Lose Fat and Gain Muscle – Simultaneously?

I am in my fourth week of Cheat Your Way Thin. I injured my shoulder before I started this program, so I have only been doing nominal HIIT (3-4 times a week, ~20 min each) and some abs work. I really haven’t been exercising much. No weight lifting.

Well, my muscle tone has definitely improved, while I am steadily losing weight. But I cannot tell if I am actually gaining muscles, or it’s just that the muscles look more defined because I have lost fat. I could tell you that the diet is much higher in protein than what I used to eat. By the way, incorporating the free veggies concept is genius.

Of course, gaining big muscles is not part of my goal anyway…

Well, I’d love to know how to.
I tend to loose a lot of muscle when getting slimmer
Cheers

I’d have thought trying to build muscle and lose fat at the same time would be quite a hard thing to do since doing it simultaneously would probably not result in a satisfactory gain in muscle mass or fat loss. Having one clear goal at a time would surely result in greater achievement.

I currently train 5 times a week to try and build muscle and its going really well but im not just gaining lean muscle and i would really like to see my six pack so i would really like to find out more (Y)

I generally eat very healthy, no eating out, no processed foods, porridge, boiled eggs, and allot of fruit, cottage cheese. At the moment my workout schedule consists of 3 weight sessions and a 1-2 pilates/yoga classes a week.

Sometimes I try to reduce my calorie intake for a day or two (still eating 4-5 small meals – but making them smaller than normal), which feels great for those days, but by day 3-4 I am hungry. I don’t usually get cravings for bad foods (sugars etc) but I just continually feel hungry and unsatisfied with what I have just finished eating.

Seeing as I was already eating healthy and exercising, I am not sure what the next step for loosing that percentage of body is, other than reducing the volume of what I eat, but I seems to go against me after a few days and would be fairly hard to maintain long term.

Diet wise i think a calroie/carb cycling approach is best. Basically feeding the body what it needs to grow on heavy weightlifting days and going below maintenance on days that you are relatively inactive…. best of both worlds.

High protein is what usually work best for me. Not trying to lose the fat too quickly. Training hard and getting recovery. That’s my formula.

I feel as if I’m confusing myself. When I have in mind that I’m trying to get bigger and smaller at the same time, I wonder if I’m working against my own goals. Philosophically I’m not sure it makes sense, but I would love to achieve it. I guess I’m wondering about the mind-set more than the actual training and nutrition, which might or might not be a good idea. Should I just relax and focus on only one goal at a time? Get bigger, then get smaller? Or is it not actually confusing to the body to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously?

Joel,

I didn’t get the e-mail about the article concerning agave and stevia. Is there anyway to e-mail the link again. I would very much like to read this.

No I have never tried to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.

Diane

I’d love to hear more about this subject. This is probably everyones real goal, as it is mine. so please people more comments!

Definitely keen to read more

@Diane. The comment quota wasn’t reached, so there was no post on agave and stevia.

I have also tried to do this and failed miserably, would be great to hear where I have been going wrong.

Need to loose weight, finding it hard. Do horsebackriding 3-7 days/week and is in the stable minimum 6day/w (have my own horse) so i don’t have time to do training very often. Horses require some mucles so i can’t afford loosing any. A desk-jockey in my profesional life (min 8h/day + 2h travel) so i don’t get any exercise there. So spill the beans on this wonderfulll combo of loosing fat and gaining muscles!

I’ve been trying to shed some pounds for a few months now and it’s just not happening. But I have noticed some muscle gain. Two weeks ago I started eating normally (healthy, but not not with strict nutrition) and I was pleased to see no weight gains, so now I’m focusing on some muscle gaining before try to lose fat again. I figure it’ll be easier.

I’m really interested in this post Joel. Please post further information.

Keep up the good work!

@pia – I have been on the Cheat your way thin program for about 4 weeks now (in to my core phase). In the first week I was on the low carb diet for a week, doing high intensity interval training. The result at the end of the week was 4kg loss of pure muscle mass (according to my Tanita EIS scales). Not good as I wanted to retain my muscle mass. In addition, my fat percentage shot up from average 13% to near 15%. This was due purely to the loss of muscle mass.

I must admit that I did not take any protein supplements during that first week. Taking the protein would have saved my muscles from degradation. i.e. the body tries degrades muscle to help control metabolism (in addition to leveling out hormones).

As a result, I have concluded that calorie restriction and HIT (high intensity interval training) = muscle loss without protein supplements. Therefore the diet and the exercise program must supplement one another.

For those wanting to bulk up, the equation would be to eat more calories and lift heavier weights (plus the protein supplement of course).

IMO, best to get lean, then bulk up (if bulking up is your goal). People that choose the other way look big, but not lean. Looks better the other way. ;)

I want to lose fat but not lean body mass (lbm). I am dieting (eating healthy but keep calories low), doing cardio and weightlifting to lose fat, and hoping that the weightlifting will help me to maintain lbm. So far so good: lost 9 kg fat and 1 kg lbm (in 5 months). Goal: to loose 30 kg, if that works out to be 27 kg fat and 3 kg lbm I will be more than happy.

Bring it on

Hi Joel.
I have always been of the understanding that to lose fat you must be in calorie debt and to gain muscle you must be in calorie surplus. Those put together with training get the loss/gain results you are after. And of course when in debt you need your cheat days to keep the metabolisim going strong.

Hey Joel,
U made me interested. Wanna find out a solution which is about following ur CheatUrWayThin while gaining muscle mass if possible :)

I understand that is important to both feed the body with enough nutrients especially protein to repair the muscles torn in resistance training

Nothing I’ve tried has given me much in the way of EITHER muscle gain or fat loss; however, my hormone levels are all screwed up (estrogen dominance, as shown by saliva tests administered by my nutritionist), and I haven’t gotten any results from Tribulus & DIM so far. I’m guessing that since I can’t gain muscle–and *supposedly* building/working muscle is the best way to burn fat–I won’t be able to burn fat either. ? Who knows?

I think Torbjorn akerfeldt had the right idea about this years ago, unfortunately his ideas fell out of favour and got assigned to the bin for most people. I imagine that Joel knows a lot about this “old” stuff and would like to hear more about his current views on it.

waiting to hear how.
i am vegetarian.
i am also continuously disappointed wt results.
so tell.

For the first time in my life I am overweight, 7kg,after quitting smoking, and I have no clue how to shed the fat. Am training and keeping a good diet but see nothing happening. I sure want to know how this is done!