These models of the magazines are not toned, they simply have more muscle and less fat than you. Can you get both at once?
Gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time seems physically impossible. To gain a kilo of muscle you need 5,000 extra Calories for your body to build the new tissue.
That is, you have to eat more than you spend. But at the same time, to burn a kilo of fat you have to burn 7,000 Calories, or what is the same, you have to spend more than you eat. Is that how you eat?
The traditional solution has been to gain muscle first for months (and some fat as well) and then burn fat, also burning muscle. But there are alternatives.
Your body is not an oven. If calories were the only important thing, then you could eat a thousand calories a day of cakes and it would be the same as eating a thousand chicken calories.
Take the test, and you will see how it does not work like that. What your body does with food depends on the type of nutrients you eat and the time you eat.
If we eat a few carbohydrates and weights, we will force our body to burn our fat deposits. We have already seen that carbohydrates produce the secretion of insulin, and insulin blocks the oxidation of fats. Keeping carbohydrates and insulin in check helps your body burn fat.
Diets that simply reduce calories cause weight loss, but unfortunately, this is in general. Fat is lost but they also lose muscle, and you end up being a slim-fit. Several studies have shown that by reducing only carbohydrates, with high levels of protein and moderate fat, the body is forced to use body fat as energy.
The subjects of the studies lost weight but gained muscle.
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The other fundamental ingredient: you have to lift weights. And they have to be very heavy exercises. Short, intense efforts stimulate the production of growth hormone, which causes your body to build muscle tissue. If you do not give your body reasons to keep the muscle, it will not keep it.
Restricting carbohydrates is very hard if you plan to do it all your life. A good solution is to alternate throughout the week. The days you do not train, you will eat fewer calories and fewer carbohydrates. Gym days, right after training, you eat more.
For example, you can alternate four days of eating below your basal metabolism, restricting carbohydrates. In between, three days of eating more carbohydrates, which must coincide with gym days.
Monday – gym – Low carbohydrates before training, highs after
Tuesday – rest / soft aerobics – Low carbohydrates all day
Wednesday – gym – Low carb before training, high after
Thursday – rest / soft aerobics – Low carbohydrates all day
Friday – gym – Low carbohydrates before training, high after
Weekend – rest / soft aerobics – Low carbohydrates all day
How to restrict carbohydrates on rest days?
Eating huge amounts of vegetables, which have a low glycemic index. Since it contains a lot of water and fiber, they will satisfy you. Legumes in moderation are also a good idea.
The rest of your diet has to be high in protein and moderate in healthy fat, such as olive oil, fatty fish, nuts and avocados.
The results with this strategy are slower than long cycles like Operation Transformer, in which muscle is first gained and then fat is lost. But in return, it’s something you can do for the rest of your life.
Learn how high-intensity fitness workouts can help you gain muscle but also lose weight.
In general, more and more people are practicing fitness in the gymnasiums to achieve specific and more athletic goals, but also for the improvement of their physical condition, aesthetics, and health.
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Life becomes easier when you are strong, an example of this is every time you need to carry grocery shopping, do cleaning, children on your lap, luggage to carry, etc…
The training force “consists of performing certain exercises that use the voluntary contraction of skeletal muscles against some form of resistance, which can be achieved through the body, free weights or machines.”
In addition to inducing increased muscle mass, strength training contributes to physical fitness, improves metabolism , stimulates the reduction of body fat, increases bone mass, leads to extremely favorable changes in body composition, provides necessary cardiovascular adaptations for repeated short and relatively intense efforts, improves flexibility and coordination and helps prevent falls in the elderly.
Strength training, as well as physical activity in general, influences not only the issue of biological health but also the psychological factor (for example, the release of a hormone called endorphin, responsible for the sense of well-being and tranquility that checks during and after physical exercise).
When well planned and systematized, this type of workout has tremendous potential for healthy weight loss.
Fleck and Kraemer (2006) confirm that strength training contributes significantly to the reduction of fat mass percentage since there is an acceleration of metabolism due to an increase in muscle mass and there is also an increase in energy expenditure as a result of oxidation of calories.
To better understand how it happens physiologically, it is necessary to understand, that there are only “three ways to spend calories:
those used in basal metabolism
those necessary to digest food
and those consumed in muscle contraction.
When measuring them, it is observed that the basal metabolism is responsible for about 70% of the caloric expenditure, due to being part of the calories destined to maintain the cellular functions of the whole organism, however, it is clear that raising the rate of metabolism at baseline, caloric expenditure will certainly rise, and thus contribute even more to weight loss.
Credit: Photo by Form on Unsplash
Food is also of great importance if you are to burn fat and increase muscle mass at the same time, you need to eat enough to stimulate muscle growth, making proper nutritional choices so that the body uses fat reserves as energy rather than muscle that we worked so hard to achieve.
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We detail 5 habits that you should incorporate into your routine to achieve these goals:
1. Increase your protein intake
Protein-rich diets help build lean mass, increase satiety, and also burn fat.
2. Train to increase muscle mass, not to burn calories
Doing endless workouts with low weights and multiple repetitions is not the most appropriate process for those who want to increase muscle mass. For this, it is important to increase the weight and focus on exercises such as squats, dead weight, lunges, shoulder press, bench press, among others.
3. Reduce the consumption of carbohydrates
To burn fat you will need to reduce the consumption of carbohydrates. But this does not mean eliminating them from your diet as they are important to provide the energy needed to build muscle and prevent the body from using protein reserves as energy.
4. Introduce healthy fats into your diet
Many believe that to burn fat it is necessary to cut into foods with fat in its composition. However, in doing so, you will be compromising your health, as well as giving us energy and satiation, fats have other important functions.
5. Consume a moderate number of calories
It is necessary to find a balance in the caloric consumption that provides the muscular development and that at the same time, stimulates the release of the stored fat. To do this, you should not overdo caloric consumption. It is important to remember that you are not on a diet, but rather work to increase muscle mass while burning fat. So you need the macronutrients and calories you need to achieve your goals.
Be patient and consistent in your practice, and the results will come.
Last tip: refer to your clothes, your mirror or your feelings to see your physical transformation, not your balance.
AUTHOR
Hi, I’m Deepak. Engineering is my profession but blogging is my passion. Trying to make a difference in this world by my words. Feel free to connect with me on my blog, i.e. DesiSoch where you’ll be learned how to Recover from Sentimental Relationships and increase Your productivity.