Think weight loss is as straightforward as losing weight? Think again! Weight loss is often partially muscle loss. Wild right?! Muscle is the foundation of youth, and we certainly don’t want it going anywhere! So in this episode, I share why strength training is the only way to build muscle and the best way to become more muscle and less fat. 

Before my 3-day live (and free!) workshop, Master Your Body Composition, I want to lay the groundwork here about the relationship between muscle, fat, and weight loss. First I share the number one thing that makes weight loss a cinch and why it’s the key to accessing the strong and sleek physique that you crave. I then share tips for how to protect the muscle you have built when you want to lose weight. The problems happen when you’re not tuned in to your nutrition and workouts. 

My first tip is around getting the correct nutrition. I point out the most common mistake women over 40 make when trying to lose weight in terms of their nutrition. Second, I address common misconceptions about fasting and why, for our purposes, it is unnecessary. Next, I discuss the importance of the correct type of cardio in strength training and wrap up by suggesting the correct metrics to monitor your progress (no scale needed!). I hope you tune into my free upcoming workshop to learn more about each of these tips in detail!

You can get FREE access to my 4-week Strength Without Stress program right now! This program will help you reduce the systemic inflammation that’s caused by overly intense or lengthy workouts. It’ll help you build and maintain valuable lean muscle without the fatigue from other programs.

To get free access to Strength Without Stress, post a Review wherever you’re listening. Grab a screenshot of your review before you post it and upload at: https://www.hollyperkins.com/review

This is a limited-time offer before it sells for $197–grab it while you can for lifetime access.

Be sure to Follow and Subscribe so you'll know exactly when new episodes are available on Tuesdays.

Topics covered

• Fighting the New Year Resolution blues
• The #1 thing that makes fat loss easy
• Debunking fears of getting “too bulky” from muscle gain
• Why weight loss is not a metric of health
• Focus on daily caloric intake
• Why only having coffee until lunch is bad for your health
• The inflammation-estrogen connection

Resources Mentioned

• Sign up for my FREE 3-day live workshop training, Mastering Your Body Composition, HERE
• Transcripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode at hollyperkins.com/blog

FollowMe:

Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkins

Learn more on my website: hollyperkins.com

Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/HollyPerkinsFitness

Disclaimer: Content and information as part of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast is for general interest, education, and entertainment purposes only. The use of information on this podcast or materials or products linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

Mentioned in this episode:

Workshop Promo!

Did you know that you're more likely to lose muscle when you lose weight, even if some of the weight loss is coming from fat, and there's a direct correlation between muscle loss and bone loss? In fact, most studies suggest that you lose bone because you become more sedentary as you get older. This is a huge problem if you want to actually enjoy the years ahead because it leads to a higher risk of all-cause mortality, Arthritis and Osteoporosis, and the ability to keep up with life today. I'm talking the truth about fat loss and muscle, and you don't want to miss this one. So keep listening.

Hello and welcome to episode 52. I just wanted to say thank you for listening and sharing the show with your friends. This show has been such a joy and one of the best things that I've ever done, and it wouldn't be anything without you, my friend. So welcome if you're new, and thank you if you've been around for a while. So every week, I am in communication with women who reach out to me because they've gotten to the point in life where they notice themselves repeating some same old patterns and having the same frustrations over and over, and at some point, they just get fed up. That's usually when they call me.

So I have the really, the great honor to hear what most women struggle with before they work with me, and what I hear most often is number one, I'm tired of feeling tired all the time, and I see my life passing by, and I just don't have the energy it takes to motivate and socialize. I want to live life more, instead of living life less. I hear that one so often. I also hear I'm working so hard to lose weight and get in shape, but nothing works, or the harder I try, the worse I feel. And lastly, I also hear I'm working out and I'm watching my diet, but hunger and food cravings derail me, so my good days turn into bad days, and it's a vicious cycle. I'm hungry all the time, and I can't fight off cravings.

These are the three areas and comments I get the most, and this is why I dedicate a lot of my information and my research to the things that are impacting these struggles. If you can relate to any of them or all of them, hear me loud and clear. You are not alone. I hear this every day, all the time. These are the things that most women over 40 struggle with because the game has changed because of your hormones at this life stage. And I believe that the fitness and nutrition industry has failed us all by not offering solutions that are actually created for women after 40 or in their 50s or 60s and beyond.

