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#121 - Losing Fat & Building Muscle At The Same Time
29 Plays14 days ago
Can you really lose fat and build muscle at the same time? In this episode, we break down the truth about body recomposition and whether it’s the right move for you.
What You’ll Learn:
- What body recomposition is and how it actually works
- Who should focus on fat loss, muscle gain, or try to do both
- Real strategies to get stronger, leaner, and feel better in a practical way
- Pros and cons of recomposition vs. traditional bulking/cutting
- How to know which approach fits your body, goals, and lifestyle
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Transcript
Introduction to Accessible Fitness and Health
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Latham Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. We got another weekly episode coming at you. Before I get into that, just your weekly reminder, if you can leave a review, share this with people who you think would get some value out of this, continue to get this show out to the people who need
Goals of the Podcast: Improve Fitness, Health, and Quality of Life
00:00:25
Speaker
it the most. That is the whole goal to help people get more fit, help people get more healthy, live a longer life, a better quality life, look better, feel better, all that good stuff. So I appreciate your part in helping to do that.
00:00:37
Speaker
But with this week's episode, So when we think about why people get into fitness, why they have big health goals, why they want to really start to prioritize their health, it really falls into two big buckets. And usually it's a combination of the two, but people ultimately want to look better.
Understanding Body Composition: Muscle vs. Fat
00:00:54
Speaker
So changing their body composition, which essentially is just a fancy way of saying they want to build muscle, they want to lose fat, right? They want to have that more toned look. They want to look more fit, more athletic, that sort of thing.
00:01:08
Speaker
The other part of it is they want to feel better, so improve their health. So you want to have more energy. You know you want to have a better mood.
Q&A: Bulking, Cutting, and Simultaneous Fat Loss and Muscle Gain
00:01:16
Speaker
You want to live longer, like all those different things that we exercise and focus on diet and sleep and all that stuff to make us feel better.
00:01:24
Speaker
When we're thinking about looking better, because that is a big part of a lot of people's reasons for first getting into fitness and health or having big fitness goals is how they look that a lot of times is what draws people in.
00:01:38
Speaker
And so I wanted to talk a
Mechanisms and Benefits of Body Recomposition
00:01:40
Speaker
little bit about this, like about these body composition goals and about specifically losing fat and building muscle at the same time, because I get questions about this a lot about like whether should I bulk, should I cut?
00:01:53
Speaker
Should I focus on doing both at the same time? Is it even possible to do both at the same time? And the short answer is yes, it is possible to do both at the same time, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best strategy for everybody.
00:02:05
Speaker
And so I want to get into this topic of body recomposition, which is basically building muscle and losing fat at the same time. I want to talk about what it is, how it actually works, who it's for, how to do it. And if it's not something that is for you, like if it's not something you should be doing,
00:02:23
Speaker
what are the other alternatives and what you should actually be focusing on? Because as I said, just because you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best strategy for everybody, depending on where you're starting, what your goals are, all those sorts of things. So let's get into this episode. Can you really do both at the same time? As I said, yes, you can absolutely lose fat and build muscle at the same time.
00:02:46
Speaker
And this is going to give you that more toned appearance that everybody talks about. You strip away that body fat, You have some muscle
Who Benefits Most from Body Recomposition?
00:02:53
Speaker
underneath there. You're going to look more fit, more toned, more athletic, that sort of thing. And so for most people, they're like, this is awesome. That's exactly what I want to do, right? I want to focus on losing fat, building muscle.
00:03:04
Speaker
With that being said, we used to think that only... People in these three categories could do this well. And so we used to think that people who were brand new to the gym, so the newbies, they get in there, they can build muscle, they can lose fat at the same time.
00:03:17
Speaker
And that is very well noted. You'll sometimes see people who get in the gym who have never trained before. And their transformations are absolutely insane within a year because they can do both at the same time and do them pretty effectively.
00:03:29
Speaker
The other group of people is people who have a lot of weight to lose. So if you have a significant amount of weight to lose, you can lose fat and build muscle more effectively than people who don't have as much fat to lose.
