Losing fat while gaining muscle....

You can't lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.. You either need to do one or the other.

To gain muscle you need to eat at a slight surplus and lift heavy.. to lose fat, eat a slight deficit and lift heavy... Make sure you get enough protein.

I don't think that you need to eat clean specifically, but it prob. couldn't hurt.

Yes, it is more difficult to do, but it is possible. And here's how.....

1. Ignore the scale. You will not lose significant amounts of weight on the scale if you are building significant amounts of lean tissue and losing significant amounts of fat. With this plan, they will be pretty close to the same on a monthly basis. Personally, I only lost 14 pounds in the last year, but I cut my body fat down by 15% which was a loss of 33 pounds of fat. The difference in what I lost on the scale and what I lost in body fat was the 19 pounds of lean tissue I gained.

2. Quit thinking water weight is bad. Yes, if it is water weight from a high sodium diet it is bad, but with the weight training you will do on this plan, you will gain water weight in your muscles to store extra glycogen that you will need for future training sessions and to stimulate the muscles to grow so that they can accommodate more glycogen storage later. So, if your ankles and hands swell, bad, but if your muscles get a pump, good!

3. WEIGHTS, WEIGHTS, AND MORE WEIGHTS!!!!! This is where the mantra "go heavy or go home" comes from. You want to do the maximum weight you can lift for no more then 5-6 reps per set and do 4-5 sets per exercise. This will give you strength increases and muscle and glycogen increases without focusing on the hypertrophy of the muscle. I recommend splitting it so that you are working 1-2 body parts per day so that you can do 2-3 exercises per body part and not be in the gym all day. You will need to do cardio on the same day as weights so that you get the fat burning in so don't plan so many exercises that you can't get both in the time you have to spend in the gym. If you only have an hour, 20-30 minutes of it should be weight training. Also, don't work the same muscle group 2 days in a row. So if you do a split, then you can do weight training daily and not over train the individual muscle groups by working them too close together.

4. Cardio AFTER weight training only! Do not go to the gym and just do 30 minutes on the elliptical. You're not going to get as much fat burning out of that as you would doing 15 minutes of weight training and 15 minutes of cardio following it. The reason is that during cardio the body will burn mostly glycogen at first and then switch to mostly fat burning at the 20-30 minute mark. If you do your weight training first, which can only burn glycogen, then you will have depleted some of the glycogen stores so you will switch to mostly fat burning faster with cardio. Also, if you go for really long durations on your cardio, you will get to a point where you start to pull from protein stores for energy which is a definite no no for maintaining lean body mass.

5. Stretch after your workout. It helps ease muscle soreness from the heavy weight training by telling the body to send the nutrients to the muscles that they need to heal the damage you caused.

6. Eat at maintenance or slightly under. The old advice to add 500 calories to gain muscle isn't accurate. When you gain by bulking like that, you gain fat too. The best way to maintain a fat loss while gaining lean tissue is to eat close to the maintenance level for your body and make sure you are getting the right amount of carbs and protein for your body.

7. Eat 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. (Yes, that's kilograms of body weight not pounds of body weight. The scientific studies on these things were done in kilograms not in pounds so anyone giving you a number of grams per pound is giving you a converted number that may or may not be accurate.) When your weight is converted from pounds you are 61.689 kilograms so 61.7 to 92.5 grams of protein per day.

8. Eat 6 to 10 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per day. Personally, i recommend 8-10 grams per kilogram but some people prefer a lower carb lifestyle, so 6 grams per kilogram would be the lowest I'd recommend on this plan. The reason is that carbohydrate spares protein. Remember how I said you will pull from protein stores in the body (IE: muscle) if you go too long on your cardio? Same thing will happen if you don't have enough carbohydrates on board to be able to store enough glycogen for your workouts. So, keep the carbs but make sure they are the complex carbs and lots of fruits and veggies. Simple carbs can be used after your workouts to replenish glycogen stores quickly. At 6 grams per kilogram of body weight, you'd eat 370 grams of carbohydrates per day. At 8 grams per kilogram of body weight, you'd eat 493.5 grams of carbohydrate per day. And at 10 grams per kilogram of body weight, you'd eat 617 grams of carbohydrate per day. Yes, I know that sounds like a lot of carbs, but you will be doing lots of heavy weight training which will stimulate the body to store a lot more glycogen in the working muscles because you will be burning a lot more glycogen during your workouts, so you won't store those carbs as fat as easily as you would if you were just doing cardio and not increasing your body's need for carbs.

Yes, it is more difficult to do, but it is possible. And here's how.....

