Muscle Gain with Weight Loss

SpencerR
SpencerR Posts: 37
edited September 21 in Health and Weight Loss
I was wondering if anyone had a deeper understanding on if its possible to gain muscle mass while losing weight? My overall goal is to get between 175-185 and then start putting on muscle mass...... I know that the more muscle u have the faster u can lose weight due to your body burning more calories. Does anyone have any insight from experiance they can share with me as to if I should stay on my diet till I get to my goal weight or if I can do both at the same time

Replies

  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    It is possible but very hard to do, without the use of performance enhancing drugs. Usually when you loose weight you loose both muscle and fat, mostly fat if you eat enough protein and do resistance training. Most natural body builders even loose muscle when cutting fat to rip up for competition.

    Usually you have to be in a caloric surplus to gain muscle, and you have to be in a caloric deficit to loose weight, therefore making it extremely hard to gain muscle and loose weight at the same time.
  • crking
    crking Posts: 175
    Yes..Muscle burns fat. Ontop of doing cardio, it is very important to strength train. Gaining muscle will take place of the fat...basically the way I like to describe it. I have had awesome results with gaining muscle, losing weight, toning, and losing inches. I use to only thing cardio was the way to go and after months of it not working, I discovered how important strength training was for your body. Add it on after you cardio.
  • SpencerR
    SpencerR Posts: 37
    Ok well is there a way to lose weight while building a little bit of muscle as you go? I get alot of protien everyday. Over my MFP recomendation and I do it on purpose due to wanting to keep/build muscle. Can I lean/tone up while putting on muscle and would that b easier than losing the weight then putting it back on in muscle? I overall want to achieve a lean, built body but not a huge muscle head body
  • FrenchMob
    FrenchMob Posts: 1,167 Member
    There's ways of doing it. Basically, you cycle between caloric deficit & surplus on a daily basis. Yes, your fat loss will slow down a little, but it will help build muscle.

    Example: Sun, Mon, Tues - Minor cal deficit, Wed - Minor cal surplus, Thur, Fri - Minor cal deficit, Sat - Minor cal surplus. Or you can time the surplus with your weight training days. There's a great ebook out there by Tom Venuto (award winning natural bodybuilder) about this exact process that explains everything in detail.
  • acureese
    acureese Posts: 169
    You can definitely lose weight while putting on muscle. The main thing is to realize that the numbers on the scale might not drop as much/fast if you're adding muscle weight, but your body fat percentage will still drop and your clothes will still get looser. (I've lost 10 pounds overall for example, but have lost much more than that in "fat weight" because I've also added a few pounds of muscle) If your goal is to put on a lot of muscle, usually cutting down on cardio (3 sessions of 30 mins/week for example) helps that process with a clean diet. But if you're just trying to tone and put on some muscle with an overall goal of losing body fat, a good strength training (2-5 times/week) and cardio regimen (3-5 times/week) will do that.

    One of my favorite ways to do that is circuits! That way even when I lift I'm upping the burn (and often lose breath much more often than I could with just cardio alone) Here's an example of a circuit (doing one right after the other, only taking a 30-60 second rest at the end of the circuit, repeating it 2-4 times):

    8-12 Pullups (assisted if needed), 10-12 Squat Press, 20-30 Pushups, V-ups on bench (ab exercise), military press, 10-15 box jumps, Barbell Curls, Dips, 30-90 second plank.

    Another example is pairing antagonistic muscles together when lifting. For example, Chest/Biceps and Back/Triceps. When you're doing a chest press, you're using chest/tri's, so your biceps are recovering. Likewise, when you're doing a bicep curl, your chest/triceps are recovering. Therefore you can go right from a chest exercise to a bicep exercise without resting, keeping your heart rate up and adding a cardiovascular kick to your lifting workout.


    Hope this helps! :smile:
  • daimy
    daimy Posts: 11 Member
    I agree with the first response to ur question. My husband is into body building. (u can see his pic on my pics... ) They bulk up during the off season. They eat more carbs and protein to make their muscles grow more but atthe same time they do put on weight. On that pic he was trimming down. He was doing the DAVE PALUMBO DIET. It gave him great results. When they are slimming down they lose a lot of their muscle bigness but they also lose all that weight. You can do it tho. You have to eat plenty of protein and eat only good carbs and in measured amounts.. Enhancing drugs might be needed... You should look into the body building forums. This forum is a lot about weight loss. I believe you might get better answers for these questions in those forums.
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