Losing weight and gaining Muscle

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Draymond82
Draymond82 Posts: 2 Member
in Getting Started
Hello,

How is everyone keeping today? I hope that all is good with everyone and that you are all off to a great start to the new year.

I am just touching base quickly as I am both interested and in need of expertise and advice. I am just touching base today as I am looking to undergo a major diet and lifestyle change in 2019. I already began this transformation on my own around mid November and have made progress however I am looking to take it up a notch as the saying goes.

I am looking to get rid of excess fat and to also build muscle. I have read that it is not possible scientifically speaking to do both at the same time? that one must first lose weight and once the desired amount of fat has been burned then you can build muscle? Up until now, rightly or wrongly I have been working off of this premise, I have about another 7 or 8 kg of fat to lose before I can start to build muscle.

I need help figuring out a diet plan as I want to adhere to a strict ketogenic diet, where my macronutrients are divided correctly in accordance with such, 55% to 60% fat, 30% to 35% protein and 5% to 10% carbohydrates. In addition I want to adhere to intermittent fasting where according to the so called experts one should not eat for 18 hours per day. I am looking for a diet plan to be developed in accordance with the aforementioned, however I do not want dairy to be a part of the diet plan (eggs are the exception). I am looking to gain weight on such a diet, by eating only two large meals during the 8 hour window where I will not be fasting? Is it possible for anyone to assist me in such with any advice, diet plans, links for valuable resources, maybe even contact info for an expert on such?

Thanks in advance and I look forward to your response.

Replies

  • tcunbeliever
    tcunbeliever Posts: 8,219 Member
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    Yes, you can metabolize fat and build muscle at the same time.

    Yes, you can even do that with keto, but it's way harder that way, like digging a post hole with a teaspoon.

    Are you doing keto for some medical reason other than weight loss, because otherwise I suggest you do not do keto if you want to build muscle. In order to grow muscles you need insulin to transport materials to the muscle, keto is a low-insulin response diet, so muscle growth will be dramatically slowed due to reduced availability of materials due to reduced insulin.

    Whatever food plan you do you need a progressive overload program to stimulate muscle growth - you need to be lifting more weight, or the same weight more reps as time passes.

    For what it's worth, I have been doing keto for migraine control about 15 months now, and in 2018 I put on about 13 lbs of muscle and lost 3 lbs of fat (20% body fat down to about 17%) - however, Low-Carb Leangains (calorie and carb cycling) was way easier and achieved a 5% body fat reduction in 12 weeks back before I was keto. Keto for muscle building is painfully slow and you will need to be super patient if you want to build muscle.

    This is a good calculator if you want to try setting up Leangains instead of keto, I made it low carb by cutting the recommended carb values in half and just shifting those calories to protein or fat:
    https://x-gains.com/MacroCalculator/#/g=female/a=43/w=70/h=175/b=18/m=1.55/r=-20/t=20/p=2.5/e=NaN

    This calculator will give you keto macros if you really want to stick to that route:
    land-boards.com/KetoCalc.html
  • Silentpadna
    Silentpadna Posts: 1,306 Member
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    tcunbeliever wrote: »
    Yes, you can metabolize fat and build muscle at the same time.

    This is true, but there are varying degrees. And it's hard to do both no matter what your goal is. That said, it's easier if you have a lot of fat to lose, much harder if not so much. It also depends on to what degree a person's training is to start with. If you have little fat to lose, and your deficit is too big, then the body has no choice but to resort to lean mass once the fat metabolizes to its limit in order to fuel its needs. In that case your body will not be building muscle, but consuming it.

    You can do both, but you must be careful not to have too large of a deficit.

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