Welcome back to another episode of Ask Holly! Let's face it – we've all got enough on our plates without feeling like our bodies are working against us, right? When you're battling fatigue, mood swings, or those pesky aches and pains, you miss out on living the life you deserve. Today, say goodbye to those days of feeling terrible as I answer more incredible questions pulled straight from my amazing community!

Ever wondered if spot-reducing fat is really as impossible as they say? Curious about how to tame those late-night cravings? Or maybe you're looking for quick, easy, and delicious meals that hit that 50/25/25 macronutrient distribution? In this episode, you'll get answers to these questions and more backed by research and my years of experience coaching fabulous women just like you! 

Want FREE access to my brand new four-week strength training plan, Strength Without Stress? Head over to hollyperkins.com/review where you can upload a screenshot of your review and gain immediate access. This is a limited-time offer before it sells for $197, so be sure to grab it now!

Topics Covered:

• The truth about your late-night snacking 
• The difference between hunger and appetite 
• Tips for stabilizing your blood sugar all day long
• Can you actually “spot reduce” certain areas of your body? 
• Specific exercises that will help tone the arms 
• Meals that meet a 50/25/25 macronutrient distribution 

Resources Mentioned:

• Listen to the first 41 episodes of Holly Perkins Health Podcast HERE
• Do you have a burning question? Ask me HERE
• Check out The Body Composition Project HERE
• Check out my Women's Strength Nation YouTube channel HERE
• Find The Glutes Project HERE
• Find The Nutrition Project HERE
• Use MyFitnessPal HERE
• Transcripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode at hollyperkins.com/blog

Follow Me: 

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.

Despite what you've heard, you actually can target an area of your body and improve its overall shape and muscle tone. In this episode, I'm adding my two cents to the term spot reducing and answering questions about late night eating and meal examples for achieving my preferred macronutrient breakdown each day you asked. So today I'm answering this episode of Ask Holly. So keep listening. Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of Ask Holly. I love answering questions, so please keep them coming if you're new around here, hello. I'm Holly Perkins, and I help women improve muscle strength and quality, because the science is clear. Building Strong lean muscle is one of the most important ways to enhance your health and ensure you live well for as long as possible. I say, Who cares about longevity if it means that you're crumpled up in the recliner watching TV all day long, right? I'll show you why muscle is where it's at when it comes to feeling better today, having more energy and actually enjoying your days ahead of you, rather than just getting by. And that's exactly why I'm in practice for all these years, I know how hard life can be when you're struggling to get through the day because of fatigue or mood disorders or aches and pains. That was me in my 20s and 30s. Life is already challenging enough for most of us, the last thing you need is to feel terrible in your body for any given reason. My clients are often women over 40 who are sick and tired of feeling terrible because their body is failing them. And as women, in my experience, I find that so many of us are prone to suffering. We suffer so good, right? We are actually good at it. And the question is, why, if you're like me, and you have a tendency to be in that suffer, I invite you to just stop for a moment and be like, What is that about? Because the truth is, when you're ready to stop suffering, let's spend some time together, and today's episode will help. In this episode, you'll learn what to do if you're super hungry at night and you tend to overeat, you'll learn some great meal ideas for achieving my favorite macronutrient distribution. You'll learn how I help myself and my clients target specific body areas for improvement, and some tips for improving muscle on the back of your arms, as well as why eating within an hour of waking is so important.

Listen, the women in my community are crushing their goals. They are thriving at 80, Carmen is using a barbell at home and performing deadlifts like a pro. At 65 Jane just gained four pounds of muscle in less than six months and started squatting in the gym with a barbell and has nearly flawless squat technique. Can you imagine what that did for her body composition, her energy and her appearance? And in her 50s, Karen improved her body composition by 8% and lost 21 pounds of pure fat, not body weight on the scale, pure fat, and that is in pounds. My point is, regardless of age, you can improve your body so that you age well and avoid the diseases and prescriptions that are so common in American culture. As you sort through all of the confusing headlines out there about what to focus on for optimal health, know that you'll never go wrong by building muscle, and we'll be touching upon that in today's episode. Thank you for all of the incredible questions that have been submitted for the Ask Holly episodes. If you have a question for me, come on over to Holly perkins.com, forward slash, ask. Holly and let me know, then stay tuned for upcoming ask Holly episodes to see if your question has been featured just like these today. So let's jump in.

