Realistic Timeline for Weight Loss After 35 (Body Recomposition for Women)

Today we are covering how long it really takes to start seeing results, if you are counting your protein, if you are hitting the gym and if you are most importantly in a calorie deficit. Welcome back to the Body Recomposition Revolution. This is Robin. And today we are walking through how long it's actually going to take month by month for you to see results. If you are lifting consistently, if you are eating high enough protein, if you are getting your steps in, if you are sleeping adequately, and most importantly, if you are actually in a calorie deficit, because I need to say this right off the bat, fat loss only happens in a calorie deficit.

What is a calorie deficit? A calorie deficit means you are eating less food than your body needs to maintain. Well, how do you figure that out? You can go online. You can find one of those handy dandy online calculators. You can e-mail me. All of that information is in my show notes. I do custom macro formulations, but you do need to know what your daily intake is. Your total daily energy expenditure. Mine I believe is around 1800. Because I'm very active, I have a substantial amount of muscle. Yours, even if you're the same height as me, 57 might be significantly lower or higher depending on those two variables, how much muscle you have and how active you are during the day.

So as you can see, those run-of-the-mill free calorie counting tools you find online, and yes, they work. Yes, you can develop your baseline there, but you're more going to figure that out through trial and error. I don't want to lose you here. If you have been working out, eating your protein theoretically in a calorie deficit, And I'd say that because nobody ever is unless you're tracking your food. So if you're tracking your food and you know you were in a calorie deficit, we are going to go over the timeline for how long it will take for you to start seeing real results reflected on your body.

Let's start with month zero to two because that seems to be the real entry phase. So phase one is month zero to 2. So that is where you are developing skills, you are figuring out what it actually means and what it feels like to be in a calorie deficit because there's actually a lot of strange side effects you'll encounter when you're in a real deficit. One thing some women notice when they're in that deficit and this is real, is a slightly really different taste in their mouth. And that actually does happen.

I've it's happened to me. That happens when the glycogen in your muscle drops and the fat oxidation starts happening. So if you get a weird taste in your mouth during the day and you're kind of like especially at night, that's temporary and it's normal, but it's a good thing because it means you are actually in a deficit. So in the first phase, month zero to 1, what's happening? You're learning how to consistently hit your protein. That is a skill. That is a skill like any other skill. You're not going to be good at it right off the bat.

It's going to take practice, it's going to take preparation, it's going to take trial and error. You're going to have good days, you're going to have bad days. It is a real skill to know how to prep for your day when you have to eat per SE, 150 grams of protein, that sounds unfathomable to the women that I coach. When they first start with me, they are used to eating anywhere from maybe 30 to 80 on a good day. But when I say something like, yes, around 40% of your intake is going to be coming from protein.

So you might be eating 140 to 160 grams of protein a day that when they actually start tracking is the biggest hurdle to jump over. But once you jump over that hurdle in those first two months and you get down the tricks, you learn that eating the same thing on repeat is a hack. You learn that prepping twice a week is a must. You learn that tracking your food is a necessity. You will get it. You will find your staples like Greek yogurt, already cooked and diced chicken, cottage cheese, liquid egg whites, string cheese, beef jerky, protein, protein bars.

You will find your staples and you will find a way to meet that goal. It's just, it's just tiny little changes that you do consistently every single day to make sure that you are hitting your protein goal. And it's doable because all my clients do it. And now their taste preferences have shifted towards wanting more protein. That's what makes them feel good and strong and solid and firm. So during this first phase, you are learning how to consistently hit your protein goal. You are confirming you're actually in a deficit, not guessing.

And the only way we confirm that is they're tracking our food and weighing in daily. Your body is adapting neurologically to lifting. In the beginning when you are applying this new stimulus to your body, this new stimulus being weight training, maybe you're doing bicep pearls, maybe you're doing lunges, maybe you're doing squats, maybe you're using new equipment, machines, whatever. This new stimulus applied to your muscles that doesn't just stimulate your muscles, it's also stimulating your brain.

In the first few weeks, most strength gains that you're going to experience are actually coming from your brain getting better at activating your muscles. It's not really from building new muscle tissue yet, It's your nervous system kind of learning how to recruit the right muscle fibers for the job. Because when you're doing things like running or any type of cardio, Pilates where there's a lot of different types of reps, it's not the same as weight training in those activities, Pilates, yoga, running, elliptical, you are using your type 1 muscle fibers.

