We all want to lose weight while not losing muscle, right? In this episode, I cover the key steps to mastering your body fat for good by shifting your focus to building muscle and the juicy highlights from my three-day workshop in March, Master Your Body Composition. In order to truly get your body fat under control, you must first master muscle and in this episode I tell you why! Through analyzing DEXA scans and working with countless clients, I’ve witnessed how mastering lean muscle first paves the way for losing body fat for good. I explain why DEXA scans are imperative to understanding how our weight is actually distributed and more.Then I answer some of the fabulous questions I got during the workshop and break down why building lean muscle is the true fountain of youth, the connection between estrogen, inflammation, and muscle loss, and the keys to my 3-step strategy to building the body you’ve always wanted. Next I discuss how progressive overload really works, particularly as it applies to women over 40. Remember, the women who thrive over 40 are those who stick with a progressive strength training program! Reclaim your energy and get started today. You can get FREE access to my 4-week Strength Without Stress program right now! Thisprogram will help you reduce the systemic inflammation that’s caused by overly intense orlengthy workouts. It’ll help you build and maintain valuable lean muscle withoutthe fatigue from other programsTo get free access to Strength Without Stress, post a Review wherever you’re listening. Grab ascreenshot of your review before you post it and upload at: https://www.hollyperkins.com/reviewThis 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 onTuesdays.Topics coveredFocus on body composition and never worry about body fat again!The relationship between caloric deficit and potential muscle lossEvery woman needs to be at least 70% lean muscleWhy body weight is not an accurate metric to track!Why building lean muscle is the true fountain of youthHow estrogen, inflammation, and muscle loss are all connectedThe reason cardio shouldn’t be used to lose weightDefining progressive overload strength trainingThe difference between a DEXA scan and bone density scanResources MentionedFor limited access to my FREE 3-day workshop, Mastering Your Body Composition, visit: hollyperkins.com/freeworkshopResearch on how muscle tension builds muscle Research on how muscle loss with weight loss during deficitResearch on weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle massTranscripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode at hollyperkins.com/blogFollow Me:Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkinsLearn more on my website: hollyperkins.comConnect with me on Facebook:
We all want to lose weight while not losing muscle, right? In this episode, I cover the key steps to mastering your body fat for good by shifting your focus to building muscle and the juicy highlights from my three-day workshop in March, Master Your Body Composition.
In order to truly get your body fat under control, you must first master muscle and in this episode I tell you why! Through analyzing DEXA scans and working with countless clients, I’ve witnessed how mastering lean muscle first paves the way for losing body fat for good. I explain why DEXA scans are imperative to understanding how our weight is actually distributed and more.
Then I answer some of the fabulous questions I got during the workshop and break down why building lean muscle is the true fountain of youth, the connection between estrogen, inflammation, and muscle loss, and the keys to my 3-step strategy to building the body you’ve always wanted. Next I discuss how progressive overload really works, particularly as it applies to women over 40. Remember, the women who thrive over 40 are those who stick with a progressive strength training program! Reclaim your energy and get started today.
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
Resources Mentioned
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.
Holly Perkins 0:00
A person can lose weight and lose muscle or lose weight and build muscle. If you knew that, number one, you wouldn't get bulky, and two, you would look and feel better than anyone you know. Which option would you choose—to lose or to build muscle? Because if you're on a typical weight loss program, this is a serious question that reveals that not all weight loss is created equally. If you want to master your body fat for good, keep listening. Hello and welcome. I am so glad that you're here.
Holly Perkins 0:40
If you're new, I'm Holly Perkins, and I am your go-to expert for strength training so that you can create a body that keeps up with your life. If you're a regular listener, you may have noticed that I have been on a bit of a hiatus, and that is because March is a very busy month. That is when I launch my signature coaching program, The Body Composition Project. This year, I offered a brand new three-day workshop leading up to that, called The Mastering Your Body Composition Workshop. And oh my gosh, wow—it was really incredible. It was successful, and it was a super insightful month.
Holly Perkins 1:27
I am so excited to be back here and on track, and I have a super interesting episode for you. So if you missed the three-day workshop, don't worry. In this episode, I'm going to be breaking it down and giving you the highlights of what we covered—the biggest light bulb moments, if you will, and the most interesting questions that came as a result of that workshop. If you have been spinning your wheels trying to lose weight, get stronger, leaner, or even just feel better in your body, this might be the exact message that you've been waiting for. There is nothing more frustrating than working so hard to improve your body only to get nowhere—especially when it doesn't have to be that way. So in this episode, you'll learn the biggest takeaways from The Mastering Your Body Composition Workshop, the most interesting questions from the participants during the live sessions, and the key steps to manage your body fat for good and forever.
