8 Tips How Lose Fat without Losing Muscle
Not too long ago, I covered how to lose fat. The thing is, there’s a
second important topic that always needs to be covered right along with
it. And that is: how to lose fat WITHOUT losing muscle.
Wait… what?!?!?! Did I just imply that you can lose your pretty
hard-earned lean muscle mass while only trying to lose your ugly body
fat??? Yup, I sure did. It’s happened to me and countless others plenty of
times, and it can definitely happen to you.
To understand why and how this is possible and (more importantly) how to
prevent it from happening, you first need to understand an important
fact…
Weight Loss vs Fat Loss: It’s NOT The Same Thing!
People often say they want to lose weight. This is sort of a dumb
statement, because “weight” can be a few different things. For example…
water, glycogen, muscle or fat. Hell, you can cut off a leg and you’ll
lose “weight” just fine.
In reality however, what most of us want to lose is fat, NOT
muscle.
Now, despite some of the crazy things you may have heard before about how
to lose fat, the truth is that there is just one major requirement…
a caloric deficit.
As I’ve explained 1000 times before a caloric deficit is what happens
when you consume less calories than your body needs to burn for energy
performing all of the tasks it needs to perform over the course of the day
(move, breathe, pump blood, digest food, etc.).
When that caloric deficit is present, your body is forced to find some
alternative source of energy on your body to burn instead. Ideally, this
would ONLY be your ugly stored body fat. However, it can also be your
pretty lean muscle tissue.
Sure, you might want your body to just burn body fat and not muscle, but
your body doesn’t really care about what you want. It just knows that in
order for it to survive and function under the current conditions, it will
need to pull stored energy from somewhere. And that can mean fat, muscle
or a combination of both.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do everything you can
to improve the fat:muscle loss ratio as much as possible and basically
signal your body to maintain ALL of your muscle and ONLY burn body fat.
But the question is… how? I thought you’d never ask.
Here now are what I’d consider to be the 8 best ways to lose fat WITHOUT
losing muscle…
1. Eat Enough Protein
A sufficient daily protein intake is the single most important dietary
requirement for maintaining muscle. It’s not meal timing, or supplements,
or the exact size of your caloric deficit, or the quality of the foods you
eat (more on that nonsense later), or anything else diet related.
Nutritionally speaking, losing fat without losing muscle is all about
eating enough protein every day. Numerous studies have proven this to be
true. Even in the absence of a proper weight training routine, more of the
weight you lose will be body fat rather than muscle mass just as a result
of an increased protein intake.
So, the first step of any muscle-preserving diet is always getting your
ideal amount of protein for the day. Just what is “ideal?” Well, the good
old “1 gram of protein per pound of body weight” recommendation still
remains a perfectly fine starting point for most people with this goal in
mind.
2. Maintain Strength/Intensity/Weight On The Bar
And now here is the single most important training requirement for anyone
who wants to lose fat without losing muscle. Simply put, the primary
training stimulus required for maintaining muscle is maintaining your
current levels of strength.
You know how gradually getting stronger (aka the progressive overload
principle) is what signals your body to begin the muscle building process?
Well, on a fat loss diet, just maintaining your current levels of strength
(aka intensity, aka the weight on the bar) is what now signals your body
to maintain muscle.
If that signal goes away, your body’s need to keep your pretty muscle
tissue around goes away right along with it.
That’s why the insanely stupid myth of lifting heavier weights to build
muscle but then lifting lighter weights (for higher reps) when you want to
lose fat, get lean and get toned is the absolute WORST thing you could
possibly believe when you’re trying to avoid losing muscle. In reality,
you lift heavy weight to build muscle, and then lift that same heavy
weight if you want to actually maintain that muscle.
If you start purposely lifting lighter weights while in a caloric
deficit, your body essentially thinks: “Hmmm, it looks like we only need
to lift lighter weights now. I guess all of that muscle I built for the
purpose of being able to lift heavy weight is no longer needed. Time to
start burning it for energy instead of body fat!”
Not too good, huh? This means that your primary weight training goal is
to, at the very least, NOT lose strength. This in turn will allow you to
NOT lose muscle.
For example, if you currently bench press 200lbs, your goal throughout
the duration of your fat loss phase is to end up bench pressing that same
200lbs (or more if possible) when you’re done and all of the fat has been
lost. The same goes for every other exercise in your routine.
Sure, you can continue trying to get stronger and continue trying to make
progressive overload happen while losing fat. It can and does happen
(especially for beginners, who should still be progressing consistently
even in a deficit).
But, if you’re past the beginner’s stage, don’t be surprised if it’s MUCH
harder to do (if not borderline impossible in some cases) and the best you
can do is just maintain strength rather than increase it.
This is fine of course, as just maintaining the amount of weight you
currently lift on every exercise is the key weight training
requirement for losing fat WITHOUT losing muscle.
3. Reduce Weight Training Volume and/or Frequency
A caloric deficit is really an energy deficit, and while this is
fantastic (and required) for losing any amount of body fat, it kinda sucks
for all things training related (recovery, work capacity, volume
tolerance, performance, etc.).
