What you need to lose weight and build muscle at the same time, achieving body recomposition

What is the difference between fat and muscle?

Muscle and fat tissue have completely different structures and purposes. Fat deposits are an emergency source of energy for the body, so the presence of such tissue is inherent in human nature. Even if a person stops eating, he will not die immediately. The average man can live about 25 days without eating. This ability is provided by fat deposits. The main reason for their formation is the excess of calories entering the body over their expenditure and lack of physical activity.

Muscles are primarily made of protein. Thanks to the ability of fibers to contract under the influence of nerve impulses, a person has the ability to move and perform various types of manipulations. Human nature provides only two possible states:

• accumulation of fat deposits and mass;
• loss of fat and mass.

Trying to lose fat and gain muscle mass at the same time will not work.

In order to begin to build muscle mass, the body needs an increase in calories entering the body, which in turn starts the process of storing fat.

In this regard, it is impossible to quickly turn fat into muscle, but you can start a process that in the sports environment is called fat burning.

Basic Rules

Fat can be converted into muscle fiber only by organizing proper nutrition and providing the body with a sufficient level of stress in the gym or at home. The mistake of many beginners is that they want to get this result quickly. It is worth knowing that fat burning does not happen instantly and for this it is necessary to take comprehensive measures. Basic recommendations:

• Provide the body with proper nutrition in the form of low-carbohydrate, high-protein foods;
• exclude foods with fast carbohydrates from your diet, such as sweet flour products, cakes, candies and other sweets;
• go to the gym 3 times a week;
• give your muscles rest after training for at least 48 hours;
• during aerobic exercise in the gym, monitor your pulse, it should not be less than 120 beats;
• Take advantage of special sports nutrition and fat burners.

No strict diet without exercise in the gym or at home will help quickly transform fat into muscle, and the effect of the achieved result in the form of weight loss can, after some time, turn the process into a greater gain of unwanted body weight.

It is worth remembering that aerobic exercise in the form of running, swimming and cycling quickly burns fat. Strength exercises and training with a large number of repetitions in one approach are effective for gaining muscle mass.

About the emergence of the myth

But from somewhere this opinion appeared among people far from physical education and sports. And they definitely skipped biology and human anatomy classes at school.

The myth of the transformation of fat into muscle arose from ordinary visual observations of overweight people.

Such a person comes to the gym and starts working with hardware. At the same time, he goes on a diet and does cardio.

If everything is done correctly, then after several months of continuous effort, a metamorphosis of the body occurs - there is less and less fat, which makes the muscles more visible.

To an outside observer, it seems that a fat person has done everything at the same time. After all, if before the relief was not visible, now it has become noticeable. That is why some argue that in this case the muscles were “distilled” into fat. But in reality something else happened.

Fat burning: rules and recommendations

To start the fat burning process, it is necessary to create a deficiency of glucose in the body, which is synthesized from adipose tissue. At the first stage, two factors are of paramount importance:

• the diet should contain fewer calories than the human body uses during the day;
• workouts should include exercises to maximize energy expenditure.

A low-calorie diet will help to quickly reduce the level of body fat, but too strict diets should be excluded. Otherwise, the body will begin to break down muscle fibers.

It is worth remembering that the training program in the gym should be comprehensive, even if the fat deposits are located locally, for example, in the abdomen or thighs. It is impossible to remove fat from just one part of the body, so the whole body must work to eliminate fat deposits.

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You can quickly remove excess weight and subcutaneous deposits with the help of cardio exercises. It is recommended to use the following types of loads:

• traditional running;
• exercise on a treadmill;
• jumping rope;
• fast walk;
• swimming, cycling.

Experts say that to lose weight and body fat, it is not necessary to train in the gym or at home; it is enough to start with intense walking. To maintain muscle tone and normal body function, a person only needs to walk about 5,000 steps a day. You can quickly start losing weight by providing your body with about 10,000 steps a day. Today it is not difficult to purchase a device for counting steps, and a significant number of modern gadgets are equipped with this function.

If you can’t go to the gym, you can organize jumping rope at home. Calorie burning during such training is several times higher than during traditional running. Daily jogging will help you quickly achieve the effect of burning fat. When organizing a low-calorie diet, jogging 3 times a week is enough.

Training should be intense and not long in time. Exhausting exercise can lead to the consumption of muscle glycogen, as a result of which they begin to break down.

Reducing the percentage of subcutaneous fat will allow muscles to appear and will be a signal for the possibility of building muscles to give them relief.

What to do to gain muscle mass?

The difficulty of the stage of gaining muscle mass is to organize such a diet so that the amount of protein in the food is sufficient for the growth of fiber, but does not lead to the re-formation of fat reserves.

Protein foods should predominate in the diet, and the amount of fats and carbohydrates should not exceed the norm. The recommended protein intake is 1.5 grams per kilogram of an athlete's weight. It is recommended to include protein foods low in fat and carbohydrates in your diet:

• lean meat;
• seafood;
• various types of fish;
• low-fat cottage cheese and cheeses;
• egg white.

Read more about the nutrition program for gaining muscle mass >>

When visiting the gym or exercising at home, cardio exercises and deadlifts are effective for strengthening the muscles of the back and buttocks. To work out the abdominal muscles, leg lifts in a lying or hanging position and various pull-up techniques provide good results. When training in the gym or home exercises, it is necessary to include dumbbells in a set of exercises. The recommended number of sets of basic exercises is 3, and the number of repetitions should be at least 15.

