Lose Fat by Building Muscle-How Does it Work

Initially, let's expose one fantasy of a few body-builders: to lose fat, building muscle is all you need. By not altering diet or aerobic activity, a person trying to lose fat will only see negligible losses by building muscle. It's true, though, that building lean muscle will yield additional ways of helping to lose fat, by itself don't anticipate a great deal of help.

To examine this further, you will find claims that every pound of resting lean muscle burns 50 calories a day. Sorry, but that number is much overstated. Resting muscle is like an idling car; it burns some fuel, but not a great deal. Doing nothing, those muscles burn roughly 13 calories a day. If an individual were to gain ten pounds just building lean muscle, he would burn 910 calories in a week. To lose fat at this pace, it would take him about 27 days to get rid of one pound of body fat. That of course doesn't take into account all the other variables, such as gaining any additional body fat while building lean muscle. When you're building muscle, you are likely to require additional calories to support this new growth. To think that none will go into body fat will be truly optimistic.

That believed, is building lean muscle while we are trying to lose fat not possible when trying to accomplish our long-term goals? We take the position that building muscle is a crucial part of the battle to lose fat, but it really is just one leg in a three-leg stool. One of the other vital legs to lose fat is cardio activity, and if our muscles are on the increase and actively calling for extra nutrients, our body will feel alive and vigorous, making us more liable to do the necessary aerobic activity. Additionally, the third leg of the stool is eating habits. Just like all fats aren't created equal, all calories aren't all created equal. There are good calories and bad calories, and the type of foods you choose will have a great influence on the type of body mass you will attain.

While building muscle, you will be creating mini metabolism machines which are continually working. To maintain this activity, they crave more nutrients in order to keep going. To lose fat, we have always been told that we need to cut back on calories. Here is where proper diet kicks in. By eating high fat foods, like cheeseburgers or foods high in Tran's fats and processed foods, more of those calories are going to be transformed to fat than muscle. The trick is to consume just enough calories to maintain building lean muscle, but only those foods that are clean, whole foods that your body will burn for fuel and growth. By cutting out junk foods, sugars and all processed foods, and replace them with whole foods like lean protein, fibrous carbohydrates and clean fats, building muscle and losing fat will turn out to be a breeze and you are going to start to notice the difference in two or three weeks.

One concluding word on building lean muscle: During your first period of training, many people experience fat loss regardless of what they eat, but to their astonishment it doesn't sustain. As testosterone levels are rising, your body is using everything, including stored fat to build muscle. But this only occurs for a certain period of time before your body desires more food to maintain strength levels. Again, the fuel you supply your system will determine if you will lose fat while building muscle.

Our goal is to inform those people who are trying to lose weight on comprehensive, realistic programs for weight loss. We are definitely not into quick-fixes, but programs that involve proper diet, cardio work, and muscle tone. Rich Carroll is a writer and health advocate now living in London.