Holly Perkins 2:38
The truth is, you don't have to kill yourself in the gym or starve yourself to get strong, lean, and vibrant. In fact, when you start operating from a body composition-first angle, you'll never worry about body fat again. I know that sounds like it could be a really great marketing tagline, but it's actually true. When you cross over that muscle tipping point and you become muscle, you literally won't think about body fat ever again—because it will be in check due to the muscle that you have. And that is how you master your body fat for good.
Holly Perkins 3:21
By the end of this episode, you'll understand why you need to first master muscle before you can master body fat. Getting rid of body fat is actually really easy when you approach it by building muscle instead of losing weight. In my three-day live workshop, I taught you why your body weight is not the most important metric for health and longevity—and why improving your body composition is. This is for several reasons, but the first is that your bathroom scale does not tell you how much of that body weight is muscle and how much of it is fat.
Holly Perkins 4:11
One reason is that a study from the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine showed that even just a mild calorie deficit can cause 25% of weight loss to come from muscle loss. Take that in. This means if you lose, let's say, 10 pounds on your bathroom scale, 2.5 pounds could be from muscle. And guess what? Not just could be from muscle—most likely will be from muscle. Just last week, I spoke with a woman who used DEXA scans, which are the most highly accurate form of body composition tracking we have at this time. She used them to track her weight loss over the past few years, and 30% of her weight loss on the scale came from muscle. I've got the documentation to prove it. In my experience as a coach, using body composition scans, I see this all the time. If you are focused on seeing that scale go down and losing weight, most likely you are also losing muscle, and that is a huge problem.
Holly Perkins 5:00
Right now, I've got a client who is considered obese according to her BMI. Now, that's not my words—that's what her doctor said. That's what her categorization said. Keep in mind, BMI uses your body weight to rate your health and to categorize you. But her DEXA scan revealed that she's actually not that far from being at least 70% lean muscle.
Holly Perkins 6:05
If you know me, you know this is the threshold that I've deemed as your first stop to becoming truly healthy. Every woman needs to be at least 70% lean muscle to live a good life, to feel better today, but more than anything, to reduce your risk of future disease. When my client learned this, she nearly cried because she had been carrying a heavy emotional burden and feeling so badly about herself. Her doctor said she’s obese, needs to lose weight, and just needs to start eating 1,400 calories—as if that will resolve everything. The truth is, she walked away from that feeling negative, feeling pessimistic, and just bad about herself in general, when in truth—the truth—she’s actually not that far away from that first goal.
Holly Perkins 7:08
It's a very different mental and emotional perspective when you know your body composition and you're not judging yourself or your health by the body weight on your scale. I also have a client right now who, if you were to look at her, there's a really good chance you'd say she’s either skinny or at a healthy body weight. Her BMI is good, and her body weight is considered perfectly healthy. But her DEXA scan revealed that she is below that 70% lean muscle mark.
Holly Perkins 7:43
So even though, on the outside, she looks perfectly healthy, and her doctor says she's perfectly healthy and sends her away to keep doing what she's doing, she actually needs to build some muscle to be truly healthy. Just last night—less than 24 hours ago—I reviewed a DEXA scan from one of the participants who just completed six months of coaching with me inside The Body Composition Project. She got a DEXA scan at the beginning of the program about six months ago and at the end of the program. When she started the program, she only weighed 125.1 pounds. She’s not super, super short, so that sounds like a healthy weight, right? A lot of women come to me with that being their target goal body weight.
Holly Perkins 8:37
So her doctor didn't say she was overweight or needed to lose weight, and I don't think anyone would have said that she was overweight. But her lean muscle mass was only 66%—below that 70% mark that I talk about. Six months later, after working with me inside my program, she lost 1.6 pounds on the scale after only six months. How would you feel if that were you? You'd probably be bummed, frustrated—you might even ask me for your money back and be mad at me. But are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? According to her DEXA scan, which is within 1% accuracy, she lost 5.7 pounds of pure body fat and gained 4.1 pounds of muscle. And the biggest reveal of all—she turns 70 this year. These numbers are mind-blowing, they are phenomenal, and they illuminate why your body weight...