00:03:40
Speaker
And the third group of people were people who maybe they had trained in the past, but they took some time off. Maybe they got injured or they just kind of fell off. And so they used to train, they used to lift weights, but they stopped doing that. They gained some body fat, lost some muscle. Those people can also lose fat and build muscle little bit more quickly than other people.
00:03:59
Speaker
So with that being said, that doesn't mean that other people who are maybe a little bit more advanced in the gym. So think of people who have been training consistently for two years, three years, five years, that sort of thing.
00:04:10
Speaker
They can also lose fat and build muscle at the same time. It's just at a lot slower rate than those first three groups of people that I mentioned. And so we now know that you can do both.
The Role of Diet and Exercise in Recomposition
00:04:23
Speaker
But like i said, just because you can do both doesn't necessarily mean it's the right strategy for you. with that being said, sometimes this confuses people and they're wondering like, how does this actually work? Because if you know anything about losing weight, building muscle, typically you'll hear people say the only way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit, meaning that you are giving your body less energy than it needs.
00:04:45
Speaker
And that way it pulls body fat, uses that stored energy to function. And that is how you lose weight. The opposite of that is building muscle, which like you're giving your body a little bit of excess energy in the thought process there is like I'm giving my body this extra energy protein food, and it's going to build muscle as long as I'm training and lifting weights.
00:05:06
Speaker
And so people start to get a little bit confused about this because they're like, okay, if the only way I can lose weight is to eat in a calorie deficit, and the only way I can gain weight is to be in a calorie surplus, how could I do both at the same time?
00:05:18
Speaker
Well, the short answer is That body fat that you have, let's say that you are just eating at maintenance calories or you're eating in a calorie deficit. that stored body fat that we have can be used as fuel to help with building muscle even if you are in a slight calorie deficit and so when you think about somebody who has a lot of weight to lose they have a lot of extra stored energy on their body and so even though that they're giving their body less food and they're in a calorie deficit and they're losing weight they're still burning that body fat and that fuel can help to be used to help build muscle and see those changes of losing fat and building muscle at the same time so
00:05:55
Speaker
I know that can get a little bit confusing, but that's just a basic answer of what's actually going on there because you can do both at the same time. What actually makes this possible? As I mentioned, you need to lift weights because if you're not lifting weights, you're not sending that signal to your body that we need muscle.
00:06:13
Speaker
And so if you're, let's say you're trying to lose weight and you're not lifting weights, well, your body is going to go, let's take from the muscle because that's a more expensive tissue than fat. It takes more for your body to keep muscle around and to build muscle.
00:06:27
Speaker
than it does for fat. And so if you're not sending that signal to your body, then your body's like, well, let's get rid of that because that takes more energy and your body wants to conserve energy as much as possible. We are like convenience machines and your body is very smart. And so if it can get rid of muscle, which is harder to keep around, then why wouldn't we do that?
00:06:44
Speaker
And so you need to send that signal to your body to keep that muscle around. And you do that by lifting weights and eating protein. The other part of the recomp, which is the diet. So you're going to either eat at your maintenance calories, which basically just means you're eating the amount of calories where you're neither losing a bunch of weight or you're gaining a bunch of weight. And so this is kind of your set point, kind of that stable point that most people should be eating in most of the time where your body weight isn't really moving around all that much. That is simply your maintenance calories.
00:07:15
Speaker
So when it comes to body recomp, you typically either wanna be in maintenance calories or what's more popular is being in a slight deficit. So you're not in a deficit as much as you would be with say the big goal of fat loss where typically people will eat like 500, maybe 700, sometimes even a thousand less calories than they typically would in order to lose weight.
00:07:36
Speaker
You're in a little bit more slight deficit. So this could be anywhere between like 200 to 300 calories. the other part of this is making sure that you are eating enough protein because right along with lifting weights you need to also give your body plenty of protein so that it has that signal to build muscle and to keep that muscle around and just to help to facilitate those gains that we want of building muscle while also losing fat so the two parts to it lift weights and progressively get stronger over time so that we're keeping that muscle around and also building some extra muscle
00:08:08
Speaker
And then secondly, making sure that we are eating in a slight deficit or at maintenance calories so that we can start to burn a little bit more fat.
