Make your choice: losing fat or building muscle

When you come across advertising or product promotions that scream, “Lose fat and build muscle in 30 days”, don’t ever fall for that. It is just a gimmick to fool the gullible. There has been, is or will be, no miracle that can actually live up to this claim. If at all, a big fat loss and huge muscle building ever happen simultaneously, it is only possible with a potent combination of drugs and steroids, and we are not going into that.

Losing fat and adding muscles are two opposing things, in terms of simple physiology. Fat loss is a catabolic process and building muscles is anabolic. To aid fat loss, there has to be a calorie deficit. Whereas, additional calories are needed to help the body build muscle. The kind of nutritional programs required to meet these contrasting goals are radically different.

So, if you are high in fat and wish to build a muscle-bound physique, get rid of the fat first. Then, making sure you stay lean, get on with a bodybuilding regime. If you try to achieve results in both departments, you would end up disappointed.

However, once you have built a good physique, with a high lean mass and low body fat percentage, it is quite possible to refine it further – you can see gains in lean mass and losses in body fat, at the same time. But this state is usually seen only in people with highly trained bodies.