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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Bradee, and I'm a longtime fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain-living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails.
Think of this as your one-stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk, and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel, and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here.
If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place.
You're listening to the Fit for Hiking Podcast.
We are so back, you guys! Hello! Welcome back to the show. This is your host, Bradee.
This is the first episode I've recorded in several months. I finally took my first long break from the show over the past three years, just to kind of refresh and give my brain a break. And now I'm coming back into things ready to go.
I've really missed recording, so I'm excited to be back. And we're going to kick it off with a banger of an episode that I'm so excited to talk about, because this is a topic in the fitness and body space that I am very passionate about, and I don't really feel like it gets talked about enough.
And that is the topic of balance.
Is it actually possible to get toned with a balanced approach? Because some people will preach balance all day long, while other people will say, no, it's really not possible to do that.
And stick around until the end of the episode for a special listener deal for women with big physique goals.
All right, let's dive in.
So the uncomfortable truth that a lot of people don't want to look at is, if you want to get lean, lean, visibly muscular, I'm talking like what a lot of women would say is, "I want to be toned." Okay? That means you have visible muscle tone.
There will be trade-offs.
You cannot simultaneously maximize fat loss, muscle growth, being spontaneous with your girlfriends, going to restaurants multiple times every week, late nights, not focusing on good sleep, minimal exercise, zero food tracking, and complete freedom around your schedule and expect to have amazing fat-loss and body-composition results.
But the alternative is not necessarily to live like a fitness robot. Okay?
There can be a happy medium, but there are going to be sacrifices. So it's really about choosing sacrifices that don't make you hate your life. That's what we're going to talk about today: how to actually find that balance for you.
So the question isn't, "How can I get abs without changing anything?"
We just know that's not realistic. Otherwise, everyone would be walking around with visible abs, looking toned, looking amazing.
Think about what you are willing to change and what you're absolutely unwilling to give up.
My grandma always used to say this one phrase, and I think about it in a lot of aspects of life:
"If you want what you want, you have to want what your wants lead to."
Okay? So think about that.
If you want to have this shredded physique, a really amazing body, really muscular, really lean, you have to want the process that goes along with getting that result. You have to be all in for that because that's what you want. Commit to it.
You can't have both. You can't want this result but not want the process to get there.
Okay, so let's talk about balance.
We hear that you should be balancing fitness with life. But balance is oftentimes interpreted as being able to get super lean while still eating however much you want, nights out, drinking with friends, minimal sacrifice.
In reality, your definition of balance is going to dictate the type of results you get.
If your definition of balance is, "I don't really want to have to sacrifice much. I just want balance, right? I want to work out sometimes, but I don't really want to track my food, and I don't want to have a serious step goal, and I want to be able to have the late nights whenever I want, and I don't want to cut back on alcohol," yeah, your body is going to reflect that.
Your body is the reflection of what you've done the last 100 days, right? How much you've moved, what you had for your last 100 meals, what you had to drink, how much movement you're getting on a daily basis.
So if your definition of balance looks like that, you're not going to actually get the type of physique that you're looking for.
So you have to also understand that there are going to be different versions of life where different things are going to take center stage, maybe be a little bit more important to you.
So are you wanting to travel and eat all the things and do social events and say yes to everything, and also have your dream physique?
Because if that's the case, you're going to need to have a very specific approach, because it's not going to happen by accident. You have to be intentional if you want to be able to do all the things and still have a body that you're really happy with and a low body-fat percentage.
Balance may look like still working out two to three times a week during these busy social seasons, but not really getting your dream physique because you aren't eating in a calorie range that supports that.
Balance typically isn't going to lead to you getting extremely lean.
The people that you see online with visible muscle tone make fitness and nutrition a non-negotiable priority. So they aren't really seeking balance the way that many of us see it.
When they say that they have a balanced approach, this is what they probably mean:
They're doing one night out a month instead of two to three per week. They may eat out a few times a month, but they're only eating maybe half their meal and they're boxing up the rest at home. They may travel a lot, but they're still following their workout routine and that regimen on top of those things while they're traveling.
