By David A Welburn
Can you build muscle and lose fat at the same time? Well you can if you are a complete beginner, or if you have very high testosterone levels. For the rest of us though it's a bit more of a challenge. But it can be done if you use a nutritional strategy called carb cycling.
An End To Bulking And Cutting
The traditional way to build a large muscular physique is to spend a large portion of the year 'bulking'. This involves eating a huge amount of food and training heavy in order to put on as much mass as
possible. Unfortunately however most of the weight you put on will usually be fat.
Then you would go into the 'cutting' phase, where you would greatly reduce your calorie intake in order to burn off all the excess fat you had put on during the bulking phase. Again however this usually proves to be very inefficient, as you will usually lose a lot of the muscle you put on as well.
So over the course of a year the actual amount of muscle gained would be quite small.
Enter Carb Cycling
The solution to this is to do both at the same time. That is you would have some days where you would eat a large calorie excess, with a lot of carbs. These would be your training days. And on your off days you would cut back the calories and the carbs, and do some cardio to facilitate maximum fat burning.
This would mean your training days are geared toward providing the calorie excess required to build muscle. Carbs are kept high in order to spike insulin, which is required for efficient protein synthesis. Fats are kept low to avoid gaining body fat. Protein needs to be high too, as this provides the primary building blocks of muscle tissue.
Your off days on the other hand would provide a calorie deficit in order to burn off fat. Carbs are kept low to keep insulin low, as insulin also promotes fat storage. Your intake of healthy fats can be increased, as in the absence of insulin these will be used for energy (as well as numerous other functions in the body), rather than being stored as body fat. Protein is still kept relatively high. And you should eat plenty of green vegetables too.
Lift heavy on your training days and keep your workouts short - no more than an hour, but 45 minutes is better. On your off days do some low intensity cardio, such as hill walking. This can be done up to three times per week to increase the fat burning effect.
You could also do a short session of HIIT on your training days if you need to burn off even more fat (and if you can recover from it well enough). This would be done after your weight training workout, no more than twice per week.
Everyone is different however, and we all have different goals, so you can adjust the exact way you incorporate the above principles according to your own needs.
But by using carb cycling in this way you'll have no further need for bulking and cutting. You'll be able to build muscle, lose fat and develop a lean body all at the same time.
Can you build muscle and lose fat at the same time? Well you can if you are a complete beginner, or if you have very high testosterone levels. For the rest of us though it's a bit more of a challenge. But it can be done if you use a nutritional strategy called carb cycling.An End To Bulking And Cutting
The traditional way to build a large muscular physique is to spend a large portion of the year 'bulking'. This involves eating a huge amount of food and training heavy in order to put on as much mass as
possible. Unfortunately however most of the weight you put on will usually be fat.
Then you would go into the 'cutting' phase, where you would greatly reduce your calorie intake in order to burn off all the excess fat you had put on during the bulking phase. Again however this usually proves to be very inefficient, as you will usually lose a lot of the muscle you put on as well.
So over the course of a year the actual amount of muscle gained would be quite small.
Enter Carb Cycling
The solution to this is to do both at the same time. That is you would have some days where you would eat a large calorie excess, with a lot of carbs. These would be your training days. And on your off days you would cut back the calories and the carbs, and do some cardio to facilitate maximum fat burning.
This would mean your training days are geared toward providing the calorie excess required to build muscle. Carbs are kept high in order to spike insulin, which is required for efficient protein synthesis. Fats are kept low to avoid gaining body fat. Protein needs to be high too, as this provides the primary building blocks of muscle tissue.
Your off days on the other hand would provide a calorie deficit in order to burn off fat. Carbs are kept low to keep insulin low, as insulin also promotes fat storage. Your intake of healthy fats can be increased, as in the absence of insulin these will be used for energy (as well as numerous other functions in the body), rather than being stored as body fat. Protein is still kept relatively high. And you should eat plenty of green vegetables too.
Lift heavy on your training days and keep your workouts short - no more than an hour, but 45 minutes is better. On your off days do some low intensity cardio, such as hill walking. This can be done up to three times per week to increase the fat burning effect.
You could also do a short session of HIIT on your training days if you need to burn off even more fat (and if you can recover from it well enough). This would be done after your weight training workout, no more than twice per week.
Everyone is different however, and we all have different goals, so you can adjust the exact way you incorporate the above principles according to your own needs.
But by using carb cycling in this way you'll have no further need for bulking and cutting. You'll be able to build muscle, lose fat and develop a lean body all at the same time.
David Welburn is a biomedical scientist who has been involved in health and fitness his entire life. You can find out more about carb cycling at http://www.thenaturalhealthservice.net
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