Holly Perkins 9:57
It is dumb. It is silly. It is inaccurate. It is such a wrong metric to be tracking because it doesn't tell you the whole story. And can you imagine if she never even knew this information about her body composition? Talk about frustration! This is why your body weight literally does not matter. I hope that one day you will relieve yourself of this burden because, really and truly, your body weight as a metric is pretty much BS. Now listen, some of my clients do need to achieve a lower number on the scale so that their lean muscle mass reaches that 70% mark. I am not saying that obesity isn't a thing.
Holly Perkins 10:48
I'm saying that it shouldn't be measured by your body weight or your BMI. We need to normalize getting DEXA scans so that we all know how our body weight is distributed. Some of the biggest takeaways from the three-day live workshop were: number one, why building lean muscle is the true fountain of youth. Here's why: lean muscle improves your metabolism so that you burn more calories 24/7, even while you sleep. Lean muscle means you burn more calories, which makes it easier to burn off any extra body fat that you don't need, or you're able to eat more and maintain your current body composition. Also, building muscle keeps you free from pain and active. If that doesn't make you feel young, I don't know what will. Building muscle also improves glucose regulation.
Holly Perkins 11:55
This is blood sugar regulation, and it improves overall hormone balance, including estrogen, testosterone, and cortisol. The second takeaway is related to how estrogen, inflammation, and muscle loss are all connected, especially in midlife. I go into great detail about this during the three-day live workshop, but in short, estrogen declines after the age of 30, and it really accelerates in that decline during the five to eight years before full menopause. So when that happens, inflammation rises, and muscle loss, otherwise known as sarcopenia, accelerates. Strength training improves estrogen even post-menopause, reduces inflammation, and helps you to keep the muscle that you have or build more.
Holly Perkins 12:58
The third insight is my simple, proven, three-step strategy to create the body that you need to stay in the game of life and out of the rocking chair. There are three big mistakes most women are making that keep them from losing the body fat they either don't want or don't need. The first is program hopping. I see this all the time. You glom onto a program, whether it's a fitness program or a nutrition program or both, and you dive in with full commitment for 10 or 14 days, or maybe even three weeks. Then, for some reason, either you don't get the feedback or the results that you want, or life happens and you get sidetracked, and before you know it, you've walked away from those strategies or that program and glommed onto a new one.
Holly Perkins 13:57
This is one of the most pervasive problems I'm seeing today. I believe, because of the sophistication of marketing, social media, and media in general, every single time you turn around, there's a new "best way" to do that or "worst way" to do this. It's very common if, right now while you're listening, you're not happy with where you are, to hear one of these marketing messages and think that you need to change your strategy. Now, I could be perceived as one of those marketers with a snazzy tagline because I happen to like my tagline, but the truth is, my message is not "my way or the highway."
Holly Perkins 14:38
My program is better than all the others—although it is—and I believe that the real message here is to pick a program that aligns with your actual goal and then stick to it. You've got to stick to it for four to six weeks until you get some feedback. If after a while you're getting feedback that you're not going in the right direction, that is when it's time to tweak your strategy within that same program or find another program designed for your specific goal. The second big mistake that I'm seeing a lot of women make is eating low-carb. And I know you might say, "What? Eating low-carb has served me for the past 10 years!" To that, I have to say: if you are eating low-carb and it's working for you, awesome!
Holly Perkins 15:31
Keep doing it, because it can work for some body types and some genetic predispositions. But here's the question I encourage you to really ask yourself: is it actually really working for you? Whatever your nutritional strategy is, do you have complaints? Are you battling food cravings, hunger, sugar cravings, energy slumps? Are you seeing the muscle definition that you're working so hard to achieve? Because if not, it's probably more likely related to nutrition. In my experience—30 years of coaching now, taking the phone calls—when I shift my clients to consistent eating with moderate carbohydrates, dosed out appropriately, many of them start getting better results immediately, with fewer symptoms. The third mistake is using cardio to lose weight. You got that right. Cardio is important. I love cardio. In fact, I was looking at some research just earlier today for my upcoming book, Muscle and Bone, coming out in 2026.
Holly Perkins 16:42
Mark your calendar! I was doing some research on inflammation, and what's super interesting is that the right cardio—which is what I teach in part, that is, moderate-intensity steady-state cardio—actually reduces silent inflammation levels. Other types of cardio workouts, namely interval training—especially high-intensity interval training—any cardio workout that's high heart rate actually contributes to your levels of silent inflammation. This steady-state, moderate cardio that I teach really is medicine, because it helps your body manage the inflammation that you have, and over time, it trains your body to reduce your levels of inflammation.
