Welcome to The Holly Perkins Health Podcast! In this episode, we take a deep dive into what I believe is the secret to opportunity and vitality: *drumroll please* Strength Training, also known as Progressive Resistance Training. I cover why I’m an advocate for strength training, and the ways strength training helps you feel (and quite literally be) younger. 

First, I illustrate the difference between biological and chronological age. I dispute misleading claims about building muscle, and detail how insulin sensitivity affects muscle mass. Then, I share four ways lean muscle mass works to keep your body feeling young and explain the difference between body weight focus and improved body composition. Strength training will help improve energy and reduce your risk of chronic disease… and you’ll feel great, too. 

Along the way, you’ll gain research-backed resources in support of your success, and hear stories and lessons from my 30 years of experience. If you always feel tired, struggle to feel your best, or feel like managing body fat is a constant battle. This episode is for you. 

If you resonated with anything shared in today’s episode, I hope you’ll rate and leave a *glowing* review of the show on Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show grow and reach other people who are doing the work. 

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.

Topics Covered:

• Why I stopped running and turned to rehabilitative exercises
• How strength training reduces biological age
• Three reasons why strength training is the key to feeling younger
• Misleading claims about building muscle 
• Four ways lean muscle mass keeps you young
• Body weight focus vs. improved body composition
• How to gain access FREE access to Strength Without Stress

Resources Mentioned:

• Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics article
• British Journal of Sports Medicine article 

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 health care professionals for any such conditions.

There's a reason so many people are obsessed with the idea of a fountain of youth. We all want to feel young. For many people, we reminisce about our youth, because it was a time of boundless energy and endless opportunity and vitality. I believe I've found the secret to the fountain of youth. And it's something you can do right now, without a prescription or expensive investment. In fact, you might already be doing it right now. The problem is, most women misunderstand it. In this episode, you'll learn that this is actually the fountain of Youth.

Welcome to the Holly Perkins health podcast. If you're a woman over the age of 35, and have health fitness or nutrition questions or your body, you're in the right place. I'm Holly Perkins, a women's strength and nutrition expert with over 30 years of experience, helping 1000s of women transform their bodies to be stronger, more resilient, and more energetic inside and out. Every week, you'll walk away with a real plan for improving your body composition, so you can feel better now, reduce inflammation and create lasting health. So, if you're ready to create the body that you need to keep up with the life that you love, let's dive in.

Hello, and welcome to the very first episode of my brand new podcast, you have no idea how thrilled I am that you're here. It means the world to me, and I cannot wait to bring you tons of tips, tools and resources to help you create the body that you need to keep up with this life that you love. So I thought it would be cool if the first 10 episodes of this podcast reflect the core tenants of my philosophies. After 30 years in practice, these 10 episodes reflect my top 10 principles to help you create the body that you need to keep up with the life that you love. So be sure to listen to all 10 Because they are juicy.

And you'll learn so much about effective strength training, the importance of body composition as a measure of your health, strategic eating to regulate blood sugar, the most effective mindset practices and all of my proven methods for becoming stronger, inside and out. And stay tuned because in just a minute, I'm going to share how you can get free access to my brand new four week strength training program called strength without stress. It's incredible. And you're going to get first access to it for free before I start selling it for $200. So stay tuned on that. So I wanted this first episode to touch on the struggles I see most often when women come to me for coaching. If you always feel tired, if you struggle to feel good and happy or feel like managing body fat is a constant thing for you. This episode is for you.

Today, you're going to learn the number one numero uno most important factor in your health from my perspective. And oh by the way, this is after 30 years in practice. This one thing will help you feel great. improve energy, reduce your risk of chronic disease and it's going to make you look great. In short, I would say it is the fountain of youth. Ladies and friends drumroll please. You are right it is strength training and more specifically, its lean muscle mass. If you'd like to feel young again, this episode is so for you and if you want

to age fabulously so that you can run and jump and play for the rest of your life, stay with me. And if you just want to feel tighter and leaner, let's get into it. So I distinctly remember my 30th birthday, I was struggling with hip pain that never went away. I remember going to the movies and not being able to sit through an entire movie because I was in excruciating pain. I had to stand up and sit down all throughout the movie. And I remember distinctly being emotional about the fact that I was in the back of the movie theater, standing to watch the movie. If you've ever dealt with chronic pain, you know, it's an emotional event. I remember feeling exasperated and thinking, I guess this is just what happens when you get older, and you turn 30 shock. Oh, really. And truly, I felt like I was so old at that time. And I remember feeling so sad that my age was already catching up with me. So thankfully, it came to my senses.