Okay? So that is their definition of balance.
If you are an extremely, extremely lean person, your definition of balance looks different than it does for the rest of the world.
And that's an important distinguishing factor here that we need to look at, because you can't expect your dream body with the type of balance that we talked about before versus the type of balance of an extremely lean person.
So, personal example here. I just got back from a three-week-long trip. It wasn't necessarily a vacation. We were visiting my family and my husband's family back in the Midwest.
So we do this trip every year. We go to three different states to visit all of our different family. We are taking our two little kids and our dog, and we're working while traveling and trying to visit with everybody.
There's a lot of socializing. We don't have our normal routines. We're not able to cook our standard meals. And it's really hard to maintain our normal level of body-fat percentage while we are on this trip.
Here's what balance looks like for us in those times:
We still get gym passes. We are still working out two to three times a week that entire time. We're still going for walks, but we are not necessarily being meticulous with what we're eating because we're not in charge of cooking all of our meals.
So we're balancing maybe having better portion sizes sometimes, but also having days where it's like, yeah, I'm going to go out to eat. I'm going to enjoy all the things that I don't normally get to do. I'm going to have my grandma's special that she made for me. I'm going to have more than I normally would be at a concert with my friends.
So you have to make that choice.
If you are going to err on the side of eating in a calorie surplus, you're going to notice that even if you're working out and still walking, you're going to gain some body fat. That's just how it works.
So I went into that trip knowing I'm not going to have a super-flat stomach and visible abs by the end of this trip.
And this is why even really fit, really lean people typically don't have abs year-round.
When you see that online, I'm going to tell you, they are in like the top 1% of the world when it comes to fitness, because most people cannot maintain that level of leanness year-round.
Because then you are having to choose to sacrifice going out and just eating what you want and drinking what you want for a couple of days with friends. You're not going to have that level of leniency.
So you have to decide what is worth it to you.
For me, it was worth it to say, I'm still going to keep up with my fitness. I'm still going to generally try to do my best, but there's going to be some things that I'm just going to be a little bit more lenient on.
And I know I'm going to gain a bit of body fat, and it'll be okay, because I know what to do to get my body back where I want it when I get back home.
And that's exactly what I'm doing.
I'm already back down almost to the weight that I was when I left, and my ab definition is coming back.
But it is very normal, even if you have abs some of the year, to not have them year-round because life fluctuates things, right?
Okay, so it's important to talk about figuring out what that balance looks like for you.
So let's talk about what it actually takes to achieve visible abs.
Visible abs are not just the result of doing more ab workouts. Somehow that is still a pervasive thought that's on the internet, that people are still like, "Oh, if you want to get snatched, just do this core routine."
I wish it was that simple.
Again, if it was, way more people would be walking around with abs.
But really, it's a combination of building full-body strength, having enough muscle tone and abdominal muscle to actually show once you get sufficiently low in body fat.
So for women, you're not even going to see any muscle or ab definition really until you're about 22% body fat or lower. For men, it's more like 12% or lower.
So until you reach that place where your body fat is low enough to actually show your ab definition and your muscle definition, you're not going to look like you have a toned stomach.
Okay, so that comes through being in a consistent enough calorie deficit to get you to that place, and then maintaining calories in that body.
So consistent nutrition. Your NEAT needs to be high enough, so your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. The acronym is NEAT. You hear me say that. That's what I mean.
So that's the movement and the energy that you're spending just throughout your day. So fidgeting, walking around, how active your job is, going for a walk, getting up and dancing with your kids, running around outside.
So your consistent training and nutrition and sleep, those are the things that are going to impact your overall body fat and what your body looks like.
Okay, so getting very lean for many women is going to require considerably more dietary and lifestyle discipline than just maintaining a somewhat lean physique.
Going from 25% body fat to below 20% is not easy. It takes a lot of discipline.
This isn't just like, "Oh, I think I'll just go ahead and get visible muscle tone."
