Can You Prioritize Health & Longevity and Still Build a Strong, Lean Body? (Anna Clough) | Ep 316
Get the other part of this conversation on Anna’s podcast “Get Strong and Healthy” where Philip breaks down how to train for aesthetics without sacrificing your health.
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Are you healthy just because you look the part? Strong from the outside but running on empty? Chasing steps, supplements, and skinny without feeling your best?
If you’ve been chasing surface-level goals, it might be time to rethink what true vitality looks like.
Today, Anna Clough, founder of Strong and Healthy and host of the “Get Strong and Healthy” podcast, unpacks what it means to pursue health and longevity. We’re talking about energy, vitality, muscle, metabolism, and how to build a strong body that lasts, without falling into diet culture extremes or burnout.
Don’t miss part two of this special collab—head over to Anna’s podcast to hear Philip break down the aesthetics side of the conversation.
Main Takeaways:
Looking fit isn’t the same as being healthy
Strength training is essential for longevity, bone density, and vitality
Building muscle supports hormones, insulin sensitivity, and metabolism
Crash diets and restriction backfire on long-term health
You can look and feel great without sacrificing your well-being
Timestamps:
02:40 – Why you can’t chase every goal at once
05:38 – Biohacking vs. basics: what actually matters
09:31 – Muscle mass, injury prevention, and aging
11:25 – The “bulky” myth and strength as empowerment
14:47 – Bone health, lifting heavy, and real progress
18:33 – Dumbbells, barbells, or machines?
20:40 – Nutrition for health vs. diet culture extremes
23:01 – The danger of crash dieting and rapid weight loss
26:39 – Can you be too lean? What real health feels like
30:09 – Using blood sugar tracking to improve vitality
33:22 – Best ways to improve cardiovascular fitness
Get the other part of this conversation on Anna’s podcast “Get Strong and Healthy” where Philip breaks down how to train for aesthetics without sacrificing your health.
Building a Strong, Lean Body Without Sacrificing Health and Longevity
There’s a huge disconnect today between the image of "fitness" and actual, lasting health. If you’ve ever felt frustrated chasing lower scale numbers, grinding through gym sessions, and eating less and less—only to end up feeling worse—you’re not alone.
Looking fit and being healthy are not the same thing. And if you want to feel strong, energized, and vital for decades to come, it's time to rethink the way you train, eat, and live.
Today, we're digging into how you can absolutely build a strong, lean physique without giving up your health—or your sanity.
Is Your Goal Health or Aesthetics?
First, let's get clear: when we talk about health and longevity, we’re talking about more than just avoiding disease. We're talking about thriving:
Stable energy and hormones
Physical strength and resilience
Strong bones, joints, and cardiovascular health
A sustainable body composition that supports function and performance
Meanwhile, aesthetics—how you look—can be a valid goal too. But pushing too hard for extreme leanness, too fast or for too long, can backfire on your metabolism, hormones, and long-term well-being.
Good news: you can have both. You just have to prioritize wisely over time and understand that sustainable results don't happen through extremes.
Why Strength Training is Non-Negotiable
If you want real health and longevity, resistance training is the cornerstone.
Strength training isn’t just about looking good—it’s your anti-aging superpower. Here’s what lifting does for you:
Preserves and builds muscle mass, which improves insulin sensitivity, metabolism, and hormonal health
Strengthens bones and reduces the risk of fractures and osteoporosis
Improves joint stability and injury resilience
Supports better posture, mobility, and balance as you age
In other words, if you're not lifting weights, you're leaving health on the table.
And no—you won't accidentally get "too bulky." Building serious muscle is a slow, intentional process, even when you're doing everything right.
Methods vs. Principles
It’s not about following the latest trendy workout. It’s about applying the right principles:
Progressive overload (gradually lifting more weight or doing more reps)
Full range of motion to support joint health
Heavy enough loads to stimulate bones and muscles
Consistency over years, not weeks
Whether you use dumbbells, barbells, machines, or cables is less important than actually progressing over time. Free weights offer more bang for your buck in terms of coordination and joint stability, but any well-designed program that challenges you will move you forward.
If you're new or limited by equipment, start with dumbbells and bodyweight work. Machines are fine too if they allow you to push safely and effectively.
Smarter Nutrition for Health and Strength
The typical “diet culture” advice—eat less, cut carbs, lose weight at all costs—is the opposite of what you need for real health.
