Toned at the Same Weight: More Carbs, Less Cardio

Nikkiey: Hey everybody, welcome to our WarriorBabe interview with our veteran WarriorBabe, Lisa. Lisa has been a WarriorBabe for about nine months now, right?

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Nikkiey: Cool. And at the initial start, you just dove right into the VIP program. You came in, you were eating less carbohydrates. I bumped your carbs up to what, like 210 in that first week? You dropped weight. We were both like, oh my God. Even though you've only lost about 10 pounds in total, you dropped down to around the 15, 14 marker. But even though it's only been that 10 pounds in your journey, your journey has been more of a stay at the same weight and watch your composition start to change, right? So I'm excited to touch base on that here.

On top of that, it's been an amazing thing to watch your transformation as a coach, with your body but also your mindset. Since day one of working with you, it has completely shifted. You're a very strong-minded individual, but you've gone the course of understanding how this is a journey, and you have brought so much to the table recently in our Q&As and our huddles about what the journey should entail on the mindset side of things. So it's been amazing to watch your progress, both mind and body. And so everybody, Lisa is here today to share some pointers for you, babe, so that you can adopt some of her strategies into your own journey moving forward. So welcome, Lisa. I'm super excited to have you here.

Lisa: Thanks.

Nikkiey: All right, babe. So let's kick it off. Let's open it up, and you tell us your story and how you got to where you are now.

Lisa: Okay. Going back a ways, really throughout my life, I've been on so many different journeys of my own, from one fad diet to the next. The next year something new comes out, and I'm like, oh, well, that's why that wasn't working, because I was eating this. And then it was, oh, well, I'm not eating that. It was always eat this, don't eat that, do this, don't do that. Intermittent fasting and keto, all these are the magic things. And I'm like, well, if it's the magic thing, why do people keep going off of it? Why do they keep restarting it, if this is the magic thing? And I was like, why can't I ever stick with anything? And it was because I miss carbs.

So I stalked you for like a year, and I just watched what you would say. And so many times, bells would go off. I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, that's exactly how I'm thinking. How does she know how I'm thinking? So I trusted you before I knew you. I reached out to you several times and you responded back directly to me. So I was like, okay, she's real, and I can do this.

When I reached out to you, I think I was eating around 90 carbs a day, if that. And I thought that was actually a lot. And then you gave me that first week, and I think the very first week I was at like 185 or 190 carbs. And I was like, oh my gosh. And we dropped like six pounds that week. So then you bumped me up to over 200 that next week. And I was like, oh my gosh.

It took me a few weeks to start feeling things. But after two, three, four weeks, my clarity started coming back. My mind wasn't just a total fog all the freaking time. I had energy. I had strength. My workouts started being productive again. I could actually lift heavier weight. Everything in general just came together. And that's what got me being a believer in the process. From there, the journey goes on, and I think throughout the interview we'll touch on it. But that's what got me to where I was like, okay, I'm a believer.

You were right there with me. You were like, don't freak out, this is good, it's a good thing. And I was so hungry. You instantly gave me all this more food. Remember, the first week I said, Nikkiey, I'm not going to be able to eat all this food. This is so much food. And then after that first week, I was like, I need more food. I think every week since then I've been like, I want more food. You're pretty accommodating.

Nikkiey: So how long would you say your journey has been with fitness, trying the different things that you touched on at the beginning, to what got you right here? How long has that been?

Lisa: Probably over 30 years.

Nikkiey: Wow.

Lisa: No, 30, 40 years of trying. When I was a teenager, I was pudgy. I was very fluffy. And so my mom put me on, the very first diet I remember was the grapefruit diet. It was terrible. The cabbage diet, and then the Scarsdale diet. And then it was the eat one of everything a day kind of diet. Just from one thing to the other, literally my whole life.

And then of course I'd lose weight. But then I would get to that point, and I mean, how much cabbage can you eat? I don't really eat cabbage to this day because of that diet. Everything would always end up the same: I'd abandon it because it wasn't realistic. There's no way you can stick to that. And every single time, I would get thinner, but I didn't necessarily look better. And I'd always go off of it, and then I would gorge, eat whatever, gain my weight back plus some. And then the next new diet would come along. I've done that for as long as I can remember.