The people that you see who have that are working their butts off to do it and to maintain it, because once you get it, you have to have the skills to actually maintain it, right?
Along with all the bumps in the road, the things that come up in life, the social events, the holidays, travel, having kids, pregnancy, postpartum.
It is not easy to not only get to that body-fat level and then actually maintain it throughout all the seasons of life.
If you can do that, you are elite. You have gotten to a place where this is truly your lifestyle and you know how to make it happen.
So it's definitely tough.
Some women naturally will see abs more easily. Others have to get really, really lean, and that comes with costs.
So the sacrifices that nobody wants to really talk about, and I think it's worth talking about because it's something that you need to know what you're getting yourself into.
If this is your goal, you need to understand what pursuing a highly defined physique means.
This means more meals prepped, being really meticulous with your grocery orders, more attention to protein and portion sizes, fewer spontaneous meals.
You're not ordering out a lot because you don't know how much oil and butter and fats and things like that are going into those meals that are cooked out.
Potentially limiting alcohol or cutting it altogether. Planning around social events.
You're going to have to be eating fewer calories than most people are eating, because most people are overeating. That's just how it is in the U.S.
Especially our portion sizes are huge.
So a lot of people are either eating and maintaining, or they're eating and slowly gaining over time. The average person is really gaining several pounds every single year.
So in order to not do that, and go the other direction, you're going to be eating less than most people that you're around.
And that can be a sacrifice.
Training, you've got to be consistently strength training.
A lot of people are like, "I don't understand why my body's not changing," but they're running a few times a week maybe, or doing some Pilates or yoga.
You need to be strength training if you want to see visible muscle tone and actually have that definition.
Steps and maybe adding in a bit of cardio. Once you've nailed the foundation of doing strength training three to four times a week and getting your step count higher, you can add a little bit of extra cardio, although it's really not necessary.
I have been able to maintain a very lean physique without doing any kind of excess cardio outside of hiking and a bit of cardio prep for big hikes.
And then recovery needs to be a part of the plan. You have to have days off. You cannot be constantly training. It can actually end up backfiring if you try to do that.
And then lifestyle. Sleep becomes important. Stress management. You can choose early nights in instead of staying out. That's going to become more important.
You can't just have constant nights out late. Saying no to something because it really doesn't fit in with your goals.
So if you want this next level, you're going to have to say no to things, whether it's food-related, social-event-related, just doing these things that we normally say yes to all the time but don't really align with your goals.
And it doesn't have to be every time.
But again, when I talk about the balance of an extremely fit person who has a lean physique, maybe they're saying yes to a night out, like going out to a big dinner, going drinking with friends, once a month versus once a weekend or twice a weekend.
So you're going to have to scale it back and have more reasonable expectations.
Sacrifice doesn't have to mean that you're constantly suffering, but it does mean deciding that one thing matters more than another thing in this particular season based on your goals.
So you have to really ask yourself, what are you willing to give up in order to lose the final five pounds?
And this is why a lot of people end up deciding that maybe it's not worth it to lose five pounds.
And if it is worth it to you, that's okay too. But you have to make that decision with the information that I just shared, knowing that it's going to cost you something.
And if you're okay with never having visible abs, then great. Then you don't have to worry about weighing this out.
Even getting to 20–25% body fat as a woman is still very healthy. You can get really strong, really healthy, and do all the things that you want to do at that body-fat percentage. You just might not look quite as toned as maybe initially.
So the key question to ask is: What am I actually willing to sacrifice?
So you can make a couple lists here to help you with this.
Some non-negotiables would be time with partner, family travel, Sunday brunch, wine with friends, certain foods, mental health.
Which of those are you more likely willing to sacrifice, and how often?
So maybe you say, "I don't want to never go to brunch with friends, but maybe I'm going to set a hard limit for myself of doing it once a month."
Or wine with friends.
Certain foods. You shouldn't necessarily have to say, "I'm never going to have pizza again. I'm never going to go out for tacos and margaritas."
