Fat Loss After 35: What Actually WORKS (Fat Loss Pyramid + Exact Priorities You Can Start TODAY)

So many women over 35 feel stuck in their bodies. They feel or have felt flabby, untoned, and completely unable to drop fat. And this is because it's not just you. This is because most women are focusing on the least impactful fat loss methods like endless cardio or cutting out all your carbs. Today we are going to go through the five ways our bodies burn fat, starting with the most effective and these five ways make up what we call the fat loss pyramid. At the base is the most effective way we drop fat leading up to the top of the pyramid, which is the least effective way to drop fat.

We are starting at the bottom of the pyramid where you get the most bang for your buck, and we're heading all the way up to the top of the pyramid where endless cardio sits. So let's get into it. At the base of the pyramid, at the foundation at the very bottom is the most impactful method we utilize for fat loss. The base of the fat loss pyramid is called a calorie deficit. You must be in a calorie deficit to lose fat. Now you might be thinking, what is a calorie deficit? A calorie deficit happens when you are consistently eating less calories than your body burns through living, existing movement, exercise.

So you're eating less food than your body burns. Now I'm going to throw some acronyms at you. You might want to get out a pen and paper or just mentally note what these acronyms are. And the first one is called your TD EE. This stands for the Total Daily Energy Expenditure, and all that means is the number of calories your body burns in a day. When I was first learning about these acronyms, I was like, well, what is BMR and what is TD EE and what is TEF? Don't even pay attention to that. You just need to know what your total daily energy expenditure is because that encapsulates.

That includes your BMR, which is your basal metabolic rate, just the calories burned by staying alive, by existing. If you sat on a couch all day, these are the calories you're burning just sitting there and existing and not eating. It also includes your NEAT, which is your non exercise activity. You know, if you're a fidgeter, you have a higher NEAT. If you are a stagnant person, a bump on a log, a couch potato, you have a lower NEAT. It includes your exercise, which is your structured workouts and the TEF, which just Thermo effect of food, thermic, excuse me, effect of food.

None of those acronyms matter in this scenario. We are paying attention to the TDE, total daily energy expenditure and encapsulates all the other acronyms I just gave you. That's what's important here. So your TDE is the total number of calories your body burns in a day. For example, we have Jessica. Jessica is a super busy teacher. She is 40 years old, 5 foot six, 170 lbs. OK, Jessica's TD EE, which is the calories her body burns through breathing, moving, teaching, workouts, etcetera, is about 2200 calories a day.

So let's play out these three scenarios #1 if she is eating at maintenance and she eats around 2200 calories a day, her body's burning 2200 calories a day. Result, she's staying the same. Physically, she's staying the same. She has no reason to lose weight and she has no reason to gain weight. Let's move into scenario #2 surplus. So now Jessica's eating 2500 calories a day. Just a tiny bump, but her body only needs 2200 calories a day. That extra 300 calories is now going to be stored, and a lot of times it's going to be stored as fat, especially if you don't have a lot of lean muscle on your body.

Over time that adds up and it adds up quickly. On one day when you're eating ice cream and you're thinking, oh whatever, it's an extra 500 calories. OK, well, if you continue doing that one time week, 2 * a week consistently, what do you know? A few months later, you're 5 lbs heavier. The last scenario scenario #3 the one we want, this is what we're striving for, is a deficit. We want to eat in a caloric deficit. So Jessica's eating 1900 calories a day instead of her 2200 calories a day. Now she's missing that 300 calories a day, so her body has to dip into her fat stores.

Her body is dipping into where she stores that extra energy, which is her fat. Now overtime that's going to result in fat loss. Now macros matter. Macros matter, protein matters, carbs matter, fat matters. But what matters more than that, what is the foundation of fat loss is that you are in a deficit because without eating less than your body needs, you're not going to drop fat. In regards to if that weight that's being lost comes from fat or lean muscle, that's when we move into the protein quadrant of the pyramid.

I want to make this really clear because after you get past the caloric deficit, this is when you make the decision on if you want to be skinny fat or if you want to look toned, because either way you need to drop fat. And now that we've covered the caloric deficit, this is where we determine where that fat comes from. And here is where a lot of women make a huge mistake because tier #2 of the pyramid is the factor that's going to determine what you look like as you drop fat. Are you going to look skinny fat and flabby and damage your metabolism and gain it all back times 10?

Or are you going to eat enough protein so that that weight loss does not come from lean muscle mass and fat, but primarily from fat, leaving you with your lean muscle to look toned and fit, leaving you with a higher metabolism so you can eat more, fuel more, feel better? This is where programs like Weight Watchers make me want to bang my head against a wall because it is not just about calories in, calories out. Without enough protein within that calorie deficit, the weight you lose is primarily going to come from lean muscle.

