When you gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, it’s a process called body restructuring. But this is not an easy process to carry out, especially since these two goals are contradictory physiological processes. As a result, your body may resist doing both at the same time, especially if your main focus is to lose weight.
Therefore, you need to make a very detailed plan that takes into account both fat loss and muscle gain. Sometimes, it helps to get input from a health care provider, dietitian, and exercise physiologist. These professionals can help create a plan that focuses on maintaining and strengthening muscles while adopting a nutritious diet that will not only help you lose weight but also support your muscle building. Here’s a closer look at what body restructuring involves.
How to Gain Muscle
When you want to gain muscle mass, you need to pay attention to the amount of protein you consume and the type of exercise you are doing. For example, studies have shown that resistance training not only increases muscle mass but also reduces body fat. It can even increase a person’s resting metabolic rate.
If you’re new to resistance training, you’ll need to start slowly and build a solid foundation combined with good form and joint stability. From there, you can start focusing more on your stamina and strength. Ultimately, to build muscle, you should do the workout at a moderate intensity and with a somewhat challenging weight.
Also keep in mind that resistance training on a daily basis is not feasible or recommended. Your muscles need time to rest and recover. On your days off, you can combine other types of workouts like cycling, walking, running, yoga, and even HIIT workouts.
When trying to build muscle, also pay attention to your sleep schedule and minimize stress. Adequate sleep can increase anabolic hormone levels, which can improve muscle recovery and growth. Similarly, if you’re chronically stressed for a long time, this can affect your muscle growth because your catabolic stress hormone is still elevated.
Muscle-building benefits
Having muscle is important for your overall health and well-being. Not only will it allow you to continue with the basic activities of your daily life, but it will also affect your mobility and longevity. In fact, when older people lose muscle or develop sarcopenia, their quality of life decreases and their risk of falls increases.
At the same time, there are many benefits to maintaining and strengthening muscle. Here are some of the ways you can benefit from building muscle:
- Improves strength
- Increases stamina
- Reduce the risk of injury or falls
- Improves blood sugar and cholesterol
- Improve functional ability and coordination
- Promotes heart health
- Improves bone density
- Reduces body fat
How to Lose Weight Safely
The key to safely losing body fat includes keeping your calorie deficit while still eating nutritious foods, which will keep your body energized and at optimal energy levels. But it’s not always an easy process, especially since many people underestimate how much they eat.
To lose body fat, you need to pay attention to the amount of protein and carbohydrates you consume and the amount of fat. Body restructuring usually requires you to reduce your intake of carbohydrates and fats while increasing your protein intake.
In fact, studies have shown that eating more protein during weight loss can encourage your body to maintain lean muscle mass. Similarly, adding resistance training will support your fat loss attempts while helping you retain and build muscle.
While everyone’s needs are different, the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) recommends a minimum of 3 grams of protein per kilogram (2 pounds) of body weight to promote fat loss and muscle gain. But don’t overlook carbohydrates and fats in the process.
Make sure you also eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and healthy fats like olive oil and avocados. You can also opt for fatty fish such as salmon, herring, sardines, and trout, which are not only good sources of protein but also provide healthy fats.
As for the rate of weight loss, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends not losing more than one to two pounds per week. Exceeding this limit can be unsustainable and may interfere with your efforts to build and maintain your muscles.
Benefits of fat loss
Losing weight and reducing body fat can improve your overall health and well-being, but it can also reduce the risk of chronic diseases. Studies have shown that losing 5% to 10% of your body weight can have a huge impact on your health. Here are some of the benefits you can expect from body fat loss:
- Improves blood sugar levels
- Decreased blood pressure
- Improves cholesterol measurement
- Periods are more regular
- Improves range of motion (especially in the knees)
- Reduces the risk of depression
- Reduces urinary incontinence problems
- Improves sexual function
- Reduces the risk of sleep apnea
- Improves heart health
- Reduce the risk of stroke
Can You Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time
The short answer is yes, you can do both. However, sometimes people also lose body fat and lose muscle. When this happens, it is often referred to as muscle loss due to weight loss. If this happens to you, you may experience a decrease in muscle function and a loss of strength.
Therefore, experts recommend that you engage in a consistent resistance training program and other forms of exercise while losing weight. It’s also important to balance nutrition and exercise. But if you’re consistent, you’ll see results eventually.
For example, an older study found that those who participated in an aerobic exercise and resistance training program for 12 weeks lost an average of 10% of their body fat while also gaining nearly 9% of their muscle mass. Meanwhile, another study of older women who participated in a 12-week swimming program found that participants experienced a decrease in body fat and increased physical strength.
These two studies show that you need to exercise consistently while following a nutrition plan that promotes weight loss. In fact, researchers found in one study that even a five-day break was enough to reduce your lean muscle mass.
Exercises to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat
When creating an exercise plan, resistance training should be at the heart of your plan. But because you shouldn’t do strength training every day, you need to balance this training with other types of exercise like walking, running, cycling, swimming, yoga, etc.
As for developing a resistance training program, there are a few different approaches you can take to achieve your goals. One method is dose-response training, which means you focus on a specific number of exercises and repetitions to induce muscle changes. For example, research shows that to promote variation in body composition, you should do five sets of 10 repetitions per resistance exercise for the best results.
You may also want to consider whether you want to do multi-joint exercises or single-joint exercises. Studies comparing single-joint exercises (such as biceps curls, dumbbell birding, dumbbell side raises, and calf raises) with multi-joint exercises (such as bench presses, deadlifts, squats, lat pulldowns, and seated rows) have shown that there is no difference between the two types of exercise in terms of volume loss and increased muscle mass. So, choosing what you want to do may come down to personal preference.
There are also a variety of exercises you can do when developing a resistance training program. Plus, you don’t have to go to the gym to work out. Some of these movements can be done with your body weight, resistance bands, or weights on your hands. Here are some of the more popular exercises that people use when developing a resistance training program:
- Push-ups (chest/triceps)
- Planks (Chest/Triceps/Core)
- Crunches (core)
- Bent over row (back/biceps)
- Biceps curls (biceps)
- Triceps stretch (triceps)
- Kickbacks (triceps)
- Goblet squat (legs)
- Lunge (leg)
- Floor bridge (gluteal/hamstring)
- Deadlift (gluteal/hamstring)
- Lateral Raise (Shoulder)
- Front Raise (Shoulder)
To create a resistance training plan, choose some exercises from the list above and do them like a loop. In other words, each exercise is done about 10 times (or repeated) in a row. So, if you choose the biceps curl, floor bridge, and side planch, you’ll need 10 reps per exercise, with short breaks between each exercise. Once you’ve done all three exercises, that’s the set. When you’re just starting out, you may want to target three groups. But when you’re used to resistance training, you should do five sets and reduce the rest time between workouts.
