We all would like to lose weight, but what if it comes with loss of muscle?
One of the biggest side effects of losing fat is that it also results in muscle wastage. When we consume fewer calories, your body puts your muscle health on low-priority. Our muscles already go through wear and tear every day and when nothing replaces them, they become diminished.
Thankfully, though, there are ways you can lose fat while gaining muscle mass.
1. Bumping Up Your Protein Consumption
It is a no-brainer that if you want to gain more muscles, you should eat food that promotes the growth of muscles, namely proteins. Protein is made of amino acids, which are the building blocks of muscles. The great thing about protein is that it also promotes the production of certain enzymes and hormones that regulate healthy appetite and promote fat loss.
To gain muscle while losing fat, you should aim to eat about 1.09 to 1.41 grams of protein per pound of your bodyweight. This protein intake should be space out over the entire day.
2. Being Patient While Losing Weight
When you are on a weight loss journey, you may be tempted to reduce weight as quickly as possible. However, drastic drops in weight does not just equate to fat loss but also muscle loss.
Your goal should to lose no more than 2 pounds of weight every week. Although everyone will need to cut a different number of calories and increase their activities during a weight loss process, reducing your daily calorie intake by 500 calories is a good start.
3. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
Although lengthy cardio can help to burn calories, it can result in calorie deficit which will cause muscle loss as well. That’s why if you want to focus on cardio to lose weight, it is best if you do high intensity interval exercises like short repeated sprints on the treadmill and bike.
After a 5-minute warm-up, you can perform your first interval for 60 seconds. Then stop until your heart rate returns to normal and then jump in again for another high-intensity workout.
HIIT can be quite exhausting so it is best to only do no more than 3 sessions every week. If you think this is too much, you can scale back to 2 or even 1 session per week.
4. Strength Training
Even though cardiovascular training is very beneficial, it should still not replace weight training. If you want to get the best muscles, you should include at least two days of weight training a week to maintain your existing muscles and add in more days if you want to build up more.
It is better if you first fit strength training into your schedule and then focus on including cardio exercises for maximum benefit.
5. Muscle Recovery
Most people go all out and prefer to bulk up during their weight loss and muscle gaining journey. However, you need to understand that muscles need to recover and rest as well.
Although the exact time of muscle recovery varies from person to person, health experts believe people should give a muscle group a rest of one to two days before putting them through strength training again. So if you perform an upper-body lift on Monday, you shouldn’t do the same exercises until Wednesday or even Thursday.
Bottom Line
Although you may see yourself making great gains during the start of your weight loss program, in time, these changes will slow down. It will become more and more difficult to lose fat while you are gaining muscles. That’s just how the human body works.
The key thing you need to keep in mind is not to get discouraged and persevere. In time, you will get the body you are aiming for.