3 Simple Steps To Effective Meal Planning

How to Beat Menopause Setbacks and Tone (Without Endless Cardio)

If you’re already putting in your gym time, you don’t need more — it’s what you do WITH that time that matters, and tons of cardio isn’t the answer. Let’s break this down with practical tips for toning through menopause!

1. Spot reduction is a myth

Let’s get this out of the way: You can’t specifically target belly fat with crunches or waist trainers. Fat loss happens systemically, and for women over 40, hormonal changes can direct more fat cells everywhere you don’t want it to go! That doesn’t mean you’re doomed, though — you just need a targeted approach that tackles overall body composition. And the simplest way to do that is with...

2. Shorter, more focused workouts

Steady-state cardio can be counterproductive if it drags on for long stretches, spiking cortisol and nudging your body toward belly fat storage. Instead, aim for brief, intentional workout sessions that emphasize muscle-building moves — which are far more effective at revving your metabolism than hours on the treadmill. By keeping workouts short and focused, you send your muscles a strong signal to grow while avoiding the hormone-fueled “fat-lockdown” state that endless cardio favors.

3. Track your macros (especially protein!)

To shift that stubborn belly fat and replace it with lean muscle, you need enough protein for muscle repair and growth. When in doubt, aim for 1 gram per pound of body weight. Don’t underestimate the power of carbs and healthy fats, either; the right ratio of macros (for you, in menopause) is crucial — generic calculators often miss the mark because they don’t account for changing hormone profiles.

If you want personalized 1:1 help with eating & exercising for your unique body and building a toned body composition through menopause, apply to become a WarriorBabe here!

3 Ways to Break Out of a Rut on Your Fitness Journey

Ruts are normal, but they don’t have to stick. You can break free, and it often doesn’t take much to get started! Let’s take a look at 3 of the best ways to do it...

1. Revisit your roots

We all forget why we started sometimes — it’s normal. It’s even healthy — when we look back on the beginning of the journey, we realize how far we’ve come and whether we’re still aligned with our intentions. Ask how your goals and priorities have changed, and get super clear on what drives them. Then you can look at your current trajectory and see where you’ve been consistent (and where you haven’t). This makes it much simpler to find your motivation again and press forward with more excitement and energy than you’ve had in ages!

2. Shake up your routine

Sometimes we just need a good refresh. Try some new exercises that still support your goals. Exercise at a different time of day, or change up your weekly workout schedule. Master some new recipes. Or if you’ve been trying to do too much, rely on a few more store-bought healthy food options. This doesn’t have to be complicated — sometimes too much consistency can lead to stagnation. We don’t always need to push through or step back completely... Sometimes you’re doing the right stuff, but you just need to spice it up enough to keep it interesting. Small tweaks often work wonders for motivation!

3. Re-calculate your macros

A rut in your journey can also be a sign that you’ve kept the same macros for too long. It might be time to eat more and build some additional muscle — or go into a cut if your body composition is stable and you want to lose more fat. This takes some experience and intuition to do correctly, but you’d be amazed how many common issues are fixable through simple tweaks to your food! The most important thing is getting enough protein for your goals; if you do decide to decrease your calories, maintaining or even increasing your protein can spare you tons of headaches in the future.

If you want personalized 1:1 help with calculating your macros, breaking out of fitness ruts, and building a body composition that lasts for the long haul, apply to become a WarriorBabe here!

How to Stay Consistent on Your Fitness Journey

Consistency isn’t easy — between food temptations, finding time, and life’s inevitable bumps in the road, there are endless setbacks waiting for us. Let’s explore 3 simple ways to reclaim your consistency, make the journey more sustainable, and stay on track toward your goals!

1. Pre-plan

One of the simplest antidotes to setbacks is to see them coming from a mile away. You can’t plan for getting sick, but you can anticipate how you need to tweak your macros while you recover. You can’t know that you’ll have no energy on a random Tuesday, but you can plan your workouts around your body’s natural rhythms. You never know when a friend will call to make last-minute dinner plans, but you can plan out your macros a day ahead of time and still make choices that support your goals.

Life is fullest when there’s spontaneity, but knowing your options in advance will ensure you have less room for error when stuff comes up!

2. Know your end goal

The journey will never feel like it’s worth it if you don’t know what you’re aiming for. Better health is a great pursuit. Losing 30 pounds can be, too. But if you don’t know what you want life to look like on the other end, or if you don’t have a good reason to get there, you’ll burn out long before you get there. Clarity lowers resistance. Drive motivates action. Keep your deepest reasons for building your ideal body composition front and center — you’ll find it much easier to stay the course and build an amazing body!

3. Control your time frames

Setting big goals is great, but only if you allow yourself an appropriate amount of time. If you want to lose some serious weight within a month, it’s tough to do it without making serious sacrifices in your health (and even then, it might be impossible). If you want to give yourself faster targets, great; just break your bigger goals into milestones. Every goal you don’t hit has the potential to discourage you, so position goals outside your comfort zone but ensure they’re still within your ability to control! To stay consistent, give yourself every advantage — and allow yourself a bit of grace.