This is exactly why I created this podcast, and it's exactly why I only work with women. Now, there was a long time in my practice where I had about 50% men that I worked with, and in the past 10 to 15 years, I realized women need me more. My mission is to help women learn how to strength train right so that you can increase muscle, because muscle is the foundation of youth. Muscle increases your metabolism. It improves energy and reduces fatigue, both of your body and your brain. Muscle balances hormones. It eliminates aches and pains. It reduces your risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, dyslipidemia, neurodegenerative diseases, on and on, and muscle makes you look hot and feel sexy, and it really helps to give you your mojo back. If you've lost it, in this episode, you'll hear why improving your body composition is the fountain of youth, and that strength training is the only way to build muscle, to boost your metabolism to feel strong, lean and unstoppable at any age, you'll hear what you can do to protect your muscle when you want to lose fat, and the best way to become more muscle and less fat so that you can stop the pattern of finding yourself with the same frustrations over and over.

So next week, I am hosting a brand new three-day workshop called Mastering your body composition, and you are invited. I am over the moon excited about this. It's totally free, and I've never done this workshop before, so if you've been in my community for a while, you're going to want to sign up for it, because I am bringing the insights, and I'm doing it because I keep watching women bang their head against the wall, repeating the same patterns and expecting to get better results. If you're struggling and you want to feel better in your body now, you can't keep doing what you've always done, even if it worked for you in the past. If it's not working right now, stop repeating the same patterns.

Now that the new year's resolutions have worn off. For a lot of women, I'm getting more calls than usual, because while women are frustrated, they're bummed out, and they're feeling like they failed, I think this is something we can all relate to. You go into the new year and you really, truly feel committed that you're going to do this thing this time. And I'll tell you, it is normal to not necessarily succeed right away. It takes a while. I often say, in my own journey, I swear it took me 10 years or more to really nail it. It's not an easy task, and what kills me the most is that so often women feel like it's your fault, like if you've struggled to get the body that you see other women out there getting, or you just want your body to be your best.

And that hasn't happened yet. It is not your fault. My industry has failed you, and I hate that. While I love what I do, I believe in what I do, and I think the health, wellness, fitness, nutrition industry is so important, I don't love how the industry has lied to you, and sometimes I feel like I carry the burden of the wrongs of my industry, and it's my mission to make it right. So the thing that lets me sleep at night is knowing that I am over here killing myself every day to set the record straight and actually help you and help other women and cause a shift in my industry, so that maybe someday in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later, fewer women will suffer. Because the truth is, you can succeed. I'm doing it.

My clients are doing it. I see other women outside of my community doing it. You can do it. The best way for me to help as many women as possible is by offering free things like my resources, this podcast, my free events and my workshops, where I share as much information as I possibly can so that you have what you need to start improving your body composition. My upcoming three-day live workshop is my latest and greatest offering to help you become more muscle and less fat in a way that's actually sustainable and permanent.

If you were to visit Holly perkins.com/freeworkshop and grab your spot, you'll get my most updated tips, insights and research for becoming strong, lean and unstoppable when you join me live next week, the first thing that I want you to know about fat loss and muscle is muscle is what makes fat loss Easy, easy, so easy. When you're at least 70% lean muscle, you almost don't have to try to lose fat. It'll happen on its own when your nutrition is in alignment and when you're following the program, nutrition is important, but having that muscle is the key to really making it so much easier.

But when you focus on losing weight or losing fat, it's a depleting process, both mentally and physically, because your body becomes catabolic, it's draining. The mistake I keep seeing women make is to focus on fat loss. I want to lose fat. I want to lose muscle instead of focusing on muscle gain. Now I know that some women.

And still get a bit worried when they hear this word gain, because I understand some women really and truly don't want to get bulky. They're legitimately concerned about that, or they just don't want more muscle than they want. And even with a degree in exercise physiology and nutrition and so much experience. I remember in my 30s, I felt the same way, really and truly. I was so scared that I was going to get bulky and build up all this muscle and oh my gosh, if this is you, please know I get it. I respect your concern. I think it's very valid, and I hear you, but, and that's a big but, how surprised would you be if you found out that muscle is actually the key to giving you the strong, lean, tight, smaller, resilient physique that you want?