Nikkiey: Yeah. I think we're just about to get right into it. The way we're conversing already, I can tell. I want you to be able to share what you recently shared on one of the Q&As, because this is what we were talking about: all these different diets and the things that you've done to your body over the course of these years. And then you came to this point recently, like you shared, where this epiphany just happened a couple of weeks ago. Share that. What was that shift?

Lisa: Yeah. Obviously we've had more time on our hands lately, and I've had a lot more time to think about things. I started asking myself a lot of questions, because I've seen improvement in my body even though I'm doing everything that I've always been told I couldn't do. I couldn't eat more. I definitely couldn't eat more carbs. Doing less cardio. All these things that I've always been told you have to do. And so, trusting this process.

And I was like, why do I have these goal ranges? I have this range of goals in my head that's acceptable to me, that I can diet and get to this point. Why is it that once I get to that point, I'm like, okay, I've won, I'm there, and then I just start eating normal again? And then I have this other range over here that's my maximum acceptable range. Once I get there, that's like, I've reached unhappiness, now it's time to start going back this way. It was this yo-yo effect. I would just keep going back and forth, back and forth, for all these years.

Well, heck, that's done a lot of damage to my body. My body was shot, and it didn't trust me. So when I started with you, I think I had a lot of resistance in my body for months, because my body didn't believe me. It was waiting for that shoe to drop: oh, she's going to go back to what she was doing. And I think when I didn't, probably around the six-month mark, is when I started asking myself these questions. And just recently I've really gotten serious about questioning myself and wanting to know why I do these things. I'm not a hundred percent to that point yet of knowing all my whys, but I am starting to recognize them, which is really big for me, and to talk about them, which anybody who knows me knows is really big, to share any weaknesses.

Nikkiey: Yes. A hundred percent. I know you so well. But that's one thing that so many women, on a deeper level, don't realize: that they do this back and forth. And that's something you've come to the realization of. Why do you do this back and forth?

Lisa: Right. I would do it because I always had an acceptable weight in my head. I always had this goal, like I want to get to, whatever, 135. That's where I want to get to. And by any means necessary, I would get there. It was like a challenge: my challenge weight is 135, go. And I would do whatever I had to. I'd cardio myself to death, eating a thousand calories a day.

Nikkiey: Yeah, I know.

Lisa: Right. And then I would get there and I would be miserable. I was hungry as shit. I all around didn't feel good. I didn't have the energy to go do things. I had terrible brain fog, all the time. And I just thought there was something wrong with me. Not understanding that not only was it my nutrition, but my mindset had become so skewed that I actually thought this was right. That this is how it should be, and this is how it is. And it's not.

Nikkiey: Yes. So let's touch base on that, because you've been pretty much around this same weight. And this is something that always screws with so many women's heads. I have to be this particular weight. Like you're saying, I need to get to 135, this challenge, I need to hit this specific weight, I need to lose 10, 15 pounds. You've been sitting at the same weight, fluctuating, for what, like three months now? But we're seeing the composition changes. Your muscles are getting fuller and bigger. Your legs are getting fuller and bigger. So share with us: how do you handle not seeing the weight change, but then being able to look at the pictures? How do you handle it? Your journey has been a lot of, hey, your composition is changing.

Lisa: Right. And before I even say that, with you, every single week I'm accountable to you on Saturday mornings. I have check-ins with you. That means my measurements, my pictures, my weight, body fat. That's the first time ever that I've had to be accountable with all of that. It was usually just me looking in the mirror and getting on the scale. So that number was everything. That number on the scale was everything.

In the beginning with you it still was, because that's just how my mind had been wired. I would really freak out if my weight didn't drop or if it went up half a pound, when I had been really good with my macros and my exercise. But then I had to sit back and say, I have to trust this process. I'm with Nikkiey for a reason. So I said, I'm not going to concentrate on the scale. I'm really going to focus on what I look like.