But again, the frequency. How often are you doing this?
And also portion sizes.
If you go out for pizza, maybe you're only having two slices and then you're cutting yourself off because that's a good enough portion size and you can still keep calories in check.
So it's important to kind of have realistic expectations with those things and what you're willing to give up.
And what are the things that are really not important to you and you're absolutely willing to give up because they don't bring you much happiness anyway?
So maybe alcohol. Maybe that's one that you're like, "Actually, I really do want to give that up because it adds nothing to my life."
Maybe there's a certain type of food that you're like, "Yeah, that doesn't really do much for me."
For me personally, I'm not a big pizza person. I'm not a big savory, like, "I want chips and salsa," and things like that. I like more sweet tastes.
So for me, it's easy to be like, "Yeah, I'm just probably not going to eat a whole thing of chips and salsa." Going out to a Mexican restaurant doesn't really appeal to me.
But going out for ice cream? That is something I'm not really willing to give up.
Okay, so you've got to pick and choose.
I also like to do this when it comes to going out to eat.
You need to pick and choose. You can't say yes to everything, but you can say yes to something.
So maybe instead of getting an appetizer, you say, "I really want a glass of wine tonight, so I'm not going to get an appetizer. I'm going to box up half my meal and have a glass of wine."
And those are the things that I'm going to say yes to.
Instead of saying yes to an appetizer, a full meal, a dessert, and a glass of wine.
Because that is when going out to eat really makes it hard for you to hit your goals.
It's not actually the act of going out to eat. It's just the portion sizes that tend to go along with it.
You've got to turn balance into something that actually feels attainable while still being able to actually move the needle.
It shouldn't be, "I want to be so balanced," but then you're actually not ever seeing progress because you're taking the balanced component a little too far in one direction.
Okay, so your minimal effective lifestyle.
I talk about this a lot with my clients.
Instead of saying, "What's the perfect fitness lifestyle?" ask yourself, "What's the least restrictive lifestyle that still gets me meaningfully closer to my goal?"
Because this needs to work for your life.
If you're miserable, you're not going to do it for more than two weeks and then you're going to give up.
So what's the minimal effective dose of exercise that still gets you a lean, strong body but doesn't make you miserable?
It doesn't require you to live in the gym and never do stuff with friends, never get time with your kids.
What's the best way that you can actually shape your nutrition to fit your life, where you're still able to travel and be social, but you're still eating within a calorie range that supports your goals?
So three to four quality lifting sessions instead of trying to shoot for six and then burning out and not being able to do it consistently.
Protein at every meal, mostly eating whole foods, planning out your meals on Sunday, and doing a big grocery shop so that you actually have a plan and it doesn't feel overwhelming.
A reasonable step goal.
You don't have to shoot for 10K right now. If you're normally getting only 4K steps a day, shoot for 6–8K and then go from there.
Plan indulgences.
So say, "Okay, I know that I have this social event on Saturday, so I'm going to plan ahead and decide how do I want to work this meal? Do I really want to have this appetizer? Do I really want to have a dessert?"
And plan ahead for it that way.
You know going in what you're going to be doing, and it doesn't feel too overwhelming.
Getting enough sleep. A calorie deficit when fat loss is your goal.
And another thing here is that you don't want to live in a calorie deficit.
Way too many people are like, "I just want to get lean," and then they try to live in a calorie deficit all year, but then they never actually end up adhering to it well enough.
So then they feel like they're constantly trying to lose weight.
I know people who have been doing this for decades, and that is exhausting mentally and physiologically, and it doesn't actually get you the result.
So instead, make a more targeted effort toward fat loss for like a 12-week period.
Actually adhere to your target. Work with a coach on this if you need to, and then get out of it.
You don't need to live in a deficit forever, and you'll get much better results if you're more intentional with, like, "This is a timeframe of doing this. This is exactly how I'm doing it, and then I'm done."
And then you don't have to do that time and time again.