And to throw some science at you, if you're over 40, it is literally impossible for you to get more muscle than you want by accident. It will not happen. I promise. I have been doing this for 30 years, I spend at least five to 10 hours a week pouring over research, legitimate research, and I can tell you that it's just not true. It's just not going to happen. In the past few years alone, I have coached around 300 women who are all over 40, not a single one gained more muscle than she wanted, and about 50% of those women found it very hard to actually build muscle, even though that's what we were trying to do, Day in and day out, it was still hard.

Building muscle is actually a very hard endeavor for 99.9% of women. Yes, there are a few of you out there that gain muscle easily. Chances are you're 40 or younger, or you are incredibly genetically gifted, and you know who you are, it's rare, and strength training is literally the only way to build lean muscle. It's the only way to boost your metabolism, and it is the only way to actually feel strong throughout the day, feel lean in your clothing and legitimately be unstoppable in your life at any and every age, if you were to let go of the idea that you might get bulky and instead attend my upcoming workshop, You might find you stop repeating the patterns keeping you stuck, and actually start seeing your body improve. You've got to change the way you approach it and how you think about it.

This is especially true if you want to see a lower number on the bathroom scale as well. And I'll say, as you know, if you've listened to me, I don't love the phrase lose weight. I think that it's problematic for a number of reasons. I also know it might be important for you, from a health perspective, to achieve a lower number on the bathroom scale. See how I flipped that phrasing when you attend the mastering your body composition workshop, you'll hear why body weight and BMI are outdated and wrong and what to focus on instead, if you want to get lean, you'll walk away with a complete mindset shift so that you can adjust your workouts and your diet in a way that supports better body composition instead of just weight loss, even if you do want to lose weight.

Up next, you're going to get some tips for how to protect your muscle when you want to lose fat, But first, if your goal is to lose weight, did you know that there is a really good chance that you will also lose muscle as you lose the weight. Now the amount of muscle that you lose depends on a number of factors, and obviously the goal is to gain muscle while you lose fat and, oh yes, you can do that at the same time. It's not a direct process, but in a given training cycle, say, three months, four months, six months, you can absolutely add muscle while you're simultaneously releasing.

Extra body fat. This is totally doable, but it does require your attention. It's not going to happen haphazardly, and it will not happen if you just lose weight. This is exactly why we're seeing some, let's just say, less than favorable outcomes when people use the GLP one agonists, and why there is this colloquial term called ozempic, but because the loss of muscle tissue is a very real side effect of this kind of weight loss. And if you haven't heard this phrase again, this is not my phrase. I stumbled upon it in social media land. You can often know when a person has used some of these injectables for fast weight loss, they look skinny, but they don't look better. They look depleted. They look a bit saggy.

And this term, ozempic butt refers to literally, the loss of their backside and the loss of muscle tissue and firmness that was there with the body fat. Now, in all fairness, the drug is not at fault. I am not here to bash these drugs, because I think if you really understand them, and for someone who has diabetes, they can be unbelievably helpful. Sadly, they're misused a lot these days, but the drug is not the problem. Muscle loss happens with weight loss when you're not dialed in with your nutrition and your workouts. This is just one more reason why I believe that the bathroom scale should not be your primary metric for success. In fact, because I get the real data on my client's progress with a DEXA scan or an in body scan, and I monitor their progress photos. I don't even need to know their body weight. I look at their photos, and it tells me the whole story.

Now I have a trained eye. I've been doing this for 30 years, but when I have their photos and I know and I have the weekly feedback that they are following my program, then I can almost predict to a really high certainty what their DEXA scan is going to show. It's a little trick I play all the time, just to kind of entertain myself, honestly, because I love to see how close I can get when I estimate how their DEXA scan is going to change based on their programming and their photos, it tells you everything. I don't care what your weight is, and really, I kind of believe you shouldn't either this is something that I'll talk about a lot more and more in depth with the research to back it up in the mastering your body composition workshop that starts next week when I share the four puzzle pieces for becoming more muscle and less fat.

