How To Lose Weight Gain Muscles

I want to lose fat, but I also want to build muscle. How should I eat and work out to achieve both goals at the same time?

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I'm not hugely overweight or unfit, but I'd really like to get in better shape. I want to lose fat and build muscle, but I'm confused about whether I can do both at once. Should I focus on one goal first and then switch to the other? I'm eating a balanced diet and have seemingly been consuming maintenance calories for a while, as my body and weight haven't changed. Training-wise, I like working out and do a bit of light weight training, classes like HIIT and Pilates, and sometimes go for a run. What do I need to do to start seeing change in both areas at the same time?

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There's a lot of conflicting advice out there, but you'll be pleased to know I've spoken with three experts in the area to find out the truth.

People often talk about wanting to lose weight, but in most cases that's not really what they mean. They usually want to lose fat.

If you lose weight, you're losing both fat and muscle, so though your body may get smaller, your shape won't really change. This means you won't reveal the athletic toned physique many people desire.

How To Lose Weight And Gain Muscle

That, my friend, comes from having muscle definition, and it's why you don't want to chase weight loss but rather shift your goal to be about fat loss.

The general rule is that losing fat requires a calorie deficit and building muscle requires a calorie surplus, which would make it seem like these two goals are incompatible. But it's not necessarily the case.

Although many people claim that you cannot do it, it is indeed possible to build muscle and lose body fat simultaneously. This process is often referred to as 'recomping, ' Ben Carpenter, a qualified master personal trainer and strength-and-conditioning specialist, told .

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Part of the confusion is that people understand you need a surplus of calories to gain weight and a calorie deficit to lose weight, so these two concepts sound completely opposing, he said. However, this refers to total body weight as one. You can lose body fat and gain lean body mass at the same time.

Carpenter cited a study that found that men eating in a 40% energy deficit for four weeks while resistance training, doing high-intensity interval training, and consuming a high-protein diet were able to increase their lean body mass.

A second study found that women who did resistance training and ate a high-protein diet simultaneously lost fat and built muscle. (We'll come back to the importance of these things.)

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Knowing how much to eat depends on your body-fat levels. If you don't have much fat to lose, Carpenter suggests continuing maintenance-calorie consumption.

If you have more fat to lose, going into a slight calorie deficit might help you achieve your goals, the important word here being slight.

If you drop your calories too low, it'll be a lot harder to hold on to your muscle, let alone build it.

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You're likely to lose muscle tissue, feel run down, and potentially fall off the bandwagon, Emily Servante, a certified personal trainer at Ultimate Performance Personal Training, told .

This is key for retaining and building lean muscle, which we want to fuel when dieting, Servante said, adding that more lean tissue also prevents negative adaptations such as lowered metabolism.

There's no clear-cut figure for exactly how much protein you should eat, but Carpenter recommended 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day as a good protein target for maximizing resistance-training adaptations, a fancy term for increasing muscle mass. That suggestion is supported by research.

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How much protein do you need? This is an ongoing argument, some people claim that you can only absorb a certain amount at a time, others refute this. What gives? Well, part of this argument is spurred because the word absorbed is not the same as what your body can use exclusively for muscle building purposes. People are conflating two different terms and then getting confused. Here are two studies comparing high and low protein intakes, both showing greater body composition changes with a higher dose of protein (first image is a study on females, second is on males). Yes, you can lose fat and gain fat-free mass simultaneously. Note: when comparing two doses of protein you can't draw conclusions on the best dose, simply that the higher dose outperformed the lower dose. Perhaps an intermediate dose would have been sufficient. To summarise, the third image gives an overview to protein research, showing how much you should aim for if your goal is optimal body composition change. Any questions? . . . #keto #ketogenic #lowcarb #cleaneating #eatclean #lowcarbohydrate #atkins #lchf #myfitnesspal #creatine #protein #ifbb #npc #wbff #bodybuilding #neat #iifym #flexibledieting #cleaneating #eatclean #protein #caloriedeficit #calorie #calories #caloriecomparison #caloriecounting #intermittentfasting #weightwatchers #slimmingworld A post shared by Ben Carpenter (@bdccarpenter) on Feb 27, 2020 at 9:51am PSTFeb 27, 2020 at 9:51am PST

How much of the other macronutrients (fat and carbs) you eat is less important, but make sure you eat enough of each for your all-around health and energy.

Servante said that training hard with heavy weights would help you to gain — and, if you're in a calorie deficit, retain — muscle.

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Increasing what you're lifting, either in reps or weight. It's something that has really worked for me, in terms of not only changing my physique but keeping me motivated to train.

You can achieve a lot through being persistent. But you can achieve a lot more through being consistent. A post shared by Rachel Hosie (@rachel_hosie) on May 31, 2020 at 12:09pm PDTMay 31, 2020 at 12:09pm PDT

Focus on improving in the gym, such as increasing the weight you lift or increasing the number of reps you can perform with the same weight, Carpenter said.

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Your body adapts to stimulus, so it makes sense to give it something to adapt to rather than performing the same number of reps on the same exercises with the same weights.

You will increase muscle tissue purely through neurological adaptations to this new stimulus, Servante said. The more advanced you are, the harder you need to train to gain muscle.

Similarly, Carpenter said, those who have a higher body-fat percentage and are new to training might be able to make quicker progress.

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You may be wondering when I'm going to tell you to hit the treadmill, but the truth is you don't have to do lots of steady-state cardio like jogging or cycling at a consistent pace to reach your goals. (Of course, there are lots of other benefits of cardiovascular activity.)

In fact, if you're in a calorie deficit, doing lots of cardio will make you more likely to lose lean tissue, Servante said.

Second, running and strenuous cardio place stress on the body, which interferes with recovery, can cause water retention, and, anecdotally, increases appetite. So running isn't necessarily bad, but it's probably not the best option for your physique goals.

How To Lose Fat And Gain Muscle💪

All that is not to say there won't be benefits to getting a sweat on. In fact, getting your heart rate up in the right way could help you get lean while building muscle.

That's why Ngo Okafor, a celebrity personal trainer and transformation coach, recommends following a program combining high-intensity strength-training circuits using light weights and high repetitions with cardio bursts mixed in.

He told that while lifting weights or strength training builds muscle, your heart rate is not as elevated as it would be if you were doing cardiovascular activity.

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However, the process of breaking down muscle and rebuilding them continues long after the activity ends, he said. Strength training actually burns calories for several hours after the workout had ended.

Cardio, on the other hand, may blast calories while you're doing it, but this burn slows down immensely when the cardiovascular activity ends, he added. Combining cardio and strength training elevates the heart rate and keeps it elevated throughout the workout, thereby causing a higher calorie burn during the workout.

Because strength training builds muscle and the body requires energy to rebuild muscle, the calorie burn will continue for several hours after the workout has been completed.

How To Gain Muscle And Lose Fat

An example of a lower-body workout that would fit Okafor's training style? Strength movements like squats and deadlifts (at a weight where you can perform 20 reps) along with cardio bursts like 60 seconds of high knees.

With a goal like body recomposition, it's important to be patient and measure your progress in ways other than the scale, because you're not just trying to lose weight.

Progress may feel slow because,

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