Can You Lose Fat While Gaining Muscle?

When it comes to going on a diet and starting a fitness plan, the main goals are to lose fat while putting on some lean muscle. But can these two objectives be accomplished in tandem at the same time? That is one of the most common questions you’ll find for anyone trying to get healthy. The answer you get is a matter of opinion.

To get you the information you need, let’s throw out the opinions and see what the scientific research says about this topic.

Is It Possible to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat?

Luckily, there have been a number of studies on this exact topic, and the evidence is looking like the answer to the question is “Yes!”. There was one particular study conducted in 1997 that wanted to test the effects of strength training and aerobic exercise on how it affects your body composition.

The experiment was performed by separating the participants into two groups: one only did cardiovascular exercise, while the other had a mix of cardio and weight training or resistance exercise. These test subjects participated for 14 weeks, with three workout sessions each week.

At the end of the experiment, the results showed that those who performed both cardiovascular and weight training were able to gain almost 10 pounds of muscle, while simultaneously also losing over 15 pounds of fat during that timeframe.

It should be noted, however, the composition of the test subjects. Participants in this study were overweight and rather sedentary adult males. So would these results hold up for someone who is already active and in a little bit better shape to start with? Further research was conducted with this in mind.

Another study performed in 1998 used thirty men who were physically active and health (an average body fat percentage of 12% and an average age of 20) and split them into three groups. One group only did cardio, one did only weight training, and the third did both types of exercises.

At the end of the research, the group that only did cardio lost on average 5 pounds of fat, but in addition, they lost a little bit of muscle. The weight training only group was able to add an average of 5 pounds of muscle and shed around 2 pounds of fat. The group that did both cardio and weight training showed the most promising results: 7 pounds of muscle gained, 6 pounds of fat loss!

Conclusion

The evidence certainly bears it out: yes, you absolutely can lose unwanted fat while building muscle at the same time! In fact, it is more beneficial for fat loss to also be incorporating resistance training into your workouts. Having lean muscle mass can kickstart your metabolism and keep you burning calories throughout the day.

To keep up with this type of workout regimen, be sure to complement it with a healthy diet full of lean proteins (try these suggested foods) as well as fruits and vegetables to give you healthy calories and boost your metabolism.

Related reading: https://www.dietpillreviews.com/how-to-build-muscle/