The Secret to Losing Fat Without Losing Muscle

By Jason T Boyd 

I think we would all agree that when working on reducing our body fat percentage the goal should always be to keep as much muscle as possible.
If you don't agree you should probably stop reading because I'm going to use the remainder of this article to explain exactly how to go about holding on to all of your hard-earned muscle mass while cutting fat.
There are two reasons, which are related to one another, why people typically experience noticeable losses in muscle mass when shedding fat:

1. Losing fat without losing muscle requires adhering to specific nutritional rules
2. Fat loss must occur at a slower rate when the goal is to maintain muscle

I'm now going to explain each of these points in greater detail, starting with point number 2 first.

The Consequence of Slowed Fat Loss

When it comes to transforming our bodies, we want to see results, and we want to see them right away. This seems to be especially true for those interested in ridding their bodies of excess fat.

This desire for fast results leaves individuals resorting to extreme measures to ensure that they're dropping fat as fast as possible.

While extreme caloric deficits can be an effective short-term plan to lose weight, they're never a viable long-term solution for living fit and healthy. Not to mention that they will wreak havoc on your immune system, metabolism, energy levels and cause muscular atrophy.

Let's look specifically at why extreme caloric deprivation causes muscle atrophy...
Glucose in the blood is the body's preferred source of energy. When glucose levels are depleted the body then turns to glycogen stored in the muscle and fat cells for fuel.

When extreme caloric deficits are implemented, glucose and glycogen levels in the body become deficient and the body must turn to ingested proteins and muscle tissue to fill the energy void.

In other words, not only will your body be receiving a smaller percentage of ingested proteins to use for muscle building and recovery, but it will also be breaking down muscle tissue as well.

The way to prevent this from happening is by using less extreme nutritional measures to lose fat. Of course this will slow the amount of fat you'll be losing each week, but it's a necessary "evil" if you don't want to experience muscle loss.

I'm now going to explain exactly how to structure your diet so you can lose fat without losing muscle mass in the process.

Diet for Losing Fat without Losing Muscle

The way to feed the body for shedding fat while maintaining muscle mass is fairly simple in concept, but takes a certain amount of discipline to apply. Essentially what you want to do is maintain a slight caloric deficit.

Maintaining a slight caloric deficit provides the benefit of fat loss without depriving the body of nutrition to a degree that will force it to break down muscle tissue.

Besides maintaining a slight caloric deficit, the only other rule you'll need to follow is to make sure you're eating carbohydrates with at least 2 or 3 meals each day. Abstaining from ingesting carbohydrates for prolonged periods of time will cause your glycogen levels to become depleted and lead to muscle atrophy - even if you aren't severely limiting your calories.
So how do you make sure you're maintaining a slight caloric deficit?

Fat Loss Measurements and Caloric Modifications

You'll want to start by taking a stomach circumference measurement and then following a specific daily allowance of calories for a full week.

At the end of that week you'll take another stomach circumference measurement. If your measurement hasn't decreased you'll want to decrease your daily caloric allowance by 200 calories.

Once you measure a decrease in stomach fat, you'll continue eating the same number of calories until your fat loss stops, at which point you will want to decrease your daily caloric allowance by 200 again to get back to shedding fat.

If you have no idea on what your daily calorie allowance should be when getting started, a good rule of thumb would be for men to start at 2,000 calories per day and women to start at 1,700 calories per day and adjust from there.

Are You Serious About Holding Onto Your Muscle?

Unfortunately, maintaining a slight caloric deficit is the best way to lose fat while maintaining muscle mass, but it does require a certain amount of effort and will make the process of losing fat take longer than more extreme fat loss nutritional implements.

In the end you simply have to decide if holding onto your muscle mass is important to you or not.

If your main concern is losing fat, and you wouldn't mind losing a few pounds of muscle in the process, then by all means, go ahead and limit your calories to a greater degree knowing full well the consequences.

On the other hand, if maintaining muscle mass is a priority for you while cutting fat, you now have the plan to reduce your body fat percentage while holding onto all of your hard-earned muscle.

Learn the Most Effective Fat Loss techniqes at - My Health and Fitness

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_T_Boyd

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How To Build Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time

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.

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

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_A_Welburn

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