What that means is, the workout routine you were (or would be) using with
great success to build muscle, increase strength or make whatever other
positive improvements to your body under normal circumstances (where there
is no deficit present) will often be TOO MUCH for your body to tolerate
and optimally recover from in the energy deficient state it is currently
in.
And do you know what this scenario will ALWAYS lead to? One in which
you’re not recovering properly from your workouts?
A loss of strength.
And do you know what a loss of strength will ALWAYS lead to, especially
while in a caloric deficit? A loss of muscle.
Like I explained a minute ago (#2 on this list), the key training
requirement for maintaining muscle is simply maintaining strength. The
problem is, if you’re using a workout routine that you aren’t properly
recovering from, the opposite of this is going to happen.
This is something that I and so many others have learned the hard way.
The workout routine that seemed perfect before when those beneficial extra
calories were present is now the reason your workouts are getting harder,
you’re getting weaker, reps are decreasing, weight on the bar needs to be
reduced, and your fat loss phase (aka the cutting phase) ends with you
having lost way more muscle and strength than you should have.
Been there, done that.
Luckily, It Can Be Prevented
How do you avoid all of this? Simple. By adjusting your weight training
program to compensate for the drop in recovery that always comes with
being in a caloric deficit. That means reducing training volume (the total
amount of sets, reps and/or exercises being done), reducing training
frequency (the total amount of workouts being done per week and per muscle
group), or a combination of both.
4. Get Pre & Post Workout Nutrition Right… Still
I once read an article on some diet/training website that tried to make
the point that pre and post workout nutrition become LESS important when
your goal is fat loss rather than muscle growth. I don’t remember the
exact reasoning for this (if I did, I’d be making fun of it right now),
but whatever it was… it couldn’t be more wrong.
As mentioned, recovery, work capacity, volume tolerance and overall
training performance in general go to ….. as a result of being in a
caloric deficit. And if you haven’t heard, the entire concept of pre and
post workout nutrition is practically built around improving these very
aspects of training and recovery.
That makes the meals you eat before and after your workouts JUST as
important (arguably even more MORE SO) when your goal is losing fat
without losing muscle as opposed to just building that muscle in the first
place.
5. Don’t Reduce Calories By TOO Much
As we hopefully all understand by now, in order to lose any amount of
body fat, you need to create a caloric deficit (I figure if I repeat it
enough times, it will sink in). And that means you’re going to need to
reduce your calorie intake below maintenance level so stored body fat can
be burned for energy instead.
The thing is, that deficit can be classified as small, moderate or large
based on how far below maintenance you go and how much you reduce your
daily calorie intake by. Now, while each degree of deficit has its own
PROS and CONS , a moderate deficit of about 20% below maintenance level is
what ends up being most ideal in most cases.
Why not a larger deficit? Why not reduce calories by even more and make
fat loss happen even faster? Well, aside from being harder to actually
sustain, the other major downside of a large caloric deficit is that it
will have the largest negative impact on training and recovery.
And that means that reducing your calorie intake by TOO much will
increase the potential for strength and muscle loss. For that reason, I’d
recommend most people stick with no more than a moderate deficit. Those
who are already quite lean and looking to get REALLY lean may do better
with an even smaller deficit
6. Incorporate Calorie/Carb/Nutrient Cycling
I can never decide if I want to refer to it as cycling calories, carbs or
nutrients (they sound different but it’s all the same thing).
Alright, calorie cycling it is:
And what it refers to is eating more calories on certain days (typically
training days) and less calories on other days (typically rest days). This
is done primarily by manipulating carbs and/or fat, as protein is
something we want to be high every day… especially when our goal is to
lose fat, NOT muscle.
Now, with a more simple and straight forward fat loss diet, you’d consume
about the same amount of calories and nutrients every day and be in a
similar sized deficit each day of the week.
But with calorie cycling, you’d be in a larger deficit on certain days,
but then a smaller deficit (or possibly even NO deficit at all) on the
other days. However, at the end of the week, the total amount of calories
consumed would still be the same. It’s just the method of getting there
(eating less on certain days, more on others) is different.
The theoretical purpose for doing this is to improve everything from
recovery to calorie partitioning by providing our bodies with more
calories/nutrients when it’s most likely to need and benefit from them
(training days), and less calories/nutrients when it isn’t (rest days).
This would then potentially allow us to, among other things, better
maintain muscle and strength while we lose fat.
Does it actually work? Well, this is something I’ve been experimenting
with a lot over the last few years, and I’ve become a HUGE fan of
it.
Not just for maintaining muscle while losing fat (which I’ve found it
works great for), but also for diet adherence, controlling your appetite,
and keeping you happy and satisfied. And on the other side of the goal
spectrum, I like it equally well for gaining muscle without gaining excess
fat.
It’s definitely a subject you’ll be hearing a lot more about from me in
the future.
7. Take Diet Breaks When Needed
Can we all be honest for a second? Regardless of how you go about making
fat loss occur, the simple fact is that it kinda sucks either way. Your
body doesn’t really like being in a caloric deficit, and as anyone who has
ever tried to lose any amount of fat already knows, your mind sure as hell
doesn’t like it either.