What I do is take either my very first picture or one from a month previous, and I keep them, so I put them side by side every week. And the changes that I see in my body, I'm like, well, that's weird. I'm the same weight, but why do I look so much different? Why is my waist changing? Why are my legs changing? My arms? Everything is changing. My composition is changing. Taking that leap of faith to do that was the first time ever that I had done that. And that was a breakthrough point for me, to say that I use that number for Nikkiey. I give that number to Nikkiey, and I let it go.

If it goes up, it goes up. And I've learned too: sometimes I'm on my period, so I may go up two or three pounds. Or things just may not be consistent with my body that way. I may not be eliminating properly. There's a ton of things. I could have had Chinese food and too much sodium. That scale is just not a rock-solid number. It fluctuates.

So understanding that that is not my go-to. How do I look? Looking at my measurements. If I put on a couple pounds, where did it go? Because my measurements didn't change one single bit and I'm looking better. So I had to start trusting that process, and that was a hard process for me to trust. But once I went across that threshold, it all just released, and it all clicked and made sense to me. And that's when I really started opening it up, asking myself questions, and exploring a little deeper.

Nikkiey: Yeah. That is so freaking powerful. It's detaching yourself from that number, and the way you can do that is by realizing the other variables that are coming into play, and by looking at yourself in your side-by-side photos and seeing, holy sugar muffins, your body composition is drastically changing while the scale is barely moving. I'll have to somehow put the pictures into this interview, but in the pictures you recently shared with me, you can drastically see your quads are way bigger. Your arms are way bigger. The composition is changing, but your number is staying the same. So like you're saying, breaking through that threshold: it's a number for Nikkiey, and that's it. Babes, it's a number for your check-ins, and that's it. The value lies in your photos, how you're feeling and those measurements.

Lisa: And the one thing we didn't put into that: I may be gaining a little bit of weight now, but we didn't touch on the fact that I think you've brought me up like five or six hundred calories a day and cut one of my cardio days. So my food went up, my exertion went down, and I'm still really holding there. I haven't had any major jumps. A couple of ounces, but nothing major.

Nikkiey: Yeah. That's another thing we could totally touch base on. Your body was sitting at a caloric intake for long enough to get adapted. In order to shock that body, we brought you up those 600 calories and lowered your expenditure, and you can see that your body wanted that food, because you're not shifting. If anything, you're filling out even more.

Lisa: I got hungry that week. When you increased me. I wasn't hungry before, and then all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, Nikkiey, I'm hungry. I want more food.

Nikkiey: Yeah. The moral we're sharing, so the women can understand, is that food's not the enemy. The scale is not your go-to number. Your body composition is going to change. If your goal is to change your body composition, to get toned, to build muscle, that number is not reliable, and you need the food. You need the food in order to get there.

Lisa: Right. And I'm learning that. Every day I'm still learning. I'm so far away from knowing everything I need to know, but I'm so far removed from where I was.

Nikkiey: Yeah. So let's talk about that. How do you deal with the psychological side of eating more food in order to get to the kind of goals you've got in mind?

Lisa: Now, I'm really positive about it. I embrace it now. I'm like, yes.

Nikkiey: Now you're like, I'm freaking hungry, give me more food. How about that initial moment, when you first started the VIP and you saw that carb number come through? What was your thought process?

Lisa: I was like, oh my God, is she kidding? No. I don't eat that many carbs in three days. Is she kidding me? But then when I was planning out my meals, I was like, I'm going to have a bagel. I started getting excited.

Nikkiey: It's like the permission you needed to be able to eat the foods that you enjoy.

Lisa: Right. And I was like, are you sure? I can have a bagel? And you're like, yeah. Okay. All right. I'm trusting you. So the psychological part was really pretty easy for me. And I think it's because it came at a good time for me. I was ready for that increase. I was ready to shake things up. I was ready for change.

Nikkiey: You were ready for that change, because you were doing so much of the same thing, right? You diet and you diet and you diet. Low calories, low calories, low calories. And then you're like, okay, she wants me to eat. Okay.

Lisa: Right.

Nikkiey: I don't mean to cut you off, but you get to that point where you're like, what else do I have to lose? I've been trying this whole way of doing things for so long.