Beginners and amateurs

Research confirms that exercising and eating enough protein leads to simultaneous weight loss and muscle gain.

This statement especially applies to those who have a fairly high BMI. The effect is enhanced due to the fact that previously there was no stimulus for muscle growth.

The human body can adapt to anything, including training. Playing sports is stressful for the body, especially for an unprepared person. Under the influence of this stress, a newcomer, performing even small work of an unusual nature, begins to actively transform.

In the first month or two, a person actively loses weight, muscles begin to appear, and well-being improves. This is called the recency effect. But over time, the same loads become increasingly easier to perform: the muscles adapt to the load that is regularly offered to them, the nervous system is at rest and almost does not react to training, weight loss stops, or even fat mass gain begins.

To continue the process, it is necessary to complicate the training: increase the weights, speed up the run, artificially create a “rollback”, refusing or reducing the intensity of training for a short time. By changing something in the training process, you will again and again achieve the effect of novelty, albeit short-term.

As for those who have been practicing for a long time, there is an opinion that in order to combine the process of fat burning and muscle growth, it is necessary to maintain a slight energy deficit in combination with a high protein content in the diet, supplementing this with intense strength training .

With the described diet, the exerciser loses weight due to a slight energy deficit, and at the same time builds muscle mass in a normal or almost normal manner.

At the same time, in men, with a significant reduction in calories and high physical activity, testosterone levels decrease significantly, which negatively affects muscle growth.

Women's testosterone levels are already significantly lower than men's, so they are less likely to gain muscle mass. With severe caloric restriction combined with intense training, muscle growth will definitely not happen.

Increasing your caloric intake can also slow down muscle growth if it is not balanced. For example, an increase in calories from fat leads to a decrease in the production of both growth hormone and testosterone.

Sample program for muscle gain

Before starting a set of exercises, it is necessary to organize warm-up exercises. Completing within 10-15 minutes is considered sufficient:

• circular swings of the arms at the elbow or shoulders;
• turning the body in different directions;
• 10 or 20 traditional squats.

It is recommended to start training by working out large muscle groups. The first exercises in the form of squats can be performed with an empty bar. Next, it is recommended to use plates weighing 5 kg and perform similar exercises with a load of 3 sets of 6 or 8 repetitions.

Next, it is recommended to work the pectoral muscles. To do this, it is fashionable to use the exercise on a bench in a lying position. To warm up, an empty bar is lifted, then a load of 5 kg is added, and a chest press is performed in an amount of 43 to 5 sets of 8 or 10 repetitions.

An effective exercise for working the back muscles is considered to be performing deadlifts in the amount of 3 repetitions and 6-8 repetitions. To work on the biceps muscles in the gym and at home, it is recommended to use dumbbell lifts weighing 2 or 3 kg. There are quite a few techniques for performing exercises with dumbbells, so there is always the opportunity to diversify your training program.

The final stages of the training program are exercises for the abs and deltoid muscles. To work out the abdominal area, body lifts on a sports bench and various types of crunches are recommended, the number of which can vary from 10 to 30. After completing the complex, you need to do a cool-down and include stretching exercises.

Burn Fat and Build Muscle: Intermittent Approach

The main mistake beginners make is trying to combine two things: losing weight and building muscle. Such attempts are most often made by girls, trying to repeatedly perform abdominal exercises, in an effort to achieve ideal abs and “cubes”. Until the fat in the abdominal area decreases to 15%, the desired result will not be achieved.

Among bodybuilders, the so-called periodic approach is common, which allows you to quickly transform fat into muscle. Each period lasts 4-6 weeks. The first stage is aimed at burning fat. During this period, cardio exercise is of paramount importance and nutrition is aimed at expending additional energy from the adipose tissue of the whole body.

The next stage aims to gain muscle mass. To do this, high-calorie nutrition is organized, which is supported by intense strength training and sports supplements. An important role is played by:

• strict training schedule;
• food restriction;
• compliance with the rest regime.

If you follow all the rules, you can quickly reduce the level of fat reserves in the body and turn them into muscles. Such measures must be used with caution. It is important not only to achieve the desired result, but also not to harm the body. Instructors and nutritionists say that if the fat content in the body is less than 10%, then this result will negatively affect human health.

It is important to remember that getting rid of body fat and turning it into muscle are separate tasks. You can quickly achieve results by organizing proper protein nutrition with a low content of fat and carbohydrates in combination with a sufficient level of exercise in the gym or when exercising at home. Conventionally, this approach can be called the transformation of fat into muscle.

“Here I am...”

• But I read that you can convert fat into muscles, is that what you need?
• Fat and muscle are completely different things. Fat and muscle have nothing in common; these cells differ both in their content and purpose. And turning some cells into others is pure magic. If you mean that during physical activity you will break down a bunch of fat deposits and it is this energy that will be used for muscle growth, then this theory does not work in practice. See the answer above.
• But I’ve been working out for a couple of months, but I’ve become noticeably pumped up and lost weight!!
• Firstly, it has long been a proven fact that a person sometimes evaluates himself, to put it mildly, inadequately, so forgive me, but there is a possibility that your changes are visible only to you