Opinions?

mickipedia
mickipedia Posts: 889 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Can you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?

If so what's the method?

Replies

  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    Sure. Exercise and eat back your calories. If you don't eat back your exercise calories you lose muscle and fat. If you eat them back you will maintain or build muscle while losing fat.

    I find aerobic exercise helpful because I see muscles building in my legs, abs, bottom, and even arms. But there's no doubt that strength training will do it faster.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    With a few exceptions, you can't gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. The exceptions are if you are a newbie to weight lifting, obese or an athelete returning to training after a layoff. If you are in deficit, you body does not have the resources to build new muscle tissue. Strength training when done properly can cause you to build muscle tissue. Cardio does some development of the muscle tissue you have and builds muscle endurance but will not cause gain of muscle tissue. As a woman without the benefit of testosterone, it is very difficult to gain muscle tissue under ideal circumstances. In a deficit is it virtually impossible.

    All that being said, as a woman, why is gaining muscle tissue important to you? What would be wrong with doing a mix of strength training and cardio, developing your existing muscle tissue and burning fat? Your existing muscle tissue will get a little bigger, leaner and stronger. You will look better, feel better and improve your health. Is there a reason why you want your muscles to be bigger? Or do you want a nicely developed muscle structure and to lose fat and improve health? If it's the latter, you don't need to gain muscle to accomplish it.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    Sure. Exercise and eat back your calories. If you don't eat back your exercise calories you lose muscle and fat. If you eat them back you will maintain or build muscle while losing fat.

    I find aerobic exercise helpful because I see muscles building in my legs, abs, bottom, and even arms. But there's no doubt that strength training will do it faster.

    With respect most of this is not accurate. Eating back calories is helpful in maintianing muscle tissue only if resistance exercise is included. That means some form of strength training. Eating back alone will not accomplish that and will not build muscle while in a caloric deficit.

    Additionally, aerobic exercise does not build muscle tissue. It conditions muscle tissue and trains muscle tissue for edurance. What you observe in your own body is the conditioning of your existing muscle tissue. It looks a little bigger, a little more defined and leaner and is stronger but you didn't grow muscle tissue with aerobic on a deficit unless you a a genetic mutant. The physiology of that is pretty much impossible. Additionally, excessive cardio (meaning more that an hour or so at a time at medium or greater intensity) can have the opposite effect and can cause catabolism (loss of muscle tissue).
  • thechubner
    thechubner Posts: 94 Member
    The best most of us can hope for is to maximize fat loss while minimizing muscle loss. Eating back your calories (but making sure the calories you're eating are coming from sources rich in protien and nutrients) will help you to maintain as much muscle as possible. Unfortunately the physiology of the body makes fat loss / muscle gain hard to to accomplish simultaneously. If your main goal is to gain muscle (like become like a body builder) then eat plenty of calories - do your work outs - and don't worry about fat loss. Muscle more muscle you have the more fat / calories you will burn just existing and the body you want will come. If your goal is primarily fat loss, forcus on losing the fat and losing as little muslce as possible and eventually you'll be able to see the muscles through your skin (instead of the fat)

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