After Lipo and a Tummy Tuck: How Beth Finally Got Lean

Beth: I had wreaked havoc on my metabolism for years and years. I ended up gaining like 25 pounds. No diet is helping me, so I'm going to go get lipo. And I was like, this is my problem. I have spent the last five years blaming everybody else for my weight gain.

Nikkiey: What's going on, everybody? Today I have a WarriorBabe here with us who spent years chasing the next quick fix. She was jumping from CrossFit to every fad diet, pushing herself to exhaustion and still feeling stuck. No matter what she tried, the weight kept coming back on and the cycle kept continuing. But then she found WarriorBabe and everything changed. She learned how to fuel her body. She learned how to trust the process. But most importantly, what I love about her journey the most is that she took ownership of her journey. And now she's stronger, she's more confident, and she's finally free from the all-or-nothing mindset. Today we have Beth here with us. Beth, welcome.

Beth: Thank you. It's an honor to be here.

Nikkiey: Awesome. I love that. Beth, share with the listeners, where are you located and what do you do for work?

Beth: South of Seattle, in Washington State. I am currently a stay-at-home mom. However, I just recently started going back to school to get certified in health and fitness.

Nikkiey: Let's go, full circle. Oh, that gave me the chills. And how many little ones do you have at home?

Beth: I have three big ones. My oldest is 21, my daughter, and then I have two sons, 18 and 14.

Nikkiey: Okay, how old are you, can I ask?

Beth: I'm 39. I'm going to be the big 40 in March.

Nikkiey: Let's go. You do not look that. I totally thought you were in your early 30s. That's amazing. All right, cool. So let's dive into it. Take us back to before WarriorBabe. What's your story back then, before you found us?

Beth: I think I've got to go back way further, to the beginning, when I first got into fitness. I was around 20 years old. I had gained a bunch of weight from getting pregnant with my daughter. I was probably 210 pounds, and I was like, what do I do? My mom was like, there's this new diet called Atkins. So I started doing Atkins and I lost probably 50 pounds in that year. And I was like, okay, this is great. Then I got into the mindset of, okay, you have to be skinny, no muscle, do only cardio. I wanted the scale to always say 130 pounds. If it said anything different, I freaked out, and I wouldn't know what to do. I would do something for three weeks, I would lose two pounds, and then I would just gain the weight right back. So I went through Atkins, intermittent fasting, South Beach, all the things, keto when that came along. Still did a little bit of cardio, but was obsessed with the number on the scale. That's all I cared about. I didn't really care what I looked like. It was only about that number.

Nikkiey: Why was it about the number?

Beth: I think it came from a place of not feeling good about myself. I found my worth in the scale. As long as that number says that, then that means I'm skinny and now I can feel good about myself. Then I joined CrossFit in 2013. And I was like, what is this place? These people are throwing weights around. They're huge. I've never seen muscles in real life. So I started CrossFit with zero strength. I could not even back squat the women's bar. My legs were shaking like a little baby deer. I fell in love with it, drank the Kool-Aid. All I talked about was that. And I didn't realize then that when you put on muscle, the scale is going to change. So over two years I was still really lean, but getting biceps, getting abs. But the scale started creeping up. I was like, what is going on here? Now I'm 140 pounds. Okay, what do I do? I have to eat less. I was eating about 1,500 calories a day, so I was like, okay, I've got to eat 1,300 calories a day. And the scale kept going up and going up. Finally, after two years, it was up to 155 pounds. Mind you, I was still only about 19% body fat, because we had those dunk tanks that came to the gym. But I didn't think about that. All I thought was, I'm 155 pounds now, what do I do? I just have to eat less. So then I dropped down to 1,000 calories.

Nikkiey: Oh my God. Hold on a second, let me pause there. Even though the number was creeping up on the scale, were there visible changes you were seeing in your body composition? Were you aware of them, were you paying attention to it, or were you totally letting the scale run the show?

