carbs. Try yams and sweet potatoes, brown rice, oatmeal, wheat bread, cinnamon raisin bagels, things like that. Those are some things that I would recommend. Try to err more towards the complex carbs and see if that works for you.

"What do you recommend for an app for best results when it comes to tracking macros?" WarriorBabe. I mean, we don't have an app, but you can go find your macros online, you guys. Sure, go ahead. You're going to find a thousand different results. The thing with WarriorBabe is that what I've worked so hard on over the last three years is fine-tuning a calculator, which is inside my program, that is individual for you and your goals and your body type and your lifestyle, and then you come into a Q&A and ask, "Are these right? Am I on the right track?" and we're able to adjust them over time.

This is the thing: you can go get your macros wherever the fuck you get them, but you need to be able to adjust your macros over time to get you to where you want to be. Sure, you can get your starter macros, but they may stop working for you. Your body will adapt to them. Your body is very smart, so you need to learn how to adjust them, and that's something that I cover in WarriorBabe. What the WarriorBabes use is MyFitnessPal. Now, if you go to MyFitnessPal, sure, they're going to give you macros. I do not agree with MyFitnessPal macros. The protein for building muscle is extremely too low. That's what calculators are going to do. They don't take specifics into account, and I've worked three years to figure out a calculator that works for women, where they can literally plug in their stats, not talk to me, go and get results, and then come back into the WarriorBabe platform and utilize Q&As to talk to me about their progress.

Yana: "WarriorBabe, how much?" Go to the website, warriorbabe.com. You can check out the Blueprint and see what it's all about, but you're going to have to talk to my team about getting involved. We don't have prices online, because I'm really, really adamant about who comes into the program, because I don't want to work with people that are going to throw me excuses. I'm all about people showing up and doing it. So we don't have prices online, but you can talk to my team.

All right, cool, guys. Well, I appreciate you guys. I'll take a couple more questions in the next three to five minutes. But every Wednesday, you guys, I come here live for about 30 to 40 minutes and I answer any questions that you guys have about your journey, whether it be macros, mindset, nutrition, workouts, whatever have you. If you need some tough love, you need some realness, I come here every Wednesday, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Mark your calendar, set your alarms, tune in. I'm all about you guys tuning in and showing up. So come here and hang out for a little bit.

All right, cool. Appreciate you guys. Keep up the good work. Most importantly, what I say to everybody is just show up for yourself. Show up for yourself, okay? Put in the work. At the end of the day, you're the one that falls asleep on your bed, on your pillow. Did you do everything that you needed to do that was in line with the goals you want to accomplish that day? And if not, make it better the next day. All right. Love you guys. Bye.