Lisa: Right. And that's usually where I would fall off: when I hit that point where I couldn't make it change anymore. The frustration would set in and I'd be like, forget it. I'm tired of trying. Why am I trying? But having you, we could talk about it, and that's huge. I can talk to you every week and say, what's going on? Why is this happening? Let's try this, let's try that. It just helps so much, because those are things I don't know.

Nikkiey: Yep. A hundred percent. All right, let's touch base on something a lot of women struggle with when they first start getting into macros. Their struggle is hitting their macros, or planning ahead. I commonly see this, especially in the Revolution group: I can't hit my macros today, or I'm off on my protein, or my carbs are here. So what are some pointers you could give them that have really worked for you?

Lisa: The number one pointer: plan ahead. Plan your meals the day before. There are no excuses. You cannot wing it. If you're going to wing it, you'll go over on your carbs and your fats, and you will not meet your protein goals. Or at the end of the day, you will have some funky combination of crap that you're trying to put together because you have not planned properly, or you're having to eat way too many calories.

I plan my day the night before, I don't care what's going on. It takes me less than five minutes to do my entire day. It's just a matter of getting used to it. And when you plan it that way, all six of my meals are spread out. They are proportioned properly. I've got my protein spread out. I've got my pre- and post-workout carbs where I need them to be. You cannot succeed long-term, for your lifetime, with this if you do not plan ahead. Period. If you don't plan your day ahead of time, it's not going to work.

Nikkiey: Amen. Mic drop. A hundred percent. They probably hear me reiterate that over and over, so it's really nice having you come in and say, plan ahead. Now, talking about protein, you brought up a good point: you'll have some wacky combination with the protein numbers. I commonly hear that it's hard for women to hit their protein numbers. How do you hit your protein numbers?

Lisa: Easily. Because usually I'm like, Nikkiey, can I have more protein, please?

Nikkiey: I hear you.

Lisa: This is not enough protein. I need more. So I have no problem. I don't have any suggestions on that, because like I said, I spread it out throughout the day and I have protein with every meal.

Nikkiey: And what are the protein sources you go to?

Lisa: My go-tos are egg whites, lean ground beef, chicken, fish. Those are usually my main ones. And then with my pre- or post-workout, I'll have a protein shake, usually a whey isolate for my post-workout shake. But egg whites are great, because they just fill that protein source.

Nikkiey: Stacked with protein, and especially lean meats too. They're just stacked with protein. Do you prep? How do you do your meal prep?

Lisa: I pretty much do it on Sundays, or sometimes midway through the week I'll refresh everything. Usually I just make my big tub of ground beef, my container of chicken. I steam up my broccoli or whatever my vegetable is for that week. Whatever my meats are, everything is already in a big Tupperware in there, and my whole family eats off of that. That's why I'll usually do it twice a week.

My husband doesn't come in and ask what's for dinner, because he knows it's whatever's in there. I could make a big batch of jasmine rice, and we'll have that in there with some new potatoes. So when I open up the refrigerator, there's always a carb choice. There's always a protein choice. And then there's either avocado for the fats, or I've got olive oil or coconut oil, whatever we have, for the fats. It's easy. It really is.

Nikkiey: Yes. Number one pointer for the protein: just bulk it, cook it, put it in a Tupperware and put it in the fridge, and you know it's there. You just pull it out and put it in a Tupperware. If you're on the run, grab and go. There are no excuses like, well, I had an unexpected this, or I had to run out unexpectedly. No, because all you do is throw your food into a Tupperware very quickly. It takes you two minutes, and your food is there for you.

Lisa: I keep a to-go bag. It's always got emergency things in there. It's got my go-to rice cakes. Got to have rice cakes. It's got packets of peanut butter or almond butter in there. I've got a couple things of beef jerky. I've got some protein bars. That is an emergency go-to bag. Because sometimes I'm out and I think I'm coming home, and then something happens, and I'm going to miss that three-hour window.

And by now, being in the program almost nine months, that means I'm going to have to change the macros. But because my day is already set and I'm so used to doing my macros, all I have to do is go in and adjust. Do I need to reduce my fats in this meal? Do I need to increase my protein? It's easy at that point, because everything is already in there and I'm just recalculating and tweaking a few things.

