12 Week Fat Burning Muscle Building Workout To Finally Do Something![]()
How To Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle. Not too long ago, I covered how to lose fat. The thing is, there’s a second important topic that always needs to be covered right along with it. And that is: how to lose fat WITHOUT losing muscle. Wait! Did I just imply that you can lose your pretty hard- earned lean muscle mass while only trying to lose your ugly body fat??? It’s happened to me and countless others plenty of times, and it can definitely happen to you. To understand why and how this is possible and (more importantly) how to prevent it from happening, you first need to understand an important fact. This is sort of a dumb statement, because “weight” can be a few different things. Hell, you can cut off a leg and you’ll lose “weight” just fine. In reality however, what most of us want to lose is fat, NOT muscle. ![]() Now, despite some of the crazy things you may have heard before about how to lose fat, the truth is that there is just one major requirement. Ideally, this would ONLY be your ugly stored body fat. However, it can also be your pretty lean muscle tissue. Sure, you might want your body to just burn body fat and not muscle, but your body doesn’t really give a crap about what you want. It just knows that in order for it to survive and function under the current conditions, it will need to pull stored energy from somewhere. And that can mean fat, muscle or a combination of both. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do everything you can to improve the fat: muscle loss ratio as much as possible and basically signal your body to maintain ALL of your muscle and ONLY burn body fat. I thought you’d never ask. Here now are what I’d consider to be the 8 best ways to lose fat WITHOUT losing muscle. Considering the Focus T25 workout program by Beachbody? Check out my personal review and experience to see if this fat burning weight loss workout 4 U! Eat Enough Protein. A sufficient daily protein intake is the single most important dietary requirement for maintaining muscle. It’s not meal timing, or supplements, or the exact size of your caloric deficit, or the quality of the foods you eat (more on that nonsense later), or anything else diet related. Nutritionally speaking, losing fat without losing muscle is all about eating enough protein every day. Numerous studies have proven this to be true. Even in the absence of a proper weight training routine, more of the weight you lose will be body fat rather than muscle mass just as a result of an increased protein intake. So, the first step of any muscle- preserving diet is always getting your ideal amount of protein for the day. Just what is “ideal?” Well, the good old “1 gram of protein per pound of body weight” recommendation still remains a perfectly fine starting point for most people with this goal in mind. Additional details and specifics are covered here: How Much Protein Per Day. 12 Week Fat Burning Muscle Building Workout To Finally Be HappyMaintain Strength/Intensity/Weight On The Bar. And now here is the single most important training requirement for anyone who wants to lose fat without losing muscle. Simply put, the primary training stimulus required for maintaining muscle is maintaining your current levels of strength. You know how gradually getting stronger (aka the progressive overload principle) is what signals your body to begin the muscle building process? Well, on a fat loss diet, just maintaining your current levels of strength (aka intensity, aka the weight on the bar) is what now signals your body to maintain muscle. If that signal goes away, your body’s need to keep your pretty muscle tissue around goes away right along with it. That’s why the insanely stupid myth of lifting heavier weights to build muscle but then lifting lighter weights (for higher reps) when you want to lose fat, get lean and get toned is the absolute WORST thing you could possibly believe when you’re trying to avoid losing muscle. In reality, you lift heavy weight to build muscle, and then lift that same heavy weight if you want to actually maintain that muscle. If you start purposely lifting lighter weights while in a caloric deficit, your body essentially thinks: “Hmmm, it looks like we only need to lift lighter weights now. I guess all of that muscle I built for the purpose of being able to lift heavy weight is no longer needed. Time to start burning it for energy instead of body fat!”Not too good, huh? This means that your primary weight training goal is to, at the very least, NOT lose strength. This in turn will allow you to NOT lose muscle. For example, if you currently bench press 2. The same goes for every other exercise in your routine. Sure, you can continue trying to get stronger and continue trying to make progressive overload happen while losing fat. It can and does happen (especially for beginners, who should still be progressing consistently even in a deficit). But, if you’re past the beginner’s stage, don. Looking for unbiased & honest review of Body Transformation Blueprint by Sean Nalewanyj? Find out the pros and cons of this comprehensive workout package! This 3 day muscle building split is going to add some