Holly Perkins 17:34
So these are all the mistakes, and during day two of my workshop, I reviewed exactly what you can do to avoid these mistakes. Now, if you're thinking, "But wait a second, that workshop is over!"—don't wait until the end. I've got a very special announcement and an opportunity for how you can actually check out the recordings from that live workshop that is now wrapped up. So, in a moment, I'm going to share three of the most valuable and interesting questions that came from the participants of that workshop, as well as my personal insights. But first, I want to answer a couple of really interesting questions that came up during the workshop because they were unique. I wonder if you're wondering the same. I also found these questions very insightful, and I know that they could help.
Holly Perkins 18:30
So the first question that came up is, what is progressive overload strength training, exactly? And how does it work? And you might be thinking, "Well, duh, it means that you lift heavier weights over time." And that is the short answer. And how does it actually work? It was really an incredible conversation that we had. So progressive overload means that over time you are overloading your body's ability, and that could be a number of different aspects of your fitness or body systems, but in this case, what it means is that you are intentionally, over time, exposing your muscles to heavier weight loads—full stop. Now, that is the very narrow window that I focus on with my clients, and I explain in detail during the workshop. But here's why: technically, progressive workouts or progressive overload means you tax your body in any way, shape, or form.
Holly Perkins 19:44
And there's a number of variables and ways that we can do that inside of a strength training workout. So for example, one way to progress your ability in a strength workout is to increase the number of reps that you're doing during your sets of certain exercises. So imagine you're doing 10 reps of goblet squats with 10 pounds. One way you could progress would be to do 15 reps. That is progressive. Another way to progress would be to do those same 10 reps at the same 10 pounds, but to do it faster so that the set takes less time. That's a progression. Another progression is to do that same exact set and have less rest in between.
Holly Perkins 20:35
That's another progression. And then another progression yet would be to do more sets, or to do a higher weight load. All of those ways are ways that you can progress, but they all have different outcomes. And so after 30 years in business, working with women, where I've landed is that most of them are a waste of time, except for the last one: progressing your weight loads with your exercises is the only thing that matters. Yes, I said it, and I explained the science behind it in the workshop. This is because as you expose your body to higher weight loads, your muscles have to adapt and become stronger and/or larger.
Holly Perkins 21:30
This is where the magic happens. That is why I talk about progressive overload and progressive resistance strength training, because you are progressively lifting heavier. And you might say, "Well, yeah, duh, that makes sense." But I want you to look back over the last year of your strength workouts. Are you actually using heavier weight loads? And when I ask that question, it is almost comical, because people think they are doing progressive resistance strength training, but then they say, "Oh, gosh, you're right. I'm only using 12 and a half-pound dumbbells now, and I used to use 10." Sure, that's two and a half or five pounds more than you used to, but that's not progressive resistance. That's only one step. The key is that you are continuing to progress over time.
Holly Perkins 22:26
And how does that actually happen? There's a couple of ways. You could use heavier weight loads each week during the same workout, over and over and over. So if this week you're using 10 pounds, next week, you use 12 pounds, and the week after that, you use 15 pounds, and on and on. Now, it's not a linear progression like that at all. It actually is a bit of a chaotic up, down, up, down, up, down type approach. But if you look back over a period of time, say, three months, four months, or six months, there should be a very consistent rise in the weight loads that you're using. And so that can happen every single week, that can happen every single workout, or that can happen every single month. It really depends on your interest and your ability, but what has to happen is that you are progressively using heavier weight loads.
Holly Perkins 23:30
That is where the trick and the magic are. Because if you're a woman over 40 or 45 or through menopause, it gets tricky. Because I always say, strength is fleeting. Someday you may show up and feel super strong and use a heavier weight load, and the next day, you show up and you feel tired and exhausted, and you need to use a lighter weight load. And that is why there's an art and a science to this. But in the end, progressive resistance strength training is that you're focusing on progressing your weight loads over the other variables of progression, including volume, sets, reps, rest, exercise sequencing, or complexity of exercises. The second great question was, is a DEXA scan the same as a bone density scan?
Holly Perkins 24:31
There's so much confusion here, and if so, my doctor won't prescribe a DEXA for bone density until I'm 62. So the first answer is, a DEXA scan is a form of an X-ray machine. It's a technology where we're able to really see what's going on with how your body weight is composed, how your body weight is distributed by amongst bone, muscle, water, and body fat—those four things. So a DEXA scan is simply a way to get an accurate measure of those things. And that same machine can tell us how much body fat you have, and it can tell us your bone density. The difference is the report it produces. So the machine is the same, the technology is the same, but the practitioner is often different, so much so that many bone density DEXA scan practitioners don't even know that their machine can print out a body composition report. That has been my personal experience. It's wild.