And decided that I really wanted to challenge that thinking. And I just got this kind of be in the bonnet to see if I could change that and see what I was really capable of. So I made a drastic decision. And I decided to stop running. At the time I was a runner, best decision I ever made nothing against running. I love it, I miss it. But it was really causing a lot of problems for my body as it does for a lot of people. At the time, I lived in Manhattan near Central Park, and I would run almost every single day. And instead, I started focusing on rehabilitative exercises, I started stretching more and doing yoga. And that is when I started to get more serious about strength training.

The truth is I was always strength training, but I was never really doing it properly. And this is when I would say that I actually started my real experiential learning of strength training, if you will, a very, very long story short, here, I am now at 51. And I feel way younger now than I ever did at 24 or 30, or 34, or 40. Or even honestly 50. For that matter, I feel better today, even just a short time after my 50th birthday. So before I get into this episode, I just want to say that I'm not actually in support of this notion of chasing youth when it comes to appearance. This isn't a conversation about desperately trying to stay young at all costs. And I am not one to buy into the beauty industry really at all. I think that I'm probably the most low maintenance gal I know.

And the truth is, for me, this conversation is really about feeling young physically. And I think we can all relate to that. I think we all like to feel the energy and the vitality of our youth. I think that's what it's all about. That's why I'm so committed to what I teach, looking and feeling young is a reflection of your health. And it's how you feel, and that I am all about. And after all these years in practice as a women's health, fitness and nutrition coach, there is one thing that I know without a doubt for sure. And it's why I build my entire conversation and platform in business around it. Building lean muscle through strength training is the fountain of youth that you may be looking for.

And after 1000s of case studies from my clients, I know that there is a really good chance that you either misunderstand the power of strength training, or you could use some help to make sure that you're actually doing it right and effectively. There are three main reasons why I am such an advocate of strength training. Now there's a lot more reasons beyond that. But these three, the sum total adds up to major game changing material. And it's no surprise that this is the topic to kick off the first 10 episodes of this show, because it's the foundation to everything I teach. And the reason for that is because strength training is literally one of the only things that can impact your health in substantial and permanent ways. Around here. It's no longer about getting skinny or “losing weight” per se. It's really about creating the foundation of real

Health. And that just happens to also mean that you'll turn back the clock, literally, because strength training is one of the things that reduces your biological age. In 2021, there was an insane article published by Harvard's, I think it was the Center for Bioethics. And it talked about the differences in chronological age versus biological age. If this is a new concept for you, your chronological age is the number of years that your body has been alive, it's how many birthdays you've had, whereas your biological age is the relative age of your cells and your body. For example, my body is way younger than my years of 51 that I've been on this earth. I believe I've been so committed to Healthy Living since college.

And that's one reason why my biological age is so much younger than my chronological age. Around 2018, there was a man, I believe it was in Britain, who brought a lawsuit to lower his age by 20 years, because his biological age was so much younger than his chronological age of 69. I think it was 67 or 69. And I just thought this was so crazy. I think he ultimately ended up losing that lawsuit. There were other lawsuits that were similar. The argument is that if we can prove through science, that your body is actually younger than your yours, shouldn't you be able to legally claim that and some would say that your true age of your body, this all speaks to the fact that we know for a fact that there are things that you can do to turn back the clock and slow the aging process.

And I believe the most powerful fountain of youth here, so to speak, is using strength training to build and maintain your lean muscle mass. So here are my top three reasons why strength training is the fountain of youth to help you feel younger and quite literally maybe even be younger. Number one, strength training is the only way to build muscle. And muscle keeps you biologically Young.

In my experience, most women are not strength training correctly, so as to actually improve lean muscle mass or they don't fully understand the power of it, and therefore they aren't as committed to it as they should be. Now, this might be you and I offer that because I'm on the receiving end of a lot of phone calls and emails and messages from women that I know and don't know. And you might be strength training and think that you check the box here.

But the truth is, strength training in and of itself is valuable. I'm gonna get to that in a moment. But the goal really should be strength training so that you can build muscle strength training, and building muscle will literally change your life on all levels, mind, body, spirit, emotions. And don't be fooled by sneaky headlines that mention certain foods like protein or supplements that build up muscle. The truth is, the only way you can build muscle is through progressive resistance training, lifting weights, strength training, what you eat simply helps or hinders what you do in the gym. Nutrition is important. But there are some misleading claims out there that say you'll build muscle by eating protein.