mass to those bones. Couple this workout with a good diet and will gain a lot of muscle and strength. Reduce Weight Training Volume and/or Frequency. A caloric deficit is really an energy deficit, and while this is fantastic (and required) for losing any amount of body fat, it kinda sucks for all things training related (recovery, work capacity, volume tolerance, performance, etc.). What that means is, the workout routine you were (or would be) using with great success to build muscle, increase strength or make whatever other positive improvements to your body under normal circumstances (where there is no deficit present) will often be TOO MUCH for your body to tolerate and optimally recover from in the energy deficient state it is currently in. And do you know what this scenario will ALWAYS lead to? One in which you’re not recovering properly from your workouts? A loss of strength. And do you know what a loss of strength will ALWAYS lead to, especially while in a caloric deficit? A loss of muscle. Like I explained a minute ago (#2 on this list), the key training requirement for maintaining muscle is simply maintaining strength. The problem is, if you’re using a workout routine that you aren’t properly recovering from, the opposite of this is going to happen. This is something that I and so many others have learned the hard way. The workout routine that seemed perfect before when those beneficial extra calories were present is now the reason your workouts are getting harder, you’re getting weaker, reps are decreasing, weight on the bar needs to be reduced, and your fat loss phase (aka the cutting phase) ends with you having lost way more muscle and strength than you should have. Been there, done that. Luckily, It Can Be Prevented. How do you avoid all of this? By adjusting your weight training program to compensate for the drop in recovery that always comes with being in a caloric deficit. That means reducing training volume (the total amount of sets, reps and/or exercises being done), reducing training frequency (the total amount of workouts being done per week and per muscle group), or a combination of both. My brand new guide to The Best Workout Routines actually contains the full details of a routine I like to call The Fat Loss + Muscle Maintenance Solution, as it incorporates ALL of these adjustments for this very purpose. It has become my go- to routine for maintaining muscle while I lose fat, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to do the same. You can download it all right here: The Best Workout Routines. I should also note that the possible exception to this are beginners, as they should ALREADY be using an intelligently designed lower volumebeginner routine. Get Pre & Post Workout Nutrition Right. I don’t remember the exact reasoning for this (if I did, I’d be making fun of it right now), but whatever it was. And if you haven’t heard, the entire concept of pre and post workout nutrition is practically built around improving these very aspects of training and recovery. That makes the meals you eat before and after your workouts JUST as important (arguably even more MORE SO) when your goal is losing fat without losing muscle as opposed to just building that muscle in the first place. As for what to eat during these meals, I cover the full details right here: The PRE & POST Workout Meal 5. Don’t Reduce Calories By TOO Much. As we hopefully all understand by now, in order to lose any amount of body fat, you need to create a caloric deficit (I figure if I repeat it enough times, it will sink in). And that means you’re going to need to reduce your calorie intake below maintenance level so stored body fat can be burned for energy instead. The thing is, that deficit can be classified as small, moderate or large based on how far below maintenance you go and how much you reduce your daily calorie intake by. Now, while each degree of deficit has its own PROS and CONS (which I explain here: The Caloric Deficit), a moderate deficit of about 2. That’s why it’s what I most often recommend: ? Why not reduce calories by even more and make fat loss happen even faster? Well, aside from being harder to actually sustain, the other major downside of a large caloric deficit is that it will have the largest negative impact on training and recovery. And that means that reducing your calorie intake by TOO much will increase the potential for strength and muscle loss. For that reason, I’d recommend most people stick with no more than a moderate deficit. Those who are already quite lean and looking to get REALLY lean may do better with an even smaller deficit. Incorporate Calorie/Carb/Nutrient Cycling. I can never decide if I want to refer to it as cycling calories, carbs or nutrients (they sound different but it’s all the same thing), so give me a second while I “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” this. This is done primarily by manipulating carbs and/or fat, as protein is something we want to be high every day. However, at the end of the week, the total amount of calories consumed would still be the same. It’s just the method of getting there (eating less on certain days, more on others) is different.
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