Losing fat and gaining muscle has been one of my goals since I began exercising 15 years ago. Can they both be done simultaneously though? In my experience, you can in fact work on these two at the same time to build a lean, athletic body.
Exercise publications and supplement companies would lead you to believe that there is a complex formula for burning body fat and putting on lean muscle on their own, let alone together. The genius of the following two strategies is their simplicity.
1. Diet to lose fat (calories ingested less than calories expended)
2. Resistance training to gain muscle (progressive overload)
That’s it. Take in fewer calories to motivate your body to shed unwanted fat. Just about every workout, increase the volume of work your muscles perform (heavier weights, more sets, or more reps).
Diet: The Best Strategy to Lose Fat
There is generally a whole lot of discussion as to what the top fat loss eating plan is. I’ve personally experimented with a number of unique diets: consuming 6 meals per day, low fat, low carbohydrate, carb cycling, high protein and the like. These weight loss plans all were unsuccessful in one way or another, and some were certainly not sustainable over the long term. I concluded that my issue wasn’t the characteristics of the macronutrients I was ingesting but the simple fact that I was consuming more calories than I expended on a daily basis. Your body cannot melt away excess fat unless you eat at a calorie deficit.
I had to find a more suitable way to consume less. Intermittent fasting, particularly Eat Stop Eat, has been the most effective fat loss diet for me. Eat Stop Eat involves a 24 hour fast one to two days per week. Author Brad Pilon debunks the beliefs that intermittent fasting causes muscle mass reduction and a decline in your metabolism. There are numerous benefits to fasting including excess fat decrease and higher HGH (human growth hormone) production. Eat Stop Eat makes it possible for me to gain those benefits while drastically cutting my weekly calorie intake by eliminating breakfast and lunch two days a week. This so-called diet plan allows me to continue eating foods I like such as pizza, pasta, and ice cream.
To increase fat burning, I combine Eat Stop Eat with calorie cycling. I ingest the maximum calories on days I work out and the smallest number of calories on days that I don’t work out, including the two fasts. It causes a nice balance in which my body burns off excess fat when I’m not exercising and has adequate nutrients to gain muscle mass on my resistance training days.
Resistance Training: The Best Strategy to Gain Muscle
While diet is essential to fat loss, resistance training is the solution to gaining lean muscle mass. Some will argue that you have to eat excess calories so that you can gain lean muscle. I would claim that if you progressively overload your muscles, they will have no choice but to grow in size, irrespective of your individual exercise routine.
Let me describe what I mean by progressive overload. Regardless of whether you do strength training, circuit training, or body weight exercises, you have to do more work during each subsequent exercise session. Basically you have to increase the quantity of weight you are using, the amount of reps you complete, or the number of sets that you complete. If you force your muscles to accomplish more work, they will have no alternative but to increase in size.
Build A Lean, Athletic Body
Eating to lose excess fat and resistance training to gain muscle mass is truly a highly effective combination. I’ve used this strategy to finally lose the last bit of excess fat around my abs while retaining the size of my upper body and actually adding strength. I’d urge you to give these two easy strategies a try if you’d like to build a lean, athletic body.
Dave provides no-nonsense “best of the best” diet and exercise tips to lose fat and build lean, defined muscle without spending hours in the gym. There’s no point in using a bodybuilder routine to get a fitness model physique. These are Not Your Average Fitness Tips.Read more about HIIT workout routines and download a FREE copy of Dave’s Fitness in a Flash report to help get a lean, athletic look in no time.http://www.notyouraveragefitnesstips.com