That's actually not true if the strength training isn't there. And more specifically, it needs to be progressive strength training, otherwise known as progressive resistance training. In order to build muscle, you must continually expose your muscles to increasingly harder resistance. And I could get super technical here on things like volume ascension, or reps and the actual definition of weight load. But it's really easiest to think of it this way. If today you can leg press 100 pounds, you'll need to progress up to pressing more than 100 pounds in order to build muscle. It's not quite that simple. But I have found when women think of it that way. It really helps them start making progress. And once you're able to let's say press 120 pounds

pounds, you'll need to press more weight beyond that, to build more muscle. That's why it's called progressive. If you haven't been successful in seeing the benefits of your strength training program, you're most likely not doing it correctly. That's one of the reasons why I started this podcast. Now, before you get down on yourself, and start critiquing or judging yourself, we are not about that around here.

That too is one of the basic tenets of what I teach, I want you to know that successfully improving your body and your health through strength training is actually not that easy for women. So if you feel like you struggle with it, or it's still a bit elusive, or you're lifting weights, but you're not really getting the results that you want, it's because it's actually a little more complicated than just pressing 100 pounds on the leg press machine. And that's why I'm in practice. So I don't want you to feel bad about yourself in any way. If you feel like you've been strength training for three years, like me, like I did in the past, but you weren't getting results. I think I was strength training easily for 10 years or more, before I actually really started to understand how to do it so that I got the results that I wanted.

So let's just make sure that you're doing it correctly today, going forward. Here are the ways that lean muscle mass keeps you young. Number one, it improves energy. And I think pretty much every single woman I talked to maybe nine and a half out of 10 bodies, women that I talked to, we could all use more energy or we at all, we all would at least like to have more energy to get through demanding days. So your body is held up in space by muscle, not your skeleton, your muscles push and pull against your bones because of gravity to hold you up right in space. And this is a very fatiguing task on your muscles. If your muscles aren't strong, this becomes very exhausting. And you're doing it all day long.

Even if you're sitting in a chair, if you're sitting upright, there are muscles that have to hold you in position. Imagine how hard it would be to keep your body up and moving all day long. A great example of this is to look at our elderly and how most of them really struggled and move about. They have posture issues. Because after 70 or 80 or 90 years of fighting gravity. If you're not strengthening your muscles, you lose that battle. And that is because of muscle loss. If you struggle with energy issues, building muscle through strength training will radically change your life. Lean Muscle also keeps you young by reducing aches and pains, injuries and joint issues. Your bones are held in place by your muscles. If the muscles surrounding any joints like your knees or your hips are imbalanced, you'll get misalignment at the associated joint. And that leads to trouble.

For example, most knee pain and injury happens because there's an imbalance between your quadriceps and your hamstrings. It could be that one of the muscles is weaker, usually your hamstrings weaker than it needs to be to balance out that relationship with the opposing muscle group. In this case, it's your quadriceps. And if one of those two muscles around a joint, there's more than two muscles around many joints, but there's usually two major muscles or muscle groups around a joint if one of them is weaker, and therefore one of them is stronger. In comparison, this can lead to mobility or stability issues. This is where you get aches and pains or eventually injuries. The next reason is that muscle keeps you young by improving your activities of daily living like climbing stairs, carrying seven bags of groceries or running after children or pets.

Every movement you make each day is a whole lot harder mechanically, if one or more muscles are weak. I remember a time when I lived in New York City before I learned how to string train right. It was a miserably cold and rainy day and I was entering this big office building for some appointment probably a doctor's appointment. And the person in front of me didn't hold the super heavy door for me. And it literally slammed in my face. That was the first insult but the second insult was that I literally couldn't get the door open because it was heavy and the wind was blowing very hard against the door so it was like helping the door to stay closed. So the person behind me had to open the door for me and in that moment it all

came together and I literally started crying. It was like a little baby. So emotional, I started crying. And it was just obviously already a hard day for some reason. But the combination of things just triggered my emotions. But now, I love it when I have to deal with a heavy door. And I find myself opening it with pride and opening it for other people. I feel strong, and I feel resilient. And that simply improves my life in these kinds of subtle, but really profound ways. A meta analysis published last year in the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that this is a quote, muscle strengthening activities are associated with lower risk, and mortality in major non communicable diseases.

The acronym here is NCDs. And that's a very helpful thing to know non communicable non communicable diseases. Don't try to say that five times in a row, it's not easy. Anyway, these NCDs these are things like stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers, you don't contract them from other places, they are things that develop. This one is huge to me, because we now have tons of research that shows strength training isn't just a fitness application. It's a powerful tool for reducing your risk of disease, and increasing both your lifespan and your quality of life. And the last way that lean muscle helps to keep you young, is by improving your mood and your self esteem.

