Holding on to your muscle when dieting is one of the best things you can do for successful fat loss. Learn how to lose fat without losing muscle.
Keep Your Calories Up
I suspect that the majority of people who have stalled weight loss are not eating enough calories to lose weight. When you go too low on your calories, many negative feedback mechanisms start to materialize. While a slowed metabolic rate and reduced thyroid output are a couple of side effects of a low calorie intake, your body also starts to shed muscle mass.
While we love our muscle, our bodies don’t quite share the same feelings when it’s in a prolonged extreme calorie deficit. Muscle is expendable. It burns too many valuable calories that are needed to maintain key body functions. Always start high with your calories and then come down as needed – not vice versa.
Provide a Stimulus to Your Muscles
Use it or lose it. If you don’t give your body a reason to hold onto your muscle, it’s going to break it down and use it for energy. Some form of strength training is mandatory if you want to lose fat without losing muscle.
If you try dieting without any, you will still lose fat, but the ratio of weight loss will start shifting more towards muscle loss. Weight loss and fat loss are not the same thing. If you want the majority of your weight loss to come from fat stores, give your body a good reason for why it should hang onto your muscle.
Here are 10 powerful ways to stimulate muscle growth.
Keep Your Protein Intake High
Muscle is mostly made up of amino acids – which are the building blocks of protein. Protein not only makes up your muscle tissue, it’s also a key component in every cell of your body. Protein is one of two essential macronutrients (EFA’s being the other) that you don’t want to under-consume.
The amount of protein you need will vary based on many factors like your activity level and your carbohydrate intake, but generally speaking, an intake of .6-.8 grams/lb of body mass will be sufficient to maintain a positive nitrogen balance and prevent muscle wasting when under calorie restriction [1].
Don’t Run Low On Glycogen
Muscle glycogen is essential to any kind of high-intensity training. While we can derive some energy from the ATP-PC system, it is very limited in storage capacity. Muscle glycogen is the primary source of energy for prolonged anaerobic activity.
Our muscle glycogen is derived from the glucose we produce. Whether that glucose comes from carbohydrates, from protein via gluconeogenesis, or from glycerol (a byproduct of fatty acid metabolism), excess amounts in the blood stream that aren’t immediately used are transported by insulin to muscle and liver cells and get converted to glycogen.
The best way to make sure you don’t run low on glycogen? Eat carbohydrates. If you don’t tolerate carbohydrates well, you might do better consuming them around periods of high insulin sensitivity. These times are during your first meal of the day and pre/post-workout.
Go Easy on the Cardio
For many people, cardio and weight loss go hand and hand like peanut butter and jelly. Here’s the thing though – cardio is not necessary to lose weight. Can you lose weight doing cardio? Of course you can. Is it necessary? No.
The only thing that is necessary for weight loss is a calorie deficit. Better yet, find ways to make your strength training more intense so that you can incorporate cardiovascular training at the same time. HIIT (high-intensity interval training) is a great way to accomplish this.
Read more about HIIT and see a dozen or so sample workouts.
Specific physical fitness goals aside, do just enough exercise to maintain or put on muscle, but no more. You don’t need to kill yourself in the gym every day of the week to get results. Your nutrition is the biggest factor in weight loss.
While you might burn a few hundred calories during your workout, you burn thousands the rest of the day. Focus on using exercise to create a favorable metabolic environment for fatty acid mobilization, and then create a calorie deficit using your diet to lose fat.
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Thanks Tony, was a great article and I’m currently losing weight pretty well but hitting a metabolic slowdown is a concern. I appreciate the outlook on cardio as I tend to think the more the better. Because of this, I’d go way too hard and too much and at my out-of-shape level of fitness, I’d burn myself out and over-train and/or get dehydrated from sweating and not drinking enough water, that I’d get very discouraged and just quit.
This time after a 100+ times of failing, I decided not to do the same thing and realize it takes time to lose weight and that if I exercise in a common sense way for where I am at physically, I’ll do good. So far, it’s worked pretty well and I think I’m losing more weight than before by not stressing my body too much before it has adapted somewhat. Your article encourages me that I’m doing the right thing.
Thank you!
Kory C.
Houston, TX
Hi there
I have 3 kgs to lose and they are not budging i struggle to eat 1200 cals so generally eating 1000 cals, i don’t eat a lot of bread and carbs. my average day is 50g rolled with water and 50mls trim milk 1tsp brown sugar, coffee with 100mls trim milk. Morning Tea carrot sticks or apple. Lunch salad with protein either salmon, tuna or falafals. Afternoon tea coffee. Dinner 100g-120g meat and large plate of salad or veges.
I excercise at least 1hour – 1.5 hours 5-6 days a week doing high intensity cross fit training and boxing. generally burning 600cals- 800 cals depending on how long i have exercised. this week for an example i did Mon, 30 cross trainer, followed by 1 hour Boxing clas. Tues, Rest. Wed 1 hour cross fit followed by 30 min cross trainer. Thurs 45 Min cardio at gym. Fri 1hour crossfit class. Sat 30 min exercycle followed by 1 hour boxing and then 30 min cross trainer. Sun 1 hour walk. I guess you can say i am a bit obsessed, but quite fit so feel that i handle this ok. Any suggestions?
