Gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?

For those of you who don’t know, every Tuesday me and my colleagues do body fat testing in total fitness Chester, and 9 times out of 10 when I ask a guy “what is your goal?” the response is “I want to build muscle and lose fat!”.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is a great goal and is definitely possible. However it’s not that effective long term to try and do both at the same time.

While it is possible for a short period of time to gain muscle and lose fat especially if you are brand new to the gym (we call this newbie gains) or for someone holding a large amount of body fat, but over the long run its not efficient and you’ll need to pick one or the other.

Your body needs a calorie surplus to build muscle and a calorie deficit in order to shed fat, it’s that simple! 

I’m not saying you need to go on an insane bulk as this can be difficult to drop your body fat back down, what I’m saying is you need to be eating more than you're burning. Your body needs to justify gaining muscle as it will inevitably need more calories to fuel this new founded muscle mass, you body will not simple gain loads of muscle and put itself in a calorie deficit.

This is what I suggest, bulk up until you have reached your desired muscle mass, then shed down until you have reached your goal body fat %, generally for guys 10% or below should be enough to see a 6 pack. Obviously if you’re 18% plus then you would likely shed body fat first.