Instead, focus on fueling your body:
Prioritize protein with every meal to support muscle maintenance and satiety
Build your meals around colorful, whole foods for micronutrients and fiber
Stay well hydrated for digestion, energy, and recovery
Think fueling, not restricting
If you need fat loss for health reasons, do it intelligently:
Use reasonable calorie deficits (not starvation)
Take diet breaks and practice maintenance phases
Recognize that crash dieting destroys metabolism, increases cravings, and tanks hormones
The goal is never to just get smaller. It’s to improve body composition—more muscle, less fat—while maintaining high energy, good recovery, and hormonal balance.
How Lean is Too Lean?
Yes, you can get "too lean" for health.
For most people, there's a sweet spot where you’re lean enough to feel fit, energetic, and confident without tipping into exhaustion, food obsession, and hormone disruption.
Getting peeled for a bodybuilding show? Probably not healthy long-term.
Walking around lean, strong, and well-fueled? 100% achievable and healthy.
Also remember: the method matters. If you got lean through smarter eating, strength training, and managing stress, you'll feel much better at a lower body fat percentage than if you crashed your way there.
Blood Sugar, Cardiovascular Health, and Longevity Tools
If you want a simple longevity cheat code: build muscle, walk a lot, and eat for blood sugar stability.
A few specific strategies:
Walking and low-intensity movement keep resting heart rate down and metabolic health high
A little high-intensity cardio (short intervals) improves cardiovascular fitness without high wear-and-tear
Managing blood glucose through meal timing, balanced macros, and fiber can enhance how you feel and how you age
You don’t need biohacking gadgets or red light therapy. You need consistency on the fundamentals—and maybe a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) if you’re curious and want extra data, but it’s not required.
The Real Secret (Sustainability)
At the end of the day, none of this matters if it isn't sustainable.
Extreme diets, ultra-aggressive training, or chasing short-term aesthetics usually end badly. Instead:
Build habits that fit your life (habit stacking is your friend)
Strength train consistently
Eat foods you enjoy that fuel you
Prioritize sleep, stress management, and movement
If you do these things, you will be strong. You will be lean. And you will be healthy—not just for a season, but for decades.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:01
If you've been told that looking fit is the same thing as being healthy, it's time to question that premise. Maybe you've tried cutting calories, hitting the gym harder or chasing a lower number on the scale, only to end up more tired, more frustrated and still wondering why you don't feel better. The truth is real health isn't about those extremes. It's about having energy, balanced hormones, strength that you can use and a body that supports you for the long haul. Today, we're exploring the difference between training to look fit and training to live well. You'll learn why the obsession with aesthetics can sometimes backfire, what sustainable health actually looks like and how you can still build a strong, lean body without burning out or giving up your long-term goals. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
Philip Pape: 1:01
I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I'm bringing you a special collaboration with Anna Clough, founder of Strong and Healthy and host of the Get Strong and Healthy podcast. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on, philip. Yeah, no, it's awesome because I know our missions are pretty well aligned. I know your mission is to help women step out of self-sabotage, get a sustainable, strong, vibrant life, and today we're going to talk about a big piece of that right, which is health and longevity how to train, eat and live for energy, for vitality, however we define it, even when you might have aesthetic goals, and so we're going to get into that in a second.
Philip Pape: 1:37
But I do want the listener to know that we've actually covered this from two topics, two angles. The other angle is the aesthetic side, and I want you guys to check out Anna's podcast where she's interviewing me about that. It's Get Strong and Healthy. Look it up in your podcast app or click the link in your show notes and again you get two halves of the same conversation. So it's two for the price of one right, even though it's free. So go check out Get Strong and Healthy, but right now let's dive into health and longevity. Anna, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Anna Clough: 2:07
Yeah, thank you again, and I'm excited to dive into this topic today for our listeners, and I thought the best way to kind of kick this off is let's define what is health and longevity versus aesthetics. And to me, I feel like this is very, you know, oh, it's so obvious type of thing. But we have to remember we've been in the industry for, you know, however, many years, and not everyone is knows what maybe aesthetics means and so kind of. What we're talking about is training and eating in terms of how we want to feel, how healthy we want to be in the long term of life, versus there's kind of another goal we can have which is how can we look the best that we can possibly look right now, type of thing. And there's a ton of overlap within both of these of how we get to these goals, but they are very different and there are different nuances within how we can go about reaching the optimal place of these goals, and so that's what we're going to be talking about today, and it's also something where, when I'm working with a client, when someone comes to me and they're like I want to, I want to optimize my health, but you know, I want to get.
