It is very common to have the aim of both building muscle and losing fat. The question is “is it possible to do both at the same time?…”
My answer to this is that yes, it is sometimes possible but it is also very difficult to gain a huge amount of muscle whilst losing fat, and it also depends on a number of factors. Unfortunately this answer isn’t very definitive, so let’s look at the subject in a bit more depth…
The let’s look at how each is actually achieved within the body. Firstly let’s look at fat loss. Fat loss is achieved by creating a calorie deficit, this basically means you need to be using up more energy (calories) than you are supplying to you body in your diet. This can be done in two ways: 1. By burning off the energy by using a suitable exercise program (ideally involving a combination of resistance training and cardiovascular training, such as jogging). 2. By creating this deficit by reducing the amount of calories that you eat each day. The fastest and most efficient way is to combine both a suitable diet and exercise program.
When you have put your body into a state of calorie deficiency, your body realises that it is not being supplied with enough energy to fuel the activities that it needs to do. This is when it will look for internal fuel supplies. If we are dieting and exercising correctly, it will begin to burn off our excess body fat.
To achieve muscle growth, as opposed to burning fat, the body needs to be in a state of overfeeding. This basically means that you need to be consuming more calories than you are using up. Obviously it isn’t quite that simple, there are other factors that will decide whether you are gaining muscle rather than just adding more fat to your body. For example you need to be undertaking a suitable resistance training program, and you need to be consuming enough protein and carbohydrates, for the body to produce this new muscle growth.
So as we can see fat loss and muscle growth are really at opposite ends of the diet spectrum, and involve different training methods, I said ”it is sometimes possible but it is also very difficult to gain a huge amount of muscle whilst losing fat, and it also depends on a number of factors”, so what are these factors that only someone to do both at the same time?…
When I say ‘factors’, I’m not talking about some Amazing diet or training program, I’m actually talk about the person as an individual. There are the lucky few people who are what is called a Mesomorph body type. A Mesomorph is the genetically gifted people who can gain muscle very easily, and even burn fat at the same time! They don’t have to pay a huge attention to there diets, but still get amazing results! I know it makes you sick doesn’t it?! Unfortunately most of us are not classed as mesomorphs, and therefore will will find it near impossible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.
The factor that gives a slight exception to the rule, is someone who hasn’t never really tried to work there muscles before, but is trying to lose weight. If you have virtually no trained muscle and you have started a good diet and exercise program, as you shed your body fat you will also develop an amount of muscle. This is not such an uncommon occurance, but still the amount of muscle you gain will be limited, and you will soon have to switch to an overfeeding diet to gain any further muscle, at this stage you will no longer be losing fat.
The only other situation where you will be gaining muscle and also losing fat at the same time is if you are a drug user. By drug user I mean someone who takes illegal growth enhancers such as steroids, (i say illegal, as there is no legal supplement which will give you this affect, no matter what the advertisers may tell you !), believe me this is NOT a route that you want to be going down! Although the short term positive affects may look very tempting, the short and long term negative affects on your health greatly out way them, and some of them are irreversible.
So what do us normal people do when we want to both build build muscle and lose fat? The best way to tackle this is to target one or the other, then once you reach a point where you are happy with your gains or losses, switch to the other. This allows you to gain significent results in which ever target you are aiming for. Whether you choose to aim for muscle growth or fat loss first, should largely depend upon where you are currently at. For example if you are currently over weight, it would most likely be best that you aim for fat loss first, as it is very normal to put on a bit of fat when you are overfeeding for muscle building, so you wouldn’t want to risk getting obese. On the other hand if you are already very thin but have a bit of fat you what to get rid of, you would be best to build up some new muscle before you try to get rid of that last bit of fat, otherwise you may end up looking too scrawny and unhealthy.
If you would like to delve further into this subject then follow the link to The Fat Loss and Muscle Building Guide. This is my latest book on the subject of fat burning and muscle building, and will show you exactly how to succeed in both.