That's that's just the brakes. We are moving right along the fat loss pyramid into the protein quadrant. We have Jessica. She has now gotten into a deficit. She's eating 1900 calories instead of her 2200 calories. Maintenance check. Most important component of fat loss. Done the deficit check. Now we have two other scenarios to cover. Scenario #1 Jessica is only going to eat 70 grams of protein per per day. This is not ideal. Jessica wants to be 140 lbs. So on the lower end, Jessica's protein goal every single day should be 140 grams of protein, the same number that she wants to weigh.

So if you're Jessica and you want to weigh 140 lbs, then you should be eating 140 grams of protein per day. Just like Jessica is not doing bad Jessica. She's eating 70 grams of protein per day, but she's going to lose weight because she's in a deficit. Now here's the horrendous part that all of us have done. 50% of the weight she's going to lose is going to be her muscle and water, not her fat. 50% of that weight loss is muscle and water. So now Jessica weighs 140 lbs, but she's still in a bigger pant size than she envisioned.

She still looks the same as she did when she was larger because she is skinny fat. She lost all her muscle. She has no tone. OK, now we have all been Jessica. We have all done those crash diets. We didn't count our protein. We ended up looking skinny fat. We gained it all back. Now Jessica's going to do what we have all done. And if you haven't done it yet, now is the time. She's going to do it again, but this time she's going to follow the protein guidelines for women above the age of 35. So now, every day, Jessica is eating 140 to 150 grams of protein every single day, and she's still losing weight because she's in a deficit, meaning she is eating less calories than her body needs to maintain her current larger size.

That weight loss, every pound that clicks down off the scale is primarily coming from her fat stores and not her lean muscle, not her water mass. It is coming from her body's fat stores. The result? Jessica looks stronger. She looks more toned. She looks tighter. She looks more defined. It is true body recomposition when you drop fat and you gain or maintain your lean muscle and you are much smaller overall. And the best part, by giving your body what it needed, which was adequate protein, you have a higher metabolism, you have healthier hormones which affect every aspect of your life.

Boom, good job Jessica. She has hit the bottom foundation of the pyramid which is the calorie deficit. This is what you need to make any kind of fat loss possible. Boom, she hit the protein intake, the second tier that protects her muscle. You can even build muscle while in a calorie deficit. This this was debatable 15 years ago. You can. The science shows you can. And eating enough protein ensures she's not just smaller, she's not just skinny fat, but she is leaner, stronger, and more metabolically resilient.

Meaning you can have those cheat days, you can eat those treats, you can do those things way more often because your body is metabolically resilient. You have increased your resting metabolism because you increased your lean muscle mass. I remember this line. This is key. Calories decide if you lose weight. Protein decides if that weight that is lost is from fat or muscle. Calories decide if you lose weight. Protein decides if that weight is from fat or muscle. You want it to be from fat. We don't want skinny fat, we want strong.

OK, so calories have set the stage. The protein has protected Jessica's muscle. She is now moving into the third quadrant, the third tier of our fat loss pyramid, which is lifting weights. Now, lifting weights is my favorite pastime. I just want to preface this section because so many women are so lacking in the confidence arena. They don't want to walk on a gym floor. They don't. They don't want to take up space. They don't want to touch the dumbbells. They don't want to wait for a machine. They don't want to feel awkward.

You have to get over that. You have to. Nobody's looking at you. Nobody cares. The only person who cares is you. And the only thing you care about is how you look to other people. So get your butt out there. Lift your weights, take up space because you are not there for anybody else besides yourself. You are not there for anybody else in that gym besides yourself. So who cares what they think? And I promise you from somebody who has been in the gym for 15 years, anybody who is consistently in that gym, if we see somebody who has never touched a weight walking around like a lost puppy, the only feeling that we have towards you is admiration.

Total admiration. Because every woman who is a seasoned lifter who has been on that floor knows the feeling that you are going through. And we are only looking at you in the same way that you might look at a child at the park who is getting on a bike and you see them falling down and you know they don't want to try again, but they do. And you in your head are just cheering them on. You are happy for them. You want to help them, but you don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. We all feel that way when we see women enter the gym floor.

We are happy you're there. OK? Jessica is now on the weight floor. She is in a caloric deficit. She is eating enough protein and now she is lifting weights because that is what's actually going to build and shape her body. Lifting weights is what's going to build and tone your body, not endless cardio, because every time you lift a weight, you are applying a stressor on that muscle. You're applying a stressor on that muscle and that signals your body body. It signals your body to say, hey, I need this muscle.