Those fibers are your endurance fibers. Women retain those really easily. We, we keep them easily even after we age. But your type 2 muscle fibers, the ones that give your body shape and tone and make you look the way you want to look, that's a new skill set for most women. And that only occurs when you are applying, applying targeted stimulus to your muscles in the form of resistance training. That's new. So when women who haven't lifted consistently in the past, past, excuse me, start applying a weight training stimulus to their bodies, that's big for your brain and for your muscles.

Your brain is shifting from using its type 1 muscle fibers to achieve a task asked now to using type 2 muscle fibers. It's new and when I have ladies who are just starting with me, a lot of times I just tell them don't even focus on using weights the first month. It doesn't matter if you have no plates on the bar, it doesn't matter if you have next to nothing on the machine. Your main focus is mind muscle connection. I want you to be thinking of the muscle you are targeting in each lift. Touch it, feel it.

Know what it feels like to actually engage the muscle with a bicep curl? You're holding on to a dumbbell. Be thinking about your bicep while you're curling it. That mind muscle connection that's going to produce better, better recruitment for your muscle fibers. Improved coordination. It gives your brain the signal that it needs to use the muscle in the way that you want it to be used. And what I mean by that is when you first start lifting, you're going to look like a drunk giraffe, uncoordinated, non neutral spine.

It's not cute and it doesn't matter. So please don't think about that in the gym. It doesn't matter because you need to go through that newbie phase to develop more efficient movement patterns. I remember when I first started lifting, I would see myself in the mirror and AI was uncomfortable to look. But my trainer taught me you have to watch your form. Now I am always looking at my form when I'm lifting. I need to see my form when I'm lifting and I know I look a lot more coordinated. I just feel coordinated.

My body has learned and adapted how to use my muscles in a way that is fluid and I feel just like I'm moving the way your body is intended to move. And that takes a while. So in the beginning that phase one the months zero to to focus on your mind muscle connection every time you are going through a lift, don't worry about how much you're lifting, worry about how you are lifting. And my very favorite part of the zero to two-month phase is I just call it the whoosh, the whoosh phase. And basically it's when that scale goes tick, tick, tick, down, down, down.

And it's when your body is kind of flushing out the extra glycogen that it's storing because you're in a deficit. So you're flushing out that glycogen. And a lot of times it's reflected on the scale after maybe a month, a month because during that first month where you're not experiencing big scale fluctuations, it's because your body's kind of inflamed. You're giving in a lot of new food, a lot of times eating more than you might have eaten in the past. You're applying these weird stimulus to your muscles in the form of weight training.

You are going to experience some inflammation. And that's not if it's when and you will because newbies to lifting do and a lot of times that deters them from going forward because first of all, they're like, Oh, I'm going to get bulky. No, you're not. I never want to hear that again. Second of all, they're like, why, why is this happening? The scales not moving. It's defeating, it's defeating, but it's just data. And we use data to drive our decisions. And we'll use the data that we see on the scale every single day as just that.

Not an emotional thing, but a but a science based thing where we can take it and continue tracking to make sure that we are in a deficit. So yes, the first month you might experience some water retention, you're the scale might not be going backwards much. Second, second month, boom, whoosh, glycogen out the body. You feel, you feel it and you look it and it is so motivating, which is great because in the beginning you're going to need some motivation. Like I said, you're going to look like a drunken giraffe when you're lifting, you're going to feel swollen, you are going to be confused, you are going to feel overwhelmed, but you're also going to feel motivated.

And when that motivation fades, because it will, motivation doesn't matter. Motivation doesn't matter, Discipline matter. So when your motivation falls away, you will already have experienced some movement on the scale and some visual changes in the mirror. And that's what's going to carry you forward into Phase 2. So phase one is all about just building the engine. That's where your fat loss starts. It's not super visible, but you can feel it. Your clothes might be a bit loose. Now we're moving into months 2:00 to 4:00.

So this part I call phase two. This is where true fat loss happens and recomposition actually starts months 2 to 4. Now here's the real shift. Because the deficit has been consistent for weeks, fat mass is starting to decline measurably. What does that mean in real life? Your waist is going to look a little smaller. Your shoulder caps are going to start looking a little rounder and less saggy. You're going to start seeing divots where you never saw divots before. You're going to notice muscles where you didn't even know they existed.