Beth: The scale ran the show. I would look at myself in the mirror and be like, oh my gosh, I have biceps, this is cool. And then, oh, you're gross. Just hurtful things, like, you're doing something wrong, there's something wrong with you. It always came back down to that self-worth, low self-esteem. That went on for the next couple of years. I went through a divorce and turned to alcohol to cope with my emotions. So now I was like, okay, how do I make up for this? I'm going to eat less food and drink my bottle of wine. I looked back at my MyFitnessPal a couple of days ago just to compare the macros, and I was eating about 80 grams of protein a day, anywhere from 1,000 to 1,300 calories. I'd go to the gym first thing in the morning, drink a protein shake, do the CrossFit workout, stay after and do cardio, come home and take a nap for two hours. Then if I had to work that day, I'd go to work and sit down all day, not moving my body outside of the gym. Or I would just lie on the couch all day and watch trash TV while my kids were at school. So no movement, just the small movement in the gym, then come home and sit. And I was like, I don't understand what's going on. Over COVID and all that, I ended up gaining an additional 25 pounds. I'm like, how? What do I do? I'm doing something wrong. I need to figure this out. No diet is helping me. So I'm going to go get lipo. I don't care, let's just do it. And my husband's like, okay, whatever you want, it's fine.

Nikkiey: Pause there really quick, I want to circle back. You were eating 1,000 calories at this point, you were doing CrossFit and cardio, you were doing all this exercise, and your composition was still changing. Were you gaining weight because of all the stress as well, that you were basically going and going but not giving your body the right nutrition?

Beth: Yeah, for sure. Not eating enough protein, drinking way too much wine, not sleeping well, and just the amount of stress and the negativity, the things I would say to myself, like, oh gosh, you're such a loser, why can't you get this, what's wrong with you? And I gained a lot of fat. It was all fat. My body composition went from being very, very lean to not lean. Now I don't even know who I am when I look at myself in the mirror, because I remember this person, but now I'm looking at somebody else and I don't even know who you are anymore.

Nikkiey: What did the weight get up to at that point?

Beth: When I got lipo, it was 170.

Nikkiey: 170. Wow.

Beth: So I got lipo, went down to 160, and I was like, oh, this is cool.

Nikkiey: How fast?

Beth: Oh gosh, like a month, once the swelling went down. After surgery you're not really hungry, and you're dehydrated anyway. That was 160. But within six months I went back to my old habits. I was like, I'm just going to keep drinking my wine and working out, not moving my body, just doing me, my old habits. And within six months it was back, and I'm like, what am I doing? I don't understand what the problem is. So then I was like, I'm going to do the next best thing, I'm going to go get a tummy tuck. So I went and did that big procedure, and that's a whole shit show in itself. But again, I went back down to around 160, 165. And I felt better, because I had gotten rid of the loose skin I had from having babies. But overall, my body composition was not what I was used to. I had inflammation everywhere, my face was puffy, and I wasn't changing my habits. That was October of 2021. By March of 2022, I was up to 175. And that's when I was scrolling on Facebook one day and saw your posts. And I was like, she's talking right to me. Everything she's saying, this is for me. What is this? I need to try something different, because what I'm doing isn't working.

Nikkiey: Well, first I want to acknowledge that story you just shared. It's not easy to share that type of story. Those are very vulnerable emotions, like, I'm not enough, I'm inadequate. There's a lot of shame and guilt attached to the number on the scale. For you to have the awareness to recognize that, I thank you for sharing it, because it's going to resonate with somebody listening to this who will think, that's where I am right now. And I hope that the rest of this interview, as we travel through the complete transformation you've made, inspires somebody to make a shift too. So thank you for sharing that story.

Beth: Yeah. I'm an open book.

Nikkiey: I love that. It's going to make this interview so fire. Before we dive into you finding the ad on Facebook, were there moments where you felt like you had lost control of your confidence, your health, your body? Can you describe what that felt like?

Beth: Oh, I knew I didn't have control. It felt helpless, in ways where I just didn't know. I was going through so much at the time. Looking back now, I never allowed myself the time to grieve going through a divorce and all of those feelings. When you put all of your faith into what you look like, and that's all that matters and that's what brings your worth, and that's just declining, it's like, I don't even know who I am anymore. It leaves a lot of questions, for sure.

Nikkiey: When you look back at trying CrossFit, trying keto, trying Beachbody, trying fat burners, why do you think none of them worked for you long term?

Beth: Because I wasn't consistent. Well, I was consistent with CrossFit. I did that five, six days a week. But I was not consistent with my nutrition. I would track here and there. I worked with a couple of coaches back then, and I would track what I wanted them to see, you know? I didn't want them to know what I was really eating. So it wasn't consistent at all. And I never stuck with anything long enough. I would try something for a month and think, this isn't working, or I'm bored, I want to go back to eating carbs, or whatever it was. It was just this constant yo-yo up and down.