Advantages and Challenges of Body Recomposition
00:08:17
Speaker
And so now we know that body recomp is possible. You can lose fat and build muscle at the same time, even if you aren't necessarily a new person to the gym, or even if you don't have a bunch of weight to lose, it is possible to do both.
00:08:30
Speaker
We know how it works. Now let's talk about some of the pros and cons of body recomp because there's some good things about it and there's some not so good things about it. And after realizing some of these pros versus cons, you'll kind of be able to see, okay, who this is for, but then I'll get into exactly who I would recommend to focus on body recomp versus maybe focusing on strictly fat loss or bulking as their main objective. And so some of the pros of body recomp,
00:08:56
Speaker
Obviously, the main one is you can do both at the same time, which like that's super enticing. Who doesn't want to build a bunch of muscle and lose a bunch of fat? That's super cool. But as I said, there's some differences between who's going to see the best role results when doing that.
00:09:10
Speaker
Another pro is that you don't have to bulk. And the reason that this is a pro for some people is because typically, anytime that you're focused on bulking, or in other words, just building more muscle, you're going to also gain some fat and lot of people don't want to gain a lot of fat.
00:09:26
Speaker
This doesn't have to be crazy. Like a lot of people used to do what they call like dirty bulks where they just eat like everything in sight. They put on a ton of weight. A lot of that weight was coming from fat and not just muscle. And you'll see this with athletes a lot, like football players, especially they want to get bulked up. And so they'll just eat a ton in order to gain weight.
00:09:43
Speaker
And they're gaining some muscle in there as well, but they're also gaining a lot of body fat. And so some people don't like to do bulking because they don't want to be gaining a bunch of fat because then they're just going to have to lose that down the line. And so with body recomp, you can still focus on building some muscle, but you're not putting on as much fat and you're actually losing fat if you're focused on body recomp.
00:10:02
Speaker
The third one is that you can shape your body and see some changes without the scale actually moving. And this is more of like a mental thing. Some people really get focused in on that number on the scale. As I've talked about on other podcasts, I think it's important to really develop a better relationship with the scale. But with that being said, some people, they just really, really struggle with seeing that number go up.
00:10:21
Speaker
And so this is a way where you can still see some of those body changes, but that scale isn't moving a whole lot. So that could be a positive for some people who really struggle with that mentally.
00:10:33
Speaker
And then the last pro that I would mention is this is a way for people to still progress and still see some changes, but they don't have to be quite as extreme with phases. And so as I just mentioned, sometimes people will take bulking to the extreme and they'll just like kind of go all in and they have to.
00:10:50
Speaker
eat a bunch and they have to just focus on getting a ton of protein and lifting a ton of weights. And it's just a little bit more extreme and you just have to be like into it a little bit more. And some people just don't want to do that. And just on the opposite end too, it's like with fat loss, some people,
00:11:05
Speaker
really don't want to focus on eating a lot less and being more diligent and really dialing them in their nutrition more because they have to really focus on eating in a calorie deficit which takes more planning can be stressful at times can be hard at times and so this where you're eating at maintenance calories and you just focus on building some muscle and losing some fat It's a little bit more tame. It's not quite as extreme as some of those other things that you may have to do.
00:11:28
Speaker
Obviously, with that being said, you can bulk in a way that doesn't need to be extreme and you can lose fat in a way that doesn't need to be extreme as well. But some people would rather just not put as much energy in either one of those things and they would just rather focus on body recomposition, even if the progress is going to be slower. And so getting into some of the cons, the number one thing, which I just mentioned, is that progress is slower.
00:11:50
Speaker
If you're not in that group of people, like you're not a newbie to the gym, you don't have a lot of weight to lose, you're not somebody coming back after being consistent with the gym. You can still build muscle and lose fat, but it is slower than say something like bulking or cutting, because if you're focused on strictly bulking or focused on strictly cutting, you're putting your body in a better position to do those things with one focus goal.