The truth is, there are a ton of physiological and psychological aspects
of being in the energy deficient state required for fat loss to take place
that just plain suck. From the aforementioned drop in recovery and
performance to the changes in insulin, leptin, thyroid hormones and
overall metabolic rate, the human body (and mind) just run a whole lot
better with no deficit present.
And that brings us to the concept of the diet break.
The exact definition of what a diet break is will vary based on who you
ask, but I think of it as a 1-2 week period where you come out of the
deficit and back up to maintenance level for the purpose of briefly
allowing all of the things that suck about fat loss to recover and go back
normal for a little while.
There are dozens of potential benefits (some physical, some mental) that
come from taking diet breaks like this, but the reason I’m mentioning it
here are for its performance and recovery related benefits. Why? Because
any improvement there will help with our goal of maintaining muscle and
strength while we lose fat.
The specifics of when and how often a diet break should be taken would
require its own article (consider it added to my to-do list), but the
basic point is that while people with LESS fat left to lose will generally
need/benefit from a diet break more than someone in the early stages of
losing a lot of fat, the fact remains that it can be quite beneficial for
many reasons… one of which is preserving muscle.
8. Avoid Excessive Amounts Of Cardio (Or Just Don’t Do ANY At All)
This all goes back to what I mentioned 100 times already about recovery
being reduced as a result of calories being reduced. For this reason, ALL
of the exercise you’re doing (not just weight training, cardio too) needs
to be reduced or adjusted to some extent to compensate for this and help
prevent muscle loss.
Now, weight training obviously still needs to be kept around as it
provides the primary signal that tells our bodies to maintain muscle and
only burn body fat. But cardio? That’s completely optional.
And honestly, I feel there is no more overrated aspect of fat loss or
muscle growth than cardio. Obviously if your goal is endurance or
performance related, my opinion would change. But strictly in terms of
just improving the way your body looks? I hate cardio.
In fact, I rarely do any myself and my default recommendation for most
people with body composition related goals is to do little or even NO
cardio whatsoever.
I’d much rather see people create their deficit via diet alone, use
weight training to build/maintain muscle, and use cardio as a last resort
tool for when you reach a point where lowering calories any further
becomes too difficult and you’d rather burn those calories off
instead.
Here’s why…
HIIT (or really any high intensity cardio) will cut into the recovery of
both your nervous system AND muscle fibers almost in the same way an
additional weight training workout would.
Typical steady state cardio (30 minutes of jogging, for example) will
also cut into recovery, albeit not nearly as much as HIIT can.
And excessive amounts of steady state cardio (let’s say 60+ minutes of
jogging and/or doing it every single day) is often quite problematic in
terms of preserving muscle.
When you weigh these CONS against the PROS of cardio (it burns some
calories… yay!), you begin to realize that it may not be worth doing for
the purpose of losing fat… specifically for people whose primary goal is
to lose that fat without losing muscle.
Don’t get me wrong here… both HIIT and steady state cardio are useful fat
loss tools for sure and I’m definitely not against doing them. It’s just
that, considering cardio is IN NO WAY required for losing fat and that
doing it could potentially hurt your ability to maintain muscle (plus it’s
boring as hell)… I don’t really see the point.
Obviously personal preferences and individual differences play an
important role here too, but generally speaking… I rarely recommend cardio
by default or do much of it myself. And when I do, my first choice is
always 30-60 minutes of low intensity walking. Still burns a nice amount
of calories and won’t cut into recovery. Win-win.
What About Eating Only Healthy & “Clean” Foods?
After looking over this list of what I’d consider to be the most
important/effective ways to maintain muscle while losing fat, some people
might be wondering if I forgot to mention one final tip.
The “tip” I’m referring to is to eat healthier, cleaner, natural foods
instead of unhealthy, dirty, processed foods. Why? Because doing so will
supposedly make a significant difference in terms of getting the “weight”
you lose to be fat instead of muscle.
As nice as that theory sounds, the truth is that with all else being
equal (total calorie and macronutrient intake, strength being maintained,
etc.), clean vs dirty, healthy vs unhealthy, processed vs unprocessed
really doesn’t matter at all in terms of calorie partitioning and whether
the “weight” you lose ends up being fat (good) or muscle (bad).
Now obviously in terms of things like overall health, appetite control
and diet adherence there are some big differences, which is why I’d always
recommend getting most of your calories from higher quality foods rather
than junky garbage.
But the common thought that changes in body composition are directly
influenced by a food being “clean” or “dirty” is total lie.
So no, while it’s still a great idea, it’s not an idea that will (in and
of itself) improve your ability to maintain muscle while losing fat. Which
means, it doesn’t belong on this list.
Goodbye Fat, Hello Muscle!
There you have it… the 8 best ways to ensure you lose fat without losing
muscle in the process. The first 2 items (sufficient protein intake and
maintaining strength) are BY FAR the most important. It just so happens
that the majority of the other items on this list are proven to
significantly help make those things (specifically strength maintenance)
actually happen.
So, if you’ve ever lost any muscle or strength while trying to lose fat
or are just concerned it might happen to you in the future… this is how
you can prevent it.
