Leah Brownell Fitness (2025)

26/06/2024

IT’S HAPPENING!!

This Friday you’ll be able to access my macro-friendly cookbook 🤗 I get asked in my DMs ALOT for my recipes and I love sharing them because they are freaking delicious and easy af.

Understanding and tracking macros has truly been the game changer in my personal fitness journey and I love sharing it with all of YOU!!

This ebook will give you a solid foundation for tracking macros, meal prepping and hitting your health goals. It’s exactly what I teach my clients. 🩷

Stay tuned for the link, I will share here and my stories and add the purchase link to my bio. 😘

25/06/2024

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be releasing a cookbook in the very near future!

Stay tuned for details + updates 💪🏼

07/06/2024

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but nobody notices those 5-10 lbs but you. 😘

These pictures are roughly one year apart. Would you guess that weigh almost 10 lbs more in the photo on the right (today)? Yeah, didn’t think so!

So many of you are dieting your life away, all over a few pounds that nobody cares about. Your scale weight is the LEAST important thing about you, trust me.

You want to create a noticeable difference in your physique? Stop dieting and spend some time eating at maintenance and build some freaking muscle.

Much (tough) love, as always. Xoxo

15/05/2024

“How do you stay so motivated all the time?”

I don’t. I stay disciplined.

Not a single one of your favorite fitness influencers is always motivated, I promise! They have days when they don’t want to train, meal prep, get their steps in, etc. But the difference is they do it UNMOTIVATED.

While you wait around to FEEL motivated, you could be 2 weeks, 2 months or a year into your journey already. Time doesn’t care.

I like the person I am when I’m dedicated and committed. Those traits make their way into other areas of my life and I’m more productive all the way around.

09/04/2024

Your new life is gonna cost you your old one...

I used to live on a constant cycle of diet/bing/repeat. I hated how my body looked, how my clothes fit and how I felt, so I would jump into these impossible to sustain diets. This would inevitably lead me to binging, feeling like sh*t again and repeating the cycle. This went on for literally a decade.

What I finally figured out 1.5 years ago is that, in order to actually achieve the physical/health goals that I wanted, I needed to let A LOT of really crappy habits go. Not just for a few weeks, a 21 day challenge or even a few months. FOR GOOD.

x I no longer have 1-2 glasses of wine each night with dinner or to "wind down"
x I no longer go to every happy hour invite
x I no longer go out to dinner every Friday and Saturday night
x I no longer go through the drive-thru to grab "something quick"
x I no longer grab high calorie coffee drinks every single morning
x I no longer stay up late binging TV shows

You want different? You need to operate your life DIFFERENTLY.

There are habits that are holding you back and there is no amount of "balance" that will help you participate in them while achieving your goals. This doesn't mean you need to give everything up forever. It means that you need to adhere to more of a 90/10 lifestyle rather than an 80/20. Yep. It's the truth. Sucks right lol?! I don't make the rules. 🙂

+ I go to bed early and wake up early to make sure I get my training in
+ I prep nutritious meals each week, to help me meet my goals
+ I am very choosy about what social events I attend-can't say yes to everything
+ I make my dinners at home 98% of the time

Someone reading this may think, "I could never be that disciplined/restrictive." To me, this lifestyle doesn't hold me back at all, it just helps support the things I have always tried to achieve (but failed at)-healthy on the inside/outside.

Pick your hard.

01/04/2024

There was A LOT I didn’t understand about changing your physique when I first started…

I, like many others, truly believed you could lose body fat and build muscle in a short amount of time (21 Day Fix, 30 day shred, etc.). If you thinking losing body fat takes a long time, try your hand at building muscle. 😅

Swipe to see the things I focused on to build muscle. 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

27/03/2024

LADIES...most of us are vastly undereating protein!

We need protein for immune system function, hair, skin and nail health, connective tissue and bone health and of course to BUILD LEAN MUSCLE TISSUE. Why do we care about this? Muscle helps increase your daily caloric burn, which means you burn more calories at rest. Muscle is protective as we age (helps us lift things, prevents us from falling, helps us get off the toilet without assistance, etc.). Esthetically speaking, muscle helps create that "toned" look (aka visible muscle) most women want.

So how much do we need? The government's Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (this is the minimum to prevent deficiency. in my humble opinion, the last thing any of us should be doing is following the government's guidelines for optimal health. The optimal range, based on scientific evidence, is having between 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of your weight daily.

Sources:
-lean cuts of meat (poultry, beef, venison, bison)
-fish and seafood
-yogurt, cottage cheese
-protein powders
-eggs

Food quality matters! Animal-based proteins contain essential amino acids, which are the building blocks of muscle. Don't get sucked into the marketing for items like protein bars, which in many cases, are glorified candy bars. Make sure you are choosing whole food sources.

Does this help you? Be sure to LIKE-COMMENT-SHARE-SAVE! This lets me you know you want to see more content like this.