If you want personalized 1:1 help with building your own fitness plan and a body composition that lasts for the long haul, apply to become a WarriorBabe here!

3 Steps to Setting Powerful New Year’s Resolutions

Most people wing it when setting their resolutions — but not YOU. You want to see results and you’re determined to follow through... Isn’t that why you’re here, after all? Now let’s dive into how to do it!

1. Concrete

It’s not enough to want to ‘lose weight’ or ‘gain muscle’. Vague goals create vague results! The more specific you can be, the better (which clothes you want to fit into, how much definition you want to see, how many pounds you want to drop in fat or gain in muscle, etc.). Your brain does its best work when it has concrete objectives, because clearer intentions lead to clearer action steps. And those actions are what ultimately create the results you want! Speaking of...

2. Actionable

Every goal must be translated into specific action steps to take shape. Whether you’re in a cut phase, build phase, or maintaining your macros to drop fat and build muscle gradually, that won’t happen unless you know what steps to take to get there. Otherwise, your strategy is built on hope — not what actually works! To bridge the gap, turn each outcome-based goal into an input-based one. Want to lose 10 lbs? Your ‘inputs’ might be 4 strength and 2 cardio workouts a week, with a slight reduction in daily calories (or an increase in calories if you’ve been undereating). This may take some trial and error on your own, but a macronutrient & fitness coach can help with that!

3. Realistic

Over the span of years, you should absolutely set the biggest, most audacious goals you want to achieve — but when it comes to your goals for this year or the first few months, it’s better to keep it real. Within a few years you can absolutely build a dream body composition that’s relatively easy to keep, but a few months of focused effort might not yield the final result you want. That’s okay! Know that lasting fitness takes time but is very doable — though it does require you to have a clear idea of what’s reasonable in the short term so you can achieve unreasonable results in the long term.

If you want personalized 1:1 help with building your own fitness plan and a body composition that lasts for the long haul, apply to become a WarriorBabe here!

How To Get Toned While Enjoying Carbs Guilt-Free

Simple vs. complex carbs

Carbs are not all created equal, and this is especially true of the distinction between simple and complex carbs. Simple carbs are the ones that are broken down the fastest — sweets, fruits, etc. (dried mangoes are one of my FAVORITES). Complex carbs, on the other hand, take longer to digest and are found in sources like wheat, potatoes and other starches. I generally shoot for 90% complex and 10% simple in a given day, and the time of day matters here, as you’ll see shortly…

Diversify your carb sources

Macronutrients are the core of our focus at WarriorBabe, but that doesn’t mean micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc.) are any less important. There are tons of different carb sources to choose from, and each has a different blend of nutrients our bodies need to thrive. By varying up your meals and incorporating different carbohydrates, you’ll be able to have more energy and vitality you can put toward your workouts and life in general!

ALWAYS eat carbs before and after workouts

This is one of the most common mistakes I notice from women who are regularly doing strength training but not seeing the results they want. Carbs are the fuel your body looks for first during workouts — without its chosen fuel, it pulls from your muscle stores instead… which is NOT what you want. Always have carbs before your workouts (around 30 minutes for simple carbs, about 90 for complex) and follow up with more when you’re done!Follow what you read here and you’ll be ahead of the vast majority of women following macronutrient plans… but the best thing you can have is nutritional and workout guidance from expert coaches along with resources like specialized macro calculators and nutrient breakdowns for tons of the most common food sources available. To get all of this and more…

A Quick Guide To Achieving Maximum Results, Even If You’re Completely New To Lifting

Proper Form Is Everything

Your form when performing an exercise can make the difference between mediocre and killer results. Bad form can involve many things: using momentum and “swinging” your limbs; poor posture, which can cause unnecessary stress on your muscles; and generally not being in control during the exercise. By using gradual motions, focusing on engaging the correct muscle groups, and referencing exercise diagrams, you can make sure your form is spot on! Yes, this is more work. And doing it “right” might reduce the number of reps you can do… But you’ll get to where you want much faster.

Progressive Overloading

When you have a vision for the body you want to build, it’s natural to want it now — the danger here is lifting too heavy too soon. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you can lift heavier by taking shortcuts with your form, make sure you stick to step #1! Once you find the amount you can safely lift for the optimal number of reps, it’s totally normal to stay at that level for a bit. Don’t be in a rush to lift more — small increases over time will add up to more lean muscle than you’re probably thinking, so be patient and you’ll be rewarded!

Give Yourself Plenty Of Rest

I used to do strength training 6 days a week (plus tons of cardio) — I didn’t realize how much this was setting me back until much later. Please don’t make the same mistake! 3-5 days of focused, targeted strength training is enough to reach your goals. Muscle is torn down during workouts and built during rest periods, so it’s counterproductive to shortchange yourself on downtime! Rest before your workouts matters too — in other words, don’t time your cardio right before your strength training sessions or you’ll have too little energy when training.If you want to join a program that offers clarity on the exact exercises to do, your ideal number of reps, how many sessions a week to aim for, and so much more in order to build the body composition you truly want…