The first question today might be my favorite of all time, and this is from Dr Melissa. Hi, Holly, you always advocate for eating within 30 minutes of waking, but I crave food late into the evening, and therefore end up eating all day long. It's easier for me to just not eat until one o'clock PM, and this helps me to limit calories. How do I stop late night snacking so that I can start eating in the morning? Oh my gosh, Melissa, this is an incredible question, and something I see quite frequently, but a lot of times, women don't know to call this out or ask the question. So I love it. And here's the thing, it makes perfect sense that fasting until one o'clock in the afternoon seems like the best option for Melissa right. Why on earth would a person add more food in the morning if they're already eating enough calories by the end of the day and don't want or need to eat more. It's really logical. And Melissa, are you ready for this? The whole reason why you're craving food late at night is because you're not eating in the morning. What? Yes, I get it. This seems completely illogical, but stay with me now. One reason why you can trust me here is because I'm speaking from experience. I found myself in this same exact situation for many years, when I was in my 20s. At the time, I was living in New York City, and my pattern was that we would go out for these awesome dinners late at night that would last into the evening, like 11 o'clock at night, and because I was so hungry at that point, I would eat more than what my body actually needed. The next day, I would wake up, I would basically still be digesting your liver is congested in the morning, and I wouldn't be hungry. And so I had the same exact thinking, it's like I just ate this huge meal last night. I'm gonna save some calories this morning. I'm just gonna fast until noon, until it got me into so much trouble that I couldn't do it anymore. And that's when I set out to really figure out this biology, and it really set me on the path to where I am here and now, using research and all of the understandings of basic human biology to help make this better. So this is super common territory when a person is hungry.

The thing to understand is that hunger is the biggest hurdle to following an intentional diet that supports your goals and your preferences. So for example, if I'm well fed and I am pleased with my food choices for the day, I can literally walk past Wendy's fresh donuts, and let me tell you, it's one of my favorite things in the entire world. But if I'm hungry and I come into the house and she has just made them and I haven't eaten, forget about it. I will eat five or six or every last donut. Hunger is a strong biological urge to keep us safe, and it's part of homeostasis, the complex system of biological triggers and cues and responses aimed at maintaining the status quo of our body. The key to becoming more empowered in your choices is to avoid getting hungry, and that is one of my basic tenets in my coaching practice. Let's feed you and adopt eating patterns and habits in a way that you don't get hungry. And I realize this can get a wee bit tricky, because often you may not even realize that you're actually hungry. See, hunger and appetite are actually two very different things. Hunger is a biological need for fuel. It's your physical need to eat. It represents your body's requirement for calories at any given moment. And oh, by the way, that's going to change day by day. Appetite, on the other hand, reflects your desire to eat. So for example, I am always hungry. Hmm, but I rarely have an appetite. And let me tell you, it's a conundrum. It is not a great place to be. My body has a high need for fuel. I can easily eat 2000 calories a day and lose weight. This is because I practice what I teach and what I preach and what I've been doing for years and years and years, and I've personally crossed the muscle tipping point that I always talk about, where my metabolism is high because of my muscle in in relation to my body fat and that ratio. And over the years, I've gradually increased my calories so my body can handle more calories. I need a lot of food, but I rarely want it. As sad as it is, I would love to just drink coffee all day long and not eat. I don't desire food for the most part. And this is where it gets a bit confusing, Melissa, I'm going to bet that you don't even realize that what you think is cravings at night is actually a biological need for fuel, which is hunger. In other words, what's happening is you're hungry at night, more so than just having a craving for whatever your go to foods are. Now, here's where it gets interesting. If your blood sugar is unstable, you'll get the symptoms of hunger and appetite, because they are very effective urges that motivate you to eat. If your blood sugar gets too low, your body will be on alert, because your brain has to have fuel, and your homeostasis response will literally manipulate you so that you seek out food. And sometimes these signals are really loud, like hunger and food cravings, and sometimes the signals are kind of hard to discern. So for me, I don't really get hungry, I don't get an appetite. So for me, what I notice is I get grumpy, I get edgy, I get angry, I can't think. I get other symptoms that don't look like appetite and obvious signs of hunger. The most effective way to stabilize unstable blood sugar is to eat a combination of protein and carbs. This causes insulin and glucagon to balance each other out so that your blood glucose stays mostly level. And the best way to ensure that you have stable blood sugar all day long is to eat a combination of protein and carbs within an hour of waking up. This is why I'm a fan of having something to eat within the first 60 to 90 minutes of getting out of bed. This literally programs your body for stable blood sugar. You set the record for the day, if you will. And if you skip food for the first part of the day, your blood sugar bottoms out because, well, there's nothing in your system. You're basically running on empty all day long. But there's a catch, if your brain doesn't have the glucose it needs to function, glucose is blood sugar, and it is what the brain prefers. And when it's got its steady supply, your brain will hum along beautifully. And if it doesn't get its juice, so to speak, it will basically manufacture the glucose that it needs. This is the essence of biohacking, which I'm not a fan of, your body does a beautiful job of doing what it does on its own, and there's no need to biohack when you understand these basic principles.

