Trying to add muscle but also lose body fat page 2

[Darwin17]

Lower the carbs on days you don't lift. On days you lift eat big easy digestible carbs with a lean protein. When you lift stay with compound lifts only and go heavy as hell and balls out 2 times per week. If you are sticking with pull ups, squats, dips, deadlifts, bench press, military press you will put on pounds of meat. Sprint once a week and walk........now this sounds like what Mark preaches....it works.

[sandstone]

Check out the book "The Smarter Science of Slim", it's author Jonathan Bailor has done several guest posts here for Mark.

In it JB lays out a theory (backed by a lot of independent scientific research) that everyone has an inherited physical genetic potential with an appropriate % of fat and muscle, he calls it a Set Point. As we stray further from the lifestyle our genetics have developed for that Set Point becomes skewed I.e. as in most stressful situations we drop muscle and store fat.

He focuses on diet being the primary stressor (with exercise secondary), so if you improve your food quality (irrespective of quantity) you body will re- calibrate its set point closer to that original level defined by your genes. In this case it is possible to drop fat while gaining muscle.

If that is your goal then I think it certainly is possible to do both at once. However if what you want to do increase muscle over you genetic Set Point then it will be harder.

[Knifegill]

he focuses on diet being the primary stressor (with exercise secondary), so if you improve your food quality (irrespective of quantity) you body will re- calibrate its set point closer to that original level defined by your genes. In this case it is possible to drop fat while gaining muscle.

x2!

[destructalux]

Lower the carbs on days you don't lift. On days you lift eat big easy digestible carbs with a lean protein. When you lift stay with compound lifts only and go heavy as hell and balls out 2 times per week. If you are sticking with pull ups, squats, dips, deadlifts, bench press, military press you will put on pounds of meat. Sprint once a week and walk........now this sounds like what Mark preaches....it works.

i cant do the 2 times a week split. it's just plain dead boring. initially i was lifting twice a day, 7 days a week (keep in mind this was my way of dealing with the loss of a loved one) and lost a lot of fat and stacked on a heap of muscle (16kg drop so far).

I've now got my workot routine to walks in the morning then 1 workout 4 times a week, lots of compound exercises, plus a few additional stretch workouts and ab workouts. I'm slowly finding the balance but as far as only lifting 2 days a week.... dunno if I could ever find that enjoyable :/

[Leida]

I did everything described here and more, and I was unable to either drop fat or gain muscle, let alone do it simultaneously. lean gain did absolutely nothing, Ultimate Diet 2.0 leads to lowering fat but I dropped some muscle. Bulking up with clean foods leads to gaining 75% fat and only 25% muscle which promptly disappear as I start cutting. I did heavy lifting sans cardio, with steady state cardio, with HIT. I do kettlbells and barbell program right now in the 3-5-1 format & short HIT cardio + lots of SM and standing all day at work, but I have no hope left that I can either lose fat or gain muscle. As far as I am concerned there is no method under the sun that can change my body. It is stuck in the skinny-fat mode & will not budge.

I am starting to get my PT to teach me Olympic lifts to see if power moves will change anything. Doubt it. In nutrition, I did everything but vegetarian and vegan, and doing the Ferris/Hydman low carb variation now.

I don't have penis envy when it comes to men, but deltoid...yes.

[PaleoAP]

Beginners are capable of losing fat and gaining muscle mass at the same time as a result of the hormonal corrections that accompany proper diet and exercise. However, we've seen that this effect has a clear inverse relationship with the individuals training level. There are a lot of factors that go into determining muscle gain aside from a caloric surplus/carb level. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence out there but not a lot of hard scientific evidence. You would be best served to periodize your goals in order to see the most effective progress. Trying to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously is an incredibly slow process. Separate the two and you'll see faster results.

[iniQuity]

i cant do the 2 times a week split. it's just plain dead boring. initially i was lifting twice a day, 7 days a week (keep in mind this was my way of dealing with the loss of a loved one) and lost a lot of fat and stacked on a heap of muscle (16kg drop so far).

I've now got my workot routine to walks in the morning then 1 workout 4 times a week, lots of compound exercises, plus a few additional stretch workouts and ab workouts. I'm slowly finding the balance but as far as only lifting 2 days a week.... dunno if I could ever find that enjoyable :/

Same here, I don't really have any other hobbies besides moving my body around... reading I do plenty of on my commute to work. I play a little guitar but I also can do plenty of that after a good workout. I feel funny if I don't at least do some sort of warm up and maybe a little stretching. I know that's not the same as a 2-3x/week ballstothewall workout, but the concept of more than one absolute rest day is weird to me. I only do one of those a week, and mostly cus my gf plans shit to do all day... but then we have sex so nvm.

[Leida]

I have plenty to do, but I end up in the gym almost daily (in fact with my wee one I end up coming 2x times, lol!). Even if it's just to play in the pool (if it's too busy to swim) or go to the steam room. I lift 4x a week, I love the split when I can concentrate on 1 major lift a day, and I often too lazy to do cardio, so I end up doing 'learning' workouts when I try new moves with lighter weights.

If the pool was not so idiotically busy (we have a kid-oriented pool with only 2 lanes for swimming) I would be there even more often. Can't wait to hear that they finally committed to the lane pool as a part of the rec center. They had been talking about it for 2 years. The day they start building it I will throw a party!

But in those 3 months we actually have Okay weather I skip gym often to do gardening which I am very fond of and just... walk.

One thing is for sure, it started with trying to lose weight for me, but now I am seriously taken by doing stuff in the gym.

[john_solo]

I'm doing LeanGains, but with a caloric deficit on all days. I add rice/fruit in on workout days and keep cals to 1900 - 2200, fat and protein exclusively on rest days to ~1500 cals. Still progressing fairly linearly with lifts (doing Strong Lifts 5x5), but not really wanting to put on muscle. Rather lose fat and gain strength. Actually haven't seen results on the scale yet, but it's only been a few weeks.

I think adding muscle/losing fat is possible at the same time, but really hard. Better to focus on performance and fat loss, IMHO.

[Leida]

I always start with trying to lose fat. Then in a month or so, i'd lose a couple of pounds and/or hit close to 120-122 lbs, and hit the 'I am sooo tired of starving' rut & stop sleeping well at night, so I decide "That's it, I'd rather add muscle & stop caring what my waist is measuring! I am gonna get real strong!!! I am gonna squat 1.5 BW this time & bench 95 lbs, WOOT!!!".

Then I start gaining weight, mostly fat of course (cause muscle don't grow on trees), and in another month the pants get tight, belly start looks pg again, and voila, I am back to the deficits and trying to lose fat.