I'm going to walk you through these exact four puzzle pieces because it's important to monitor the right metrics to ensure that you're at least getting better, instead of just getting lighter on the scale or smaller in your clothes. See, it's not necessary to see weight loss on the scale to improve your health. In fact, this is a common misunderstanding. When women first start working with me, she thinks that if the scale goes down, her health goes up. Every day you're bombarded with messages that tell you this, and there is no guarantee that if the scale goes down, your health goes up. I would actually argue, if you get into this conversation with me, on a more deeper way, I would actually argue that when it's muscle being added to the equation, the scale going up with muscle because of muscle actually is a direct correlation to all of those markers of Health, and I now have real data to prove that this is true and that losing weight doesn't necessarily improve your health.

My most successful clients know that what really matters is real data about how your body weight is distributed, how much of you is muscle, and how much of you is fat and how much of you is bone mass. Now keep in mind, your bone mass is different than your bone density and is actually different than your bone strength. Those are three very different things. Your bone mass is how much body weight.

Weight of you is bone mass in pounds, and you do lose bone mass as you get older. Now, strength training can help diminish that loss. The jury, I believe, is out as to whether building muscle actually builds bone mass, but we do know that strength training is, hands down, the best way to improve your bone density and improve your bone strength. Losing weight doesn't necessarily mean you become healthier, because you could achieve your, let's say, dream, weight goal, whatever you think that is as a result of losing three pounds of muscle along with seven pounds of fat.

You following me, you reach your dream goal because you lost weight, and that weight loss was the result of losing three pounds of muscle while you also lost seven pounds of fat. You may think you lost 10 pounds, but you didn't. And how incredible would it be if you didn't even have to lose 10 pounds, right? Because here's the thing, you could lose just seven pounds of fat and look incredible, or you could lose 10 pounds of muscle and fat and look the same. So why not enjoy all the benefits that muscle brings, and you're going to look so much better. Anyway. You've probably seen images of those super fit bodies out there. I see it frequently with women. Many of the fitness influencers who have created a very impressive, incredible, beautiful body, and oftentimes, some of these women will share their body weight and show a photo of when they were lighter.

They didn't look nearly as good as now that they're 10 pounds heavier, or even 15 pounds heavier, often they look so much better now. Again, this isn't a comparison game, and you might not want to look like what another woman looks like. I'll still tell you, from my experience doing this for 30 years, you're going to look better if you add some muscle into the mix along with the fat loss. It's not that you'll be healthier when the scale goes down, it's that your health goes up when your body composition improves. That is indisputable. So let me give you some practical, actionable tips. Here are three things that you can do to protect your muscle when you want to lose fat, and keep in mind that you're going to get more tips that are more in depth when you join me for the mastering your body composition workshop that starts next week.

But these three things are going to get you started right now. Number one, get your nutrition right by eating the right amount of calories each day. This gets tricky when you're also wanting to lose body fat, but it's important to eat enough so that your muscle has the carbohydrates and protein it needs for high quality workouts. If you're under fuelled, you're going to be depleted, and it's going to be really hard to go into your workouts and push yourself to the degree that you need to to actually build muscle, and you also need to make sure that you're getting the protein your body needs to rebuild the muscle tissue after those workouts, because the only way to build muscle is through strength training. Only full stop, you can't build muscle by eating more protein. All right.

There's no whey protein product out there that's going to build muscle if you're not strength training. It might ward off muscle loss as you get older. We do see this in our elderly, but you can't strengthen your muscles or build them through any nutrition strategy, but your nutrition has to be dialed in. You can't starve yourself to better body composition. You have to fuel yourself like an athlete.

Number two, let go of the idea that fasting of any kind is serving you. In this case, for this conversation, it's not. This includes intermittent fasting beyond 12 hours and any kind of fasted workout. So have a real conversation with yourself, because you might be like, I don't fast if you get up in the morning and have a cup of coffee and go work out, that's a fasted workout. Even if you're not hungry, even if you're putting something into your coffee, it's not an appropriate blend of really, carbohydrates are what you need for most of the workouts, but also protein and fat.