In short, this means that for the first part of the day, your body is seeking out ways to create glucose for your brain, and the most immediate pathway is by mobilizing stored glucose, which is otherwise known as glycogen stored in your liver and skeletal muscle. As you can imagine, this leaves both of those organs somewhat depleted, right? It's like, I don't know what that phrase is, stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Is that right? I don't know if I've got that anecdote right, but it's like stealing from your organs to feed the brain, but then, as you can imagine, those organs will then need to replenish their stores of glycogen. Why would they have the. Stores of glycogen if they didn't need it, following, and this is why you have the cravings at night. Melissa, it's the fallout, as I like to say, from your brain having to create glucose all day long when there is none in your blood. You've basically been running your vehicle on empty all day long until one, until you have that first meal. And who knows what you're eating at that first meal, if that's even creating stable blood sugar. And so your body is trying to catch up and restore balance and homeostasis in your organs. So Melissa, you asked, How do I stop late night snacking so I can start eating in the morning? And the answer is, start eating in the morning. I realize that might sound a bit snarky, but it's the truth. It really is that simple. Start eating something within an hour, maybe 90 minutes, of getting out of bed, the sooner, the better, in my book. And this can even be as little as 200 calories, as long as you combine protein and carbs at a minimum, at a minimum, if you're just getting protein dominant foods and carb dominant foods, you're going to want to get about 60% of those 200 calories coming from carbs, 40% coming from protein. In a perfect world, you would be balancing your macronutrients a little bit better, more in this episode about that. But at a bare minimum, 180 to 200 calories of protein and carbs is gonna start to change your biology. This will, at least, at the very minimum, start to program your body for better blood sugar management all day long, and, oh, by the way, you're also going to perform better from one o'clock through the rest of the day. I'm also gonna bet you have a big old slump about two or three hours after lunch, that one o'clock meal, you probably go down the tubes. You probably have some brain fog. You probably have that big energy slump. And then you revive around five or six o'clock at night, when it's time to eat. And then you eat all night long. By the way, this is a super common pattern that I've lived for years and years and years, and I also see it in my clients. Thankfully, by the time my clients come to me, we've got a lot of this cleared up, but this is still something that I'm coaching people on on the regular.

Now, listen up, Melissa, in practice, I personally have found that it's a process. It's going to take about two weeks of shifting your calories earlier in the day before those evening cravings start to subside. So maybe start by eating two or 300 calories for breakfast, and then maybe 400 calories or so around noon or one then if you avoid going longer than four to four and a half hours between meals, you won't be nearly as hungry or depleted at night. Then slowly start curbing the volume or the type of foods that you're eating at night. And this will be easier, because you won't have those biological cues triggering you to eat or have cravings, makes sense. Now it is a process of give yourself a period of time to slowly wean into it, but I will say without a doubt, I get the best results by having people front load calories so that you're not eating a lot late at night, because then you're going to bed with your digestive system digesting, and that's when we start to see a congested liver in the morning. Melissa, I hope this helps. I hope you'll try it out, and please make sure you keep me posted on how it works for you.