Nikkiey: A hundred percent. So this is a really good question. Being that you're so advanced with the macro side of things now, what got you to that point?

Lisa: I did not like being hungry, and I would always screw up. I was not being prepared enough in the beginning. After talking with you, and you said, get it planned ahead of time, doing that, being able to go to the refrigerator and know that it was there and I could just grab it... poor planning was the reason I saw why having everything set was so important. Because when I poor plan, I poor eat. I know that's not really a proper sentence.

Nikkiey: But you said it point blank. Poor plan, you poor eat.

Lisa: Yeah, really. It's really as simple as that. And if you are not eating properly, nothing else is going to go right. You're not going to feel like doing your workouts, and it's going to throw you off psychologically that you already screwed up your day. So why do I need to work out? I'll just start tomorrow. Which is another psychological game we play. That's why we always wait till Monday to start a diet.

Nikkiey: Exactly. So touching base on the psychological side: your mindset shift has been so amazing throughout your entire journey here as a WarriorBabe. What do you think is the biggest mental shift you've personally made for yourself and your fitness journey?

Lisa: Oh, I have a few. My biggest mental shift would really have to be letting go of the number. That's my biggest one. That's huge for me. Just letting the scale go, and realizing that it's about getting me to where I want to be, but being able to stay there. And that scale number was not going to do that for me. Being able to accept that maybe I don't really know what my true proper weight should be. Maybe I need to let my body tell me that, and work with my body instead of working against my body. And so just getting rid of that number out of my head. 135 is not my weight.

Nikkiey: No, girl, you've got muscle on you now. If you're going to do a comp, maybe we'll push it down there, but that's not necessary. It's just going where you get to your goals, whatever point that is. You get to your goals, and that's what weight you are. We joke about it on the calls: Pam wants to be 170 and packed with muscle, and somebody who is five-two would have completely different numbers. Everybody's completely different. Just focus on your goals, and wherever your goal is, that's your weight.

Lisa: Yep. It's huge.

Nikkiey: Absolutely. So for somebody who's just starting their journey, besides planning ahead, and poor planning equals poor eating, what advice would you give if you were sitting face-to-face with somebody who was just starting their journey and they asked you, okay, how have you been so successful?

Lisa: Well, the first thing would be that you really have to be honest with yourself. You have to understand some of the things that have maybe gotten you to where you are. It's kind of a tough one, because in the beginning sometimes you don't recognize it. I know with me, that probably wouldn't have resonated, because I wouldn't have recognized that about myself yet. I kind of thought I knew what I was doing wrong or doing right. So that's tough.

But I think really being honest, especially if somebody's starting off with you: being honest with you. I know a lot of people think they can not be honest, like saying I hit my macros. And that's only robbing them, because you're here to help them. You're not here to criticize them. That's why I'll tell you if I've screwed up, like if I had a really bad week. Because then you understand that my numbers went up, but there was a reason for it. It's not because my macros weren't at the right spot. It's because I ate more than I should have, or maybe I ate less than I was supposed to, and I didn't get my water in, and I've got inflammation. I've got a lot of things going on. Just being really open and honest.

I can't talk about anybody on any other fitness journey, but with you, being honest with you matters, because we have a lot of things going on with us. I have a lot of stuff that causes inflammation in my body. I let you know that stuff, because it makes sense to you. Or being at the age where I'm going to start being menopausal or postmenopausal. Those are things we have to understand about our bodies.

So I guess for a newbie, you have to understand that maybe everything you've always been told is not the truth, and it's not correct, and it's not right for you. If you're coming into this program, you need to learn how to trust the process. You need to understand that you're probably going to be eating more than you're used to. You're probably going to be doing less cardio than you're used to. But each one of us is different, and you and your team are great, and you figure things out to get us where we need to be.

Nikkiey: Yeah. I completely agree, and I appreciate everything you said, but the honesty is probably the most important thing. That's why you and I hit it off from the start. You were open and honest. If you went over on your macros or something like that at the beginning, you were like, Nikkiey, I did this. When you went on vacation, you were open and honest.