Did you hear that you can get free access to my brand new program called strength without stress. This four week strength training program is truly unique because it's designed to reduce the systemic inflammation that's caused by overly intense or lengthy workouts. It will help you build and maintain valuable lean muscle without making you feel wiped out. This is one of my best programs yet and you can get it for free. Simply by posting a review of my podcast, grab a screenshot of your podcast review and upload it at Holly perkins.com forward slash review. This is a limited time offer before I sell it for $197. So grab it now while it's free at Holly perkins.com forward slash review.

The second reason why strength training is the fountain of youth to help you feel younger and in this case, I believe be younger is that it improves blood sugar regulation. Now blood sugar is otherwise known as blood glucose. And this is what we're talking about when we reference glucose levels. I use blood sugar, blood glucose and glucose interchangeably. So popular misconception I see that isn't serving your health is the assumption that strength training is just a means of looking fit, or as a way to lose weight.

thing so that you can feel your best. Yes, it will help you to look good. But I really want to lean into this notion of feeling well having good energy and feeling young. And a huge part of feeling great is ensuring that you have stable blood sugar levels. The most direct way to ensure stable blood sugar levels is through your eating habits. So I want you to stay tuned because episode four in this series, I'm going to be talking more in depth about blood sugar and what it means and how to stabilize it so that you know how and what to eat to regulate your blood sugar.

But second, your eating habits, the very activity of strength training, lifting weights, going into the gym or your home gym and picking up the weights, improves how your body responds to and manages carbohydrates on a cellular level. muscular contraction changes insulin sensitivity. Isn't that crazy? Just the fact of lifting weights improves how your body manages blood sugar through the secretion of insulin. This is why most diabetes experts and doctors now mandate strength training in the treatment and prevention of metabolic disorders like diabetes. But more than that, even if you don't worry about diabetes, because like for me, I know that's just something I don't have to worry about.

Even though I was technically clinically diagnosed as pre diabetic in my 20s before I learned how to strength train write. Improving your blood sugar regulation means that you'll burn fat all day long, even while you sleep. If you're struggling to lose weight, stable blood glucose levels means that your body will burn more calories from fat instead of carbohydrates. There's a lot of confusion out there these days about carbohydrates and how they relate to blood sugar and fat burning. And a lot of this confusion is because of the low carb or ketogenic movement. As a quick biology lesson here, your brain must have and will get a steady flow of glucose blood sugar. Glucose is a sugar in your blood.

And it's created by the breakdown of the foods that you eat mostly carbohydrates mostly, but it can also be created through other pathways. Without getting too sciency or technical here, your body is designed to get glucose from the carbohydrates that you eat. When there is a level constant steady supply of glucose to your brain, which it will get your body then frees up fat to be burned as fuel. And this feels awesome. When your body is burning fat as its fuel. Because there's enough glucose in your blood, you feel great, stable glucose levels are the name of the game, regardless of your risk or concern for diabetes.

When you eat food, your pancreas secretes insulin into your bloodstream in order to shuttle the sugar ie glucose that's in your blood into muscles and other cells of your body. Strength training expands the storage capacity for glucose in the muscle, and therefore increases the sensitivity of insulin meaning your insulin works correctly. This is what it means when you hear the conversation around insulin sensitivity. If this mechanism isn't functioning optimally, glucose will build up in your blood. And that's when you become more at risk for metabolic syndrome or, at worst, diabetes. If that is chronic over time.

The very act of lifting weights improves this mechanism on the cellular level, which means you manage your blood sugar better and reduce your risk of disease. And even if you're not worried about disease or diabetes, stable blood sugar means that you'll feel better and you'll burn fat best, stable blood sugar levels will help to keep you biologically young. And this is why strength training is a fountain of youth. The third reason that strength training is a fountain of youth is that it improves your body composition. For about 12 years now I have been encouraging you to put the bathroom scale at the bottom of the list when it comes to measuring your progress. Now listen, I believe that losing weight on the scale is important for some people. For example, if you are

50 or 60 pounds over your ideal body weight, whatever that number actually is. Your health and longevity are at risk. We know that high levels of body fat are a direct correlation for disease and increased mortality. high body fat can be reflected on the scale. And it's important for some women to see a lower number on the bathroom scale. And for some of us, it is a function of wanting to feel better or perform optimally or look and feel great. That all being said, the scale is only one metric. And if you're strength training, it's not the best way to measure your progress. This is especially true if you're within about 10 to 15 pounds of what you believe is your ideal body weight.

