In theory, losing fat and gaining muscle is simple enough. You lose fat by burning more calories than you use. You gain muscle mass by stressing them over and over again. This post will take you through the basics of knowing how to lose fat and gain muscle.
In most cases it’s not really about losing weight, but losing fat. And the more muscle you gain, the easier it is to lose fat because muscle takes more calories to operate than fat stores.
So, even though you may have weight to lose, we’re not talking about merely losing weight. Instead, you focus on combining losing fat with building muscle mass.
When that happens you’re body naturally takes on a more trim and toned look. So, let’s get straight to it, and may the gym gods be with you.
The Basics of Losing Excess Fat and Gaining More Muscle
Even though our body is sensitive to any changes, it usually takes some degree of urging to get a response from it.
So, don’t think obsessing over losing fat is something your body is going to jump right to and go to working on. We all read and hear about a lot of guarantees from training programs and weight loss products that promise the moon and make claims about the timing.
I don’t know if they are outright lies, false advertising, or worked out like that for someone? I’m saying don’t bank on the claims. Instead, get a grip on the fact that it’s not the claims, or dreams, that will change your body.
One thing you need to know here: Eating sugar, sweets, sugary drinks, white flour, and processed foods you are definitely feeding your fat stores.
It’s straight up you! And it could be difficult, and time consuming. There’s usually no quick fix solution, but the results can be life changing and last a long time.
Two Keys to How to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle
Like I stated in the beginning, the process works best and is primarily based on these two aspects:
- Proper Exercise
- Proper Nutrition
Strength Training
Building muscle requires strength training. You can do this with exercise equipment in your home, in a gym, or even at work. Face it, if you have a job that requires using a shovel or lifting heavy objects over and over you are indeed training for strength.
Some degree of strength training always goes hand in hand with the best fat loss regimes. Most any professional people changing bodies are going to recommend either, or both, weights or bodyweight exercises.
More muscle mass means more calorie burn
In general, your body is composed of muscle and fat stores. Fat stores just lay around and have no way to use calories. However, any muscle you have requires energy (calories) to operate.
The short of that is that the more muscle mass you can accumulate (and I’m not talking about being a pro bodybuilder) the faster and easier it is to cause your body to call on the fat stores for energy.
How to start strength training?
You can join a gym,but you can stay fit without a gym. You can purchase your own exercise equipment, or merely start out with simple bodyweight exercises. There might be some evidence that using your bodyweight is the safer method to start out with, and of course-less expensive.
Simple BodyWeight Exercises
- Grab the kitchen counter top with both hands, back your feet away, and push your body up and then release just like any push ups.
- Do pushups on the floor
- Planks are awesome
- Perform pull ups on a sturdy swing set, or other apparatus at the local park
- Dig a hole in the backyard, and refill it, repeating the operation over and over?
- Squats are important because they build leg muscles which are the largest muscles, therefore burn the most calories
- Crunches will help remove fat from the abdomen and replace it with muscle
Weights and Resistance Bands
Planks, pushups, and pullups, will definitely get you started gaining muscle mass, and will even burn calories.
But if you want to turn up and turn on the process you will need to move to either lifting weights or using resistance bands.
Whether you use barbells or resistance bands, the key is a steady progression of pounds or resistance. Using the same amount of weight resistance quickly alerts your body how much effort to expend, and will stop muscle gain.
On the other hand a gradual and continuous increase in either repetitions or poundage will force muscles to increase in size and strength to keep up with demand.
Rest Days Are A Must
Muscles enlarge when you tear or break down muscle fiber during regular workouts, and they increase in size an number as they repair.
Without rest, or recovery time, after workouts, you will hinder and prolong the process. Sometimes we get into the more is better syndrome, and interrupt the protein synthesis required for growth.
The correct way to workout is to either completely skip days or alternate which muscles you are using. For example, legs one day, arms the next?
Burning More Calories Than You Use
The secret to losing weight is not in a new diet, latest fad, or product to purchase. The secret is in fact no secret at all?
The only way to lose fat is burn more calories than you are eating. And without doing something about your eating habits, that is simply no easy to do.
Nutrition Is The Real Key To Burning More Calories
A nutritious diet builds muscle bу fulfilling іtѕ needs without useless calories that quickly turn to fat stores.
Your body needs proteins and healthy carbs for building muscle mass and tone. You get healthy nutrition from a diet of natural foods, and white flour, sugar, and processed foods are neither healthy nor natural.
Processed foods (food in cans or packages) have little to no nutritional value. What you wind up with is carbohydrates that easily and quickly convert to fat cells, and leave you craving more food because you aren’t satisfied.
Few people are able to maintain a diet without any processed foods. However, getting it in and on your mind that fresh is better will help your diet become more nutrition based.
You tore down muscle tissue while working out, now it’s time to replace them and the calories used with a protein rich diet and real nutrition.
Leguminous foods аrе recommended аѕ protein rich diet fоr building uр muscles; milk іѕ аlѕо one оf thе great sources оf proteins. Aѕ far аѕ possible, you ѕhоuld avoid eating junk food. It’s not real food and contains trans-fats (present іn cheese) аnd іѕ thеrеfоrе, responsible fоr fat gain.
Anоthеr disadvantage оf consuming junk foods іѕ thаt thеѕе аrе full оf chemicals (preservatives) and have аn adverse effect оn оvеrаll development оf your body.
Most оf thе health-related problems, overweight, and obesity іn оur lives аrе thе result оf our lifestyle and diet.
Thе processes оf losing fat and gaining muscles аrе so interrelated, it’s hard to develop one without the other. Onlу іf wе set а few things right, іt іѕ possible tо enjoy а great health.