How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat

It's the golden goose of fitness achievements - trying to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. But why?

Building muscle requires additional "surplus" calories in your diet to serve as the building blocks to actually build the muscle you're trying to grow. Equally, to lose a pound of fat you have to burn off 3,500 calories - which is a large amount when you consider that an hour on a stationary bike may only burn off 200 calories or so. You could cycle for an hour a day, and diet, and still have difficulties meeting that 3,500 calorie deficit.

Try losing weight at the same time as losing muscle and you're in for the challenge of your life.

generally what works best, as these two processes are pretty much opposite ends of the scale, is to take it in turns. Decide whether you need to build muscle or lose fat more and do that for a while. When you feel the other is more important, do that.



Most of the "muscle men" you see in magazines and on TV use this muscle building and then a "cutting" phase to achieve that classic look, so rather than trying to swim against the tide, go with what works.

Firstly the muscle building.

Doing low reps (8-10 per set) of incredibly heavy weights hitting each muscle group 3 times a week works well. During this phase you will likely put on a little weight because you need those extra calories to build muscle but if you focus on a high protein diet with a reasonable amount of healthy fat, you should put on mostly muscle.

When you start to feel that losing some of the fat so you can see the muscle definition becomes more important, cut down on the calories. Also, keep lifting weights to maintain the muscle you have built but try doing higher numbers of reps with lower weights which should help to speed up your metabolism and burn off the fat you have accumulated.

Keeping your protein levels high, also add into the mix some interval or intensity training instead of cardio as this will boost your body's ability to burn fat without risking the lean, skinny body of a long distance runner that can occur when you spend too long on cardio. Remember - just having a higher muscle mass alone will help you to burn off calories and some people find they don't even need to switch their work out around. They just reduce the calorie intake a little and their body switches straight to burning fat.

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