Anna Clough: 3:24
You know, say shredded, for lack of a better word coming to my mind and they have all these goals at once. It's something where you kind of have to have that conversation of love that I'm the same way. I want it all, but especially in a short-term sense, we do kind of have to have the maybe like phases of prioritizing one over the other. If we're going to try and go for maximum aesthetics, there's going to be a little bit of sacrifice within your health, and if we're trying to go for optimizing our health, there probably is going to be a little bit of sacrifice when it comes to our aesthetic goals. And so that's a really good question for you listeners to sort of reflect on right now is what is most important to me right now and where are you at with that? There's no right or wrong, there's just different considerations to both, and I think both of our episodes are gonna be really, really beneficial to just help give you some clarity on how to reach these goals.
Philip Pape: 4:24
So I like that. You added the time component, right, Because that is so critical. When we think of a goal, some people get overwhelmed, right? They're thinking well, by the time I die, when I'm 100 or whatever age, like I want to live a long, healthy life, right, Don't we all? And I want to look good, Don't we all? And what you said is well, there's a time component, there's a phase or periodization component to it and you have to prioritize. At the end of the day, would you say, can you have it all long-term?
Anna Clough: 4:50
I would say, yes, you can. I think where a lot of the issue goes is especially when we're so excited about a fitness journey or a health journey we're getting into this world. It's very exciting when we start to see progress, see results, and then we kind of want to have it all at once. I think that's where we need to really set expectations of okay, like what's our focus right now, but in the longterm, maybe we do a ton of work on your health, we maybe overcome some internal issues that we might've had going on, we get you to a really amazing place. And then we can get you to a really amazing place aesthetically, where you feel amazing, but maybe talking in the sense of like maximum aesthetics, in terms of like bodybuilding I don't know Olympia type level, probably not we can't really have it all there but I would say that for most people who are general population, they want to look really good, they want to feel really good you can absolutely have it all, especially in the long term. Okay.
Philip Pape: 5:47
So maybe we should scope what we mean by health and longevity specifically, because there's a lot of misnomer or misunderstanding, I think, around both. Longevity is definitely a trigger word and a buzzword in the marketing industry. We were joking about the 200 supplement for longevity and people that talk about how they're smashing, you know, age related, uh, their chronological health or whatever. You know this 80 year old who's really like he's 40, you know all this. I'll call it nonsense in the industry, let's be honest. But it's the idea that you need all of these protocols and all this biohacking and the 1% solutions, the red light therapy. Is that what we're talking about or is it something else? Leading question, I know.
Anna Clough: 6:27
Yeah, definitely not what we're talking about. There's a lot of extremes within just you know the craziness of just like why you said all the supplements, all the crazy biohacking things which you know a lot of might have some merit to it. A lot of it might not, and even if things do have merit to it, it kind of comes down to what's really worth it in terms of you know, a time investment or energy investment, when it's maybe a marginal return that we're getting, and so definitely being skeptical of just the extremes on with anything really. But yeah, when it comes to just being healthy, having long-term health, it's going to really come back to you know, as unsexy as it is, the, the foundations and the basics of you know, strength, training of nutrition, of all right let's, let's talk about all these things and we'll talk about how we can, you know, optimize those things.
Anna Clough: 7:23
And then maybe the fun, fun biohacking tool here or there, the things that you feel make a great impact for you, those can be absolutely amazing, but as kind of like a cherry on top type of thing.
Philip Pape: 7:35
Okay, perfect. So then let's dive into specifics, starting with training, because again, there's confusion as to how to train, and also what I've observed you probably have as well is like the idea of the principles of training supported by the evidence versus all the different methods of training, right, like how many days per week and how do you train and what equipment and all that. Is there a difference between how you train for longevity versus aesthetics, and are those differences more of the methods, or are there principles that actually differ? What are your thoughts?
Anna Clough: 8:05
Yeah, great question. I think that overall, when it comes to longevity, when it comes to just like anti-aging strength training and resistance training I mean they're same thing, but training for strength versus training for gaining muscle, both are going to be absolutely incredible and I would say that you probably want to do a mix of both. And then, when it comes to you know you're going to talk more about aesthetics, but I would say it's probably the same kind of thing if we want to have those phases of you know all things, and so that's sort of what I would say there. But overall, strength training is honestly your like anti-aging superpower. So, when it comes to health, when it comes to living a long, healthy life of vitality, this is definitely what you want to be having as your foundation of how you train.