Your body weight does matter. But your body composition should be your primary concern. And strength training is the best and maybe the only way to improve the ratio of your body weight that is muscle versus fat. In my coaching practice, I am always having to help women reprogram their thinking in their understanding a way from a body weight focus to an improved body composition, emphasis. One factual marker of health and longevity is your body composition. And if you're not totally clear on what this means, body composition refers to the percentage of your current body weight that is lean muscle, the percentage its body fat, and the percentage that structure mostly bones.

Your first goal is to achieve a body composition where at least 70% of your body weight is lean muscle around here, I like to focus on the percentage of your body that's muscle instead of what your body fat percentages, which is what most people out there tend to focus on the percentage of your body that is body fat is actually a much lower number than the amount of you that's muscle. And to me, it just feels like such a kind of depressing concept. It just doesn't feel good to be like I'm 32% body fat, no one likes that. So instead, it's a lot more positive, and it's a lot more effective to start to focus on first, achieving at least 70% of your current body weight as lean muscle.

This would mean that 30% or less of your body weight is body fat. And this is the measure that reflects a reduction in cardiovascular diseases, stroke and your rate of aging. If you're within 10 to 15 pounds of your ideal body weight, stop focusing on the scale as your measure for success and instead, go get a body composition scan. And this is something I'll talk about in another episode. I feel that these days, our access to scientifically accurate body composition scans is easier. So my top choice for a body composition scan is a DEXA for body composition. This is different from a DEXA for bone density. So if you go to the hospital and you get a bone density scan, they're not going to be able to tell you your body composition from the perspective of muscle versus fat you have to get a DEXA scan specifically for body composition.

Or my second choice is a bod pod. I actually really love a bod pod they are just fewer and far between. So I want you to get a body composition scan and then shift your focus to achieving at least 70% muscle. This will keep you young forever. Muscle is metabolically active, which means it helps to keep your metabolism burning hot muscle allows you to move better and avoid injuries. Muscle also helps optimize all of the hormones that direct all of your biochemistry.

For women, more muscle means the optimization of testosterone and trust me when I say you want every drop of testosterone that your body will naturally produce, you don't need to be afraid of it. Testosterone is the God of the elixirs and it keeps you feeling young, full of energy and it is what helps to keep body fat down. This is why men have more muscle and less body fat than women because they've got way more testosterone than we do. Strength training is the only sustainable way to improve your body composition in an unlimited capacity. Sure, losing weight by reducing your body fat also improves your body composition but

It's really a game of diminishing returns, your rate of fat loss will slow as will your metabolism. Because if you're losing weight but not building muscle, you're actually losing muscle, we know that weight loss usually comes with some loss of muscle, it's just a fact. And that's bad territory where you just don't want to be, be sure to check out Episode Two, where I talk about why body composition should be how we measure health these days, it is a much better marker of health. Instead of using your body weight, or even the outdated fiction of BMI, I believe there's a day where you'll show up for your yearly checkup into your doctor's office. And they will run you through a bod pod or a DEXA scan.

They won't weigh you and they won't even reference this silly BMI. Make sure that you've listened to that episode, which is available right now. Just make sure that you leave me a review. And a five star rating would be nice for this episode first. So to wrap up, the takeaway is to strength train, like your life depends on it. Because guess what it does, not only will you look better, and reduce body fat easier, you'll also improve your very real markers of your overall health. And that is a great way to feel and even be young. You might be tempted to think that you have less and less control over your body as you age. But that's not exactly true.

Regardless of your chronological age, you always have a choice to slow down your biological age. There are so many ways to feel better and be confident about your future health. If you're feeling frustrated in any way about your body or your health, I really encourage you to find one thing that you can do today to improve your health tomorrow. What is that one thing for you today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. check out Episode Two right now so that you can learn another powerful thing that I have learned after 30 years in practice.

And don't forget that you now have access to my brand new program strength without stress for free. Simply by rating and posting a review of this podcast. Just post a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify or Amazon music. Wherever you listen and screenshot your review. Then you're going to come over to Holly perkins.com forward slash review and upload your screenshot, you'll get immediate access to strength without stress. This is a limited time offer and I truly appreciate your support. So go post a glowing review please thank you right now.

Once again, I am just so honored and grateful that you are here. You give me purpose and a place to share my gifts. So thank you for being here, especially that you've listened all the way to the end. I hope you have a great day. Keep your eyes on your email inbox or something new from me next week. Stay strong, my friend.

Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode. I am so happy that you're here and I hope you loved it. If you did, please take a moment to subscribe, share with your friends and leave a review. And if you want more from me, check out my blog and coaching programs over at Holly perkins.com. That's all for now. I'll see you next week.