Burn Fat Build Muscle

If you're like most people, one of the primary goals that you have set for yourself as you go about your workout program is to burn fat and build muscle. You want to get that nice muscular physique where good muscle definition is evident, but you also want to be ripped enough to see six pack abs as well.

Is this possible? Can you really burn fat and build muscle at the same time? Or are the two mutually exclusive goals? Time and time again you'll read that you can't build muscle and burn fat at the same time as they are both opposite processes in the body. To build muscle you require a calorie surplus and to burn fat, you require a calorie deficit. Since you can't have more calories and fewer calories at the same time, this seems to render this goal impossible. But, if you're an advanced trainee who has been going to the gym for a while, or even if you're a beginner stepping foot in the gym for the very first time, there are definitely some things that you can do that will really tilt the scales in your favour.

Let's have a quick look through what you should know if you want to attain the goal to burn fat & build muscle at the same time. It is possible if you follow the right approach.

Cycle Your Carbs

The very first thing that you can do to help your body generate more lean muscle mass while also burning off body fat at the same time is to cycle your carbohydrates. Since carbohydrates tend to be the most variable nutrient that gets adjusted when moving between muscle building and fat loss programs, it's also the one that should really get adjusted when trying to accomplish both goals at once.

What you're going to do is make the days you do weight lifting workouts, which are designed to promote muscle growth, much higher in total carbohydrate intake, and then make the days where you're doing no weight lifting, lower in carbohydrate intake.

This ensures that the carbohydrates are being eaten on the days when you naturally happen to be most anabolic and then on the days when you aren't, you're going to have to dip into body fat stores for fuel since they aren't present.

Note that this approach will work best if you're using a full body workout program because then that will allow for three full anabolic days and then four days where you're losing body fat.

If you were to do a body part split program, you'll have so few days where you're losing body fat that you will likely see very little results at all.

Additionally, since full body workouts aim to hit the muscles with the highest frequency levels, this is also going to help promote better overall muscular growth.

Place Your Carbs Around Your Workout

Moving along, when it comes to those carbohydrates placed on your workout days, you're going to want to really load them up right around the workout period. It's at this point that they're really 'primed' to go right into the muscle cells and work towards building more lean muscle tissue.

If you don't place them around the workout and save them for later on in the day, there is a higher chance that they may get directed to body fat stores, which is obviously not what you want.

Place them right before and especially right after the workout and you'll see far superior results.

It's not uncommon with this to see some people placing up to 70% of their total carbohydrate intake right around the workout period so really don't be afraid to eat plenty of carbs at this time.

Do Low Intensity, Fasted Cardio On Off Days

The third thing that you must do if you want to attack both of these goals at the same time is to structure your workout program so that you're going to be performing your cardio training on the off days from weight lifting and on those days, you're to do it in a fasted state.

When doing cardio training at a lower intensity on an empty stomach, you're going to dip into those body fat stores faster, helping further your progress along.

Keeping it to a lower intensity is also beneficial because then it won't tax the system like higher intensity cardio training will and will ensure that overtraining doesn't take place, moving you further away from your muscle building goals.

When someone goes out and starts doing numerous high intensity cardio workouts per week this is very likely to cause problems with total recovery ability and that will without a doubt sacrifice the amount of muscle building that takes place.

Be Patient

Finally, the last thing that must be in place is patience. It's important to realize that since you are working towards both building muscle and losing fat at the same time, results are not going to happen quite as quickly as if you were to have chosen one goal itself and then moved on to the other.

Any time you can maximize the calorie surplus or deficit you're running (without going to any sort of extreme), you're going to see superior results and since when trying to accomplish both goals at once you're essentially creating an either/or approach each and every day, they will tend to balance each other out.

Thus, progress will be slower in either direction but at the same time, you won't risk the fat gains while building muscle or the muscle mass loss while losing fat, and instead will become more ripped and muscular.

So if your goal is to build muscle, burn fat, it's vital that you keep these points in mind. If you do, you should have no problem working towards this goal after some time and effort is put into properly planning your schedule.

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- Shannon Clark