00:12:14
Speaker
It's much easier to focus on one main goal than it is two. And so if you're focused on losing fat and building muscle, you have two goals that you're focused on at the same exact time versus if you're just focused on losing fat where you're just focused on building muscle. Now you're only focused on one of those goals versus two at the same time.
Tracking Progress Beyond the Scale
00:12:31
Speaker
Another con is it requires more patience and consistency because it is slower for the most part. You just have to be more patient and more consistent. people already really struggle with how slow building muscle is and how slow losing fat is. And it's not really that slow.
00:12:47
Speaker
Like it is what it is like a good rate of losing fat is one, maybe two pounds per week, if you have a lot of weight to lose and building muscle, that could be anywhere from like, you're only building half a pound, maybe a pound per month. And when you get really advanced, it's even less than that you could only be putting on maybe like two to four pounds in an entire year.
00:13:08
Speaker
And so it's really slow. That process of building muscle is pretty slow. And that process of losing fat is not really all that quick either, especially compared to people's standards and what they expect to be happening.
00:13:21
Speaker
And body recomp is even slower than that. And so that can definitely be a con. Like if you are somebody who is wanting to see more tangible progress, then body recomp may be something that you struggle with. Another con is that if you are somebody, let's say you focused on fat loss, you're not going to see that scale move as much because you're doing both those things simultaneously where you're losing some fat, you're building some muscle, and you're also doing it slower. So you're not really seeing that scale change all that much. it's So like if your main goal is fat loss, but you're doing body recomposition and you're not seeing that change, that scale change as much, that can start to weigh on people a little bit.
00:13:58
Speaker
With that being said, though, there are some things that you can do. So measuring progress in different ways. So focusing on if you're getting stronger, that's a good sign that you're building muscle. If your clothes are fitting better, that's a good sign that you're losing fat and building muscle. If your measurements are improving or going down, that's a good sign that you are losing some fat. If you're noticing differences in your progress photos, like you're looking more lean and you're noticing certain areas of your body looking different, that's also a good sign. And so there's some things that you can do because you don't just want to focus on the scale, especially if body recomp is your goal.
00:14:31
Speaker
But those are just some different pros and cons and kind of have to weigh those things out and look at those things and see if those things align with the goals that you have. As I have mentioned, those three groups of people, like if you fall into that group of you're new to the gym, you have a lot of weight to lose, or you're coming back from a stint of not really working out or lifting,
00:14:52
Speaker
Body recomp is going to be a really nice focus for you.
Essential Strategies for Successful Recomposition
00:14:55
Speaker
You're going to see the best results. It's going to be most effective for those type of people. That's not to say that if you are more advanced and you don't fall into those three categories that you can't focus on body recomp, but those people in those three groups are going to see the best progress.
00:15:13
Speaker
Let's say that you are somebody who does want to focus on body recomp. Here's kind of the practical strategy of actually putting that into play and what you want to be focusing on. So as I mentioned, lifting weights is going to be very important for this. And so you want to make sure that you are strength training at least three to four times per week and focused on progressive overload. So you're lifting more weight for more reps and with better technique over time that way we know we're getting stronger and if we're getting stronger that's typically a good sign that we are building some muscle this doesn't happen every time you go into the gym it doesn't even happen every week sometimes it doesn't even happen on a monthly basis but over time over a long period of time you should be gaining some strength in your workouts and that is a good sign that you are building some muscle making sure that you track those things and making sure that you really focus on progressive overload taking your sets to
00:16:04
Speaker
Failure or close to failure is going to be your best bet at making sure that you build the most muscle. When it comes to nutrition, you want to make sure that you are eating at least in your maintenance calories.
00:16:16
Speaker
But for a larger majority of people, typically what is recommended is to eat in a slight deficit. So 200 to 300 calories below your maintenance calories. you're not in as big of a deficit as you would if your strict goal was fat loss like if it was just fat loss if that was what you were really really focused on then you would be in a bigger deficit so 500 calories 700 calories maybe even a thousand calories if you have a lot of weight to lose in order to focus on as much fat loss as possible but here where we're trying to do both you only need to be in a slight deficit so 200 to 300 calories below your maintenance
00:16:51
Speaker
And then the second part of this is really important. You need to make sure you get enough protein because if you're not getting enough protein, it's going to be really hard for your body to build muscle. And so the bare minimum, you want to get that 0.7 grams per pound of body weight.
