When  a personal trainer first asks a new gym attendee what their goals are, they most often hear replies such as: “Build muscle lose fat”,  “build muscle then lose“, “burn fat build muscle”, ”build muscle and burn fat”. So, it would seem to be that nearly all people would prefer to get bigger muscle s and also simultaneously reduce their percentage body fat. In the next few paragraphs I discuss if it is really possible to do this or is it something that only professional bodybuilders and marketing companies believe is possible?

Is it actually feasible to build muscle mass and lose fat tissue at the same time?

The short answer is ‘yes’ however not without a great deal of difficulty, calculating calories and discipline but it can be done! To build muscle mass you have to eat more calories than you use up throughout each day leaving a decent amount left to build muscle but not so many that they get stored as fat tissue. Without excess calories you will not build muscle, with too many excess calories you may build muscle but also add some extra body fat as you do so. The key here is not too eat so many calories that you put on fat but too eat just enough so that you build muscle mass. There are

If you wish to avoid adding fat at the same time as building muscle then you really have to work out your exact calorie requirements and then stick to them. to work out your calorie requirements then use the following simple equation that provides an approximate answer:

Find out your body weight and you percentage body fat e.g. 200 pounds with 10% body fat.

Workout your body’s lean mass.g. 200 pounds minus your 10% body fat equals 190.

Take your lean body mass and multiply it by 19 e.g. 190 multiplied by 19 equals = 3610

This is then the amount of calories you approximately need to eat to gain muscle mass provided you are doing effective workouts too. However this is just a rough figure but if you consumed 500-1000 more you would maximise your muscle growth but probably pile on some body fat too. this number of course is only an approximate figure and it would be difficult to track the number of calories you consume in a day anyway.

So I am guessing you are not overly excited at the prospect of the above methods, if so what are the alternatives available to you. Well the two step option is the most highly recommended and it is what most bodybuilders do. First you build muscle then you lose weight. This is also known as going through a bulking up phase and then going through a cutting phase. This is much easier as in the first phase you simply need to eat a lot and often. Therefore all you need to do really is to take on board more calories than the above total. This phase would usually last for 3-6 months after which you will likely have put on a good few kilograms in solid muscle and also a few kilos in body fat too. Now you start to eat less calories and increase the cardio-vascular sessions so that you work off more calories per day than you take on.

Maintaining your muscle mass and burning off excess calories will thus be the main focus of the newxt few months. So in effect looking at the results over a year you will have built muscle and burnt fat but you will have done it in two separate stages and not at the same time. The final long term outcome is the same only you will have gotten there in two seperate distinct steps.

So if you do wish to build muscle and burn fat I highly recommend that you build muscle then lose fat in two separate stages. Expert author Tom Venuto has the entire process and more broken down into simple steps for you, read the ‘Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle E-book’ Review here for more information on how to build muscle then lose fat.

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