Q&A For gaining weight (water retention, muscle mass etc).

nickduffyfitness

Hey,

Thought I'd help some people out for FREE (although I'm personal traininer including contest prep) as I once struggled (well struggled would be saying i got something, which rarely did ha!) with gaining weight myself being 8.5 stone @ 5"10 height for a long time, basically because I listened to many people and was given the wrong advise and read all the online training workouts, nutrition etc.. which clearly aren't individualised for yourself (and note majority aren't actually the famous individuals nutrition, trust me). Going out on weekends with little clue about nutrition coupled with playing computer games most of my childhood.

Years of wasting my time getting no where, I had no money so thought I'd give back someone to eager people which may be like i once was and plenty of people ask me say the same things like...

"I JUST WANT TO LOOK BIGGER IN A TSHIRT, DONT EVEN CARE IF ITS MUSCLE" and the old...

"TRUST ME MATE... I EAT LOADS......"

Happy to ask any questions which people may have, fire away will check this most days.

Enjoy x

ndj1979

What is the best way to build muscle and lose fat??

Rusty740

ndj1979 wrote: »

What is the best way to build muscle and lose fat??

uh oh

nickduffyfitness

Few pointers:

For the most part, you'll never really loose body-fat and gain muscle tissue at same time, unless have very good genetics or/and are taking performance enhancement drugs. People often are mistaken for body-fat reductions, when it's water retention (due to previous diet having too high sodium, lack of water - interlinking to each other, reduction of carbohydrate intake, or increased exercise which burns glycogen but no change in intake and so on).

When you're dieting, taking advantage of ensuring your natural hormones such as growth hormone, insulin etc and not constantly smashing your hormone balances by eating 4-8 meals (a myth that eating 6 meals against 3 will increase your body-fat reductions, plenty of studies proving this, all your actually doing is changing the way the hormone gerlin (hunger hormone) so if you do miss a meal when normally eating 8, you're starving as hormones benefit "patterns" in regards to releasing overtime, such as when you go to sleep normally, the release of melatonin in line with your usual circadian rhythm (a problem if you suddenly switch from night to day-time working, your bodies hormones need to adjust and other factors). Spiking your insulin 8x a day for example for someone whose primarily goal is body-fat reductions (especially if quite overweight, and other factors) isn't really advisable.

PROTEIN - if your taking in *kitten* quality protein sources or not sufficient for trying to build muscle tissue, you're not going to get good returns in repair; some people with good genetics often think "ah I'm getting results so lets just keep it at what it is, just because you get good results, doesn't mean you cannot get better" like a personal trainer, if they get you results; it doesn't mean they know what they're talking about. A good ball park for anyone whose primarily goal is putting on muscle tissue and isn't above 200lb (unless they're 6"0 + where adjustments will apply), is 1-1.5g protein per pound, for working out diets, you should work from proteins first, so that figure is X by 4 (4 calories per protein gram) etc.. and reduce this off your energy expenditure allowance (whether deficit or surplus).

OVERTRAINING - one of the most important elements which interlinks with nutrition always, you can NOT get any away with all these famous training programs, diets etc.. you may read online because they're on DRUGS, never forget.. the human body works completely different (more so on some drugs) than naturally - many PTs which are always on drugs, don't have the education to get natural people v.good results (well, in a competing scene).
- doing LESS on a training side and ensuring you ARE repairing, will yield much better results, so many people do FAR too much in the gym, think you can go to failure constantly on everything and train 5-7x a week - sadly that isn't the case for most, finer factors such as genetics obivously pay a part.

When your in a calorie deficit (under what your body requires - which promotes fat-loss) things such as your CNS (Central nervous system) cannot handle as much as the opposite (a calorie surplus - above what your body requires, this is what you need to GROW muscle tissue, alongside other points such as protein). Too harsh deficit you'll risk loosing muscle tissue, a successful diet always ensures muscle is kept as much as possible. If you're ever loosing (FAT - not water retention etc) more than 1-2lb a week / every 2 weeks, you'll often be loosing muscle tissue - you want to keep muscle mass always note as it enables you to eat higher calories making fat-loss much easier for people generally - muscles demand energy, moving onto why often you get people whose results SLOW DOWN when bulking (you need to adjust your calorie intake and sometimes also protein intake) as your bodyweight increases (assuming this isn't water retention from excess carbs + stuff like creatine monohydrate which adds water), a progressive calorie increase every 2 weeks is a good way of getting past this. The same goes for if your doing a strength training program (high rest periods such as 2-3 minutes inbetween sets, focus on compounds etc) and your strength is GOING UP. The stronger you get, the most energy you burn when training but forgotten by most, the stronger you get, the MORE it strains your CNS (central nervous system) so you should actually be doing LESS to get more results or implement whats called a "deload" to enable some time off for the CNS.

May not answer much directly, but random typing in the 6% battery on laptop, (10 minutes, peasant netbook ha).

CONCLUDE:

Main points are gaining muscle, good sources of protein (not *kitten* protein shakes, actual food with good amino profiles etc) and ensuring your in a good calorie surplus - never forget your lifestyle energy requirement

Loosing body-fat being in a calorie deficit and adjusting this as your body-fat comes down.. (same as bulking point above) it's a constant adjustment to keep returns higher.. Starving yourself just regulates your hormones, which may give short term results (which isn't healthy at all) but in long term, screw your progress.

peace x