1. Ignore the scale. You will not lose significant amounts of weight on the scale if you are building significant amounts of lean tissue and losing significant amounts of fat. With this plan, they will be pretty close to the same on a monthly basis. Personally, I only lost 14 pounds in the last year, but I cut my body fat down by 15% which was a loss of 33 pounds of fat. The difference in what I lost on the scale and what I lost in body fat was the 19 pounds of lean tissue I gained.

2. Quit thinking water weight is bad. Yes, if it is water weight from a high sodium diet it is bad, but with the weight training you will do on this plan, you will gain water weight in your muscles to store extra glycogen that you will need for future training sessions and to stimulate the muscles to grow so that they can accommodate more glycogen storage later. So, if your ankles and hands swell, bad, but if your muscles get a pump, good!

3. WEIGHTS, WEIGHTS, AND MORE WEIGHTS!!!!! This is where the mantra "go heavy or go home" comes from. You want to do the maximum weight you can lift for no more then 5-6 reps per set and do 4-5 sets per exercise. This will give you strength increases and muscle and glycogen increases without focusing on the hypertrophy of the muscle. I recommend splitting it so that you are working 1-2 body parts per day so that you can do 2-3 exercises per body part and not be in the gym all day. You will need to do cardio on the same day as weights so that you get the fat burning in so don't plan so many exercises that you can't get both in the time you have to spend in the gym. If you only have an hour, 20-30 minutes of it should be weight training. Also, don't work the same muscle group 2 days in a row. So if you do a split, then you can do weight training daily and not over train the individual muscle groups by working them too close together.

4. Cardio AFTER weight training only! Do not go to the gym and just do 30 minutes on the elliptical. You're not going to get as much fat burning out of that as you would doing 15 minutes of weight training and 15 minutes of cardio following it. The reason is that during cardio the body will burn mostly glycogen at first and then switch to mostly fat burning at the 20-30 minute mark. If you do your weight training first, which can only burn glycogen, then you will have depleted some of the glycogen stores so you will switch to mostly fat burning faster with cardio. Also, if you go for really long durations on your cardio, you will get to a point where you start to pull from protein stores for energy which is a definite no no for maintaining lean body mass.

5. Stretch after your workout. It helps ease muscle soreness from the heavy weight training by telling the body to send the nutrients to the muscles that they need to heal the damage you caused.

6. Eat at maintenance or slightly under. The old advice to add 500 calories to gain muscle isn't accurate. When you gain by bulking like that, you gain fat too. The best way to maintain a fat loss while gaining lean tissue is to eat close to the maintenance level for your body and make sure you are getting the right amount of carbs and protein for your body.

7. Eat 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. (Yes, that's kilograms of body weight not pounds of body weight. The scientific studies on these things were done in kilograms not in pounds so anyone giving you a number of grams per pound is giving you a converted number that may or may not be accurate.) When your weight is converted from pounds you are 61.689 kilograms so 61.7 to 92.5 grams of protein per day.

8. Eat 6 to 10 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per day. Personally, i recommend 8-10 grams per kilogram but some people prefer a lower carb lifestyle, so 6 grams per kilogram would be the lowest I'd recommend on this plan. The reason is that carbohydrate spares protein. Remember how I said you will pull from protein stores in the body (IE: muscle) if you go too long on your cardio? Same thing will happen if you don't have enough carbohydrates on board to be able to store enough glycogen for your workouts. So, keep the carbs but make sure they are the complex carbs and lots of fruits and veggies. Simple carbs can be used after your workouts to replenish glycogen stores quickly. At 6 grams per kilogram of body weight, you'd eat 370 grams of carbohydrates per day. At 8 grams per kilogram of body weight, you'd eat 493.5 grams of carbohydrate per day. And at 10 grams per kilogram of body weight, you'd eat 617 grams of carbohydrate per day. Yes, I know that sounds like a lot of carbs, but you will be doing lots of heavy weight training which will stimulate the body to store a lot more glycogen in the working muscles because you will be burning a lot more glycogen during your workouts, so you won't store those carbs as fat as easily as you would if you were just doing cardio and not increasing your body's need for carbs.

She's close but I'm tired of people thinking there's a magic way for you to burn fat while maintaining, or gaining, lean body mass...... That's all I was attempting to do. If you don't know the mechanisms that make this happen, I don't feel like taking the time to educate you. I merely don't want people to be misinformed.

C. Those two articles you posted don't say anything about how to gain muscle and lose fat.. they are both "Bro Science"

Do not listen to trainingwithT. There are NUMEROUS reasons that her plan fails. Its a good start but is misguided on a number of points.

Are you sure about that, 'cause I could swear I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. I'm losing weight and wearing smaller clothes, but my muscles are getting hard and popping up more when I flex. I go a little heavier on the protein and a little lighter on the carbs. I'm getting harder muscles all the time.

You may also be interested in this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9309627

Sedentary adult males ^ (just pointing this out because this study uses people in the new to lifting category).