Burning fat and building muscle

Captain Hman

I started working out a few months ago but for the past month
I've been doing a lot of cardio cause my body fat was 17%.
The thing is I don't want to burn muscle off so does anyone have any tips on how I can put on muscle but burn fat also ?
I've been drinking protein shakes and green tea if that helps.

Will Heffernan

Captain Hman wrote: »

I started working out a few months ago but for the past month
I've been doing a lot of cardio cause my body fat was 17%.
The thing is I don't want to burn muscle off so does anyone have any tips on how I can put on muscle but burn fat also ?
I've been drinking protein shakes and green tea if that helps.

I’ll keep this as brief as possible but happy to go into more detail if necessary.

As with all things fitness and health related…there are lots of ways to skin a cat (never been too happy with that saying but I know you get what I mean….as long as you don’t think I am talking about skinning cats as a way to get fit and healthy).

What I mean by this is that if you are fat or lets just say fatter than you want to be you can get leaner via essentially two different avenues.

1. You can modify your diet and nutrition…that in reality comes down to eating less or predominantly consuming less calories…without getting too specific…if you consume less calories than you expend you lose weight…and by lose weight you predominantly lose body fat. You really need to almost go out of your way to ‘destroy/lose muscle mass’…although saying that…some people do happen upon or pick diets that do just that…but we can discuss that later if you like. As with the fitness component we’ll discuss in a minute there are lots of ways to modify your diet…have you heard of the ‘grapefruit diet’, ‘cabbage soup diet’, the ‘zone’, Atkins, the Northside diet * (*may or may not be an actual diet), the ‘X’ diet (for X insert the name of any diet you like)? Well all these diets rely on one thing really…that is…you going from eating what you normally eat i.e. the diet that got you where you are in the first place i.e. fat to a diet where you eat less. For example…a single Big Mac meal is about 1100 calories or more a grapefruit has lets say about 100 calories…what do you think you could eat faster and easier…a Big Mac meal or 11 grapefruits? So…if we ignore the health benefits or implications of all the diets…what we are basically talking about is reducing calories…all these ‘diets’ tend to work…no matter how retarded they are as long as you are able to stick to them…which is usually a matter of how long you can persevere/put up with it for one simple reason…that being you go from eating what you normally have…which got you where you are….to eating less and consuming less calories which results in weight reduction.

If you want my advice..(you are going to get it whether you want it or not)..it’s this:

Eat as if you are trying to maintain your ideal weight/body composition.

Sounds too simple I know…but it’s spot on…if you ponder nothing else in this reply (and I’m not certain you will) you should think about that along with all the ramifications and implications of that one sentence.

To bring it’s relevance to your questions above…if you can do it…as in if you can eat to maintain your ideal weight/body composition then you will not in fact ‘burn off’ muscle as you put it and if adding some muscle while you are decreasing some body fat is your goal then you might just be able to do that to some extent if you get your macronutrient intake spot on (this is more difficult than it sounds…not impossible…but difficult).

2. The other way to decrease your body fat is as you mentioned in your question i.e. ‘doing some cardio’. This part of the equation is the calorie expenditure side and as I mentioned a long, long, long time ago when I said I’d keep this brief…there are lots of ways to do this…you could do ‘cardio’…this could be aerobics classes, tag rugby, martial arts, jogging, swimming, cycling…it really doesn’t matter…my advice regarding exercise is similar to my dietary advice only completely different…that is…find something you enjoy doing…and do that. For lots of people they look after the calories expenditure side of things by doing ‘weights’…that works too…its not better or worse than cardio…just different…some people will do a quick hard circuit/boot camp/conditioning style weights workout and burn off all their calories quick…other people might wander around the gym for hours getting their pump on and take longer burning off their calories…but when all is said and done…they are just burning of calories…whether it took you hours or minutes…the results the same.

So there you go…in answer to your question…keep doing what you are doing if you are enjoying it…make sure you are creating a calorie deficit how ever you choose to do that but ensure you are getting enough protein to maintain whatever your ideal weight/body composition is.

That wasn’t quite as brief as I hoped…or probably as you had hoped but that’s about as brief and simple as I could make it.

Happy to clarify if I’ve only succeeded in confusing you further.

papu

Some awesome advice there.

This guy has a great video and some good tips on Burning Fat and Gaining Muscle! http://scoobysworkshop.com/gain-muscle-lose-fat/

Captain Hman

Thanks for the advice, i really appreciate it

Chancer3001

try intermittent fasting.

Very good quick results

googled eyes

Whats the "Northside diet " involve ?

ConorCBS

googled eyes wrote: »

Whats the "Northside diet " involve ?

He made it up, it's not an actual diet.

papu

Chancer3001 wrote: »

try intermittent fasting.

Very good quick results

IF is great and really easy , been doing it for a good few weeks now. There's a great thread here on boards to get some advice , and Scooby (Same guy whos video i posted earlier) does a decent video on it too!

generic2012

Northside diet is brown and in a syringe