Ever wonder how to build muscle without gaining fat? This can be tricky because to build muscle requires a different nutritional strategy than to burn fat. So, how is best to lose weight effectively and build muscle? Read on to find out…
How To Build Muscle Without Gaining Fat
To build muscle without gaining fat you need a situation where glycogen stores are replenished after training.
Therefore insulin must be present.
Insulin is like a key that opens doors in order to access muscle or fat tissues, and places the energy where its needed.
If you are training properly, eating high GI carbohydrates straight after your sessions, you can take advantage of high insulin sensitivity and glycogen synthesis.
Combined with protein building blocks and a low-stress environment, this can help to build muscle.
Calorie intake in excess of your calorie needs by up to 500kcal daily are needed to train, recover and build muscle effectively.
Having a 500kcal excess daily will create a more favourable environment to build lean muscle, however not all calories are created equally, and it is recommended to focus on consuming enough protein with every meal.
Why? Because protein is the powerhouse macro nutrient. Protein builds and repairs. Protein, in particular complete proteins that contain all the essential amino acids will provide you with all the materials to build muscle, and other skeletal tissue.
Unfortunately this calorie surplus can create a perfect environment for gaining fat.
In contrast to building muscle, in order not to gain fat, in fact for effective fat loss glycogen depletion, low insulin and a calorie deficit is needed. This poses a problem if you have the two opposing goals. So how do you build muscle without gaining fat?
Carbohydrate And Calorie Cycling To Gain Muscle Without Getting Fat
Cycling your nutrition – specifically carbohydrates and calories – could be an effective way to lose weight and build muscle.
There are many ways to do this but for the purposes of this post you could try the following approach, see what happens by tracking any changes, and then adjust it based on the outcome.
Try eating a low-carb nutrition plan through the week until the weekend, followed by a weekend nutrition plan consisting of high-carbs, high GI and a calorie excess.
Try this:
Mon-Friday: Low-carb training & Diet:
Less than 100g of carb daily and high protein. Eat lots of fibrous vegetables to ensure high nutrient density.
Friday -Sunday: Eat a calorie excess:
Eat three high-carb and high protein meals or more on the weekend.
Combine this nutrition cycling with a well thought out training plan, including compound exercises, high intensity interval training and keep your sessions short to avoid becoming catabolic, and you’ll soon be able to build muscle without gaining fat.
Happy training. Let me know how you get on.
Nico.