It is the golden goose of fitness success – trying to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. But why?

Building muscle requires more “surplus” calories in the diet to serve as building blocks to actually build muscle you are trying to grow. Equally, to lose a pound of fat you need to burn off 3,500 calories – a large amount when you consider that hour on a stationary bike can only burn off 200 calories or so. You may cycle for an hour a day, and diet, and still have difficulty meeting the 3500 calorie deficit.

Try to lose weight at the same time and lose muscle and you’re in for a challenge of your life.

generally what works best, as these two methods are almost opposite ends of the scale, is to take it out. Determine if you need to build muscle or lose fat more and do it for a while. When you feel the other is important, do it.

Most “muscle men” you see in magazines and on television using this muscle building and then “cutting” phase to achieve the classic look, so rather than trying to swim against the stream, go with what works.

First, build muscle.

Action low reps (8-10 per set) of incredibly heavy weight hitting each muscle group 3 times a week works well. At this point you might put on a little weight because you need those extra calories to build muscle, but if you focus on high protein diet with a reasonable healthy fats, you should put the most muscle.

When you start to feel to lose some of the fat so you can see muscle definition becomes more important, cut down on calories. Also keep lifting weights to maintain muscle you have built while trying to make a higher number of reps with less weight, which should help to speed up your metabolism and burn off fat that you have accumulated.

Keeping protein your hair also add to mix a little space or strength training instead of cardio as this will increase the body’s ability to burn fat without the risk of lean, skinny body of a long distance runner that can occur when you spend too long on heart. Remember – just to have more muscle mass alone will help you burn calories and some people find that they do not even have to change their work out of. They take just a little calorie intake and their body does directly burn fat.