Don't let it go. I know we're in a caloric deficit and you're going to start letting go of things we're holding on to like fat. But the first thing your body is going to want to do is let go of muscle because it's the most metabolically expensive tissue in the body. And the only way that you can signal to your body, hey, keep this is by eating enough protein and by lifting weights. It's truly telling your nervous system hold on to this. We obviously I need it. I need to preface this next part. Runner ladies, I love you.

I have many runner friends. But if you are just running, your body's not going to hold on to those muscles. You're not going to have a lot of shape. You are running your body. The last thing your body needs is muscle. So without lifting, but if you're still in a caloric deficit, you will have a skinny fat but smaller version of yourself. So the weights in combination with the protein, that's what sculpts your body. That is body recomposition. Remember this line, protein protects your muscle while you're in a deficit, but lifting weights improves it.

That's how you go from just losing weight to actually reshaping your body. All right, Jessicas, moving into the 4th tier of fat loss, the one I am so afraid to talk about because I am horrible. I am so horrible at this one. It is sleep. Sleep is the 4th tier of fat loss. Jessica is in a deficit, which is the foundation of the pyramid. She's hitting her protein goals, which is the next layer. She's lifting weights. Now, if Jessica's constantly running on five hours of sleep, her body is going to fight her.

So that lack of sleep raises her hunger hormones, which is called ghrelin, and it lowers your satiety hormones. I can never say satiety. Satiety, basically what makes you feel full, which is her leptin and makes her crave quick carbs, quit carbs like chips or Cheetos or candy. Those are quit carbs. Plus, she's not going to be able to recover from those lifting sessions. I am Jessica. I'm literally my face is getting warm because this is this is me. But I really, I'm really doing everything I can to remedy that.

So under the guise of Jessica, I'm going to continue talking about how horrible I am at this tear. So sleep is not the foundation. It's not as critical in terms of losing fat as being in a deficit. And the other two, which was lifting weights and protein. But it's like the support beams, OK? It keeps everything else standing strong. And you need 7 to 9 quality hours of sleep if you are somebody like me who is constantly on go. I don't know if I'm just born that way, but I, I swear I was. I've been just naturally on speed since the day I was born.

I'm an early riser. I move, I go, I don't stop talking. It's just the way it was made. But now I'm 37 years old and it is doing a massive disservice to me. So I'm in the process of remedying that. I'm getting my hormone panels done in the next few weeks. But until then, I'm going to talk about the the havoc that low sleep has wreaked on my body. So #1 getting less than 7 to 9 hours of sleep, which that's hard for me to even say because I'm so jealous of anybody who can naturally just do that. The first negative impact is the hormone regulation.

So having poor sleep increases ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone. It decreases leptin, the fullness hormone. And this makes Jessica, AKA me, hungrier and more likely to crave high sugar, high fat foods. And they do this makes a calorie deficit so incredibly hard. It really does. I have a lot of mental tricks up my sleeve that I pull out when I'm in this type of phase, this mental phase at night where I want all the fats and treats I do. One of them is to just brush my teeth. Another one is to have tea.

And that taste in your mouth just kind of puts you in a state of relaxation and not not needy enough to get off the couch or get out of bed to go get some snack foods. Although I have done it. The other thing, cortisol rises with lack of sleep, which not only increases your fat storage bridge, especially belly fat, but also makes muscle recovery slower. Definitely seeing that in my body composition. I've never struggled with sleep quite as much as I do now. And I'm in the process of just checking all the boxes, trying to do all the things before I go down a more intense route of remedying the lack of sleep situation.

But the biggest thing that happens, well, the biggest thing in my mind that happens while you're sleeping in deep sleep is the body releases growth hormone. And growth hormone is crucial for repairing the muscle that you tore while you're lifting. Because when you're lifting, you're putting tiny little microscopic tears in your muscle. That muscle needs to be repaired in order to get bigger and stronger and give your body that toned look. That can only happen if you have enough deep sleep because that is the only time your body releases growth hormone.

Very unfortunate for me. Not without that sleep. Jessica may train hard, but her muscles are not going to recover optimally, which means less strength gain and less visible definition. Horrible. And when Jessica and I under sleep, our workouts are heavier, our motivation drops, our form suffers, it blows our training session, it blows our calorie burn. It really is pretty counterproductive to even go in for a lifting session when I'm running on five hours of sleep. But since I have habits and systems so deeply ingrained in my body, I can't skip it.

I'm sorry, I'm a flawed human. I won't. I just go there and go through the actions and then go home annoyed that I didn't sleep. I'm working on it. It also, studies have shown that chronic sleep restriction decreases insulin sensitivity, which just means it makes it harder for your body to use carbs for energy and instead store them as fat. Atrocious. Horrible. So bottom line, sleep doesn't directly cause fat loss? Like a calorie deficit, but without it, Jessica's body and my body and your body is working against you because more hunger means harder to stick to the deficit, slower muscle recovery, which means less definition, and higher cortisol, which means more fat storage.

