EP 79: The 3 Phases of Real Body Transformation Over 40

0:00Shaun:Hello and welcome back to Becoming Her, Fitter, Better, and Stronger Over 40. I'm your host and coach, Shauna. I'm 47, a wife, a boy mom, and a fitness and nutrition coach helping women over 40 become their best. One of the biggest mistakes I made for years on my way to becoming my fittest was thinking that the answer to building my best body was to focus on fat loss and building muscle all at the same time. I thought I could diet and sweat my way to lean and toned. And honestly, I think a lot of women over 40 can relate to that. Maybe you can too. But for years, I was stuck in the cycle of dieting, losing weight, gaining it back, and never really achieving the physique that I wanted.

0:37I was in the gym six days a week, one to two hours a day, restricting food, working so hard. And while I looked kind of fit, it wasn't the tone, strong aesthetic that I was trying to go for, especially for all the effort I was putting in. But after having my son at age 39, something shifted. My focus became not just about looking better, but also becoming the healthiest version inside and out for the years to come. I also realized that I didn't want to spend the second half of my life fighting my body or hating it anymore. After all, I had these little eyes now that were going to be watching and learning from me.

1:10As I researched longevity, I learned more about metabolism, muscle, body composition, and I realized that the years I spent chronically dieting, trying to burn as many calories as possible, maintaining on low calories left me with less muscle, a slower metabolism, and a body that had adapted to years of restriction. And this becomes even more important because after 40, women are naturally more vulnerable to age-related muscle loss if we are not actively trying to preserve it or to build it. When we combine years of dieting plus age-related muscle loss, it's no surprise so many of us are feeling softer, more tired, and our bodies feel more resistant to fat loss in our 40s.

1:49Since my goal was no longer to just weigh less, but actually be stronger and healthier, I knew I needed a different approach. I spent the next years learning from experts, getting certifications in nutrition and a special reverse dieting course, and then applying

2:04Shaun:those phased approaches to my own journey, helping to improve my body composition by focusing first on eating enough, rebuilding my metabolism, increasing calories strategically, building more muscle and creating a body that could actually respond to fat loss again and maintain it long term. That approach completely transformed my body like nothing else had. Now at age 47, I eat more than I did, work out less than I used to, and look and feel 100 % better than I did back in my 20s and 30s. And this is now the same approach that I use with my clients because I kept seeing the same patterns over and over again with women exhausted, stuck, eating low calories, frustrated that their bodies were not responding and unknowingly making fat loss harder by constantly trying to push harder.

2:50Shaun:So today I want to walk you through the exact three phases of body transformation that I use with women over 40, why we often don't start with fat loss, and why phasing your approach works so much better when we're talking about long-term success with your body composition and your metabolic health. And to make this more practical and understandable, I'm also going to walk you through one of my clients journeys through these phases. So you can see how the process works in real time. Her name is Adrienne and she is a busy working mom who came to me stuck eating low calories, trying to work out, but frustrated with fat loss, feeling like her body just wasn't responding or changing anymore.

3:28And as I walk you through each phase, I'll show you exactly how we applied it to her transformation. So you can really understand and see how these phases work. Now, before we get into those three phases themselves, I want to clarify something because body composition or recomposition gets talked about a lot. And yes, technically you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time in certain situations, especially if you are a brand new person into lifting or you're returning after a long time off. But chasing both fat loss and building muscle at the same time is not always the most direct route to take.

4:04Building muscle and maximizing fat loss require different things physiologically. Building muscle is supported by adequate calories or fuel for your training performance, recovery, and progressive overload, whereas fat loss is going to require that you're in an energy deficit or eating less calories. So while there can be overlap, especially in the beginning, there often comes a point where trying to pursue both goals at once starts to create some friction and some frustration, especially for women over 40 who are already underfed, under-recovered, stressed, and coming off of years of dieting and potentially losing muscle.

4:40Shaun:And honestly, I think this is where so many women get stuck. They are trying to force fat loss from a body that doesn't feel supported enough to respond well anymore and does not have that foundation of muscle, which is exactly why the first phase, our priming phase, matters so much. When Adrienne first came to me, she was eating around 1500 calories and feeling stuck with change. And this is such a common story. A lot of the women that I work with are in this place where they're already eating a low amount of calories and they think that they just have to eat lower to see their body change again.

5:12And that's not necessarily what we need or what we need to focus on first. They need support first because after years of dieting, the body has adapted. Our non-exercise activity often decreases,

5:24Shaun:meaning we are unconsciously moving less, our training performance will suffer, our recovery starts to worsen, muscle mass will decrease, our energy drops, stress will stay elevated. And again, when we layer in that age-related muscle loss on top of all of that, we end up in this place where we're eating very little, we have less muscle than we used to, and we're feeling frustrated because our body just isn't responding the way we want it to. Which is why a lot of the clients that I work with start with a priming or a metabolic restoration phase. And the goal of this phase is to bring the body into a healthier, stronger, more responsive place.

5:59Shaun:This phase often includes gradually increasing calories to a healthier level of maintenance, prioritizing proteins, strength training with proper intensity and progression, allowing recovery and rest, prioritizing sleep, building more muscle, supporting hormones and energy, reducing stress on the body. So with Adrienne, instead of cutting calories right away, we slowly reverse dieted her in that first phase, taking her from 1500 calories to 2100 calories. And this part was scary for her because like so many women, she thought the only way to get her dream body would be eating less. And she thought eating more would automatically mean weight gain.

