Can I lose fat and build muscle simultaneously?

Question:

Short Answer:

There is often a misconception that someone can build muscle while losing fat simultaneously. While this exact scenario is quite rare, people can more often change their body composition and achieve similar (visual) results.

Longer Answer:

When looking to shed weight or body-fat, our bodies have to work in a caloric deficit, meaning we have to be expending more calories than consuming. When we operate this way, our bodies have to pull calories from a non-food source, hopefully coming in the way of body-fat. Now when in a deficit, we can lose some muscle tissue along the way but this is why resistance training and protein consumption are so important to our programming...both help mitigate the muscle loss.

When looking to build muscle, our bodies have to work in a caloric surplus, meaning we have to consume more calories than we expend. This is because our bodies need those extra calories to promote growth. When we lift weights, especially at more overall volume or heavier weights, we create these small micro tears in our muscles. The muscle repairs and regrows to become more resilient the next time, but needs the extra calories to enlarge. Now when in a surplus, there is a chance we will accumulate some fat along with muscle, which is why we implement "Calorie Cycling" in our Old School Muscle program to help ensure our new weight primarily comes from muscle.

So as you can see, the goal to do both simultaneously comes from opposing viewpoints. Now what we can accomplish is the illusion of larger muscles through body-fat reduction. This is once again the reason we use resistance training as our primary source of exercise to help reinforce our lean tissue while dropping the body-fat, allowing our muscles to pop-through for a more muscular look. If primarily just focusing on cardio to lose weight, you would lose fat AND muscle along the way. So it all boils down to what a member is trying to achieve and a rhetorical question that resonates well with most members is the following: In regards to building muscle, are you trying to look like a Bodybuilding or a Men's Health Cover Model? Most answer the latter, which is why we recommend starting with FF30X, to help shed the body-fat, switching over to Old School Muscle after, building yourself back up. Ironically similar to body-builders though, we can cycle between the programs...but only after shedding the fat up front.

Yours in Health & Friendship,

- The Fit Father Project
Customer Success Team