Building Muscle Whilst Losing Fat

Gaining Muscle - The Real Challenge

So many of us, myself included, find losing fat way easier than building muscle. Dropping fat in an 8-week cut? Definitely doable (not saying it's easy!).

But packing on muscle? A totally different ball game.

A question I get a lot as a personal trainer: Can you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?

* A complete newbie

* Getting some extra help from certain substances...

* Blessed with amazing genetics

But hey, it's not impossible!

Let's say your sleep, training, recovery and consistency isn’t the best and you prioritise these.

Aiming for minimum of 7-8 hrs sleep is an amazing place to start. See figure 1 it shows the results of a 10 week study where both groups did resistance training twice a week.

However, one group was in an optimised sleep group and the other group just did resistance training. Both groups increased lean body mass but the group that were in the optimised sleep group loss body fat too showing both can be done.

Here's a graph to visualise the data from the study:

One thing to remember here is that it gets harder as you get more experienced! A beginner lifter is going to find it much easier to put on muscle and change their body composition than somebody who has been training consistently or years. It is also easier to lose fat the shorter amount of time you've had it and this will need to be taken into consideration.

Pro tips for muscle gain

• Be consistent and follow a solid training plan (at-home gym training plan with again faster is coming real soon)
• Stay in a slight surplus or at maintenance
• Spend more time at maintenance/surplus than in a deficit
• Prioritise sleep and recovery
• Understand gains are slowwww but they add up over time, so keep pushing



Need any help? Just give me a shout!

References

• 1) åbekk P, Jensen RM, Sandell MB, Haugen E, Katralen LM, Bjorvatn B. A randomized controlled pilot trial of sleep health education on body composition changes following 10 weeks resistance exercise. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2020 Mar 4; ePub ahead of print.