Your glutes are going to look a little higher. The scale is going to move a little slower than what you will expect if you've gone down the skinny fat train and starved yourself. But this is good. This is good. We don't want the scale to move move fast because we want to build muscle and drop fat simultaneously and a lot of times the scale doesn't move at all. For example, I'm 137 lbs, I'm size 2. I'm 5-7. Years ago, before I had much muscle, I was 137 lbs, size 8, maybe same weight, same height.

Why is that? So I had a pant size, that's what, 4 sizes bigger, but I was still the same weight in the high 130's at the same height because I did not have a lot of muscle back then. I was running every day, every day hours. I didn't have a solid foundation, I didn't feel I looked skinny fat and I didn't even look skinny. I just looked flabby and I knew why. I knew that I had to wait, train, and I knew I had to hit my protein. But at that time it was just not a priority for me. Now, same height, same weight, 4 sizes down.

My body is muscular. I am not skinny fat anymore. We work on body recomp with my ladies. The goal is to drop your fat and build your muscles simultaneously. I have so many episodes that touch on this you can click back to them. It's imperative that you understand that concept if you are trying to lean out or look toned. And this is what I want you to understand. During phase two months 2 to 4, you might lose 6 to 8 lbs of fat. Whoa. But you also might gain 2 to 3 lbs of muscle, especially if you're a newbie.

That happens. So that means the scale might only show 3 to 5 lbs down and you might feel defeated. But are you? No, because we understand what's actually happening underneath the skin. It does not mean fat loss has stalled. You have not hit a plateau. It means recomposition is happening. So let's be clear. Even during recomposition, fat loss still requires A deficit. Muscle gain does not replace that energy balance. And I kind of want to drop in a little myth, a little myth Buster right here. And the myth, and it's not a myth, but it is kind of, I just want to clarify the details surrounding it so that people don't e-mail me saying, well, muscle burns, OK, Muscle burns more calories than fat, yes.

But 1 LB of muscle burns roughly 6 to 10 calories per day at rest. If you gained 5 lbs of muscle, which I have, it's taken me years to do that, which for a newbie it will only take months. You might increase your metabolism by 30 to 40 calories per day. I mean that that increase is small. It's helpful, but it is not enough to drive fat loss on its own. It's not. Muscle improves your metabolic environment. What does that mean? It increases how many carbs you can eat. So your glucose storage, the more muscle you have, the more carbs you can eat.

It improves your insulin sensitivity. It increases your training output. When you have more muscle, you can eat more carbs, which means you will have better training sessions because you can't have good weight training sessions, good cardio sessions unless you are eating enough carbs. And you can do that by having more muscle. But fat loss does happen because energy intake is lower than energy output, which means you are eating less than your body needs to maintain its current state. Muscle makes fat loss easier, but it does not eliminate the need for a deficit.

All right, we are sailing into phase three, which is months 4 to 6. And this is where people at work, people on the street, people at the gym are going to start saying things to you. Months four to six, phase three. This is where the visible recomposition is actually happening. Now, all those little habits that you have been putting into place, hitting your protein goal every day, hitting a couple zone 2 sessions a week, lifting 2 to 4 times a week, all of those things have been happening consistently for four months.

And now your fat mass has gone down, your muscle density has gone up. You are looking different. Your body composition has changed. You look toned and people can see it. People can see it. Your shape is now resembling more of an X. So think about this. The middle of your body, where your waist is, that is now smaller. Your shoulders are looking more toned and your legs are looking lifted and built. And your whole body is smaller. But you just look trained. You look stronger. You look like the people you want to look like and not just a smaller, flabbier version of who you used to look like, which is what happens when you starve yourself.

And for most ladies, if you did have a substantial amount of weight to lose, you're still losing weight. That scale is still trending downward. And I love to put together graphs for all my clients showing them the trajectory of their scale inputs because they I tell, I tell them a lot of them do put their weight in my app every single day. And after a few months, it's fun to see that that scale just tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. It's the perfect trajectory and angle when you put the whole thing together because it trends downward.

If you are recomping consistently. Now, most women honestly quit before months 4:00 to 6:00 because they think prepping their food is too hard. They have too many things going on in their lives and they don't know how to prioritize. They refuse to get up early enough to get their gym sessions in all of these choices to them, they choose easy. They don't choose hard, choose to stay the same. They don't choose to change. They choose to not embrace the suck and just embrace the current suck that they are in.