Nikkiey: What was the one thing that made you realize, okay, this is it, I need to make a change?

Beth: I didn't like myself. Deep down, I just did not like who I was. I wasn't radiating life. I wasn't speaking positive things. I was a negative person. If I saw you in the grocery store and you said, hey, how's your day? even if I was having the best day in the world, I would say, eh, it's okay, it's fine. Or if someone asked, what's new in your life, how are your kids? I'd say, oh, they're fine. It just wasn't who I was to the core.

Nikkiey: And struggling with negative self-talk and inconsistency, because you mentioned self-worth, how did that impact your confidence?

Beth: Oh, I had none. Zero. There's a huge gap on social media where I just stopped taking and posting pictures of myself. I didn't want to be in any of them. I hated it. I had zero confidence.

Nikkiey: And if you don't mind me asking, you shared that you went through a divorce. What kind of toll did navigating those struggles as the old you take on your relationships or your career? Do you mind sharing a little about that?

Beth: Yeah. While I was going through it, it wasn't stressful. We had a pretty amicable divorce. We carpooled together to court to have the judge sign off on it. And he's still involved with the kids, they see him every other weekend, so everything has been great. That situation went as well as it could have. But still, going through a breakup, being together for 10 years and it not working, you feel like, okay, what's wrong with me? We had gone through counseling with different pastors over the years, but it was never a deep dive into me and what I thought about myself. So it just went back to, there's something wrong with you. And then you couple that with all the weight issues and the body issues, and it's like, oh, okay, there is something wrong with me.

Nikkiey: I appreciate you sharing that mental side of things, because I don't think a lot of people ask themselves enough questions to get to the root of why the scale matters to them so much, or why they feel like they need to overcompensate inside the gym with cardio and CrossFit and all of these things. You got deep with yourself along your transformation, which I think is the coolest part. Leading into you finding WarriorBabe and the ad popping up, what were your initial thoughts at the beginning? What were you thinking your journey was going to be like when you first started with us?

Beth: I wasn't too sure. I didn't know what to think at first, because at this point I was like, this could be something else I just signed up for and threw my money at, like all the other programs. I bought every supplement in the world. So when I asked my husband, can I sign up for this? he was like, oh, here we go again. But after my call with Dawn, she just had so much excitement and enthusiasm, and I was like, this is it. I had a gut feeling that something was different about this program. I had to see what it was about. I got the Blueprint program and geeked out that entire weekend, watched every single video.

Nikkiey: No way. I love that.

Beth: And so I was like, what do I have to do? I started myself in the retrain. Like, okay, this is obviously what I have to do. I just went into it thinking, I need to stick to this. I was like, Beth, if you do anything with this program, do not stop. Whatever you do. I'm making that promise to myself now, because I'm the queen of stopping. I stop everything. And then it's, oh, okay, fine, I'm just going to start over again on Monday. I can't even tell you how many times I've said that in my life.

Nikkiey: So you made the promise to yourself that you wouldn't quit this time. What made this feel different from everything else you'd tried?

Beth: I think having a coach and accountability, somebody checking in on you every week to make sure you're doing what you said you're going to do. And the community of other women. When I'm realizing that I'm either doing something great or not doing something great, there's somebody there saying, hey, I'm with you. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm not alone. Okay, this is awesome. I can do this.

Nikkiey: I love that. Taking a step back really quick, what drew you in? You said I was speaking to you, like it was the exact words you needed to hear. What exactly caught your attention?

Beth: I think just you talking about, are you tired of trying all these fad diets and doing hours of cardio and not eating enough food and being tired? And it was like, yes, that is me. And not knowing what to eat. There's so much stuff out there, it's so confusing. Eat fruit. No, don't eat fruit. Eat vegetables. Don't eat vegetables. Eat protein. All this stuff. And it's like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Can I drink water? What? I don't know. So having a coach, and I looked at your physique and I was like, yes, I want that. I'm going to do whatever this girl says. Just having somebody there to guide me, because I felt so lost. At that point I was going in with my eyes shut. I know nothing at this point, you just guide me.