6:37Shaun:But something really cool happened, and I see this happen a lot with clients, is that the scale actually dropped. her energy improved, her training performance improved, her recovery was better, her body composition was changing and improving because we were supporting her body, giving it enough nourishment, rest, and recovery. She started her priming phase at around 138 pounds and ended it at 132 pounds, all while eating more food. It's also important to note here that we made sure her training was optimal for muscle growth, meaning she was lifting close to failure, progressing each week and allowing rest days so her muscle could recover and grow.

7:16Shaun:And this is such an important reminder that the body and the metabolism respond so much better when they are properly supported, not by working harder, but by working smarter. And that's exactly what the priming phase is all about. Once the body is in a healthier and more responsive place, we can then move into fat loss much more effectively because we have improved caloric intake, training performance, muscle mass, and overall metabolic health. And now we have a body that's going to be responsive to that calorie deficit. And that brings us into phase two, which is fat loss. And this is where we strategically create a calorie deficit.

7:53Shaun:But now we're starting from a much better foundation. Remember that if your goal is to look lean and toned and have a healthy metabolism, you have to have that foundation of muscle. So taking the time to build that first is really going to set you up for success in fat loss, aesthetically, health-wise, and metabolically. After our priming phase, we have better muscle, better training performance, more caloric runway, meaning higher maintenance level equals higher deficit level. When calories come down, the body is a lot more responsive after that priming phase, and it's a lot easier to sustain that deficit because your calories are often higher than they would have been if you hadn't done that priming phase.

8:29Shaun:Now for Adrienne, during her first fat loss phase, she was eating anywhere from 1 ,600 to 1 ,500 calories, but now those calories felt very different compared to when she started. Remember, she was maintaining her body at 1 ,500 calories, and now she's burning fat. During this phase, she dropped from about 132 pounds to about 121 pounds. But honestly, the bigger transformation was her body composition because we took time to build that foundation first. She now had something to reveal. She looked stronger, leaner, more toned, defined. She was healthier and happier because there was now this muscle foundation underneath.

9:06Shaun:Taking Adrienne through that priming phase first really helped her have a really successful fat loss phase where we were able to effectively and efficiently lose body fat while preserving that lean muscle tissue, leaving her with a beautiful, aesthetic, toned, strong body, but also protecting her metabolism. Once we were done with Adrienne's fat loss phase, we had to transition to our final phase, which is reversing into maintenance. The goal is not to stay in fat loss forever. Remember, that's how we got into this metabolic mess in the first place. Most of us thought we had to stay dieting to keep our results.

9:41But your body was never meant to live in a constant deficit. Fat loss is a stressor on the body, even when we do it well.

9:48Shaun:And eventually, if calories stay low for too long, your recovery is going to suffer, training performance can decline, hunger increases, energy drops, and maintaining muscle becomes harder. And again, we're going to adapt to that lower level of calories. After fat loss, we want to intentionally transition into maintenance through something called reverse dieting. So we slowly increase calories strategically while helping the body adapt and maintain results. Phase 3, which is reverse dieting and lifestyle integration, is all about teaching your body how to maintain results in a sustainable way.

10:21Shaun:And this phase includes gradually increasing your calories, maintaining or improving your strength and muscle, supporting recovery and hormones, and navigating real life with structure and flexibility. For Adrienne, after her fat loss phase, where she had dropped to about 121 pounds, we slowly increased her calories from 1600 back to a healthy level of maintenance, which for her was about 1900 calories. She stabilized around 123 to 124 pounds, not rebounding back to 138, not undoing all the progress that she had just worked so hard for, and not stuck starting another diet on Monday. She was maintaining a dramatically improved body composition while eating more food and living a more balanced lifestyle.

11:05Shaun:And this is one of the most important parts of transformation. Because what's the point of losing weight if the process is so extreme that you can't sustain it? Then your results won't be sustainable. The real goal is learning how to create a body and a lifestyle that you can actually maintain so that the results that you get are something that lasts forever. This phased approach is how I have built my best body and have helped hundreds of other women do the same. This strategy takes time. But when executed well, it's going to leave you with a body that is more lean, has more muscle mass, has better metabolism, has better habits, better structure, and better sustainability.

11:42Shaun:And after 40, that should be our goal. We should be thinking long term now. We should be thinking about longevity, health. Yes, we want the aesthetics, but we also want those other things first. And the best part about this is that when you focus on getting stronger, having health as your priority, the aesthetics come with it. I hope this brought some clarity around what it does take to really transform your body in all the best of ways. Building muscle and losing fat and changing your body composition takes time. It takes effort. And this phase approach works really well. Not because it's flashy.

12:15Shaun:Not because it's extreme. But because it works with your body and your metabolism instead of constantly fighting against them. And the coolest part is that so many women end up leaner, stronger, healthier while eating more than they ever were. And that is truly the power of muscle and having a plan meant to work with your metabolism versus working against it. So if you are hearing this and you want to apply this to your journey, I have two options for you. First up, I have my Soft to Sculpted mini course. It's a$27 course. It has three video trainings that really help you to understand your metabolism, help you to understand how to build more muscle so you burn more fat in the gym, and then walk you through how to phase your nutrition so you can support fat loss, muscle growth, and sustaining all of the above.

13:02Shaun:Or if you want to work directly with me where I map out your plan for you and then walk you through it, you can apply for one-on-one coaching. I will leave both options in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I genuinely hope you found it helpful. If you did, I'd be so thankful if you left a rating or a review. and if you have show ideas, please DM me on Instagram. I would love to hear from you and until next week, keep getting stronger and I'll see you in the next episode.