Up next, I'm answering Jessica's question about spot reducing and how you actually can target specific areas of your body to improve overall shape and muscle tone. But first, the next question today comes from Jessica, and she asks, well, I know you can't spot reduce areas. I'm having trouble targeting the muscles in my arms that are often referred to as bat wings. Jessica, awesome question and way to phrase it, so for those of you listening, what Jessica is referring to is the softness and the muscle tone on the back of her upper arms, otherwise known as your triceps. Now, triceps really are a tricky muscle group, largely because, as we go about our day, we don't directly use that muscle very often. So your triceps are a pushing muscle that is. Just your primary upper body, pushing muscles of your chest, your pectoralis muscles. And the truth is, in your day to day life outside of exercise, most of us aren't walking around using or pushing muscles very often. If you think about it, during a given day, when do you actually really perform significant upper body pushing. The only time would be if you're pushing open a heavy door, and we generally don't do that very often every day, and certainly not for any sustained amount of time. Therefore, pretty much the only way to target and strengthen these muscles is in your workout. So let's talk about this concept of spot reduction, and I'm going to have something unpopular here to say out there in the world. You may have heard the golden rule that a person can't spot reduce an area of your body. So let's use thighs as an example, because that is a question I get frequently, and while it's true, I can't take you and wave my magic wand and have you lose body fat only from your thighs. We can't selectively target body fat for loss in a particular area. But what we can do, and I do it all the time, is target a body area through spot training, which means we use certain exercises to strengthen and activate and address the muscles that are underneath the body area that you're wanting to improve, let's say the thighs, or, in Jessica's case, the back of her arms, her triceps. Here's the deal. Let's think about this logically. Well, I can't walk up and have Jessica instantly tighten up the back of her arms and only the back of her arms. We can use exercises to change that muscle right? Otherwise, why would anybody be doing tricep exercises or walking lunges or hip thrusts for your glutes, you can target body areas. I do it all the time.

So the first answer here, Jessica is we need to improve the frequency, the intensity, or the volume of time that you are spending using activating and strengthening the muscles of the back of the arms, which are your triceps in general, I will always encourage you to focus on strengthening all the major muscles of your body, rather than just targeting on one specific area like the back of your arms. The truth is, there aren't any muscles in your body that function in isolation. Your triceps assist your pectoralis muscles of the chest, as well as the lats and shoulder extension. When you perform a barbell bench press, for example, you'll strengthen your chest while also improving your triceps. Over the years, I have found that if you do the right exercises for the major movers of your body, the smaller muscle groups, like your triceps, tend to improve. So personally, I don't do a lot of bicep or triceps specific exercises because my triceps get used in everything else that I'm doing, and in general, that's my philosophy with clients. This certainly depends on your history of training and how frequently you train and how much muscle you have. The more fit you are, the more muscle you have, the less you're gonna have to work on your triceps. So in this example, I'd suggest that you make sure you're following a workout program, specifically, a progressive resistance strength training plan that addresses your entire body, all of your muscles, because when you're doing a lat pull down, the triceps get used when you're doing, as I said, Any pushing exercise or a shoulder pushing exercise, you're using your triceps. Then you can also add in specific exercises for the triceps, so that we can improve the muscle that's under your bat wings, as you say, so that you can then increase the frequency, the intensity and the volume and the time that you're using those muscles. So a lot of women start to think of the bat wings or bye bye arms, or the back of the triceps as being body fat. And the truth is, the triceps do have, let's say, proportionately, more body fat than, let's say the front of your thighs or your calves. I believe that's because we don't use our triceps very frequently throughout the day. As I said. So if the muscle underneath the body fat is soft and weak, you're going to have this pronounced softness and weakness. And so rather than targeting body fat, as I hope you know by now, I think you do. Jessica, I'm all about let's target the muscles underneath, because it will take care of the body fat. In other words, yes, do use spot specific exercises like tricep exercises, and make sure you're including big moves for your chest and back and shoulders and all of the muscles of your upper body. To give you some specific metrics and exercises, here's what I suggest. It's so hard to do this in a public forum, like a podcast, and this is why I offer programs like the body composition project, glutes project, so that we can get more specific. But I want to give you an answer here.

So number one, to give you the specifics, I suggest you do the following. Aim to complete about write this down three to four sets of three different exercises each week for your back, okay, lat pull down, bent over rows lying dumbbell pullover, three different exercises, three to four sets each once a week. Number two, aim for three sets of two to three different exercises for your shoulders. Arnold Press, barbell overhead press and a dumbbell upright row, two to three different exercises for the shoulders, three sets each once a week. Number three, aim for three sets of two different exercises for your chest and number four, round. All of this out with three sets of two different exercises for your triceps and biceps. So that means you would do two different exercises for your triceps, three sets each. That's a total of six sets. And you would do two different exercises for your biceps, three sets each follow in total, if you're working hard and progressively increasing your weight loads, this volume will improve the strength, appearance and tone of your arms. Some tricep specific exercises that I lean on frequently, that are my favorites, a barbell skull crusher. You can look these up on YouTube, and specifically, I generally always have video tutorials for every exercise I recommend on my women's strength nation YouTube channel, barbell skull crusher, a dumbbell French press is one of my absolute favorites. Number three, a cable overhead extension, this hits the long head of the triceps, which attaches above the shoulder and below the elbow, and a straight arm cable press down again to hit that long head of the triceps. Triceps are tricky to train, and so a variety of movements is particularly helpful. And of course, Jessica, nutrition and cardio are certainly important to improve your overall results. I hope this helps.