Nikkiey: Love that. Circling back, you said you dropped yourself to 1,000 calories a day. What did those 1,000 calories consist of? Were you aware of macronutrients at the time, or were you just focused on eating 1,000 calories?

Beth: It was off and on. I had dabbled in macros before with previous coaches through CrossFit, and I tried to do a retrain once with a different trainer. But his was very drastic. He brought me from 1,000 to 2,000 calories, just boom. So when I listened to the retrain, I really liked that WarriorBabe was, let's do this gradually. 100 calories, 150 calories, get your body used to it, stay there, then bump up again. That seemed way more reasonable to me than doubling my calories and trying to go from eating 80 grams of protein to 160. Nobody wants to eat two cups of egg whites for breakfast every day.

Nikkiey: Yeah. Let's talk about the retrain process when you joined. Did you do the retrain by yourself in the Blueprint?

Beth: Just for the first two weeks while I was waiting. Then I finished it out with the coach.

Nikkiey: Okay, gotcha. How long did you do the retrain for?

Beth: Probably three or four months, maybe. I don't even know. Then we went to maintenance.

Nikkiey: You went to maintenance right after that?

Beth: Mm-hmm.

Nikkiey: What were your initial thoughts here? It seems like you knew what a retrain was before WarriorBabe, with that mention of going up to 2,000 calories. When people hear they have to eat more food, they freak out. How did you navigate those thoughts at the beginning, first by yourself and then with the coach?

Beth: To be honest, in my head when I was doing my retrain, I was thinking, I'm just going to get back to that magic 1,500-calorie number. Maybe eat 1,600 calories. So when I met with my coach and she said we're going to bump you up again, it was 1,800 calories, 1,900 calories, 2,000 calories. It got all the way up to 2,200 calories. I was like, what is going on? This chick is trying to make me fat. This is nuts. But I was sleeping better. I felt better. I did gain weight, probably about 8 pounds from doing the retrain. But I was smoother, if that makes sense. My body was bigger, but I looked smoother. I wasn't as lumpy. But it was uncomfortable. I joined this program to lose weight. I remember telling her, okay, it's March, I have my honeymoon in May, we're going to Bora Bora. It had been postponed since COVID because they shut everything down. So now it's here. I have two months to lose 25 pounds to be sexy and all that. And she was like, that's not going to happen. No.

Nikkiey: How did you handle that feedback?

Beth: Oh, Lord. I'm going to give a shout-out to Lauren. She was so gracious and patient. She taught me how to enjoy vacations and be in the moment. It was, we're going to do this the right way, and it is going to take longer, but trust me, in the end you're going to be so much happier. Because if you jump into your little quick fix, taking a bunch of water pills or fat burners and losing a bunch of water weight before your honeymoon, you're going to come back even bigger. And why would you not want to enjoy all the amazing food you can experience down there? Just go and have fun.

Nikkiey: A drastically different mindset from what you'd experienced.

Beth: So different. And I went, I had a great time, and it was beautiful.

Nikkiey: And when you came back, did you step on the scale?

Beth: I did. And it was up, and I freaked out. But it was like, okay, I know flying does that, and I ate a ton of French food, and French food is very high in fat. But it was fine. It is what it is. I was already in the mindset of, I've gained weight doing this retrain, I just have to trust the process. You say it all the time, trust me now, believe me later. Now I get it, it clicked. But even when you're saying trust me, it's freaking hard to trust you. Because I'm like, how can I trust you? I'm buying a whole pant size bigger than when I started. We're going the opposite way here. I'm trying to get smaller and I'm getting bigger. What am I doing here?

Nikkiey: And how did your coach help you understand what was happening there?

Beth: She explained that I had wreaked havoc on my metabolism through years and years of under-eating and not eating the right macronutrients, definitely not enough protein, and not eating the right types of foods. I filled my carbs and fats with lots of processed food. So I eventually switched to eating more whole foods, and I felt better.

Nikkiey: So you went from retrain for about four months. Where did you go next?

Beth: Then we went to maintenance.

Nikkiey: Were you hoping to go into a cut after that? Where was your mind mentally, because you'd gained weight? How did you navigate hearing, oh, we're going to sit here for a while?

Beth: I didn't like it. I was always like, where's the cut? Where's the cut? Where's the cut? She's like, just be patient, give your body time. I think it was around six months in that we tried to do a cut, and my body said no.

