How you can build lean muscle mass and get rid of excess fat simultaneously
Posted September 29th, 2011 by adminAt least once a week, I get an e-mail that goes something similar to this:
“I’m slim and I really need to know the best way to gain muscle. However I need to get rid of my fat middle simultaneously. What is the fastest way to lose belly fat”
This involves asking the body to try and do a couple of things:
Growing muscle while dropping fat.
And not just that, they want to carry out both at the same time, and they would like to know what to eat and how to train in order to make it happen.
If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you would like the same thing. You don’t want to choose one objective. You want to know exactly how to go about doing both as soon as possible.
For anyone wanting to know how to lose fat and gain muscle, the first question that needs to be answered is this: Is it even possible to do both at the same time?
The concise answer is absolutely.
But it’s something that’s limited to individuals who are very fat and have never lifted weights before.
Once you have moved beyond the overweight beginner stage, adding muscle while burning fat is a goal that becomes increasingly difficult.
Those who are returning to training after an extended layoff, where muscle memory comes into play, will also find it possible to build muscle while burning fat. Individuals using anabolic drugs are also going to find it a lot easier to drop fat and gain muscle than guys who decide to stay natural.
In other words, those people who can drop fat and gain muscle simultaneously are:
1. Fat newbies
2. Those returning to exercise after a layoff
3. Anyone using anabolic drugs
Why can’t people outside of those categories lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?
To add a significant amount of new muscle size, your body needs energy. In other words, you will need to consume more calories than you are burning off each day. But to lose fat, you need to take in fewer calories than you burn.
If you do attempt to do both things simultaneously, your progress in either direction is likely to be so frustratingly slow that it won’t be long before you feel like throwing in the towel.
Yes, you will be able to build SOME muscle mass while you’re losing fat. But you’re not going to be able to do both at anything approaching the same speed.
What I’m saying is that, it’s far more realistic to drop 10 pounds of fat while adding a pound or two of muscle. Losing ten pounds of fat and replacing it with 10 pounds of muscle is a rare feat indeed.
Rather than trying to add a large amount of muscle and drop a lot of fat at the same time, you will get better results by splitting your training goals into several phases, and working on one after the other.
If you spend 5-6 weeks putting on muscle, followed by three or four weeks losing fat, then you’ll have lost fat and put on muscle size at the end of the 8-10 week period, but you’ll have done it by switching between periods of muscle gain and fat loss.