Losing Fat and Building Muscle ! - Do's and Don'ts

Is it worth trying to lose fat and build muscle at the same time?

There is not one top fitness model, or natural bodybuilder who tries to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. For people whose livelihood depends on their ability to transform their bodies, they focus on a muscle building phase of 6-9 months, then fat loss phase of 2-3 months. I think that should tell you everything you need to know right there.

Losing fat and building muscle at the same time sounds extremely desirable, but it’s NOT an intelligent approach to maximize your results despite all the marketing you see that tells you otherwise. Building muscle is anabolic, which requires you create a calorie surplus, while losing fat is catabolic and requires that you create a calorie deficit. Why attempt to do both at the same time for only mediocre results at best?

For over 5 years of my life, I spun my wheels trying to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. That’s a LONG time to spend 3-5 days in the gym for little to no results. I don’t want you to experience the same disappointment.

How To Lose Fat And Build Muscle At The Same Time?

The short answer is “nutrient timing” can help you lose fat and build muscle over the course of a few months, but I still STRONGLY recommend having the primary goal of either losing fat, or building muscle NOT both equally. I also want to emphasize that pursuing a fat loss phase, or a muscle building phase is far superior to maximize your results.

Nutrient timing is determined by (1) when you eat, (2) how much you eat, and (3) what you eat that together affect how your body responds. There are different schools of thought regarding nutrient timing and some nutrient timing plans can get so tedious and complicated that you would have to quit your day job to follow them.

So before getting into more specifics, if you do try to lose fat and build muscle, which one should you emphasize?

If you have more than 15% body fat (25% body fat for woman), I would STRONGLY recommend focusing on fat loss, with potentially some muscle gain if you’re lucky. The reverse is true for attempting to build muscle with some moderate fat loss. 

One very easy to implement nutrient timing strategy for primarily fat loss is to reduce calorie intake for most of the week. Around your strength training workouts you can eat a high protein/moderate carb snack (let’s say 30g of protein, 30g of carbs) both 30 minutes before and after your workout to maximize the anabolic window when your muscles are most sensitive to sucking in protein. I generally do not recommend this strategy for people looking to lose fat without losing muscle because it can slow down progress, but I have seen it work well.

In terms of your workout routine, workouts don’t need to be that much different between going for muscle building and fat loss. In fact, many people have lost fat and gained muscle using the 8-week BuiltLean Program. I think regardless of whether your primary goal is losing fat, or building muscle, I would lift weights that are heavy for you to handle. The light weight, high rep strategy is just not as effective.

article excerpted from Marc Perry/BuiltLean