Philip Pape: 8:59
Yeah, and let's pull on that right. So someone says, well, do I really need to resist? You know preaching to the choir here, so I know we both know the answer. But someone says, do I really need to strength train? Because I heard longevity was more about, like you know, you want to have healthy joints and mobility. You don't want to get injured. So what about the yoga? And let's not even get into cardio, because that's a whole separate thing, but just some of the mental health practices and mindfulness stuff. Why is it? And when walking, why is that not enough?
Anna Clough: 9:28
Yeah, I have a lot of yogis who come to me and it's always really fun when you know all they know is yoga and calm and stretching. And then I introduced them to strength training resistance training it's it's a whole nother world. That is extremely necessary and you want to have just that combination. A lot of the times is going to be best, because if you're super into yoga, you might cause yourself some issues in terms of injury, in terms of just not strengthening your body in the way that it needs to, and it's unfortunately something I see a lot. And so we really want to be strong in terms of for, you know, our joints, for our just muscle, especially if we're thinking long, long term preventing falling, preventing, you know, injuries as we age.
Anna Clough: 10:21
There's some people that think, oh, I don't want to lift weights, you know I'm going to injure myself. It's like, no, you actually that's the total flip. You want to get strong, lift weights safely, because that's what's going to prevent injury in the longterm. And also after about age 30, the science is very clear that we start to naturally lose muscle mass every year if we're not actively working to maintain it, and so you know that is going to affect everything from your posture to your mobility, to your metabolism, to your hormones, metabolism to your hormones, and so there's really nothing more important or maybe that's an extreme way of saying it, but it's extremely important to really make sure that you are resistance training, you are actively working to build muscle, get stronger and, overall, just pursuing this as a part of your lifestyle.
Philip Pape: 11:19
We need more people to hear this, anna. That's why I don't mind talking about it every single episode till this podcast dies. What you just said is the flip of what people think. Sometimes, oh, I'm going to get injured or I have back pain or knee pain and so I don't want to lift weights, and it's like no, you start deadlifting. Watch that back pain go away if you do it the right way. And your phrase extremely necessary. I like that because it really is a non-negotiable. For all that, and then the falling and the aging and the frailty it affects a lot of us. I don't know about you. I have in-laws and grandparents and parents and all that that I see just decline fast when they get old because of the lack of muscle. It's the lack of function, but also lack of muscle. So, since you brought that up, why is muscle mass so critical beyond the physical you mentioned you hinted at, like metabolism. I know there's things like insulin sensitivity and whatnot, but like what are the big hitters there for health and longevity?
Anna Clough: 12:15
Yeah, so the more muscle mass you have, the more efficient your body is at handling blood sugar. So when you eat, you know, carbs, your body's going to know how to handle those carbs. It's going to have the muscle mass to be able to, you know, shuttle those that glucose into your muscles and be able to utilize that for energy, versus just kind of like letting it sit in your bloodstream, and so it's going to be better at handling blood sugar, insulin and also, just overall, it's going to help with inflammation, you know, preventing too much inflammation in the long run, and so all of those things are extremely important when it comes to our health, and so muscle mass is really going to be the core piece to just make all of that much better, do you?
Philip Pape: 13:04
still get the pushback that I don't want to be too muscular, or like it seems like it's just about vanity, things like that. Obviously it's the bulky thing with women, but what do you get on that front?
Anna Clough: 13:15
Oh yeah, totally. I hear that here and there. I feel like society is getting a little bit better at just, you know, overcoming that misinformation. But I always like to just tell people upfront, like you, don't have to worry about gaining too much muscle too quickly. A lot of us have been trying to do that, for you know, I tell people I've been trying to do that for 10 years and it hasn't worked. I'm not there yet. You know, I I don't um, it's not very easy to get bulky. It's very, very intentional, and you're not going to wake up one day and be like oh my God, I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger, what do I do? So you'll be okay.
Philip Pape: 13:53
I joke about it all the time because I'm like guys, I'm trying to chase physicals. I didn't get started until I was like 40, but it works. But it takes a lot of work, you know, in a good way, cause it's a process. It's a process, so you didn't mention injury risk. The other objection that I hear from folks that we kind of alluded to is like I want to have more mobility, flexibility or, um, maybe I don't want to lift heavy because I think that can be a problem and there are some risks versus benefits of heavier versus lighter training. Like, what are your thoughts on somebody who's just focused on longevity? They're like I don't care how I look at all, I just want the best thing for me, efficiently, for my time.
Anna Clough: 14:30
Oh yeah, like, in terms of you know what kind of, what kind of training routine to implement? Yeah, yeah, like do you like like.
