A way to build lean muscle and get rid of excess unwanted fat simultaneouslySeptember 29
At least once every week, I get an e-mail that will go something similar to this:
“I’m skinny and I need to know the best way to gain muscle. However I need to get rid of my fat middle simultaneously. Please explain to me how to get rid of belly fat.”
This means asking the body to try and do two things:
Growing lean muscle while dropping fat.
And not just that, they would like to do both at the very 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, there’s a good chance you’d like the very same thing. You don’t want to choose one goal. You would like to know precisely how to do the two as fast as possible.
For anyone wanting to know how to gain muscle and lose fat, the first question that needs to be answered is this: Is it even possible to do both at the same time?
The short answer is for sure.
However it’s something that’s limited to those who are extremely fat and have never lifted weights before.
Once you have moved past the overweight beginner stage, building muscle while losing fat is a target that becomes progressively harder.
People who are returning to exercise after an extended time off, where muscle memory becomes a factor, will also find it relatively easy to add muscle while shedding fat. People using anabolic drugs are also going to find it much less difficult to lose fat and build muscle than guys who elect to stay natural.
In other words, those individuals who can lose fat and put on muscle simultaneously are:
1. Overweight newbies
2. Those returning to lifting weights after time off doing nothing
3. Anyone using anabolic drugs
Why can’t anyone outside of those categories drop fat and build muscle simultaneously?
To add a lot of new muscle tissue, your body needs fuel. In other words, you will need to eat more calories than you are expending each day. But to shed fat, you need to eat fewer calories than you expend.
If you do try to do both things simultaneously, your progress in either direction will be so frustratingly slow that it won’t take long before you feel like throwing in the towel.
Of course, you’ll be able to build SOME muscle mass while you’re losing fat. But you’re not going to be able to do both at the same rate.
In other words, it’s far more likely that you’ll lose 10 pounds of fat while adding a pound or two of muscle. Losing ten pounds of fat and replacing it with ten pounds of muscle is a rare feat indeed.
Instead of trying to build a large amount of muscle and lose a lot of fat simultaneously, you’ll see better results by splitting your training goals into several phases, and working on one after the other.
If you spend five or six weeks gaining weight, followed by 3-4 weeks burning fat, then you’ll have lost fat and put on muscle mass 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.
29 Sep 2011 | 1:33 pm | Uncategorized