24/03/2024

And just like that, the fat loss phase is over 🙌 Swipe to the end to see what my DAY ONE looked like about two years ago.

Building a strong physique takes time! Ladies we need to get over this “21/30/60 day challenge” bullsh*t. We have been duped by the fitness industry to think our bodies can change that quickly. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Big shoutout to my coach for guiding me during this building phase and talking me off the ledge MULTIPLE times and providing me with accountability (yes, coaches need coaches just like dentists need dentists). I have been in great hands! 🤍

If this inspires at least one woman to quit chasing skinny and build a body, then my day is made. 🤍

04/02/2024

FAT LOSS PHASE: week one

I’m going to share my 8(ish) week fat loss phase here, in the name of transparency, and to show you guys what is normal. So many people want INSTANT results, and it just doesn’t work that way. You’re going to see me playing the long game. 😎

As you can see I’m down about 1 lb. It’s normal to lose .5-2.0 lbs a week or nothing at all some weeks. People need to learn to CHILL OUT instead of throwing in the towel when they don’t lose what they think they should. Weight loss is slow!

I was adherent to my macros every day.
I had one untracked meal Friday night.
I had one cocktail Saturday night (logged it)
I hit 12,000 steps a day on average.
I got 7-8 hours of sleep each night.
I drank 1 gallon of water a day.
I got my 5 strength training sessions in.
I got 80 minutes of incline treadmill walking in.
I took 2 complete rest days (goal of 8500 steps).

Overall I feel good, a little hungry but good! Plan for this week is exactly the same. I shared some of my meal prep in my stories if you’re curious what I’ve been eating.

28/01/2024

I am ending my building phase and starting my cut!

If you’re new here, I have been in a building phase (eating in a calorie surplus) since the beginning of October. Prior to that I was on a pretty strict gut and hormone healing protocol and I wasn’t tracking macros from June through September. I had a very specific diet to follow, protein was low and so were the calories. I ended up losing some muscle during that process, which is OK because my focus was on healing at that time. But when I was done, I was really itching to put on some serious muscle.

The only way to build muscle is to intentionally consume more calories than your body needs (hence “surplus”). I will add that some people CAN build muscle in maintenance, but it’s slow going. A lot of people avoid a building phase because they are afraid of eating more food, seeing the scale go up, clothing sizes go up, some fat gain, etc. THIS IS ALL INEVITABLE IF YOU WANT TO HAVE VISIBLE MUSCLE! You can’t ask for more muscle but be afraid of what I just mentioned. You also need to train HARD, progressively overloading, and lifting to failure as much as possible.

I have been transparent in my own journey that my clothes are TOIGHT, there are some things I can’t wear right now. And it was a little trippy to see the scale inching upward. But this is what I asked for, so I put the blinders on and kept going.

My goal was to build through mid-February, but I’m just feeling ready now. I also have travel plans at the end of March, and it’s hard to adhere to a diet when traveling.

As always, I’ll share the process because I want to show you what it takes to lose body fat in a healthy, sustainable manner.

HUGE thanks to Dan at for guiding me through this process. Coaches need coaches too! I can’t tell you how beneficial it has been to have another “set of eyes” on this process, to help me with mindset around gaining weight and to hold me accountable. You da best!

10/01/2024

"JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE OLDER"

"Ladies, we have GOT to stop letting our age hold us hostage! Our age is not some magical factor that determines our progress, weight loss, body composition, physique, etc.

Will you have to approach your fitness and nutrition a bit differently in your 40's than you would at your 20's? Possibly! But using your age as a crutch is not serving you well.

If you want to age in reverse, and create longevity and a better quality of life, then you've got to put some muscle on that frame! Your dream body weighs more than you think and it will take much longer than you think. But I can't think of a better project to work on than your health.

I wish it hadn't taken me until 38 years old to realize that cardio ain't it, lifting heavy is where it's at and food quality/nutrition matters most. But better late than never.

CHEERS TO 40 YEARS! I'm proud of my accomplishments in the last 1.5 years, but I promise I've only scratched the surface of what I'm capable of.

05/01/2024

Focused on seeing a certain number on the scale???

What your scale CAN'T tell you is your body composition (body composition scales aren't accurate FYI). While weighing yourself frequently during a fat loss phase is beneficial, there are many other ways to track progress like measurements and photos.

To change body composition, a combination of focused nutrition and physical activity is necessary. It's important to focus on being in a calorie deficit and eating adequate protein. Strength training 3-4 days a week will minimize muscle loss, which is inevitable with weight loss.

Two individuals can weigh exactly the same weight but look completely different because of their body composition (low body weight/high body fat percentage OR high body weight/high muscle tissue percentage). Bottom line, the scale can be a useful tool but it is not a complete reflection of health.

Leah Brownell Fitness

26/06/2024

25/06/2024

07/06/2024

15/05/2024

09/04/2024

01/04/2024

27/03/2024

24/03/2024

04/02/2024

28/01/2024

10/01/2024

05/01/2024

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