Philip Pape: 14:37
Do you like lifting heavy Like I do, but not everybody says you have to? Do you like lifting heavy Like I do, but not everybody says you have to? And the evidence supports? There's a lot of flexibility right In terms of both strength and hypertrophy. So is there one that you lean toward with like newer clients who are, say, 40s, 50s?
Anna Clough: 14:51
Yeah, yeah, great question. I would really, at the start, lean towards strength. I really love building a foundation of strength with clients. I really love building a foundation of strength with clients. I think that for one, it's a little bit more rewarding at the start to really show clients whoa, like I'm lifting objectively this much more than I was six weeks ago and I'm blown away and showing. You know, especially I work with women most of the time but showing women, showing people how strong they can get and how we can like sort of unlock, that is really amazing from a psychology lens versus you know, we can, we can build a good bit of muscle.
Anna Clough: 15:37
But especially when I'm working with high achieving women, we tend to be a little bit critical on ourselves and I noticed that women will be like, oh yeah, I don't know, maybe it's there, I don't know, maybe it's not, and they'll kind of like downplay when we are making progress or maybe it's just a little bit harder to tell. So that's why I would say from one lens, why I really love strength training, but also thinking about when we are like lifting heavy and we're, we're really pushing, that's going to be extremely beneficial for also our bones. That was one thing that I meant to mention previously is our bone health is also really important to think about, and it's something that I don't think a lot of people do think about. And so knowing that resistance training, lifting heavy this is going to prevent our bones from degrading.
Anna Clough: 16:32
And I have a woman that I met a few weeks ago. She's in her early forties and the doctor told her she has osteopenia and she, she, uh. I asked her first question. I asked her do you resistance train? She said no, I don't work out. I hate. I hate working out.
Philip Pape: 16:53
Of course, I hate working out.
Anna Clough: 16:55
And I was like oh yeah, me too I don't like working out. Um, I try to, like you know, really make sure I can relate with that sort of stuff, but just it goes to show the importance of lifting, the importance of training for our bones, especially in the long term. So that's going to be a huge thing there piece of it.
Philip Pape: 17:23
I mean I personally believe, like when you're older and you've never lifted before, like that probably is the most efficient and best use of your time anyway because of all these benefits. Plus you're going to build muscle anyways from doing it. The idea of not liking working out, I mean you just mentioned what potentially is the fix for that is, when you make progress and you get that reward of feeling stronger, more functional, you're going to start liking working out more. Maybe it's still hard, right, maybe it's still hard, but there's just a deep satisfaction from that. That you don't get from YouTube workouts where you're just sweating with 10 pound dumbbells and there's like no progress, right, just to put a little imagery on that that's another thing to note is actually specifically this woman too.
Anna Clough: 18:03
She's like I think I'm going to start with some doing some YouTube workouts again and kind of had to come in with like want to make sure that that's actually enough, right, because a lot of the times the workout videos or just you know something like that where you're just exercising, maybe like a class where you're lifting the same weights every week, like that's really maybe not going to so much do it for you, and it's going to be something where we want to make sure we are resistance training properly, progressing you week after week, that we're really challenging your body in the way that we need to challenge it, and so that's just.
Anna Clough: 18:37
Something else to note is that you know, not all methods are created equal. However, we love any form of exercise. I'm not saying not trying to discourage anyone from exercising, but making sure that if longevity is really important to you, if aesthetics are, you know, of importance to you, it's going to be really important that you maybe skip the the um, the YouTube workout and you get some real good programming in your life. I can see why you're a great coach, anna. Right YouTube workout and you get some real good programming in your life.
Philip Pape: 19:03
I can see why you're a great coach and all right, cause you have that level of empathy and like I'm going to meet you where you are. But let's use some logic, some your goals that you have and shift you toward. Hey, if you want to get from A to B, this is the most effective tool for the job real quick. Do you have a preference for like barbell training versus machines, cables and some blend of free weights?
Anna Clough: 19:23
Yeah. So personally, I prefer really focusing on more dumbbell work, especially when someone's a bit newer, and just really being able to build some stability, being able to learn different movements before we can get into using a barbell, which is going to be starting at a little bit heavier weight, and so that's typically really starting with dumbbell work. However, if a client is dealing with maybe some sort of pain or some sort of specific issue, sometimes it might make more sense to really lean into machines for a bit and just utilizing a little bit more stability slash. Maybe I'm working with an older client who you know, maybe they're not able to see me in person and I'm maybe writing workouts for them. That's that's a time where I might utilize machines more so.