Hi Sarah,
I don’t know your body composition, but I’ve found that when your calories are TOO low, you won’t lose. I’m 5’4′, 115 lbs with a body comp of about 22% fat and I *need* around 1200 calories to maintain my weight. (estimated through a formula and confirmed at a university lab) Many Crossfitters consume larger than “normal” portions of healthy fats, and feel that is how they maintain leanness with low carbs. I recommend reading more from the Crossfit.com website. (a resource I find useful whether I CF or not) Best of luck!
Sarah are you eating more calories at least once a week? You need to eat to lose weight, gain muscle or get that 6 pack. Load one day and watch your results soar.
I’m struggling with increasing my calories enough to kick start fat loss… I’ve been the same weight for ages despite intensive training 4 to 5 times a week,… but i realise now that I’ve been undereating by possibly too much, maybe 700 to 800 a day, depending on what I’m doing.. I only to lose about 7 to 10 lbs but, eating more is harder than I thought it would be!!
Hi Coach,
Great article. I know I need to eat at least 1700 calories to lose fat but I struggle to get that amount in…with out eating carbs. My typical day is breakfast: 2/3 cups oatmeal with raisins, walnuts, ground flax and cinnamon. Lunch: a protein(chicken or beef or tuna or egg with spinach, carrots, snap peas, radish and cucumber. Snack: handful almonds and a piece of fruit. Dinner: protein(fish or beef or chicken or egg) and veggies….lots of them. Sometimes I will just be lazy and have a sandwich, rye bread and nitrate/sulphate/gluten free deli meat with veggies on the side for lunch. Pasta tends to make me feel bloated so I stay away from it, oh and I have brown rice sometimes too. I do a HIIT program, 20 minutes 5 days a week. On lift days I have a low carb/calorie whey shake and banana after. Any suggestions on how I can increase my calories???
If you’re dead set on keeping your carbs low, you’ll need to fill them with healthy fats. Peanut butter, nuts, avocado, olive oil, flax seeds, etc.
Nope not dead set on keeping carbs low, found a spelt pasta that agrees with me so I’ve added that in. I do eat nuts, might be eating too many so I’m going to reduce that. We use olive to cook with and I add ground flax to my oatmeal in the morning. Avocado and I and not friends. I did a calorie count the other day, only eating about 1400 calories so I have tried to up that to get it to 1700. Are my calculations right for the amount of calories I should be eating?
I really don’t know Donna, as I don’t have any of your stats like height, weight, or body fat %…
I’m almost 44, 5’11.5″ tall. Current weight is 187 and according to my Tanita body fat scale(I know you don’t like them, it says my body fat is 37% 🙁 …..I don’t have fat calipers. My waist measurement(2 inches above my belly button)is 37 and hip measurement(right below butt cheeks)is 43, don’t know if that helps or not. I carry most of my weight mostly in my belly, obviously but I also put it on everywhere else as well. I do a HIIT workout 5 days a week and usually ride my bike to and from work twice a week which is a round trip of 10k…other than that I am pretty sedentary…just the usual daily house work and mowing the lawn once a week which takes me about 1.5 hours to do, large yard.
This is one of the most helpful blogs I’ve read! Thanks Tony!
Honestly Donna, you are just going to have to work with trial and error and be patient. 1800-2000 calories is a good starting point. I would measure your body fat first and then stay with that intake for 2 weeks and remeasure. You can adjust from there if necessary.
Ok, thanks for the advice. My patience is wearing thin….been at this for 6 months now and no results. I took a break last week and this week, gonna shake things up and start a new program next week.
Feel free to use anything on the site as long as you link back to the original article. Enjoy!
Awesome article, however it doesn’t take into account different peoples dispositins. Such as blood types and builds. The truth us there is no one fits all approch, understanding your body is key
Thank you Jagroo, but I disagree. These are universal principles. Trying to keep your muscle without strength training is a lost cause, and it doesn’t matter what your blood type is. The same goes for eating enough calories. This is basic human biology.
Thanks tony, surley an ectomorph with a blood group A, cannot reap the same rewards from an especific approach as endomorph with a blood type O. As the both have differing body types and various other difference. Additionally I agree weight resistance training is a must on both accounts.
I’m personally not a fan of blood type approaches to diet and exercise. Proper muscular stimulus and sufficient calories are necessary to lose fat without losing muscle, regardless of your individual body type.
I love ur article. Ive been working my butt off at the gym n training fot a 10k( cardio 3 × week n weights 2-3 x a week) . I haven’t lost any weight. I assume is because I do a lot of weight training, I love it. But I am a little more on the heavy # on the scale. I love the way my body is starting to tone but still no weigjt lost. I assume the weight should start to come off some time right? I mean , u can only get so much muscle before u see a drop in the scale right? Is it possible to be heavy n have good muscle mass ??? I have good nutrition, no low cal but good clean food. Should I drop my cals ? But iv worked so hard to build my muscle 🙁
It’s definitely possible to have a lot of muscle and a lot of fat. If you aren’t losing weight you need to take a look at your calorie intake. It can be too high, but it can also be too low. Track everything you eat so that you have a point of reference to adjust from.