Holly Perkins 25:49
So if you talk to your doctor about a DEXA scan, or you call your local hospital for a DEXA scan, they're going to assume what you're talking about is for bone density. But what we're talking about is a DEXA scan for body composition—totally different, same machine, completely different report. So yes, during the three-day workshop, we talk about getting a DEXA scan for bone density, because that is important, and that is a very important part of measuring your health and improving your body composition in general and aging well. So at this time in our medical institutions and practices and insurance environments, if you will, most doctors only prescribe DEXA scans for body composition starting at the age of 62, which is completely ridiculous, because by the age of 62, your bone density has already severely shifted after menopause.
Holly Perkins 26:53
For most women, most women are through menopause at the age of 62—not all, but the vast majority. And so at menopause, your bone density takes a hard left turn or right turn, depending on how you're looking at your chart. Bone density drops significantly in the five years after menopause. So getting a bone density report at 62 really is only looking at how brittle your bones are. I argue, get your bone density report before menopause, ideally at the age of 50, or even sooner, 48 to 50, so we know where your bone density is now before it changes after menopause. So my feedback to this question, which I love, is have an honest and earnest conversation with your doctor that says, "Hey, I know you usually don't prescribe a DEXA for bone density until the age of 62, but I really want one now, because I want to know what my bone density baseline is before it's too late." The third question is, how hard do I need to work to build muscle? And what if I don't want to bulk up? The answer to this is very interesting.
Holly Perkins 28:13
First and foremost, if you've been listening to my podcast, you probably know I will argue it's very hard for a woman to bulk up. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? No. In fact, I see women in my programs work their booties off and on to gain muscle, and it's a very hard, difficult undertaking. You are not going to build more muscle than you want by accident. It has to be intentional. It has to be persistent, and it's going to take you at least four months to build any amount of consistent muscle. You really don't have to worry about bulking up. And again, I'm going to share a lot of insights into this during the mastering your body composition workshop, which I'm going to give you access to in a moment. So something I talk about in terms of, how hard do you need to work to build muscle?
Holly Perkins 29:10
Well, hard is subjective. Your version of hard might be very different than my version of hard, my personal experience of hard. And what I found is there's two kinds of women. There's one whose definition of hard is way too hard, and they push themselves beyond the capacity that they should be pushing themselves. And the other woman, her definition of hard is not hard enough, and so we have to get a definition on this. And to that, I say my 20% rule. So my 20% rule says that on any given day, any given workout, any given week, you need to be pushing yourself about 20% harder than your current ability, whatever that looks like.
Holly Perkins 30:00
Your current weight load, your current intensity level, your current heart rate—in general, subjectively, you've got to be working 20% beyond where you are. So if your leg press feels heavy, but you've been stuck at 100 pounds for months and months and months, that's because you're not pushing or challenging yourself 20% harder. You have to make your muscle work harder, move a heavier weight load so that it can adapt and become better. You're not going to wake up on Tuesday and be stronger. You're going to wake up on Tuesday, go to the leg press machine, and you're going to make yourself work 20% harder, and then your muscle will adapt. That is a progressive, systematic system that you do over a period of time. It takes time.
Holly Perkins 31:01
It's not a linear progression. In short, you really have to work very hard to build muscle. It is not easy, especially if you're over 40, the cards are stacked against you. And oh, by the way, we haven't even talked about nutrition yet. We're just talking about the strength training aspect of it, because your nutrition is going to back up what you do in the gym. I've seen and had clients who were doing their part in the gym. They're working very hard in the gym. They think they'll build muscle, and that muscle will burn off body fat, and they'll be better, but they're going home and they're not backing it up with the nutrition. And at the end of the day, if you're not on track with your nutrition, you're not going to improve your muscle-to-fat ratio. In fact, I've seen women get stronger, get better in their workouts, look better in their photos, lose weight on the scale, but guess what?
Holly Perkins 32:03
Some of that weight loss came from muscle, so you have to be backing up the work you're doing in the gym or in your strength training workouts with your nutrition. How do you do it? The best thing you can do is get a body composition scan every four to six months so that you've got data on your programming to know if your programming is working or not, and that's why you've got to stop program hopping and stay with one program and get some proper metrics to give you the feedback so you know if it's working or not, or what you need to tweak. So I've been thinking about this a lot since the workshop, and here's what I believe: the women who thrive as they age are the ones who choose to stay in the game through using progressive resistance strength training.
