EP 35: 5 Things I Gave Up to Get My Fittest Over 40

0:00Hello and welcome back to Becoming Her, fitter, better, and stronger over 40. I'm your host and coach Shauna. I'm 46, a wife, a boy, mom, and a fitness and nutrition coach, helping women over 40 become their best. In today's episode, I'm going to share the five biggest things I had to give up in order to build the best body of my life in my 40s. And these were deep shifts with mindset, habits, and how I saw myself. and they change not just how I looked, but how I moved, how I felt and how I live. And what I want you to know is this is my true lived experience. Everything that I'm going to share with you is something that I have done with my journey that has been so impactful.

0:41So I want you to really take this in and then apply it to your own journey, because I promise these are things that will help you not just with your physical transformation, but that one within. And honestly, that's where it all begins. We don't change from the outside in, we change from the inside out. So let's dive into it because I think you're really going to find these shifts very helpful. Number one, I gave up thinking like a dieter and I started to think like an athlete. This is a big one, but I used to live in this constant loop of chronically dieting. How little could I eat? How fast could I lose the weight?

1:15I was just so obsessed with getting smaller, but that's a dieter mindset. It's reactive, It's restrictive. And honestly, it's exhausting. But everything changed when I asked myself, what would happen if I stopped trying to shrink myself and started to focus on getting strong, started to focus on how I could perform. And that's when I adopted this athlete mindset. And honestly, it's such an empowering mindset because I'm not trying to shrink myself. I'm trying to empower myself. And athletes don't train just for aesthetics. They train for performance. They have clear goals. They show up with intention.

1:50they track their progress. If they do make a mistake, they evaluate it and work on getting better. They don't expect overnight results because they know that greatness comes from daily practice, daily reps, daily fuel, daily focus, and continuing to show up every single day. They don't skip meals. They are fueling themselves so that they perform and they recover their best. So I encourage you, stop trying to ask yourself, how can I get this weight off as fast as possible and start to ask yourself, how can I fuel and train to become my strongest self? Come at it from that position. And I'm telling you, it is a powerful one.

2:27I want you to tell yourself, I am an athlete. I'm not a dieter. That's going to make a big mindset shift. Number two is that I gave up training fasted and I started to train fueled. This goes along with thinking like an athlete. And this one is backed by science. So I want you to kind of lean into this. So for years, I thought that working out fasted would help me quote unquote burn more fat. But in reality, I was just under fueled. I was underperforming and I was leaving muscle gains on the table. So here's what the science has to say when we're talking about pre and post fuel. When you have carbs pre-workout, it's going to help you train harder, especially during strength training sessions.

3:05Think of it as topping off your gas tank before you have that long drive. When you have protein pre-workout, it helps to give your body those amino acids that it needs to protect your muscles. Now post-workout carbs are going to help replenish the glycogen that you just used. So it's going to go right back into that muscle cell. And then post-workout protein is going to help repair and rebuild those muscles that you were just training in the gym, which is how you're going to look and feel toned. And so here's the mindset shift is that the gym is not where you lose fat. It's where you build your body.

3:36Your workouts are the stimulus and the food is the support that's going to help you look how you want. If you're not fueling your body before you train, you could be leaving strength, energy, and results behind. So I want you to, again, lean into thinking like an athlete, lean into thinking how can you perform and recover your best. If you train early, it doesn't mean you have to have like a full blown out meal because that can be uncomfortable to train with a full belly, but try to have something that's quick digesting. So a quick weight protein shake, maybe a half a banana, a little rice cake, something like that.

4:09But training fed is going to help you build more muscle. It's going to improve your recovery and you're going to have better results. I will leave a freebie in the show notes. It's called Fueling for Performance. It's a guide that gives you some quick ideas as to what to eat pre and post-workout so you can make the most of your efforts. It's simple, It's easy to follow and I think you'll really find it helpful now on to number three Which is I gave up chasing skinny and I started to chase Strong this one's emotional for me because for years I thought smaller was better I wanted really thin thighs my thighs have always touched even when I was like in grade school So I wanted that thigh gap.

4:49I wanted a flat stomach. I wanted to see my collarbones But even when I got small, I still did not feel good in my skin Once I shifted to chasing strength, I felt so powerful. I have shared this before, but I'm telling you, seeing the scale drop is kind of fun, right? You get a little exhilaration from that, especially if that's your goal. You see the scale come down three, five pounds and you're like, all right, I'm feeling good. But I'm telling you, it's nothing in comparison to going to the gym, struggling to lift a weight and then finally being able to push that weight. It is next level with your confidence.

5:23I'm telling you right now, it is the best feeling in the world. So I began to lift with the purpose of getting stronger. I tracked my reps. I was adding weight. I was making sure that I was applying that progressive overload. And that's when I saw real changes in my body. I started to change the shape of it. I started to look tone. I started to see little muscle cuts with my arms, with my triceps, in my calves, in my quads. And that is where confidence comes from. If you take anything away from that, I want you to lean into getting strong because that That is where your true power is, not just in the aesthetics.

5:58It's going to help you aesthetically look the way you want to, but it's also going to help you in the long run. Muscle is the organ of longevity. If you want to live a long and healthy life, muscle is where it's at. So stop trying to shrink and start trying to build. Now onto number four, which is I gave up quitting on hard days and I started to learn from them instead. So in the past, if I missed a workout, if I went overboard on my diet, if I just had an off day and was just in a bad mental space, I would spiral and think that if it wasn't perfect, then forget it, I failed. And then I would spiral for a week, maybe a month, and then feel like I had to start all over again.