Philip Pape: 20:15
So it's a very I'm kind of all over the place with that answer, but no, that's good Cause, you're right, a lot of it can work, and you've got to meet them where they are. And if a client doesn't even have access to X or Y, what you know it's either do it or don't do it, then that's, that's not a good. That binary is not a good option, right? You want them to do something that gets them there.
Anna Clough: 20:35
Yeah, and I love like a little bit more of just a functional training style where you know a lot of the people that I'm working with they don't have you know five plus days in the week where they're able to get their mix of you know lack of stability training you know through like dumbbell work and things like that and then also doing machines. It's something where it's like what's going to be the most bang for our buck type of thing, and so I think that I would definitely say leaning towards free weights um, barbell, slash dumbbell is going to be where I'd want most people to be.
Philip Pape: 21:07
Yeah, it makes total sense. So then then let's segue into nutrition, cause that's the other big piece, and we could spend a lot of time talking about that and longevity and health. Let's see, do we start with the fueling that aligns with your training and how that can also support health, like I'm not sure. Or do we start with, like, restrictive dieting versus flexible dieting? You take it away, like, what makes the most sense here when we're thinking health?
Anna Clough: 21:30
Yeah, yeah, there's so many angles to come at this from. I totally agree. I'm like, where do we start? But what I would say first off is, when it comes to vitality, when it comes to feeling really good now and in the long term, it's really about less of restriction and eating less, and more about eating smarter, such as having protein with every meal, having you know colorful whole foods in your diet, making sure you're staying hydrated to really you know colorful whole foods in your diet, making sure you're staying hydrated to really you know support your hormones, your energy and your recovery, and just also like thinking of eating to fuel, right.
Anna Clough: 22:13
I see so often people are maybe just really under eating during the day or even around their training and then maybe are leading to so many cravings or just overeating later and in the long run, we're gaining weight due to that.
Anna Clough: 22:27
And so, just overall, trying to find a way to eat that's gonna support your body during the day, that's going to be balanced, that's going to not be such a maybe extreme of okay, we're yo-yo dieting, we're crash dieting, really hard, putting all that stress on your body, and then we're rebounding right, like we see a lot of people do, and so if the goal is fat loss, making sure that you're approaching it the right way, we're not eating way too little and that's going to just put you in a worse spot long termterm. I know that that's how I started my journey of just eating way too little. I was an athlete at the time and I think I set myself at 1500 calories and no wonder I had like binge eating tendencies coming out from that and that swung me in the other way, leading me to even worse health, and so we really want to sort of avoid those extremes with things and make sure that we're just taking the right approaches to nutrition to make sure that we're not affecting our health.
Philip Pape: 23:29
Yeah, I can get on board with that. I mean smarter and not being extreme. It's antithesis to how everything's marketed with the weight loss industry, where people want results now but the result now. Maybe tell the listener why. Is going after like rapid weight loss or weight loss at all costs or not a smart way to weight loss not good for your health and longevity?
Anna Clough: 23:51
Yeah, oh, that's a great question, cause, again, there's so many, so many components to that. I think that, first, from a just a physiological stance, your body's going to really fight you in terms of that, when you crash, diet so quickly, you lose a ton of weight. Your body's going to be under so much stress and, at the end of the day, your body doesn't want to change like that, it wants to stay the same, it wants to feel safe, it doesn't want to have all this. You know this stressor. And so if you put that big stress on your body, you, you know, change really, really quick. You're going to have your hunger cues really fighting you. You're going to have your probably like food, noise and cravings really starting to fight you there.
Anna Clough: 24:43
And then, overall, like your hormones might, you know, tank your metabolism, those different things that you know, just from that stress, your body's like I don't care about producing optimal hormones right now. I'm trying to survive with whatever this person's doing. I don't know why I'm not getting fuel. I'm trying to survive with whatever this person's doing. I don't know why I'm not getting fuel. I'm going to start, you know, kind of shutting down and conserving whatever energy I can.
Anna Clough: 25:05
So that's how you can kind of think about, like, what your body's doing and why it's so important to come at things from a, you know, periodized sort of long-term lens of. Maybe you have a big goal of losing a lot of weight. Amazing, maybe, instead of going really hard, really fast, doing it all at once, we make sure to add in some diet breaks in there, to add in you know, a proper reverse, add in some just maintenance days and making sure that we can give your body that those feelings of safety, first and foremost, just helping boost your metabolism. And so, um, yeah, definitely not crash dieting, not going on those crazy fad diets, is going to be really important to overall, just, uh, maintaining good health.