Nikkiey: What was your body doing?

Beth: Every biomarker went off track. My sleep suffered, my energy suffered, my mood suffered. All of it. It just immediately crashed. I was like, what is going on? This is crap. And she's like, okay, we've got to let your body heal. You've just got to be patient, because the results will come. And it was so frustrating watching all these other babes in the community showing their results, and I'm like, look at me, I'm doing that too. What is wrong with me? Why is this not working for me? I don't understand. So I ended up spending my first year in maintenance, eating around 2,000 calories. By the end of it, even though the scale didn't move that much, I lost about five pounds. I lost all the weight from the retrain. I started at 175, went up to 182, and by the end of my first year I was around 170. So I was leaning out. I had gone back down to my size 8 pants. I was like, okay, we're back where we started, but I was a lot leaner and I had more muscle. I was the strongest I had ever been. I was finally able to work my way up to doing a bodyweight back squat. I was so pumped about that. Every week I just got stronger and stronger in the gym. That kept me going. I was like, okay, there's more to this than just losing weight.

Nikkiey: Right. Everybody is totally different in the way they're going to navigate their journey. But looking back at that first year of doing the retrain and then sitting in maintenance, what do you understand now about why you had to do that? It's a true testament that you went through it and stuck with it, and your before and afters are what made me reach out to you and say, dude, we've got to share your story. What did you learn in that first year about what your body needed?

Beth: That you have to fuel your body. Especially if you're working out, you have to give it fuel. You can't not eat. Your body's going to crash. Your brain is going to crash. I wasn't eating fruits and vegetables. I didn't have any of the micronutrients going on. And I think it was a time to teach me patience. I am not a patient person at all. I'm like, quick fix, give me, like you say all the time, put it in the microwave and pop it out.

Nikkiey: You're the type that wants the results yesterday.

Beth: Yes. I think it was a very good learning experience. Okay, good things come to those who wait, and I've got to be patient. What I did in the past did not work. I just had to believe that I'm seeing women all around me get these amazing results, and it's undeniable. So it will happen.

Nikkiey: What happened after your first year? Let's go there.

Beth: At the end of my first year, I was like, okay, I think I've got this whole macro thing down. I have the Blueprint program, so you guys are going to give me workouts to follow, and I can hop on calls and get new macros. I've got this. I can do this. I'm fine. I lasted three weeks. It just so happened that we had some trips planned back to back. On trip two, we were in Mexico with the family, and I had immediately gone back to my old ways. Like, okay, I'm going to party hard, drink a whole bunch, not eat nutritious food, because I'm going to save my macros for this. Almost the minute I ended VIP, my brain switched off and was like, okay, we're going back to old Beth. Eat less food, but a little bit more protein, because I was up to eating about 120 grams after year one. And it was like, no, it's fine, just go back to drinking more and you'll be fine. I was on vacation and felt like garbage. I was like, oh my gosh, I have gained back all of this weight. I don't feel good about myself. Something is wrong. And I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a post a coach had just done on exercising for longevity. My husband and I had recently gotten into Peter Attia and all that stuff, so when she said the word longevity, I was like, oh, what is this? That's what I want. I want to be here for my family. I want to be here for my kids. I want to be here for my grandkids. I want to be healthy when I'm 70, when I'm 80. I want to be able to take my grandkids places and be strong, so if I fall or something, I have muscle and strong bones, to live a long, healthy life. So I immediately reached out to support and was like, please take me back.

Nikkiey: While you were on vacation, right?

Beth: While I'm on vacation. And they were like, yes. And I asked, can I be with Coach Jess?

Nikkiey: I remember this happening internally too. The whole team was like, oh, we're having one of our babes come back. It was super celebrated, which was super cool.

