What’s the best way to lose fat and build muscle?

Everyone wants to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. As fast as possible. Even if you start off thinking you don’t want to build muscle, you soon realise it’s muscle that gives you that slim, ‘toned’ shape.

There are four key points to consider:

  1. How much fat do you have now?
  2. How long you have been training for?
  3. How do you want to look?
  4. How much weight are you willing to gain to build mucle?

Basically, if you want to lose fat and build muscle, you have two choices. You can either do designated building and dieting phases, or you can eat to maintain your weight over time, while your body composition slowly changes. Which one is ‘harder’ or ‘faster’ will depend on the individual.

For example:

If you really hate dieting…
Or you’ve recovered from previous disordered eating…
Or you just know you have a lot of weddings and birthdays coming up…

trying to diet and then build and then diet again may actually be slower for you. But if you have a lot of time on your hands to dedicate to training and nutrition, it might be faster.

1. So, how much Body Fat do you have now?

You should never feel shamed into changing your body. But you also shouldn’t feel shamed into not changing your body, if that’s something that you want to do! So this question is purely an analytical one.

a. If you are overweight (and especially if you are new to resistance training)

We recommend that you get back at least into a ‘healthy’ weight range before you do anything else. You should focus on fat loss, and getting your blood-markets back in order first. You can ask your GP to test your blood markers – and chances are if you’re overweight, they will be more than happy to oblige. If not, find a new GP.

The reason we say this to focus on fat loss is three fold:

First of all, research has shown us time (Welsh et al 2016) and time (Neeland et al 2019) and time (Norton & Baker) again that losing excess fat is the best way to improve countless health markers.
Second, without getting too science-y (though we’re happy to get science-y if you drop us a comment), when your hormonal markers improve, your body becomes more efficient at ‘doing all the things’. And one of those things is using the food you eat to build muscle.
Third, for you, losing weight will lead to the biggest visual changes. You might actually have a decent amount of muscle already – but the only way to show it is to lose the fat that is on top of, in between, around, and underneath that muscle!

b. If you’re pretty lean but you’ve got a bit of padding

If this is you – the world is your oyster. It depends on how you answer the other questions – how long have you been training for, how fat are you willing to get, and what you want to look like?

c. If you think you’re very ‘skinny’ or ‘skinny-fat’

We would suggest that you bump up your food a little, mostly with carbohydrates. You should be gaining weight very slowly, at around 200-300 grams per week. And get training!

2. How long have you been training for?

By this we mean resistance, or weight training; not cardio, yoga, pilates, or group exercises classes.
When you first start resistance training, your body is so keen to get stronger and put on muscle, that a lot of people can even put on muscle WHILE THEY DIET. This might not sound too crazy, fitness is fitness right?

WRONG. It’s actually physiologically AMAZING. Your body, deciding to compile NEW TISSUE when there is not enough food is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS. But it happens. So make the most of it! Just make sure you’re eating enough protein!

As you get more experienced, your body’s assessment of the muscle building trade-off will change. If there is not enough food, it’s more likely to say “you know what, we’re not gonna spend this precious energy on building more muscle, we have enough for now”.

As you get experienced, if you want to build muscle, you need to answer the other two questions: What do I want to look like, and how fat am I willing to get?

3. How do you want to look?

Do you want to look like Ronaldo, or Arnie? Figure, or bikini? Basically, we’re asking how much muscle you want to build.

The more muscle you want to build, the more likely dedicated building and dieting phases are going to be right for you. While recomping without gaining weight is possible, and we would argue preferable for a lot of people, it’s not the way to become Bruce Banner.
On the other hand, if you’re a pretty comfortable weight and just want to tighten up, we’d suggest you just keep eating roughly the same amount of food, and investing in a good exercise regimen for the long haul.

4. How much weight are you willing to gain to build muscle?

Some people don’t feel too comfortable putting on weight. And that is totally fair enough. It’s annoying to have to buy new clothes all the time, and sometimes you just don’t feel yourself carrying a bit of extra squish.

The truth is, most people will start to feel this way about fat gain after a while. It’s just that for some people, the threshold is 4 kilos, and for others it’s 10, or 15 kilos before they start to feel something is a bit off.

It’s important to know what your threshold is, because building muscle takes time.
Also remember that the ‘fatter’ you get, the longer you’ll have to diet later – and you probably won’t be building any muscle in that dieting phase because you’re not a beginner any more.