Fat Loss vs. Muscle Gain: What’s your goal?
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Fat Loss vs. Muscle Gain: What’s your goal?⠀
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While no one meal will make you lose or gain weight, the combination of all your meals for the day with snacks & drinks included, will add up to your target calories for the day.⠀
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I love this meal illustration by @MealPrepOnFleek because it shows how simple tweaks can add up to big results on either end of the spectrum. Plus with the holidays around the corner, chipotle’s a great, easy grab’n’go option.⠀
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I often get asked if you can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. If you’re new to working out or new to lifting weights, then you could definitely benefit from beginner gains and thus, lose fat while gaining muscle.⠀
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However, if you’ve been working out or lifting weights for a while, you have to pick one and then switch to the other method. A good method is to eat in a slight calorie deficit till you get to your goal body fat percentage and then begin to build muscle.⠀
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At the end of the day though, I wouldn’t just focus on numbers but also how good you feel!
Fat Loss vs. Muscle Gain
One study found that young women who followed a combined cardio and strength program for 12 weeks lost an average of 10% body fat while also increasing their muscle mass by almost 9%.2 A smaller study of older women also found a decrease in body fat and an increase in physical strength after a 12-week swimming program.3
Research shows that beginners respond quickly and efficiently to both strength training and cardio. There’s a similar effect if you’ve previously built muscle but have lost it. It’s easier for you to re-build that muscle because your muscles “remember” what it was like to be larger.
If you are an average exerciser who wants to improve your balance of fat and muscle, you can lose fat while strengthening your lean body tissue over time. In fact, if you’re a beginning exerciser, you are likely to get the greatest benefits of both fat loss and muscle gain.
If you’re an advanced exerciser or bodybuilder looking to gain large amounts of muscle while also losing large amounts of fat, you may find this challenging because those goals often conflict with one another. Why?
Simply put, building muscle requires eating more calories than you burn. Losing fat requires eating fewer calories than you burn. When you’re at a calorie deficit so you can lose fat, your muscles aren’t getting the fuel they need to grow larger.