00:17:05
Speaker
Even better would be one gram per pound of body weight. So somebody that weighs 200 pounds, they would be getting 140 grams to 200 grams per day. You get even more than that. There's studies showing that that is even a little bit better and it's very hard to overeat protein. So really the emphasis is just making sure you get enough protein. But if you're getting more, that's even better.
00:17:26
Speaker
And then the third part of this. lifestyle. So make sure that you get enough sleep, because we know that sleep is vital when it comes to building muscle when it comes to losing fat. When you look at the studies, I've mentioned this before on these podcasts. But when you look at the studies, they take people who are trying to lose weight, and they put them on the same diet.
00:17:44
Speaker
those two people who are on the same diet but getting different sleep will have differing results as far as like how much fat they're losing versus how much muscle they're losing and so people who get better sleep like they get more sleep or better quality sleep they will lose more fat and they will lose less muscle mass which is exactly what you want if you want to look more tone more fit more athletic versus people who don't get as much sleep, they will actually lose less fat mass and they will lose more muscle mass. So they're still losing the same amount of weight.
00:18:17
Speaker
Let's say they lose 10 pounds over eight weeks. They're both losing 10 pounds, but the group that's getting crappy sleep is losing less fat and more muscle. And the group that is getting good sleep is losing more fat and less muscle, which obviously that should be the goal. So that's just the importance of sleep and making sure that you prioritize that.
00:18:34
Speaker
Getting seven to eight hours of sleep is important. managing stress. We want to make sure that we're doing these things because your hormones do play a role in building muscle and losing fat. And if you're stressed out, your sleep is crappy, like it's going to make it harder for you to have the results you want to see because now your hormones are starting to get affected and not in a positive way. So focusing on some of those lifestyle factors is important.
00:18:56
Speaker
And then when it comes to like tracking, it's important to track over time if body recomp is the goal because it is going to be slower. So you need to make sure that you have some ways to track. So As I mentioned, how your clothes are fitting, making sure that you use progress photos every month or every couple of months, making sure that you're tracking your strength gains to make sure you're building muscle.
00:19:14
Speaker
All those things are important to make sure that you're actually seeing some progress and that you're actually tracking in ways that you can
Choosing the Right Approach: Fat Loss, Muscle Gain, or Recomposition
00:19:20
Speaker
see progress. Because since it is slower and the scale isn't moving, you need to have some ways that you can track to see if what you're doing is actually working.
00:19:29
Speaker
And then bringing this all home and figuring out, okay, the ultimate question, I know it's possible to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, but is this something that actually makes sense for you? So the general recommendation for most people, unless you fall in that group of three that I talked about, so you're new to the gym, you have a lot of weight to lose, or you're coming back from some sort of off time from the gym, then it probably makes more sense to focus on fat loss specifically, or gaining muscle or bulking specifically. And the reason being is because you're going to be able to make faster progress.
00:20:07
Speaker
Whether your goal is fat loss, building muscle, or body recomp, Going in with the idea of building as much muscle as possible always makes sense because I think that's going to be beneficial whether you want to look better, you want to feel better. Having more muscle is beneficial to everybody. And so whether or not you're focused on one of those three things, like the idea is always to build more muscle and just to focus on strength training and getting stronger because that's going to help you with all your different goals.
00:20:35
Speaker
The difference is the way that you approach your dieting and the strategy that you use for that. Let's say that you don't fall into one of those three categories, but you're still like, I don't really care if the progress is gonna be a little bit slower. I'm okay with focusing on body recomp.
00:20:51
Speaker
I don't really want to diet super aggressively or bulk super aggressively. Like like I'm cool with just focusing on more so maintenance calories in both losing fat and building muscle at the same time.
