How to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle at The Same Time - Female - Male - At Home

How to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle at The Same Time

I’ve been writing about diet and fitness since 2001. I’ve written countless articles about How to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle at The Same Time and countless articles about how to lose fat. But, if there is one question I still get asked more than anything else, it’s definitely this…

How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time

So you want to know How to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle at The Same Time? Not only is simultaneously losing fat and gaining muscle likely the most commonly requested body transformation of all time, it's also physiologically impossible at first glance. It nearly defies the laws of physics. Fat loss requires weight loss and muscle gain typically requires weight gain - so how exactly can you lose weight and gain weight at the same time?

Alas, it is possible. Sort of. But it can be difficult to achieve and is not always well understood by those looking for this unicorn of fitness goals.

Muscle Gain vs. Fat Loss

First, you must understand the differences between traditional muscle gain and fat loss.

There is only really one way to lose body fat - restricting calories to promote weight loss. But there is more than one way to build muscle mass.

Your muscle is an incredible tissue that can grow stronger and bigger just from daily use and proper fueling. And in the same sense, it can wither away if you stop using it through muscular atrophy.

Traditional muscle gain diets, or bulking diets, allow you to build muscle through a healthy weight gain diet and strength training. However, this also means some inevitable body fat gains in addition to increasing muscle.

You can also gain muscle if you are strength training in a calorie deficit, especially if you are a less experienced weight lifter. Research suggests that novice lifters may be able to gain muscle much more quickly and efficiently than advanced lifters who already have a lot of lean mass from the start.

Can You Turn Fat Into Muscle?

A lot of times, people will claim they want to gain muscle but they don't actually want to gain weight overall. So what they really mean is that they want to get shredded by changing their body composition.

Changing your body composition is any measure that involves decreasing body fat percentage and/or increasing lean mass without major changes in body weight. However, sometimes body weight will decrease if large amounts of fat are lost.

Because bodyweight can remain fairly stable during a change in composition, some confuse this phenomenon with turning body fat into muscle - this is not possible. Fat is made up of different components than muscle, thus breaking down fat in the body doesn't supply all the necessary pieces to form muscle tissue.

How to Improve Body Composition

To understand this better let's take a look at how your body uses and stores energy.

Your body gets energy from food and stores this energy in your body in your muscle or fat. If you eat less energy than your body needs, your body will take some of its stores to fill in the gaps (primarily fat), resulting in weight loss. If you eat more, it will store more, leading to weight gain.

As simple as this sounds, your body is in constant need of energy - meaning you are almost always simultaneously breaking down tissue (body fat or muscle) and storing tissue. Weight loss or gain results from the overall energy balance over time.

This also means that your body is technically primed to lose fat and increase muscle mass if you can find the sweet spot of tailoring your diet and workouts proportionately.

Cut Calories

Fat loss cannot occur without cutting calories. So the first step in decreasing your body fat percentage must require calorie control.

Figure out how many calories you need a day to lose weight and aim to eat this amount or less consistently.

It is not typically recommended to cut calories too drastically (more than a 25% cut) or too quickly as being too restrictive can make your diet feel impossible to stick to and messes with your ability to strength train.

If you are new to dieting, start with a 10% cut and gradually decrease your calories every few weeks as you get used to cutting. You may also want to limit your cut to twelve weeks at a time followed by a diet break to prevent burnout.

Eat More Protein

If you want to come anywhere close to making this total body transformation a reality for you, you'll need to up your protein intake!

Higher protein intakes are crucial for maintaining existing muscle while cutting calories. In fact, some research suggests that protein needs may be as high as 1.4 grams per pound of body weight to maintain existing mass.

Protein intake is also critical for muscle gain since muscle is made up of protein. So it's no surprise that your ability to build muscle while losing weight is heavily impacted by how much protein you eat in a day.

In one study, participants who ate twice as much protein (~1.1 grams per pound of bodyweight compared to 0.5 grams per pound) on a 40% calorie deficit, gained an average of 2.5 pounds of muscle in four weeks, while the lower protein group did not.

Even more, interestingly, the high protein group lost slightly more body fat overall.

Lift Weights

The other critical piece to getting shredded is strength training - you cannot maintain lean mass or increase muscle size if you don't use your muscles regularly.

Surprisingly, there is no perfect muscle-building program to strive for, as the best approach can vary depending on the person.

Less trained individuals may find that they can add a significant amount of muscle through bodyweight training alone. While others may require a more strategic approach to lifting. As long as you are challenging yourself and increasing the weight as needed, you will see results.

As for the frequency, research suggests lifting 2 to 3 times a week is enough to see an increase in strength and support growth. And unlike bulking plans, where cardio can make achieving a calorie surplus challenging, including cardio or high-intensity training can support your overall fat loss goals.

How To Gain Muscle and Lose Fat At The Same Time: Is It Possible?

How do I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?

I must get this question emailed to me at least once per day by someone who wants to not only gain muscle or lose fat but instead do BOTH. And not only that, they want to do both at the exact same time, and they want to know what diet and workout will best make it happen.

If you’re reading this, then you probably have the same goal in mind. You’re not interested in how to do one or the other, you want to know how to do both as quickly and effectively as possible.

So, let’s get it all figured out right now, starting with the biggest question of all…

Is It Possible To Lose Fat and Gain Muscle At The Same Time?

The honest answer to this question "Is It Possible To Lose Fat and Gain Muscle At The Same Time?" is both yes and no. Why? Because some people can do both simultaneously, and some people can’t. Here’s what I mean.

The following people ARE capable of gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time:

People using “assistance” (meaning steroids).

People who gained a lot of muscle at some point in their life but then stopped working out and lost most (or all) of it.