The third and last question for today's episode of Ask Holly comes from Suzanne, and she asks, I know that you recommend a 5025, 25 macronutrient distribution. Would it be possible to get examples of breakfasts, lunches and dinners that meet those macros? So inside of the nutrition project, which is my 12 week deep dive into my specific methodology, you'll get a ton of recipes for this very reason. So as I always talk about, eating according to Macros is magic. It will transform your body in front of your eyes. I have a private client right now that I'm working with. She's getting ready for a wedding, and we've been training together for a number of years, and so she knows she knows what to do, but we were both feeling a little stuck. Her body composition wasn't changing to the degree that I knew it should be. So we had a little sit down talkie talk, and I said, my friend, my client, do this. And I gave her some very specific suggestions, which ultimately improved the accuracy of her macronutrient breakdown. And I am not kidding, within five days, there was a discernible shift in her photos and on the scale, one of these days I will publish a blog post or a podcast on her case study, because then 10 days later, she had another incredible transformation in just a few number of days. I didn't change her training at all. All we changed was her nutrition and got the quality of her macronutrient distribution. Dialed in that is the power of eating according to Macros, and yes, in general, for the public, I recommend a 5025, 25 breakdown. So having recipes really helps. That's why I put them into the nutrition project. And this is one of the most popular aspects of the program, because everybody loves a quick and easy way to build a meal certain that the macronutrients are balanced. Also, inside of the nutrition project, you'll get what I call shortcut meals that incorporate just a few items and yet they're perfectly balanced. So they're like really easy to assemble meals to hit 5025, 25 the nutrition project, is like getting a master's degree in nutrition for your body. And I encourage every woman everywhere to enroll in this program the next time I offer it, so that you can actually learn the basics that make reaching your specific goals sustainable, and you'll learn so much more than just eating according to Macros. It's a much more in depth, but also extensive program than just macros. That all being said. I'm actually not here to promote the program, but I think it's important to say where what I'm going to give you in a moment comes from I'm going to share two of the nutrition project shortcut meals for you here Suzanne, because they are my most go to for myself and for my clients, and it kind of paints the picture of how to do this easily. The first shortcut meal is two ounces of lean cooked meat. This could be grilled chicken, grilled Turkey, shrimp, cod. It's gotta be lean. Add one cup of cooked brown rice, two cups of vegetables. I am a big fan of gently steamed vegetables because they're easier on digestion. So this could be steamed broccoli, steamed mixed vegetables. It could be a big salad, if you're good eating, spinach, arugula, kale, those kind of things that are raw and then last a half a tablespoon of olive oil. Four things, four things, your protein, a starchy carb, a non starchy carb, and a fat. The calories on that, I think are like 350 calories. Another quick and easy, balanced meal is three ounces of baked Atlantic salmon. I choose Atlantic salmon because it's a little bit lower fat, just like beef, different cuts of beef have a different amount of fat, and it's the same with salmon. Some salmons are higher in fat. Some are lower. I have found wild Atlantic salmon is the best in terms of fat content. Then add a half a cup of black beans, one cup of steamed kale, a half a large bell pepper steamed would be ideal. And one medium banana, a very popular breakfast is a third of a cup rolled oats, measured dry, then cooked in water, half a cup of fresh or frozen blueberries, one tablespoon sliced almonds, one tablespoon maple syrup, then a third of a cup liquid egg whites. Cook those with a quick spray of cooking oil in a non stick pan, so that you're not adding too much more fat, one teaspoon of olive oil drizzled on those egg whites. So this feels like a huge meal, and it's less than 400 calories. This is one of the most popular breakfasts that I would argue most of my clients are eating, and I ate for years and years and years and years and years. You can find this particular meal inside of MyFitnessPal as Holly Perkins shortcut breakfast. It'll give you all of the measurements and the exact ingredients, and then you can just copy and paste it into your MyFitnessPal journal, and that is it for today's new episode of Ask Holly. Again. Thanks to everyone who has been submitting such great questions. I love them. Please stay tuned for upcoming episodes of Ask Holly. And if you have a question for me, come on over to Holly perkins.com, forward slash, ask Holly and submit it. And remember, you get one vehicle to get you through this life. The better you take care of it, the better it'll take care of you. Focus on progressive resistance strength training and eating with balanced macronutrients, and that alone will take you so far. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Stay tuned for another brand new episode on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong, my friend.