That's the reality of it. And I know it's hard to hear because we've all been there. We've all done that. No shame, no shade. Me over here have done it a million times. I've quit. But when you actually make it a lifestyle, when you make prepping your food a couple times a week, when you make hitting your protein goal priority, when you make going to the gym part of your identity, it's easy. You just do it on repeat. I don't even need to set an alarm. I automatically wake up at 5 AMI know I get a workout in.

I know I'm going to eat protein. I know exactly what I'm going to eat. I know exactly what I'm going to eat during the day in terms of protein. The sides, those are movable. It becomes who you are. It's becomes your identity. You are somebody who goes to the gym every morning or however many mornings a week, or somebody who goes to the gym three days a week. You are somebody who does cardio at 6:00 PM every night, whatever that is. You're somebody who preps your food twice a week. That's who you are.

If that's who you want to be, that needs to be who you are. And yes, it is hard. Yes, it does suck. Yes, life will happen, but you need to bulldoze through all of that and choose the you you want to be, which sounds corny, but that's exactly what you need to do. And you might fail a few times before you figure out, hmm, I actually do need to change my entire self to be who I want to be. Now, if you have failed in the past, which I'm sure you have if you're listening to this, I have to, as I said many times.

And you think, oh like I I'm not capable. Yes you are, yes you are. Just start small. Just start small. I have an episode on a morning routine and just the four pillars that go into a morning routine that honestly shift your identity day by day. Take a listen to that. You just have to make tiny changes consistently every day and they compound on each other. And if you have made it to month 6 in your recomp journey without completely quitting, you are one of the winners. You are one of the winners.

It doesn't matter how much progress you've made at this point. If you are still progressing forward slowly, you're still progressing. You haven't quit. And if you are at month 6 or beyond, that's amazing because now it has been solidified into your identity. And if you have quit before, you can start right now. That's the best part. Doesn't matter if you've quit, you can start right now. Make today your day one. And if today is your day one, do not quit before month 2. Most women quit right before month 2, which is when fat loss becomes visible, which is when that muscle you're putting on starts to actually show.

It's when your strength gains compound on top of each other. It's when your food deficit has had enough time to actually work and be reflected in your physique. So if you're just starting, stay because the results you want to happen happen after the phase where most people quit. The body changes after all those little habits become your new lifestyle and you change when you embrace your new identity as being reality. And it's it's a real mindset shift and one that for some people can just happen.

And for others, for most, it's a gradual realization that the biggest hurdle is you is your own perception of yourself, is your own depiction of your identity. So as soon as you can shift that identity into being who you are, who you are in reality, then you will experience real change because you'll do all the things you need to do to see what you want to see on a consistent basis. And it's not hard when that's who you are. And that's what you do every single day on repeat. If you need help getting your I do custom macro formulations.

If you need help with that, go ahead and e-mail me. I might have you on a waiting list right now. I have a waiting list of people I will get back to when time allows. But if you would like me to do your custom macro formulation, which is just a series of quizzes I give you and we go back and forth with each other a bit and I will give you what numbers you need to crank into your app, be it my own app or another app like Macros First or My Fitness Pal. You can e-mail me. My e-mail address is RAC Fitness, RAC Fitness MN, like Minnesota at gmail.com.

Again, I do have a little wait list for that right now, but if you would like me to plop you on the waiting list or if you know, if I get really, if I get really ambitious this week, I might get through those. So there's no harm in shooting me an e-mail. I love hearing from you regardless. And here's an ask I have been getting questions on and comments on Instagram, my e-mail through comments on Spotify. I love all of this. I love all of these. I love hearing from you. It would be very helpful if you could put those comments and questions on Spotify or Apple podcast, because then I can keep them all in one place and I can respond to them accordingly.

And best of all, everybody can see them so that people who have the same comments or questions or what have you can see that you have had those as well and that they are not alone own in those wonderments because we all have those questions we want to ask, but feel a little some kind of way about doing it. And you shouldn't because as a former teacher, there is no bad question except for the one unasked. So again, thank you for listening, ladies. And you can find some fun teaching tools that coincide with this episode on my Instagram, which is RAC Fitness under Dash.

RAC Fitness under dash or under score. I always call it under dash from my friends. It's an under score. So rack fitness under score. That's my Instagram. And again, thank you for listening and you'll hear from me next week.

Realistic Timeline for Weight Loss After 35 (Body Recomposition for Women)

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