Here’s what you need to know –
The harsh truth is- build lean muscle and lose fat simultaneously aka body recomposition is something natural bodybuilders would find it hard to accomplish. However, there’s nothing you can’t do.
Protein degradation – breakdown of proteins into smaller components, peptides, and amino acids.
Protein synthesis – creation of new protein from their smaller parts.
For you to grow lean muscle larger over the period, the scale of protein synthesis should be higher than protein degradation.
If you are new to weightlifting or let’s say you and progressive overloading, your body being hyper-responsive will help you build muscle rapidly.
Proper supplementation can help you to shed off extra fat while gaining lean muscle.
Increasing the amount of brown fat. It is necessary to build lean muscle and lose fat simultaneously.
Why Fat Loss and Lean Muscle Goal is tough to achieve simultaneously?
Two Facts, that define why it is super tough to build lean muscle and lose fat at the same time–
FACT 1: Gaining lean muscle requires a calorie surplus diet, that is, you need to consume more calories than the maintenance level to grow muscles.
FACT 2: Fat burning requires a calorie deficit diet, that is, for you to lose fat, you need to consume fewer calories overall and hence ensure that stored body fat is used for energy.
Would it Possible to follow 2 different diet model at the same time?
The Process of Gaining Muscle and Fat reduction is more or less connected to – Protein Synthesis and Protein degradation.
Day in day out, our body replaces damaged and degraded cells with new ones, and this is simply called as protein synthesis. Now under normal health conditions with a sound diet, the rate of cellular regeneration is quite stable.
That means, for an average (read: natural) bodybuilder, the rate of gaining or losing muscle will remain quite same throughout his lifetime. Neither will muscle grow rapidly nor will they diminish speedily.
Let me further simplify it for you – You will only gain muscle when your body synthesise more muscle protein than it loses. And if it fails to do so, that is if it creates equal or less number of muscle protein than it loses, you will either remain the same or lose muscle over the span of time.
A significant disadvantage with calorie surplus diet is that you are more likely to increase your body fat along with some muscles and in extreme circumstances, you will see that you have gathered more of body fat and less of muscles.
A calorie deficit diet has two drawbacks associated with itself; the first being decreased anabolic hormone levels and second, reduction in protein synthesis rates; both of which are of utmost importance to build muscle.
The big question – Who CAN build lean muscle and lose fat at the same time?
The following four groups of people will make it to body recomposition way easy and faster than the others.
- People who are new to weightlifting or progressive overload
- A fat newbie
- A genetically freak guy
- A steroid/drug user
Well, to be very honest, we all know about the cutting edge advantage that these genetically strong and steroid users have over the rest, and it is thus quite obvious that building muscle and losing fat may not be uphill for them.
Let’s talk about the first two groups: People who are new to weightlifting and Fat newbies.
A fat newbie – Try and recall how speedy your gains were during the initial months of weight training. And then, when combined this supernatural power with a strict diet, a fat beginner will have ability although for a short term, to burn their body fat and pack on lean muscle.
Not only fat beginners but beginners of any body type are also going to get rewarded with newbie gains during early days of weightlifting.
However, a fat beginner should also keep in mind that this advantage he poses is just for few months, and as soon as he cuts down his fat and becomes more muscular and less of a beginner.
He will no longer have this super power and live the rest of his life like every other average bodybuilder.
People who are new to actual weightlifting or progressive overload – The other kind of people who are going to find it a bit easy to build lean muscle and lose fat at the same time are the ones who are still quite unfamiliar with proper weightlifting.
On the contrary, people who have been lifting for few years and have considerable experience of weightlifting are not going to get most out of different body recomposition strategies.
Moreover, with years to come, you will have to work yourself between cutting and bulking strategies because once you have achieved the maximum possible mass you can put on yourself, the body recomposition will be an unwinnable battle.
Who (certainly) CAN’T do both things simultaneously?
The answer is quite simple – Everyone else not mentioned above.
I know it’s quite disappointing to hear it at times, but the truth about body recomposition for all aspiring bodybuilders who do not fall in any of the categories as mentioned above will always remain the truth – bitter and harsh.
And yes, believe it or not, but you or all those self-certified trainers may call them as “fitness gurus” claiming to have formulated an entirely different approach or product for achieving body recomposition, is nothing but TOTAL BULLSHIT. Period.
What is the final take of MyFitFuel on the topic – build lean muscle and lose fat altogether?
Well, I have got a pretty simple advice for you all – If you can’t accomplish both the things at once, do them alternatively while making it sure you don’t mix up both.
Here are some of the miscellaneous tips that you should always keep in mind –
Focusing on heavy compound lifts will certainly be very beneficial for building lean muscle. Also, when you weight lifts with a primary goal of getting stronger over the span of time, you are, beyond doubt, going to build maximum muscle and strength.
To get success in getting lean and lose fat at the same time, you should befriend HIIT. And we will tell you why – A beginner’s guide to High-Intensity Interval training.
Believe me, proper supplementation can save you from a lot of worries that you are going to face on your journey towards maximum muscle. So, here’s your definitive guide to supplements – A bodybuilder’s guide to supplements.
There are several types of fat cells present in the body but, for now, consider two of them – one as white and other as brown. Cutting it down to the final point, it’s quite optimum to keep white fat cells on low and to increase the amount of brown fat cells.
And some of the easiest way to do it include eating spicy food, drinking green tea, getting a moderate amount of sun and, of course, the golden way: working your butt off.
And the bottom line: While everyone can build lean muscle and lose fat simultaneously, only a few people (ones who belong to those four groups) will achieve body recomposition in a true sense.
For all those people who do not belong to any of the “elite” groups, the only remaining option is to either try hard and fail miserably or to play it smart and take one step at a time. The choice is yours.