Okay, so know your goals. That is very, very important.
You want visible abs? You have to know that you're going to need to get lean enough. You're going to need to build and maintain muscle. You're going to have to be way more consistent with nutrition tracking, with training, sleep, and potentially be less spontaneous and social.
You're going to have to plan more.
So do you want the result badly enough to pay that price?
If the answer is no, that's okay.
Maybe you actually just want a slightly smaller waist, less overall body fat, better health, more muscle, better fitness, more confidence in clothes.
And you can do that without pursuing an extremely low body fat.
Signs that you've taken it too far.
So what I was just talking about with being in a deficit for too long, sometimes, I would say this is much more rare, a lot of people don't actually adhere to the deficit, but they try to for a really long time.
But sometimes people actually do stay in a deficit for way too long.
That's when some metabolic adaptation happens.
Again, this is very, very rare. So you don't need to assume this is you unless you've been fervently tracking your food for like six months, and you know that you are in a really solid deficit.
So if you're constantly thinking about food, if you're avoiding social events out of fear of eating, if you're training despite needing recovery, like six days a week, adding on cardio, feeling guilty after eating or trying to burn it off with cardio after eating, your mood and life revolve around it, if you're just tired all the time, or fat loss has slowed despite you being consistent with training, steps, all the things, then you're probably taking it a bit too far and need to work on getting to a better place and a more balanced approach.
And we've actually worked with many women on this in the Mountain Metabolic Coaching program who came in and were doing way too much, and their bodies were so stressed out and they actually weren't seeing the results for all the effort that they were putting in because they weren't going about it necessarily the right way, and they needed a bit of metabolic help.
Okay, so this is something that can be corrected. You're not doomed. You just might need the proper support to do that.
So, finding your balance.
Step one: Define the physique you actually want. What is your dream physique?
Step two: Define how much effort that physique realistically requires for you.
Step three: Identify your non-negotiables. How are you achieving this even when life gets crazy? Travel. Social events. Bumps in the road. Kids getting sick. All of that stuff. That's just real life.
Step four: Find the least restrictive strategy that can work, and you might need to have a coach in order to do this.
Step five: Decide what season you're in and what you're willing to accomplish right now.
And step six: Reassess when the costs are exceeding the value.
Or maybe you meet your goal and you're like, "Okay, now I need to figure out what it looks like."
And if you have been trying to get lean or toned for years without really seeing lasting results, your body isn't broken.
You probably just need a proven system and the support to see it through, no matter what curveballs life throws your way.
So if that sounds like you, and you're kind of tired of just spinning your wheels and doing this one-step-forward, two-steps-back dance, apply at the link in the show notes for coaching.
This is exactly what we do. This is exactly the type of women that we work with.
We've worked with hundreds of women over the last five years to move them toward sustainable fat loss and maintenance of a lean physique that is strong, capable, driving metabolism, and they don't have to think so hard about this stuff.
So if you apply today as you're listening to this, the first person who applies after this episode airs is going to get half off their first month of coaching.
Okay, so a little incentive for you. This will hopefully help make it a little easier to get started.
Just make sure you apply at the link in the show notes. And when you're on your call with me talking through things, let me know that you are a podcast listener and you'll get that half-off.
All right, you guys, I hope this episode has been helpful.
It's kind of a nuanced and tricky topic, so hopefully everything I outlined today for you makes sense.
If you guys have questions about any of this, shoot me a message at the Fit for Hiking Instagram page.
I'm stoked to be back with you all. I've really missed being on the show with you guys.
I feel like there's a lot of topics I'm excited to get into, but I also want to hear from you. What are some topics that you love?
So you can always shoot me a message on Instagram. Love to connect there.
If you like the show, give us a rating and review. That always helps us. Also like this and share with your friends. Share on your Instagram page. All of the love helps!
All right, you guys, I will check in with you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Fit for Hiking Podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands.
For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail on a Trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit for Hiking and find more free resources at Ponytail on a Trail.
Happy and healthy trails!