Can you build muscle and lose fat simultaneously?
My workout plan is to do weight lifting every other day and on the days im not lifting do cardio to burn fat. I have been told that this is impossible as to build muscle I need protein and protein has calories which i must get rid of to lose fat. I understand that there are 4 calories per gram of protein. However, can i do cardio to burn off the calories that come with protein, without losing the actual protein itself so i can build muscle at the same time? Or would burning off the calories also burn off the protein?
October 13th, 2010 at 12:07 am
whether you want to or not you’re going to get calories, you can’t really escape that. as long as you’re not running 12 miles everytime you do cardio (or whatever: as long as you don’t run so much that your body runs out of fat to burn) you should still be able to gain muscle.
October 13th, 2010 at 12:50 am
Don’t do cardio on your rest days. They’re called rest days for a reason. An ideal plan to burn fat/gain muscle is to do 45 mins to an hour of weight lifting, and then 10 minutes of high intensity interval training (sprint full speed 30 secs, slow walk 30 secs, sprint 30 secs, walk 30 secs, etc. for 10 mins). This is much more effective at burning fat than jogging for half an hour. Also, doing this right after weight lifting will really boost your metabolism. Your rest day is for building muscle, and you don’t want to be burning calories when those calories could be hard at work building muscle. So just do weight lifting + 10 mins high intensity intervals, eat a protein rich meal within an hour, and live your life. Rest on the rest day 😉
October 13th, 2010 at 12:56 am
Yes but not exactly simultaneous, you should concentrate on one thing at a time. Either you burn off fat or you build it up. The fat can actually be developed, and when you do, it’ll turn into mass tissues. It won’t give you the buffed look but it will give the huge bulk. On the other hand, burning it off first will make you slim, then you can opt to turn it into muscles, that’s where you get the buff, rips, abs, and sculpts.