Achieve Fitness Harmony: Building Muscle and Burning Fat with Strength Training
Hi Caroolliina)),
I know what you mean about that whole "can't lose fat and gain muscle at the same time" thing. It's like trying to balance a weight on a tightrope – one wrong move and you're tumbling down into either the land of flabby muscles or the realm of stubborn fat.
But here's the thing: it's not impossible, my friend. It's like the story of David taking down Goliath – with a little bit of strategy, we too can conquer this fitness challenge.
The key is to strike a delicate balance between
- our calorie intake,
- our exercise routine, and
- our rest.
Muscles are metabolically active tissues, that need energy to maintain. If we don’t consume enough calories, we lower our metabolic rate, resulting in the body using our muscles for energy before burning the fat.
But we’re trying to lose weight. So we put ourselves through a calorie deficit to do that, thus risk indirectly losing the muscle together with the fat loss.
We're like farmers trying to grow a bountiful harvest without killing the soil. The main trick is to keep our caloric deficit small enough, so it still qualifies for losing fat, but not too much deficit to the point of stifling our muscle-gaining efforts,
Here are three tips for fat loss and muscle growth at the same time:
1. We prioritize Strength Training:
To gain muscles, we need to incorporate weightlifting or resistance training into our workout routine. By subjecting our muscles through tension, or eccentric contraction, we’re creating micro-tears into the muscles, thus summoning our myonuclei from satellite cells to repair and producing more muscle fibers. Once established, the fibers will burn more calories than fat, even at rest.
For long term effect, focus on strength training with small dose of low intensity cardio to build muscles.
2. We maintain a Protein-rich diet:
Protein is the main building material for muscle tissues. If we don’t have enough, our muscles may atrophy, meaning bein to break down. This is one bit of awareness we need when we’re in a calorie deficit - for losing fat. Yes. Limiting calories is important for fat loss - but not at the expense of limiting our protein intake, which will lose our muscle mass.
Here’s the trick: The challenge is to create low calorie intake, but altering the nutrient choices for that calorie make-up.
So make high protein food sources a major focus. Aim to consume at least 1 gram of protein per pound of our body weight. If we weigh 150 pounds, we will need to consume 150 grams of protein.
Add it in with your other real food sources as much as you can, and where you can’t, make it up with supplements.
3. Take our rest & recovery seriously:
Take it one-step at a time, with your workouts. Overtraining may cause injury. And injury steals away your strength training gains. Since burning fat and gaining muscles at the same time are what we want, we will want to rest well too. Because, it is in the rest & recovery, that our body find time to repair itself.
Aim to have at least 7 hours of sleep. Lack of sleep, as mentioned in a 2020 study, stifles the release of cytokines - the proteins that promotes our muscle growth.
I know it can be tough to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, but it's definitely possible. Just remember to be patient and consistent with your workouts and diet, and you'll eventually see results.
And remember, just like building a temple takes time and effort, so does sculpting our bodies. It's a process, not an overnight transformation. So, be patient, consistent, and enjoy the journey!
Hope this helps. If it does, please
- UPVOTE,
- COMMENT, &
- SHARE.
May you be blessed with the power of David and the wisdom of Solomon.
Faithfully yours,
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