The 3 Principles of Building Muscle and Losing Fat
In order to build muscle and lose fat it is essential you follow three principles: correct nutrition, strength training and recovery. These three elements are non-negotiable if you want to simultaneously gain muscle and reduce fat. If you incorrectly apply one, it will affect the others and you will not see the results you are after. In this article, I will briefly explain each element so that you can implement your own program to build muscle and lose weight.
Proper Nutrition
People often think that building muscle means that you need to consume more calories. They also believe that losing weight requires fewer calories. However, it is possible to strike balance so that you simultaneously do both. This does require some tinkling with your calorie levels but is simpler than you think.
First, determine how many calories you need per day. You can do this by visiting the many different websites on the internet with this information. Next, start to count your calories and begin your workouts as they are explained below. After three weeks, determine whether you have lost fat and gained muscle.
If you have lost fat but not gained muscle then you will need to increase your number of calories. If you have gained muscle but not lost fat then you should decrease your number of calories. Keep the calories the same if you’re happy with the progress.
Strength Training
To build muscle you need to build strength. Start a weight lifting program that workouts the entire body with the least amount of exercises. For example, you can work the whole body by doing just squats, deadlifts, bench press and chins. Do these exercises one to two times a week extremely intensively. Intense means to the point you can no longer move the weight because the muscle is so exhausted. Do only one set of this intense lifting otherwise you may over train.
Rest and Recovery
It is important that you give yourself enough time to recover from your workouts. Otherwise, you can actually over train your body and not build the muscle that you want. Get a full nights rest every night, reduce the amount of exercises or their frequency if you are feeling tired and make sure you eat a well rounded diet.