Here's the key line for this. If protein and lifting are how you shape your body, sleep is the recovery tool that locks those results in. And last but not least, and also one of my favorite methods that I overuse all the time, cardio. The 5th and final tier of the fat loss pyramid. Now, cardio, cardio is pretty much where all women start to lose fat and that's where they start spinning their wheels because they are on that elliptical, that treadmill, that stair climber for hours a day. And they're like, why do I just feel tired?

Look, puffy, can't eat anything. When I do, I blow up. Well, it's because you started at the top of the pyramid instead of the bottom. And nothing's going to happen until we go from the bottom up. Now cardio has its place. I'm a cardio lover. Cardio is awesome for your heart health, for your stamina, but it is not the driver of fat loss. OK, so if Jessica tries to outrun her fork, she's just going to end up exhausted, swollen, frustrated, hormones out of whack. All the above, which basically is the majority of my clients, when they come to me, they're cardio Queens and I actually love that because I know they work hard.

I know they're not afraid to do what they need to do to get things done. They're just doing everything they can do plus more, and nothing's happening. We're just going to start at the bottom and go to the top instead of that reverse pyramid. Quick overview of the entire fat loss pyramid starting at the bottom. The foundation is the deficit. This is where weight loss happens. Coming in at tier #2 is protein. Protein is going to protect the muscle you have. Protein is also going to build some muscle.

It decides what you lose. When you're losing weight, are you going to lose fat or are you going to lose muscle? Protein determines your body composition. Don't look skinny fat or do you want to look toned? You want to look toned. Eat enough protein into tier #3 is lifting now. Lifting is what's going to shape your body. This creates the shape of your body. You want a bigger butt? Lift heavier on the glutes. You want more capped shoulders to have a really athletic frame? Lift your doubts more often.

Lifting. It's what's going to build your frame. You decide what you want your body to look like. That's what I love about lifting sleep, the shame. Sleep supports recovery and hormones. You need this, I need this, I'm struggling. You need sleep. Don't let it slip away from you. And if it has, do what you need to do to make it right. I'm actually preparing the entire episode on this in hopes that I can remedy the situation for myself and speak about it. OK #5 the very tip of the fat loss Pyramid, Cardio, cardio.

View it as your, your extra credit. You know, if you're sitting on this podcast listening about the fat loss pyramid, I know you're somebody who likes extra credit. You're going to do that cardio. Do it. It is the salt of life. I have so many clients who love cardio. I just had a client last week do an incredible relay. She's 50 something and she did an incredible job with a team of other women. I think it was a 10K relay. Oh my gosh. She runs. But you know what she does differently now? She lifts and she eats enough protein and she was stronger and faster and better than she's ever been before.

So all that being said, that is the fat loss pyramid. You don't start building a house from the roof down. You don't start dropping fat from the top of the pyramid down. Start at the foundation, start at the base. And if you're like me when you first started, you're probably wondering, wait, back to the calorie deficit, the foundation. How do I know what my TD EE is? How do I know what protein I should eat and how much and how many carbs and how many fats? I can help you with that. In the show notes, you can click on my e-mail address [email protected], RAC [email protected] and I can do a customized macro plan for you.

It's comprised of three quizzes. They don't take long. If you do want to do it, please have a tape measure handy. Please. You wouldn't believe how long this holds people up. If you need your macros customized, shoot me an e-mail. I can give you a very detailed one page PDF on what macros you should be eating, when you should be eating them, what you should be eating, etcetera. There's also some really great online calculators you can do that will give you a relatively detailed outline. I have a program that gives you your carb tolerance type as well as your macro amounts.

But before I started using that program, I would just go on to calculators.net and use the macro one. It's a great place to start to just determine your TDE. Follow it for a couple weeks. If you're following it to A and you're not dropping weight, well then you're not in a deficit. That's the facts. If you want to start losing weight, you have to track your food. That's a non negotiable. There's no way around it. Not until you're seasoned with understanding exactly what you are eating. It's a learning experience, as is everything in life that's worth pursuing.

OK, thank you for joining me. And again, if you want help calculating your macros, go to the show notes, click on my e-mail address, shoot me an e-mail. I can do an individualized macro plan for you. I'm not taking on clients at this moment, but I can't. And do those individualized macro plans that include your carb tolerance type. This has been another episode of the body Recomposition revolution with Robin and I'll be back with more science backed strategies next time. Until then, thank you for listening and keep lifting ladies.

Fat Loss After 35: What Actually WORKS (Fat Loss Pyramid + Exact Priorities You Can Start TODAY)

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