Philip Pape: 25:53
Yeah, I think you tied a couple of concepts there really well. First, I think, is the idea that, yes, we many people need to drop some excess body fat from a health perspective, but the way that they do it is extremely important, and you're talking about being reasonable, taking the right glide path or the rate of loss, and not just because it avoids, like you said, the metabolic effects, but it does help along the way with getting it done successfully, like not having the hunger and the food noise and the cravings which is tied to sleep and recovery and stress. It's so interconnected. And you just mentioned safety, which is like the fifth time in the last month I've had a guest on where we got into that and I don't know if I'm hearing it more or just like the word is getting around, cause I'm sure you've talked about it a long time. I'm just saying I noticed, anna, the more more discussion around that and like homeostasis, safety, giving your body some love, let's say, someone figures that out, they work, they hire you and figure it out or they listen to the podcast, and where do they want to end up?
Philip Pape: 26:55
What I mean by that is, yes, we have periodization, but one of the confusing aspects people say is well, I kind of want to end up lean right and I want to look good and feel good and also live a long life, but can you get too lean or it's not healthy. And also, what am I trying to say here, ed? I'm trying to say here's my experience. When I get too lean and it's difficult to do that it's not a place I want to necessarily sustain. I actually want to like come back up a little. That makes sense, like I want to have a little bit of fat on my body and kind of be in that walking lean. Like what are your thoughts on that whole concept of what's the long game here for health?
Anna Clough: 27:29
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Lisa: 27:33
Hi, my name is Lisa and I'd like to give a big shout out to my nutrition coach, Philip Pate. With his coaching, I have lost 17 pounds. He helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight, and it's very simple Longevity. I want to be healthy, active and independent until the day I die. He introduced me to this wonderful little app called Macro Factor. I got that part of my nutrition figured out. Along with that is the movement part of nutrition. There's a plan to it and he really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in. So the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is and the easier it is to lose weight. When it's presented to you like he presents it, it makes even more sense. And the other thing that he had was a hunker guide and that really helped me. So thank you, Philip.
Anna Clough: 28:21
There's, I think, a lot of what we're seeing online, especially nowadays. There's a lot of glamorization just about being ultra shredded and 10 pack yeah.
Anna Clough: 28:31
Yeah, and just as a good reminder for everyone, it's something we always have to remind ourselves is just because someone is really really lean does not mean that they are thriving or they're really healthy. And I've been this myself. I've seen women do this a lot, where you know they're under eating, they're overtraining, they're constantly fatigued and they look really fit on the outside. But just remembering that true health is internal. It's how you're sleeping, it's how your digestion is working, if your cycle is regular, if you have energy, if you feel strong, if you feel grounded, all that sort of stuff, and so you can absolutely get lean and be healthy. But just remembering that it doesn't always, they don't always equal each other, but I would say that, especially for women, but also for men, being totally peeled, meaning like bodybuilding stage ready, that's not going to be a healthy place to be for anyone. And so, yeah, just making sure you do have a healthy amount of body fat, we're not too, too lean. But also just remembering that, like I'll give a personal example I was at this weight that I am now a few years ago and I felt extremely hungry, I felt cold all the time. I felt so many cravings and this hyper fixation about food. It felt very unhealthy for me and so, you know, I gained weight, was able to, you know, get past some of those issues and I just thought to myself I guess I'm just not meant to be that lean. But recently I've been able to get this lean and not have those issues that I did before because of the methods that I've been taking. And so that's a little caveat just to like think about is try and not have that like fixed mindset about. Oh, just cause I felt this way when I was lean means I have to feel that way next time, because just where your body's at hormonally, where your body's at in all the ways, the methods that you take to get there, are going to matter a ton. And what I've done now is being able to really work on my blood sugar regulation, which, oh my gosh, if you guys have it, that's a nice like um, you know a little bit more in like the biohacker world type in my eyes, but it's just a really amazing health tool to be able to track your blood sugars. And how you can do that is take a fasted blood sugar reading with a little uh blood sugar reader device first thing in the morning and you can see what your fasted blood sugars are. And then also, you want to get some readings post-prandial, so two hours or so after you eat actually after your last bite of food set a two hour timer, take your blood sugar and see where it's coming to, for you know people who are really stressed. You know you're training really hard. Like me, I've been an athlete for a long time and I, you know, put pressure on myself in terms of business and all that you know, fun stuff. Um, that really led me to just having dysregulated blood sugar, and I think probably for a while, and I didn't even know it, and that was a really big key for me to say, all right, I need to heal this, and that's what's gotten rid of so many cravings for me, helped me just come to a much better place, and so that's a really nice tool to use. If you'd be interested in trying that out, I highly recommend.
