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I Want to Lose Fat and Build Muscle Simultaneously. Can I?



I Want to Lose Fat and Build Muscle Simultaneously. Can I?

The internet is loaded with sites that boast of their ability to help you “gain 20 lbs of muscle in 6 weeks” and “get ripped abs in 2 months”. Naturally people read these headlines and think “yes, this is EXACTLY what I want to do” and believe that in 2 months they will have the body they have always dreamed of. Can you do this? Really?

Well, someone does win the lottery. And all they did was buy 1 ticket. So in fact the answer is yes, it can be done. But your odds are better at buying the lottery ticket.

See, the facts to these web sites boasts hides in the small print. Or as I like to call it, the truth. Simple? Yes. Easy? Well... I'm afraid not.

With very few exceptions, losing a lot of fat and gaining a lot of muscle at the same time is virtually impossible to do. That's because of the opposing demands these goals impose on your body.

To build a lot of new muscle tissue, your body needs energy. In other words, you'll need to overfeed, to consume more calories than you're burning each day. To lose fat, you need to do the opposite, underfeed, to consume fewer calories than you burn. If you try to do both things at once, your progress in either direction will be so frustratingly slow that it won't be long before you feel like quitting. It would be nice if the energy your body needs to build new muscle tissue came from stored fat, but, unfortunately when your body is in a catabolic state (which it will need to be if you want to lose fat), gaining muscle is not its main priority.

The good news is there are exceptions, most notably beginners. More specifically, overweight beginners. And by "beginners," I mean people who are new to weight training. A relatively lean beginner who wants, for example, to go from 13% to 9% body fat isn't going to lose fat while they gain muscle, mainly because they don't have much fat to lose in the first place. The leaner and more muscular you get, the harder you'll find it to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously. And if you're a beginner trying to gain weight and build muscle by overfeeding, your body is in an anabolic state. You won't be able to lose fat while still consuming more calories than you burn.

However, overweight beginners on an exercise and nutrition program that's geared towards fat loss can gain a significant amount of muscle mass while losing fat. The reason that beginners usually respond better to weight training is that they're a long way from the upper limit of what they're capable of in terms of muscle mass. The closer you are to this upper limit the slower your gains will be. Someone who's been working out with weights for 10 years will gain muscle a lot more slowly than someone who's just starting out.

Anyone who's been in shape before will also find it easier to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously when returning after a layoff. When a muscle is trained, detrained and retrained, there is a faster change in muscle size during retraining compared to the initial training period from an untrained state, a phenomenon referred to as "muscle memory." Personally I have found it easier to drop my body fat to a level that I've achieved previously, or regain strength, compared to losing it and reaching this strength level for the first time.

The use of anabolic steroids and other drugs will also make it a lot easier to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously. It’s the dead give away to a user of these products. Of course, any such benefit has to be weighed against the risks associated with their use. I do not recommend it under any circumstance.

So what are you to do, if fat loss and mass gain simultaneously is your goal? Well, not to go all Bill Clinton on you, but that depends on your definition of “simultaneously”. Here’s mine.

I employ a zig-zag approach. When I am in a mass building cycle I try to minimize fat gain, and when I am in a cutting cycle I try and minimize muscle loss. Keeping each goal in mind as I alternate the focus. The key to making this strategy work is the time spent focusing on each and not panicking when I see the fat gain or muscle loss. I chose a time frame that is long enough to make a measurable difference in whichever I’m focusing on.

For example, I establish a target fat percentage that is 3% points lower than I am currently at, say going from 13% down to 10%. I focus on this while continuing my training. I reduce my calories enough to allow me to see small gradual drops in fat (I gage this by looking in the mirror, how my clothes fit, and a tape measure). When I get to 10% body fat (measured with calipers or a scale), taking whatever time frame necessary, I switch my emphasis to mass building. I know what my 1 rep maximums were before I lost the fat, so I set my mass building goals higher than what they were before. As I increase my calorie intake to whatever level is necessary to give me energy to train hard and see strength gains I keep an eye on my fat content.

The idea is to reach my higher personal bests BEFORE I get a fat percentage that is higher than when I started cutting. The important point to remember here is that I will gain some fat back. It’s a fine line, high wire balancing act.

If I am able to do this, which I am and so can you, I repeat the process. As you can see this whole fat loss, mass building cycle can take months. But with a constant eye on each, building mass while minimizing fat gains, followed by cutting and holding onto a majority of muscle mass, leads to the huge lean physique that everyone dreams of.

Just not in 2 months.




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