How to Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle
Spoiler: Don’t do it by cutting calories.
A big problem with traditional calorie-cutting methods for weight loss is that they often result in losing a large proportion of “lean mass,” which includes muscle, bone, and internal organs…
Sometimes as much as 40-66% of the weight lost is muscle!
WHAAAAT??
Fun fact:
The more muscle you have, the more insulin receptors you have in your body (because your muscles are covered in them), the more insulin sensitive you are.
This also means you have a much higher “basal metabolic rate”, so you burn a LOT more calories at rest, chewing through your blood sugar a lot faster and more efficiently (rather than storing it as fat).
This is awesome because having more muscle means you can eat more without putting on weight (yay!), AND you’ll have steadier blood sugar, better hormone function, lower cholesterol, a brain that works better, better sleep, and more.
Unfortunately, a LOT of women are still simply doing cardio, intermittent fasting and dieting, but they don’t lift heavy and or eat enough protein, so they end up losing muscle which works against them in many ways…including fat loss.
The goal should always be to preserve muscle while shedding fat.
Here’s how:
(1) Exercise more, don’t eat less. Focus on (heavy) resistance training and some high-intensity workouts, rather than just cardio.
If you are currently eating good healthy food that is keeping your weight stable, do not start by eating less*.
Rather, get your total resistance training and high-intensity workouts up to 3-5 hours per week, with the base of this being full-body resistance training and the remainder high-intensity intervals / sprints.
(I’m not talking about using 3 / 5 / 10lb dumb bells every single week, as in Barre! You want to be increasing your load slowly over time. Please do this safely with a trainer. You will not get “bulky.” You will lean out - be patient, as the fat needs time to melt off your growing muscles, which can grow more quickly.)
Add some moderate intensity work on top of this base and lots of light activity like walking (10,000 steps/day+).
[If you are able to recover from this exercise and feel good, and you are not losing weight fast enough, add more activity. If you hit a wall where you are exceeding your recovery capacity, then it may be time to cut food intake.]
And please ALWAYS adjust your activity level to your menstrual cycle! (If you don’t know what I’m talking about…let’s talk.)
[*If you eat junk food, stop, and eat good food. If you are overeating on a daily basis, stop, and eat normal amounts of food.]
(2) Aim for SLOWER weight loss, around 1.5-2 lbs / month.
More rapid weight loss generally results in a higher percentage of lean mass lost (up to 50% lean mass loss!).
On the other hand, slower weight loss (around 0.5 lb / week) can significantly reduce the proportion of lean mass lost.
I know it’s tempting to try to “drop the weight in 6 weeks” or whatever the claim of the million diets / gimmicks out there, but that stuff doesn’t work because it’s too stressful on your body…your efforts will backfire AND you’ll mess up your hormones, making the problem worse.
(3) Eat enough protein: Eat at least 1.8 g/kg of body weight (0.82 g/lb) per day, but ideally 2.2g/kg or 1g/lb of desired lean body mass. Yes, this is a lot.
If you insist on losing weight faster than 1 lb/week, get your protein up to 2.4 grams per kilogram bodyweight (1.1 grams per pound of bodyweight) per day and train as described above 5 days/week. Listen to your body and don’t overdo it - again, it’s too stressful on your body.
Interestingly, the RDA for protein — 0.8 g/kg or 0.36 g/lb of bodyweight — led to nearly DOUBLE the rate of lean mass loss in people resistance training 3x/week on a 40% calorie deficit (this study).
But if the same caloric deficit is paired with working out 6 days / week (a mix of resistance training, sprint intervals, high-intensity interval training, plyometrics, a cycling time trial, and ten thousand steps per day), lean mass stays constant (this study).
…All that said, no amount of protein can fully prevent lean mass loss without exercise. For those aiming for faster weight loss, a combination of adequate protein and high-frequency, full-body resistance training is essential to minimize muscle loss.
In summary, the key to sustainable, healthy fat loss is not simply eating less, but taking a comprehensive approach to weight loss that prioritizes exercise, adequate protein intake, hormone health, and slow, steady weight loss to maintain muscle mass while shedding fat.
…So please forget about quick fixes and crash diets—if you want to lose fat the healthy way, make exercise your priority, eat enough protein, and be patient. Your body will thank you for it!
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