00:21:02
Speaker
That's totally cool too. And to be honest, this is sort of what I do now. I spent a good amount of time losing a bunch of body fat. Like I lost 75 pounds in my first 15 months of like really focusing on things. And then I went kind of back and forth, up and down a little bit, focusing on getting the 100 pounds off. And now that I've been there for multiple years, like I've had that weight off for a long time, I don't ever really do super long extended periods of dieting. I do like one or two mini cuts per year where like I'll focus on Losing a little bit of fat for like four to eight weeks, strip that fat off. And then I go back into where I'm more so maintaining. And when I'm maintaining, I'm thinking more about body recomp. So like I'm eating around maintenance calories, maybe slightly below, but making sure I keep my protein high.
00:21:48
Speaker
That way, if I lose a couple extra pounds of fat and I gain a little bit of extra muscle, even if it is slower, that's all I care about because I'm not, I don't really care too much about like getting super jacked or gaining tons more muscle. Like I still want to continue to push the strength and gain muscle, but I don't need to gain a ton of muscle. Like I don't need to maximize that. And so I focus more so on body recomp when I'm not in a mini cut most of the time now.
00:22:13
Speaker
Again, if you are somebody who like you want to lose 20, 30, 40, 50 plus pounds, it doesn't make sense for you to be thinking this way. You would much more rather just put your focus into really getting into a calorie deficit and focusing on fat loss, or if you really want to maximize as much muscle as possible and focusing on bulking or lean bulking make makes more sense.
00:22:33
Speaker
But once you get to a spot where like you're pretty comfortable, you like your general body composition, you like the way you feel at a certain body fat, then body recomp or focusing more so just like eating around maintenance calories and just pushing the weights makes sense for quite a few people. And you don't really want to have to put extra effort into losing a bunch of fat or gaining a bunch of muscle. Like it's just easier from a mindset standpoint and also just like a practicality standpoint to just continue to do those things in a way that's a little bit less taxing than really trying to lose weight or really trying to
Setting Realistic Goals and Personal Experiences
00:23:07
Speaker
gain muscle. Like you can just focus on training hard, you eat a solid diet, you eat a good amount of protein, you eat out your maintenance calories, and you can focus on losing maybe a couple pounds of fat and gaining a couple pounds of muscle throughout the course of the year. And you're cool with that.
00:23:21
Speaker
And so for those type of people, like if you're in that situation, then body recount might make sense. But for a large majority of people, it makes more sense to focus on fat loss, especially until you get to a place where like you feel comfortable, your body fat's fairly low and you feel good about where you're at.
00:23:38
Speaker
So hopefully that clears things up. If you still have questions about, I don't know if I should bulk or cut or focus on body recomp, like i'm I'm still unsure about where to go with that. You can always shoot me a message and I'll give you a little insight and give you my personal opinion on that. But just some final takeaways about this, like, yes, it's possible you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time.
00:23:57
Speaker
But if you're not a newbie, if you don't have a lot of weight to lose, if you're not coming back from taking time off from the gym, that progress is going to be slower, but it is for sure possible. And so it's always an option.
00:24:09
Speaker
The big thing is just to have a plan. So know what your main focus is. That way you can pour everything into it make sure that you're following a plan that makes sense. Whether you're strictly focused on losing as much fat as possible, building as much muscle as possible, or if you're focusing on doing both at the same time, just know whatever that goal is for you.
00:24:27
Speaker
so that you can set your diet up and your training up in a way that facilitates getting those results that you really want to see. So that is it for this episode. I appreciate you listening as always. Got the one-on-one coaching link in the show notes if you're somebody who wants a little bit more hands-on help with this kind of stuff. And I know this information can be kind of confusing at times and you know you you don't know exactly what to be focusing on. And so that's exactly what I do in the one-on-one coaching is help people figure out a plan that makes sense for them and then ultimately make it fit within their lifestyle and then kind of help them along and hold them accountable. All those things that you want to
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:25:06
Speaker
have in a coach. So if that's you, you want a little bit of help, you can always check out the link for that. Otherwise, ah really appreciate you listening and we will see you next week.