Wanting to lose weight and gain muscles at the same time is an extremely difficult task. This is because your metabolism is divided into two different processes, catabolism and anabolism. Catabolism is focused on the breaking down of cells for energy while anabolism is the building of simple cells into more complex cells. In catabolic state, your body is burning fat and calories while in an anabolic state, you build muscle mass.

Understanding how metabolism works, you should look at losing fat and gaining muscle as two different fitness goals. By measuring your weight loss or gain and tracking your improvement with your body composition results, you can fine-tune your workout programme and nutrition to avoid unwanted fat gain and muscle loss based on what state you are at. We have listed below some steps that you can follow.

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1. Decide Which Goal To Prioritise

In any fitness strategy, your first step should be figuring out your body composition measurement. Through this, you can set healthy and realistic fitness goals.

Having a goal of fat loss and muscle gain at the same time is almost impossible. That’s because your body rarely exists in both a catabolic and anabolic state at the same time. When your body is breaking down muscle through strength training and restricting calories to lose fat, you are in a catabolic state. However, it is important to note that some loss in muscle still occurs while in a catabolic state. 

Meanwhile, in an anabolic state, you are working to grow and develop body tissue. If you want to gain Muscle Mass, this is the state you need to be in. Unfortunately, anabolism also has unintended side effects. Consuming more calories than you need to build Lean Body Mass may inadvertently lead to gaining fat mass.

To decide your fitness goals, take a body composition test that can break down your total body weight. Through this, you can compare your body fat percentage and muscle mass levels, helping you to choose what you should work on first.

2. Create your fitness plan

Now that you have decided which goal to achieve first, you can now start your fitness plan. If your goal is fat loss, you have to burn more calories than you take in to help your body enter a catabolic state. You can achieve this by restricting your calorie intake, consuming healthy nutrient dense food and increasing energy expenditure with some resistance training and cardiovascular exercise. You will see progress in 1-2 weeks if you are dieting and exercising properly.

If your goal is to gain Lean Body Mass, you will need to burn more calories in order to be in the anabolic state. To achieve this, you need to have extra calories for energy to get yourself in a fitness programme that concentrates on tearing muscle fibres and then rebuilding them with the extra nutrients. Make sure that you’re getting a lot of protein and other vital nutrients to rebuild those muscles. Have your body composition measured in 3-4 weeks to hopefully see a gain in Lean Body Mass, with little to no gain in Fat Mass.

3. Rotate Goals Until Satisfied

Once you achieve the first goal that you’ve set, it’s time to proceed to the next goal. The key to success is to constantly track your body composition and to understand your measurements. Without doing this, you won’t be able to optimise your fitness, causing you to spend more time in the gym and on calorie restricted diets. By adjusting your fitness programme based on your needs, you will achieve your ideal body in no time.

​If you want to measure your body composition, Bodyscan can do it for you. We use the very latest, medically developed DEXA (dual energy X-ray absorptiometry) technology to quickly and accurately measure the amount of body fat, lean tissue and bone in each major part of your body – arms, legs and trunk. Through this, you can set specific targets for body composition, instead of making vague statements about “losing weight” that are doomed to fail. Click here to start your fitness journey now.