This article is going to dive into the process of how to lose fat and gain muscle quickly and safely. You will be given all the details with no gimmicky content to steer you into the wrong direction.

Getting you an overview of this topic will hopefully get you to see things in a different perspective when it comes to your weight training and diet.

Let’s divide this topic into two parts…

What’s the best way to lose fat?

Well ideally you will want to have a higher energy expenditure than your caloric intake. What that means is that you will be exercising more than you will be eating, and in turn your body will begin to use fat for energy.

The complication is realized however when we analyze the chemical breakdowns that occur in our body when we eat and exercise.

Our body uses blood sugar before it begins to even think about breaking down fat for energy. This is probably a pre-historic safety mechanism that was biologically put into place to save us from starvation in hard times.

Stay with me here…

In other words, if our diet is high in carbohydrates (which are converted to sugars) then that sugar in our bodies is used up first when we exercise (hence why carbohydrate loading is beneficial for athletes playing sports longer than 60 minutes in duration). This occurs before we begin to use fat for energy, so a double edged sword – we need carbs to perform our exercises with maximum intensity but we also want to reduce our body fat so finding the right diet for you is even that much more important.

The other fact that sucks is that our body also utilizes our protein stores when we start burning fat. We store protein in our muscles so that means physiologically speaking we are breaking down muscle and fat when all our blood glucose is used up.

The trick is to eat a healthy balanced diet that provides our body with lots of fresh vegetables and fruits particularly in the morning. That way when we are ready to exercise our body has the most energy to push our limits and improve our performance.

As we do this our body will become more efficient at burning fat for energy and thereby allowing you to lose fat in all the right places! (I will be writing more about this topic in future articles, but this is a good start!).

So what about the best way to gain muscle?

Well to gain muscle we have to push our body to new levels and weight training at the gym is a great way to get this started.

No matter what level you are at, it’s a very good idea to track your results. For example make notes on what weights you can lift and how many repetitions you can do that exercise for.

With that said, gaining muscle is done best by short term high intensity exercises. Compare the body of a sprinter to a body of marathon runner and you’ll know what I mean. A note here for those who are starting out or have problems with high intensity training – try interval training to split up the exercise and give your body a break every few minutes.

An example of interval training would be running on the treadmill at 6mph and adding 30 second sprints at 8.5mph every 2 minutes.

Most importantly, the key to gaining muscle is to make sure you are always adding variety to your exercises to prevent your muscles from adapting.

Our muscular system has an incredible ability to adapt to stresses, so it’s important to switch up your exercises and try new routines every 4 - 8 weeks.

Another very important factor for muscle gain is of course a diet rich in high quality proteins such as that you get from lean meats (think fish!) as well as beans, legumes and dairy products. Proteins provide amino acids which allow our muscle to repair and grow.

Those doing high intensity workouts will want to aim for 1.2 - 1.7grams of protein per kg body weight.

You probably already noticed the common denominator to lose fat and gain muscle is a healthy diet.

It is a major factor to being lean and muscular. Of course, it is also important to exercise regularly and push your limits in every workout.

Having an exercise that is measurable will allow you to stay on track with muscle gain, so keep this in mind. Even if it’s as simple as being able to do one more sprint a week, this is the only way you will see results!

Has this article changed your perspective in any way?

I thought I’d also outline some supplements which can help you with muscle gain and fat loss:

Muscle Gain:

Whey Protein Powder

Creatine

Glutamine Supplementation

Fat Loss:

CLA

Green Tea Extract

Omega 3’s