Beth: I was like, I need to do this now. So Jess reached out, and I said, no, let's do the Zoom now on vacation. We're doing it now. So I had my Zoom and told her everything that was happening. And she was like, it's okay. I said, but I have one more trip after this, what do I do? She's like, just enjoy your vacation, and when you get back, we're getting after it. And I was like, okay. So I got back from my trips, and the first thing she did in my little WarriorBabe app was put in a 10,000-step goal. Because why? Because goals. And I was like, oh my God, this chick is crazy. I'm literally getting 4,000 to 5,000 steps. Mind you, I wasn't walking or anything before this. I would work out and then sit on the couch and watch trash TV the rest of the day, or work sitting down. So she puts this 10,000-step goal on my phone and I'm like, I can't do this. This is way too much. What is she doing? I'm going back and forth, making all these excuses for why I can't do it. And she's like, just go back and look through our team huddles and find some past meetings you can get caught up on. And I was like, okay, fine. So I'm out there walking up and down my driveway, huffing and puffing, like, this is stupid. Why does she have me walking like this? I don't have time for this. And the episode I picked was on ownership and accountability. I'm listening to it, and she's talking about how you are 100% in control of the choices you make. It's up to you. If you want to do it, you will find a way. If not, you're going to find an excuse. There's a difference between excuses and reasons for not doing something. But everything you do is up to you. And it stopped me in my tracks. It sucker-punched me in the gut. And I was like, this is my problem. I have spent the last five years blaming everybody else for my weight gain. It's the coach's fault that their programming wasn't working. Or it's my husband's fault because he wants to go on date night and he's making me eat and drink this delicious food. It's all his fault. And I realized then, okay, I am in control. It totally empowered me. And that day was the first day of my transformation. Of true transformation.

Nikkiey: What do you feel was the biggest challenge you had to go through working with Jess in that second year?

Beth: Oh, biggest challenge. Re-evaluating my why. And getting out of that mindset, because I was always a perfectionist. If I didn't do something perfectly, I just beat myself up. I was big time into the all-or-nothing mentality.

Nikkiey: Okay, unpack that. What did that look like for you?

Beth: I thought I had to hit everything perfectly. I had to get my steps in. I had to track every day. I had to hit my macros. I had to get my workouts in. All of it. And if I missed one thing, then I was a failure. Over the year working with Jess and with The WarriorBabe Show and the meetings the coaches do every week, a lot of that stuff is on mindset. And I started breaking it down: okay, this transformation is more than just my body. I had to do something with my mind. So I started going to counseling to really dig deep on, okay, why are you anxious? Why do you have these negative thoughts about yourself? Why are you insecure? My first why was very insecure. It was, I want to lose weight and be sexy for my husband.

Nikkiey: Very surface level.

Beth: Surface level. But deep down it was, why do you want to do that? And it was, well, because I'm afraid he might leave me because I don't look like I did when we first met. And then it was, ding, ding, ding. Okay, you need to dig deeper on this and get to the root issue. And through counseling, I did. The root issue was not feeling good about myself and not having worth.

Nikkiey: That is so freaking powerful. I'm reading the book Worthy right now by Jamie Kern Lima. Have you heard of it?

Beth: I've heard of it, but I haven't read it.

Nikkiey: It's so good. It talks about self-worth and self-confidence. Self-worth is our insecurities, not feeling enough and not feeling adequate, and the shame and guilt we carry into all of our emotional reactions and how we communicate on a day-to-day basis. And self-confidence is the skill sets we have, the traits, the characteristics. They're two drastically different things. I think it's so admirable of you to go to counseling and figure out the deeper reasons why you're taking the day-to-day actions you take, or why your actions are the way they are. Or even that surface level of, I just want to look sexy and look good and lose weight. But why? And you got answers to those things. I think that's so powerful.

Beth: Yeah. It's been a complete game changer to do these things day in and day out. When I first started journaling and doing the walking and the self-affirmations you guys talked about, I'll be the first to admit, when you talked about speaking life over yourself and saying all these good things about yourself in the mirror, I was like, this is stupid, Nikkiey. I'm not doing this.

Nikkiey: And I don't blame you. It's definitely weird having somebody tell you to do that.

Beth: It's the dumbest thing ever. But what I started doing was, I would look at myself in the mirror and get ready for the day, do my hair and makeup, and I'm like, okay, girl, you've got it today. But then I would leave and I'd think, oh, but you have cellulite. So I started flipping the script. When I noticed myself having a negative thought, I would flip it and find three things about myself that I liked. Every single day, every time I did it, sometimes multiple times a day. Okay, you said this negative thing about yourself, now find three things. And I would stare at myself in the mirror and say, look at those strong arms, look at those strong legs.

Nikkiey: I fucking love that. It's so powerful.

Beth: Over time, I started believing it.

Nikkiey: You rewired that brain.