Talking about the honesty game: a lot of people think they can get away with it. Like you're saying, yeah, I hit my macros this week. And if you actually didn't, then I'm racking my brain, like, why the fuck haven't the numbers moved? Why isn't anything shifting? That can make the whole situation even worse. If I need to shift numbers and you're actually not eating them, and I cut you down lower, your metabolism can crash if I end up doing that.

So it's not only honesty on that end, but also honesty and responsibility for where you are at the start of your journey coming into it, knowing that everything you've done will probably need to be fixed, and there's going to be a different outlook moving forward. Like you said, you're going to be eating more food. It's the whole mental shift of responsibility and honesty when you first start something. A hundred percent. That's great advice. I love it. So what would you say being a WarriorBabe means to you?

Lisa: This one I actually wrote down, because I knew I wanted to say it right. You know me and my squirrel mind. I said: WarriorBabe is a total and complete mindset shift. It is a physical, mental and emotional shift to become the very best person that I can be. It has challenged me daily, weekly and monthly to dig in deep and hard and find the strength that I need to change my body and my mindset.

Nikkiey: Wow. I'm getting chills. That's awesome. And you have legitimately lived that experience you just shared. You came in and created an insane shift, not just with your body but, like I said at the beginning, your mindset has totally shifted. One of the biggest things I keep replaying in my head, because I know it's going to help so many women, is when you shared that you've done decades of abuse to your body with the different programs you've tried, and now you're realizing that you have decades moving forward to actually do it the right way.

Lisa: Right. Yeah, absolutely. And like I shared on the one call too, I know we always talk about the journey, and I've kind of removed myself from that word, because to me the journey somehow has an ending to it. People talk about the race, and those definitely end. So for me, I've tried to transition that to the lifestyle I've moved into, the proper lifestyle for me, that this is here to stay. It's not that I'm going to get to a certain point and then be like, okay, I'm here. It's a constant. It's going to be my lifestyle: eating my macros properly, exercising properly. And that's important for me.

Nikkiey: You'll live until you're 120.

Lisa: I hope not. I don't have enough money to do that.

Nikkiey: Awesome. Well, let's close it out by giving the babes your favorite snack or favorite macro combo that you enjoy eating on a daily basis.

Lisa: Okay, you're going to laugh. My favorite snack is a piece of Ezekiel bread, toasted, with Biscoff cookie butter on it. My daughter got me turned onto that. I fit my whole day around it. I put that in first, before I do anything else.

Nikkiey: Where do you get this Biscoff cookie butter?

Lisa: At the grocery store, in the peanut butter aisle. It's the best tasting. And get the crunchy, because the crunchy actually has the cookie bits in it. Instead of nuts, it has the crunched-up cookie. It's so good.

Nikkiey: Oh my God, that sounds incredible.

Lisa: And the good thing with it is, on some days I've run out of protein but I still need carbs and fat. That's got the carbs and fat and hardly any protein, so that works well.

Nikkiey: Perfect. That sounds amazing. I'm going to go to the grocery store now and buy some. What brand is it?

Lisa: I think it's actually just Biscoff. It's from the cookies they give you on the airplane. Just really good cookies. I think it's just Biscoff. I'll send you a picture of it.

Nikkiey: Okay. All right. And what would you say is your favorite muscle group to work out?

Lisa: Shoulders.

Nikkiey: Nice. I knew you were going to say that. Show those shoulders off.

Lisa: Yeah. They're feeling a little weak today, but that's only because of your workout.

Nikkiey: All right, babe. So for those of you who want to learn more about the programs WarriorBabe offers and how to get started, you can go to www.warriorbabe.com and become part of thousands of women who are getting toned and becoming stronger, more confident versions of themselves. And Lisa is one of them. Lisa, you shared so much great value and so much great insight. It's not just the body transformation, it's also the mental transformation, and you are living proof of it. So thank you for your time here. I appreciate you.

Lisa: You're welcome. I appreciate you.

Nikkiey: All right. Bye, everybody.