Overweight beginners.

The following people are NOT capable of doing both at the same time:

The majority of the population (pretty much everyone else not mentioned above).

I know, it sucks to hear that, but it’s the honest truth. It is just not possible for most people to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time at anything close to an acceptable rate. I know there are various diets and workout programs out there that claim otherwise, but like most things in the fitness industry, it’s just lies and bullshit used to get your money.

But wait, don’t feel too bad or give up hope just yet. I want to tell you why it can’t be done, and show you exactly what you need to do instead to reach both goals successfully.

Why Can’t Most People Do it?

To lose fat, what do you have to do? You have to eat fewer calories than your body needs (a “caloric deficit”). To gain muscle, what do you have to do? You have to eat more calories than your body needs (a “caloric surplus”).

Now, did you notice something there? Yup, they are complete opposites in terms of calorie intake. To gain muscle you need more calories, and to lose fat you need fewer calories. Trying to do both at the same time would be like trying to sit and stand at the same time. It just can’t literally be done simultaneously.

This is why most of the people who try to do both at the same time will usually fail to do either and eventually give up. And this of course brings up the next important question…

What’s The Solution? How Can I Do Both?

After hearing this, the next thing everyone always wants to know is how do you actually reach both goals (gain muscle AND lose fat) if you can’t do both at the same time? Well, it’s pretty simple. You DON’T do them at the same time.

Instead, you set them up in phases and alternate between them. Let me explain…

The Muscle Gain Phase

In the diet and fitness world, most people call their muscle gaining, weight gaining, size and strength gaining phase the “bulking up” phase. People often incorrectly take this to mean eating as much as possible and trying to pack on weight as quickly as possible. This is dead wrong.

Instead, the true goal of a muscle gain phase is to build as much quality lean mass as you can while at the same time keeping fat gains to an absolute minimum. Basically, the goal is to gain muscle without gaining excess fat.

To do this, your daily calorie intake is increased so that weight is gained at an ideal rate of no more than 0.5-1 pound per week (more about that here: Weight Gain Diet). As far as weight training goes, the goal in this phase is to use an intelligently designed muscle-building routine and working your ass off to make as much progress as you can and get stronger on every exercise.

The Fat Loss Phase

On the other hand, most people call their fat-burning phase the “cutting up” or “dieting down” phase. People again incorrectly take this to mean drastically reducing calories, adding in a ton of cardio, and switching from heavy weights for lower reps to lighter weights for higher reps. Once again, this is dead wrong.

Instead, the true goal of a fat loss phase is to lose fat as quickly and effectively as possible while at the same time keeping muscle loss to an absolute minimum. Basically, the goal is to lose fat while maintaining all of the lean muscle you built.

In this phase, your daily calorie intake is decreased (and/or cardio may be increased) so that weight is lost at an ideal rate of about 1 pound per week on average (more about that here: Weight Loss Diet). As far as weight training goes, the goal in this phase isn’t so much to make progress (without the extra calories needed, you probably won’t) as much as it is to just work your ass off to maintain your lifts.

If the weights you are lifting are staying the same and strength is being maintained, it’s a good sign that you aren’t losing any muscle. However, if they decrease, it’s a good sign that the opposite is happening (which is why purposely switching to lighter weights/higher reps is the worst idea possible).

How The Phases Differ and Stay The Same

In each phase, the main difference is just total calorie intake. Protein intake would usually remain about the same (1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight is a good place to start), and fat would consistently stay at around 25% of your total calorie intake (including fish oil supplements). Carbs would then be used to make up the difference (more carbs to create more calories, fewer carbs to create fewer calories).

Your workout routine would also stay pretty much the same. Whether you’re in the phase where you’re trying to gain muscle or lose fat, there is no significant difference in what works best when it comes to weight training. Therefore, no big changes need to be made at all.

Just try to get stronger and progress as often as possible in the muscle gaining phase, and then try to maintain all of that strength as best as you can during the fat loss phase.

Pick A Phase And Then Alternate

Now that you understand the basics of how your diet and workout routine need to be set up when you want to both gain muscle and lose fat, the next thing you need to figure out is which phase to start with first. Here’s how I usually answer that question…

If you are currently leaner (or just plain skinny), it’s mostly up to you and whichever goal is more important to you right now.

If you are currently fatter (or just plain fat), starting off with a fat loss phase first is definitely the right idea. Trying to do a successful muscle gaining phase when you’re in an already fat state is just a recipe for disaster. Definitely get leaner first.

From there, you basically just need to give that first phase enough time to actually work. When it does, just switch on over to the other phase for a while and give it time to work as well.

Depending on how much fat you have to lose and how much muscle you want to gain, you’d just keep on alternating from phase to phase until you have the body you want. In the end, you won’t actually be doing both at the same time, but both goals will end up being achieved successfully just the same.

Now for the last question, you probably have…

How Do I Make Each Phase As Effective As Possible?

• What I mean is:
• What’s the exact workout routine that will work best for you in each phase?
• What’s the exact diet that will work best for you in each phase?
• How do you avoid gaining excess fat while you gain muscle?
• How do you ensure you don’t lose quality lean muscle while you’re losing fat?
• How long should each phase last?

Honestly, answering all of these questions about How to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle at The Same Time? properly would require a whole separate article.

However, after years of people asking me those exact questions and tons of others about how to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, I have finally created one ultimate solution that covers it all.

I call it The Ultimate Fat Loss & Muscle Building Guide, and in it, I provide all of the answers, details, and facts that make up the highly proven workout and diet system I’ve used to help countless men and women completely transform their bodies. Now it’s your turn.

Tutorial on Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time

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