Beth: A thousand percent. And I think all of it, learning that I don't have to be perfect, I don't have to do everything. Just show up for myself as best as I can that day. My 100% for one day might look different from another day. Maybe I'm sick, or maybe something's come up. But showing up for myself, whatever that looks like that day, I know is going to be enough.

Nikkiey: That's huge, Beth. You should be so proud of yourself for that realization and that self-awareness. It's a huge transformation from where you were. You went from being pessimistic, with that blame and victim mentality, blaming everybody else for why you're not getting results, to seeking the truth within yourself and understanding why you operate the way you operate, why you say things, how you act, your behaviors. And it all came through fitness and health and you figuring out these answers for yourself, which I think is so inspiring. I hope somebody else resonates with that, because it's hard to get that deep with yourself and face yourself head on and say, oh no, we're going to change, basically down to the wiring of how you operate. It's what we tell ourselves on a daily basis. It all starts up here. That's why you can or cannot achieve the things you want for yourself, because of the narratives going on inside your head.

Beth: A thousand percent.

Nikkiey: That is such a cool story. So the mindset aspect, which I think is the biggest transformation of them all, is one side, and there's also the physical. What are some of the achievements you accomplished working with WarriorBabe?

Beth: Physically, I would say now I'm doing pull-ups. I'm up to nine pull-ups. But my biggest thing is learning to love myself. This program has taught me that it doesn't matter about perfection. It just matters about being consistent with yourself. And being okay with not doing everything perfectly every day is giving me so much freedom. It really has changed my entire life. I asked my husband last year, what's your favorite thing about me that's changed? What do you like best about me? And he said, your mindset. You're a completely different person now. You're so happy. I always look for at least one positive thing in every scenario now, where before I would just dwell on things. It was, well, why didn't this happen? This didn't happen. And now it's, okay, that didn't happen, but what can I learn from this experience? Because even now I'm not perfect. There are weeks where things don't go as planned, but I don't get down on myself anymore. It's, okay, what can we learn from this to make ourselves a little bit better next time?

Nikkiey: Let's go, Beth. That is freaking awesome. And then you also went through your first cut, right, with Jess?

Beth: I did. It went beautifully. I lost about 15 pounds in 12 weeks, and I was like, holy crap.

Nikkiey: It's so cool to highlight that accomplishment, because you spent time in retrain and time in maintenance, which together equated to a year. But you had to be there because of where your metabolism was coming into the program. It had the last 20-some years of being beat up and destroyed and overtrained and eating less. I think Lauren mentioned this to you, as you said in the application, that you'd had 20 years of messing up your metabolism and it was going to take time to repair it. And you even had the biofeedback when you tried to go into your first cut, basically saying, nah, this isn't happening right now. So you had to stay in maintenance. But then working with Jess in your second year, you actually had a successful cut. And the reason you had a successful cut was the prep you did for your metabolism prior to that.

Beth: Yeah. And my mindset.

Nikkiey: Your mindset. Two and two together. If your mindset's on board, you're speaking more positive things over yourself, and you've fixed the all-or-nothing mentality, then coming into your first cut and having that type of success, it goes hand in hand.

Beth: Yeah. It was pretty awesome.

Nikkiey: How are you feeling now?

Beth: I'm great now. After my cut, we went back to maintenance. I was a little scared. I should say, though, the coolest thing about being with WarriorBabe is that the lowest calories I have eaten is 1,750.

Nikkiey: Yes. Let's go.

Beth: And thankfully I only had to make that one adjustment. Then we went back to maintenance. And I'll be honest, I kind of struggle with the mindset of maintenance. So I went back into maintenance, and then I recently did another eight-week cut and lost five pounds doing that one. And now I'm like, okay, I'm done. I'm good. I like where I'm at. So now we're going back into maintenance, and I'm realizing that this is a time where I have to be okay with maintaining. I'm so used to the mindset of, you have to lose weight, you have to lose weight, you have to do this. And now I'm like, you're here. Just enjoy it.

Nikkiey: You think this is where the magic happens?

Beth: Yes. So I think it's about allowing myself to enjoy being in maintenance. Last time I went into maintenance, I kind of felt like I floundered around. I wasn't as diligent about hitting my macros. I was getting more relaxed, like, oh, I can eat this cheat meal and go way over my macros, or have this drink, which is fine. But I didn't like that I wasn't as disciplined. In a cut I'm definitely more disciplined. So going back into maintenance now, I'm working on still having that discipline mindset, but enjoying my success. Now you maintain it. Now this is the hard part.