6:39But now I understand that the hard days are where the magic happens, if you push through it. And there's actually science behind this. So when you choose to keep going, even on a hard day, when you push through that resistance, even if it's just sticking to

6:53Shauna:your workout or sticking to the plan, even after you have had that moment, you are literally rewiring your brain. You create new neural pathways that associate discomfort with growth and not defeat. And that builds resilience. It teaches your brain, I can do hard things. I can follow through. I don't need perfect conditions to succeed. So I want you to understand that and really lean into the hard days, lean into those times where maybe things weren't perfect, learn from them and then take that wisdom with you into the next moment. People that you see that are successful, whether it's with fitness, with business, in their life, they have failed more times than most people are willing to and they've just continued to try.

7:38So failure is not not being perfect. Failure is when you quit. So just keep going and take the lessons you can from those hard days so that you can continue to apply that wisdom and push yourself towards reaching those goals. And remember, progress will not come from doing the easy stuff. It comes from pushing through when it's hard. And every time you do that, you build the mental muscle that will carry you long term. Remember that you can do hard things. You were built for this. The vision that you have for that goal life, that goal body was not by accident. It is a preview of what can be as long as you keep pushing.

8:18And now lastly, on to number five. And this is the biggest one and one that's a little bit emotional for me. But I gave up working out because I hated my body and started to work out to celebrate what it could do.

8:31Shauna:And this one might hit you right in the heart, just like it hits me. Because I used to work out with the sole purpose of trying to change what I saw in the mirror because I hated it. I wanted to punish my body. I wanted to erase the things I hated. But that mindset was toxic. And even if I had progress, I would regress. And it kept me stuck in shame and never feeling like I was enough. And that shifted after having my son. After having him, I realized not only was I just tired of that mentality, but I also had someone who was going to look to me for how to love themselves and look to me as an example of health.

9:10Shauna:And I had to show him what that looked like. And I didn't want him to see that as an example. So I had to shift. I had to train to honor my body and realize that my body is all that I've got. And your body is all that you've got. It's the vessel that we have to carry us through every single year, every journey, every challenge. It's always been with us. And we have to honor what it can do because it's done so much for us. You're breathing. You're walking. You're doing everything day in, day out because of your body. So honor it. Be thankful for it. And there will come a time where everything that we know right now is a little bit different, you know, where movement becomes a little bit more challenging.

9:53Shauna:Really celebrate what your body can do right now and enhance it so that it can continue to do all the things that you love, to hug the people that you love, to carry you to the places that you want to go and live the life you want to experience. Train to honor what your body can do. train to feel strong and to feel energized, train to keep up with your babies or your future grand babies, and train to lead by example for those that you love. I'm telling you, when you shift from hating your body to celebrating it, it really opens up a brand new journey for you. You stop putting your worth in that end result and start realizing that you are worthy right now.

10:34So please remember that movement is not punishment. It truly is a privilege.

10:39Shauna:So train like someone who loves her body, not someone who's trying to fix it. Yes, you can make improvements. It's okay to have goals, but please make sure you're coming from a place of love. You will never hate yourself into a version that you love. It just doesn't work that way. You have to start to come from a place of self-love. Think about what you would tell your best friend, what you would tell your daughter. How would you encourage them on their own journeys so that they were showing up and taking care of themselves? It works the same way. I want you to be your biggest hype woman. That doesn't mean you have to ooze confidence, but it does mean that you got to kick the mean girl conversations out and you have to encourage yourself and tell yourself every day, I'm going to work on getting better and better.

11:22Shauna:And I'm so thankful for everything my body can do. Trust me, it's going to change everything for you. So let's do a little recap here of these five things that I gave up to get my fittest over 40 so that you can take them with you on your fit over 40 journey too. Number one is we're going to take the dieting mindset and switch that into an athlete mindset. Number two, we're going to stop training fasted and we're going to train to fuel ourselves. Number three is we're going to stop chasing skinny and we're going to start chasing strong. Number four, we're going to stop quitting on our hard days and instead we are going to learn from them and help to rewire our brains to understand that hard days come, but we can have resilience if we keep pushing.

12:02Shauna:Number five is that we are going to stop training because we hate ourselves and we are going to start training from a place of celebration and respect and self-love. So I hope some of those things really hit home with you. I hope it touched your heart. I hope it inspired you to take a look at how you're approaching this fit over 40 journey, because while you can have a great workout plan and a great meal plan, you really also have to embrace this with the right mindset. And when you do, you unlock doors that have been shut and you unlock your best body over 40. So I really hope that this can just inspire you to come from a different place and attack your journey in an empowered way.

12:43And if you're nodding along thinking, yes, this is what I needed to hear today, I'm just going to invite you to join me in my new Strong by Shauna membership.

12:52Shauna:So inside this program, you are going to get access to any workout programs that I upload. They are eight-week programs, and they are updated regularly. You'll also get access to any challenges that I run inside that membership. You'll also have a recipe hub with different high protein recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. And that will be updated regularly. You'll also have a guide as to how to set your calories and how to phase your nutrition cycles so that you can really go through this full body transformation and have all the resources at your fingertips to do so. You'll also have a community with like-minded women who are on the same journey that are going to help remind you that you're not behind.

13:33Shauna:You are just getting started. and that's really important. So if that sounds like something that you need, you want all the tools, you want the support from the community, you wanna be a part of something that's bigger than you, then I'm gonna leave the details below because getting in shape after 40 takes more than motivation and it takes a plan and it takes support and it takes the right community to help you stay strong and build that powerful mindset one rep and one day at a time. So I will leave the link in the show notes. There is a limited three-day free trial, so make sure you check it out.

14:06Shauna:So that's all for today, friend. But I hope this episode really spoke to you and helped you. And if it did, I would be so honored if you left a rating or a review. It really does help the show. And remember, you're not too old. It is not too late. You are just getting started. Keep getting stronger, and I will see you in the next episode.