It's so important to have that fuel in your system. And I see you, if you like, to fool yourself into thinking that coffee until lunch is a strategy for any reason, including I'm not hungry. It's not It's terribly catabolic. It's not working for you, and I guarantee it's backfiring. After three o'clock PM, you probably feel like you need a nap after lunch, you're probably so hungry at the end of the day, or you probably can't stop snacking late at night, before bed. These are the symptoms I see when people are like, I fast and just have coffee until noon, and it's working for me. It's not working for you. It's terribly catabolic.

It destroys the valuable muscle that you're working so hard to build, and the muscle that keeps your metabolism humming and your hormones optimized, and it is not a weight loss strategy if you have a diagnosed disorder, there can be utility and fasting, but it is really a medical protocol, and it is not compatible with building muscle and number three. Now, after the three-day workshop, you will have a really clear picture of the type of strength training that you should be doing. So I'll save all the nitty gritty details for that when we meet next week. But for now, I want to focus on cardio, because it's a tricky thing that a lot of women are not getting right. And the first thing to understand is that cardio is good.

You do need a mix of different types of cardio to be really healthy, but you need to be specific, and it can't be haphazard. One thing to know is that leisure walking, social walking, or just getting your steps in, is not cardio now. It contributes to neat, non-exercise activity time, and it's worth something for sure, it's great for recovery stress and general health. But take that out of the equation. When we're talking about building or preserving muscle, you want to structure your cardio workouts each week so that you're getting, number one, some steady state, moderate intensity cardio for 30 to 35 minutes, some interval and intensity cardio, where you get your heart rate up, but not so high as hit or high intensity interval training. And number three, because I can't get super specific in a public forum like this, my general suggestion is to get two to three workouts of each weekly I will share more details during the free workshop, so make sure that you sign up at Holly perkins.com forward slash free workshop.

So the last thing to know about fat loss and muscle so that you can stop the pattern of finding yourself with the same frustrations over and over and over is that you've got to start monitoring different metrics than just the scale or how your clothes fit. You can use those to monitor signs of progress, but they aren't the best for knowing if you're actually improving your body composition and therefore getting healthier. A huge mistake women make before working with me is to neglect getting real data on their body composition through the use of a DEXA scan or an in body scan.

Your body composition matters when it comes to your health, and it matters way more than just your body weight. The only way to improve your body composition is a calibrated combination of strength training and strategic nutrition, and your body comp scans will give you the feedback about if your strength training program is Working and if you're eating enough calories and enough protein. Some people believe that getting lean is about lifting heavy and eating protein, and that's it. And while both of those things are important and necessary, sometimes it takes a bit more nuanced adjustments to make sure that you're building or at least preserving your muscle so that it the muscle can burn off the body fat.

Now, listen, it's not necessary to become completely obsessed with your workouts and your diet in order to improve your body composition. I'm not going to mislead you by saying, oh, working out is fun and easy. And just do this and you'll get ripped. Just work out more and eat less. Because if you're a woman over 44 it is not that simple, and I promise you, it's also not as hard as it seems. Part of why it's a bit tricky is because.

Inflammation increases as estrogen decreases, and inflammation causes all kinds of trouble. I have several podcast episodes on this. I believe this is the precise reason why so many women in their 40s and 50s, and maybe even beyond struggle to get lean. It's because of this inflammation. Estrogen connection and exercise is one of the best ways to improve your body's ability to manage inflammation, but you've got to get the frequency, intensity and duration right of your exercise program so that it doesn't add to inflammation, and when you combine that with the right diet approach, honestly, it's really pretty straightforward, but if your inflammation is high, it will destroy muscle as well.

So we really do have to make sure that we focus on getting a combination of number one, the right kind of strength training. Number two, nutrition and number three, cardio. I call this the trifecta of body transformation, because when you get it right, all three of these things into one program. Improving your body and health is really quite easy. I hope you found this episode helpful. You might find attending the free workshop will help you get even clearer on all of this. When you visit Holly perkins.com, forward slash free workshop, you'll grab your spot and get to spend some time with me starting next week. I look forward to seeing you there, and stay tuned for another brand new episode on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong, my friend, Bye.