Understanding How to Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle

One of the goals that many people have when they’re designing a workout plan is to build more muscle. Unfortunately, the process of reaching that goal is something that most don’t quite understand. In order to build a lean and aesthetically pleasing physique, you have to include a way to burn fat mass into your workout plan.

People often think that burning fat will reduce muscle mass as well, but this isn’t necessarily true – if you do it right. You can make both things go hand in hand with one another, which will help you to have the body you’re looking to get.

In this article, we’ll go into detail about what you need to know about fat loss and what you can do to ensure that you can build muscle while leaning down about the same time. With that said, let’s get to it.

 

UNDERSTANDING FAT LOSS:

The first thing you have to understand is that weight and fat aren’t necessarily the same thing. You can lose a ton of weight without touching even an ounce of fat, as all the weight that you lose could just be water. Therefore, you have to understand how your internal system works to burn the fat in your body before you can craft a workout and diet plan to reach those goals.

Our body stores fat as a way to conserve energy that will be used in case you are ever in the state of starvation. But in the modern world that we live in, it’s unlikely that you are going to run into these issues. Therefore, the food that we eat often turns into a fat mass that has no real use. One of the most common ways to cut fat is by reducing your daily caloric intake while ensuring your diet is full of nutritious, whole foods. Including the right food in your diet can completely change your body composition and help you get the body of your dreams!

 

HOW TO MAINTAIN MUSCLE WHILE CUTTING

Now that you understand how your body stores fat, we’ll go on to discussing the ways you can maintain and build muscle mass while cutting. In general, the more muscles you have, the more calories you burn on a flat rate. Therefore, it’s important that you maintain your muscle mass while cutting so that you can become leaner more quickly.

While there’s no definitive answer to this question, we will clue you in on what we have been doing here at Fit Dad Chris. With that said, here are our two rules for losing fat while simultaneously building more muscle:

 

EAT MORE PROTEIN AND ADD MORE STRENGTH TRAINING

Protein is the building block of every muscle group, so it’s crucial that you have enough of it to make sure that your muscles don’t break down while you’re cutting. While muscles are both aesthetically pleasing and useful, a lot of resources are necessary for their maintenance. Our bodies will automatically get rid of it if we don’t need it. Having enough protein in the system will help to slow down this process, which means that you will be able to retain your muscle while you’re reducing your caloric intake.

The formula to calculate the standard amount of protein you need to consume is by multiplying your weight with 1.5. For example, if you weigh 80 kg, you can translate that number into grams and then time it by 1.5, which will give you 120; therefore, your optimal protein intake should be around 120 grams per day. If you’re using pounds, then you can go for a 1:1 ratio — 1 pound per 1 gram of protein.

When we talk about exercise, the best way to retain muscle is through weight training as well as bodyweight workouts. As mentioned, our body doesn’t want to retain the muscles that we don’t use, so it’s best that you work every part of your body.

These exercises will put more strain on your muscles, which will mean that it will need to add more to make sure that it can handle the added stress. You should also include some High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) in your workout plan, as this type of training is highly effective at burning fat and retaining muscle. We help with fitness for men over 40, get in touch & look at our other posts for more tips.