Anna Clough: 32:20
I actually just got a CGM continuous glucose monitor to try out. I hear a lot of conflicting things about the accuracy. However, I'm kind of looking at it as okay. Even if it's not accurate. You're going to be able to see the differences and see. You know the changes. So you know, my coach told me we're going to add five to 10 points to each reading. Just, you know that's what we typically do. So that's what. That's what I'm currently doing and that's just been a big catalyst for my journey, but I'm so off track from what the question is.
Philip Pape: 33:00
And we don't need to pick it back up. It's okay Just to pull on that thread a bit. I do love the idea of okay, if the advice is to eat more fiber and balance your macros and balance meals, because the result is it helps with your blood sugar, just one way to do it. It's nice to have data and trends that kind of correlate. Okay, this is what happens when I do this. Not get freaked out because I eat potatoes and my blood sugar spiked, right.
Philip Pape: 33:22
So, um, in fact, holly Baxter was on the show, right, ifpp bikini pro. She's awesome, and she talked about using the calories burned from your wearable and exercise, which originally I was like, oh no, what's she going to say? She's like using the trend of that over time and how it changes to see how active you are and how much volume you may have. I'm like, oh, that's cool. Like the number is not accurate at all, but like, for you, the trend over time could tell you something, so it's the right way. So, in the interest of time cause I know we're trying to keep these two episodes like reasonable Can I do like three rapid fire questions for you? Yeah, go off, all right. So the first one, which is kind of a big side topic, but what's the best way to improve cardiovascular health and markers, like you know, resting heart rate.
Anna Clough: 34:02
Ooh, yeah. So walk, do some sort of cardio that you enjoy If that is biking, that is some hiking, if that is, you know whatever that might be for you and then potentially some interval type training, some high intensity type training. Even just a few minutes per week is an amazing way to improve your cardiovascular fitness Cool, Just don't overdo the cardio right. Yeah, don't overdo it. It's a great compliment to strength as being your base.
Philip Pape: 34:37
How do you lower cholesterol? So people are that's, that's a marker of health Everybody and their doctor knows to look at. How do you do that? Lower your lipids, your LDL?
Anna Clough: 34:45
Yeah, great question. So, first off, nutrition is going to be huge Overall. Just, I mean, improving all of these different factors is going to lead to that, like such a holistic approach is going to be really what's going to help with that.
Philip Pape: 35:02
And what is your favorite habit framework.
Anna Clough: 35:05
Habit framework who, like as in building, building habits there's so many ways to approach it, yeah absolutely so. My where my brain went immediately was habit stacking love, habit stacking love. Taking a habit that you already do every single day and pairing that with something you're trying to build. That is going to make it stick. That's going to make it so much easier. So, if you're trying to implement something, find something you already do and just do both same time.
Philip Pape: 35:35
Love it, love habit stacking. That's a great tip for folks, just if they say I don't have time for that, no, you're doing something else that you can stack, all right. So, kind of to recap, it sounds like if you do the right things for your body in terms of taking a reasonable approach, strength training, eating nutritious foods and protein, keeping the stress management there, getting enough sleep guess what? All the things we you and I talk about all the time it's going to give you health and longevity and it's probably gonna make you look good too. So I know, if you love today's conversation, um, again, go check out Anna's show get strong and healthy. What a simple, easy to remember name for a podcast where we're going to talk about the aesthetic side of this, and you're going to hear some overlap, for sure, but there's always little differences. Is there any last thing about health and longevity that you really wanted to cover that we didn't get to?
Anna Clough: 36:23
Yeah, I think really just making sure you're coming at your journey from thinking about building a sustainable lifestyle. At the end of the day, we can take some fun you know short-term strategies but we also need to make sure that we are showing up for these different values we have of taking care of ourselves, eating well, working out, training, whatever in the long run and making sure that you can just keep this up so that you can be strong and healthy today and for the longevity.
Philip Pape: 36:57
Sustainability, the underlying glue that binds all of this. Ask yourself if what you're doing is, if it isn't, something might be able to change and do everything Anna's suggesting. It doesn't take a lot to incorporate those and get a massive result for your effort. So thank you again, anna, for doing this. Again, I'm excited for the collaboration. Glad we got to talk through at least the basics. It's a big topic, I know. Go find Anna's podcast. Get Strong and Healthy. Use the link in the show notes. And, anna, thank you for coming on.
Anna Clough: 37:26
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