Nikkiey: I love that you're mentioning that, because what I hear is that each cut and each maintenance is going to look drastically different in the way you approach it. In the first maintenance, as you mentioned, you weren't as disciplined and allowed cheat meals here and there. Now you're going into the second maintenance more aware of where you fell short in the last one, which goes back to what you said earlier about trying to find the good in everything. You're learning in each situation, and that's the mindset that comes with your growth, which I think is so cool. Each one is going to be different, and you're going to learn so many new things about yourself in each phase, in how you approach the workouts and nutrition. You're continuing to evolve, which is super cool.

Beth: I'm excited to see what this year brings. I'm like, let's go.

Nikkiey: Heck yeah. Pulling back to one thing, because you wrote this and I wanted you to speak on it: how did you approach going into maintenance from the mental side of things?

Beth: The biggest thing was to give my body a break. When you're in a cut, you're adding more stress to your body by not eating the food. That's been huge for me, because I always thought, well, we don't need to eat food, we're fine. But my body loves food.

Nikkiey: Yes. That's huge. Going from 1,000 calories to now, where your lowest while losing weight is about 1,750. That's a drastic difference.

Beth: It's been awesome. My maintenance calories have been around 2,000. But there are times when we'll go on vacation and I'll enjoy vacation. We still work out every day. We still walk. That's one thing I've learned to love, walking. I walk three miles every single day. That's a non-negotiable for me now. I use that time to listen to my sermons, to listen to the Bible. That's my time with God. Okay, non-negotiable, we're doing this every day. It started as a discipline and now it's a desire. And with that, I'm able to go on vacation and eat 2,500, 3,000 calories in a day. I came back from vacation and, thankfully, the scale is what it is. But even if the scale says something more, it has no effect on me anymore. I look at it strictly as a data point. Okay, what did I eat this week? Now it's 150 or it's 145, whatever it is. There's no relationship with it anymore. It's just one data point.

Nikkiey: That is huge. You've made so many little yet big transformations along the way: eating more food, working out less, having a better relationship with the scale and understanding what it's truly used for, your mindset, understanding how you operate and digging deep within yourself. You should be so proud of all of those accomplishments.

Beth: Now I am. This is the first time in my life where I can honestly look at myself and say, you did what you said you were going to do. I am so proud of you.

Nikkiey: I just got chills from you saying that. That is so cool. It's very inspiring. If there's somebody listening to this right now who's unsure about taking the next step, what would you tell them about how WarriorBabe can help them along the way?

Beth: Trust me now, believe me later. Full circle. Run. Just do it. Just sign up. If I could do it, anybody could do it. This program works. It changed my life completely. I will never be the same person again because of this program.

Nikkiey: That's incredible. What about somebody who's scared to invest in themselves? What advice would you give them about making their health and their journey a priority?

Beth: Well, you can invest in yourself now, or you can pay for it later with medical bills. But I would say you're worth it. Why not invest in something that can change your life, change how you look at yourself, how you act, how you are with your family? To have a renewed mindset of being good enough and being loved, you can't put a price tag on it. It's the best feeling in the world.

Nikkiey: It truly is. That was so beautifully said. I think your entire story is a testament to what happens when you stop chasing the quick fixes and start building. There were no systems you had before, but you started building habits and consistency that would actually last, and they stuck with you. This is probably the fifth or sixth interview I've done with WarriorBabes, and your journey is the real transformation on the mindset side of things. It isn't about being perfect. It's about showing up, staying consistent, taking ownership, leaving behind the victim mentality and taking responsibility for where you were in that moment when it all switched for you. I know there are other women listening right now who may feel like their self-worth is in the trash, who are having all of these thoughts that they're inadequate, or who have shame and guilt around the way they look and the way they feel. If that is you, Beth's story is a true testament that if you are willing to take ownership and take responsibility, you can have a transformation of self-love while at the same time completely transforming your body composition. I know you're still on that journey and still making it happen day to day, but your journey so far is so inspiring. I hope that whoever is listening and spinning their wheels and ready for a change will check out warriorbabe.com. Start today. You can have the same story Beth has shared, and you could be in Beth's position in a couple of years. Beth, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. Appreciate you.