Holly Perkins 32:56
Those are the women that thrive. When you build strength, you're not just creating muscle. You're reclaiming your energy, you are improving your posture, you're boosting your confidence, and in the end, you are creating true freedom on an emotional level and a very literal level in your life. And sometimes all it takes is the right plan and some consistency to unlock it all. Some of my personal insights from the workshop are that most women are wildly uneducated about body composition, and they are still fat and body weight focused, even the women who listen to my podcast. I wish I could scream into the microphone right now, but you would not be happy with me if I did. If you are body fat and body weight focused, you're going to stay on a hamster wheel. And so many women are really uneducated about body composition. Listen, it's not your fault.
Holly Perkins 34:05
The institutions aren't talking about this. I'm about five to 10 years ahead of my time, as I always am, and once you really come to understand this conversation, everything changes. So my insight is, please stop looking at the scale as your primary metric. It can be one of your metrics, but it's got to be at the bottom of your list of metrics. Go get yourself a real accurate body composition scan. It can be an InBody. It doesn't have to be a DEXA. Not everybody has access to a DEXA for body composition. An InBody scan is less accurate, but you can use it as your reference. So whatever that InBody report tells you, it's about a 3 to 5% or more margin of error, but you can use it for your next repeat scan, so that you can know what direction you're going.
Holly Perkins 35:07
So it's good for the test-to-retest information, and simply doing that for yourself is going to be illuminating. Please search your area for an InBody scan or a DEXA scan. Go get one, and then, if you don't know what to do with that, send me an email. My second personal insight is that we, you and me, have got to be the voice of change, telling our doctors and our medical professionals that fit body weight and BMI are bogus. Repeat it with me right now, if you will: body weight and BMI are bogus. And the best way to assess and improve your health and your happiness is by shifting the focus to becoming at least 70% lean muscle. Nothing else matters.
Holly Perkins 36:05
The third insight is that women are still really confused about putting all of the pieces together when it comes to the right strength training, nutrition, and cardio components to bring about results. I say this to say, if you feel confused, welcome to The Club. You're normal. I'm not surprised. This is why I'm in business. I'm on the end of the phone calls with women who are trying so hard but not getting where they want to be. And a lot of it really is just lack of education. And you might say, "Oh my gosh, well, I don't have time to educate myself." I get it. Let this message be: find five minutes here and there so that you can start to really understand more about body composition and the programming variables that contribute to helping you become more muscle and less fat.
Holly Perkins 36:57
It's really critical to your health and your happiness. So because of all of this, I've decided to do something that I've never done before and offer an encore presentation of the "Mastering Your Body Composition" workshop that I offered in March. It was a live workshop. It's gone bye-bye, but for a limited period of time, I'm going to open up the recordings so that you can also master your body fat. Because when you come to understand this conversation and everything that I've shared today, that is how you master your body fat. And it's a bit of a trick and play on words there, because I don't want you worried about your body fat, but I know you probably are, until I can get into your head, until I can brainwash you to be so focused on muscle, you're probably still thinking about mastering your body fat. So if this conversation today is lighting a spark inside of you,
Holly Perkins 38:00
and if you're thinking, "Yes, that's exactly what I need," come over to hollyperkins.com/freeworkshop (all one word). It's linked in my show notes if you need that, and you're going to get limited-time access to the recordings from the three-day live workshop. You can binge the recordings if you didn't see them live. I've had a lot of new people enter into my community since the workshop. If that's you, you get to see it. Or if you were there with me live, and you've already seen these, this is an opportunity for you to watch them for a second time so that you can take more notes, so you can hear it again, so that you can get all of my best tips for becoming more muscle and less fat.
Holly Perkins 38:46
But do hurry, because really and truly, these recordings are only going to be available for a short period of time. Then they're going to be gone forever, or until my next live workshop, way down the road, way down the road, later this year. So again, that's hollyperkins.com/freeworkshop, also linked in the show notes. And there you have it. That is how you can master your body fat for good by shifting your focus to building muscle. And you may be tempted to think that this is more
Holly Perkins 39:20
information than you can handle, and it's too many pieces of the puzzle, and you just can't figure it out. But I promise you, you can one step at a time. If there are women out there doing it, you can do it too. And I promise you, I'm seeing women in my community do it every single week. It's available for you as well. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and please stay tuned for another brand new one on Tuesday of next week. Until then, stay strong, my friend.