A Diet and Exercise Plan to Lose Weight and Gain Muscle

&gt; Of course, by the end of the month, none of the men wished to continue. This type of extreme calorie cutting combined with intense exercise “is not a sustainable program in the long term,” Dr. Phillips said. “It’s more a kind of boot camp,” he said, manageable in the short term by people who are very committed and generally very healthy.<p>No no no.. don&#x27;t diet.. change your lifestyle. Drinking a fancy shake for a month is a diet. Never touching Soda again is changing your lifestyle.<p>One works for the long term, one does not.

Great article, nice and short, and to the point. This is not news to diet and exercise enthusiasts, however, but it is always nice to see supporting evidence. Strength training, combined with a high-protein diet, is ideal for maintaining or increasing muscle mass even in caloric deficit. Compound exercises, like squats, deadlifts, benchpress, etc, involve greater whole-body muscle recruitment and are more effective than accessory exercises like bicep curls. It is likely, however, that the 3 pounds of muscle gained was attainable because of the relatively untrained status of the participants and their high body fat percentage (article mentions approximately 24% average body fat percentage for the participants). Leaner, more well-trained individuals, have a harder time packing on muscle when in caloric deficit.

The study is very misleading. I was excited to read about some scientific breakthrough because I saw the link from Hacker News, but this one crucial fact gave it away:<p>&gt; the McMaster researchers rounded up 40 overweight young men<p>Of course they both lost weight and gained muscle. They were overweight to begin with. Anyone overweight who starts exercising loses a lot of weight and gains muscle simply because their bodies began to have higher caloric expenditures, and their muscles had to adapt to more mechanical stresses.<p>If we&#x27;re talking about someone whose body fat percentage is already normal, however, we&#x27;ll go back to choosing between losing weight or gaining muscle, because you can&#x27;t do both. When you exercise, you burn the carbs first, then the fat, then to a small extent, the protein, though these three are being used simultaneously to produce energy. You hit the fat-burning zone when your carbs can&#x27;t produce as much energy (fat produces way more energy but requires way more intensity to burn), but since fat also takes some time to burn and you already need to produce energy to continue with the exercise, you use the protein too, which comes from your muscles.<p>This is the reason why bodybuilders have a cutting phase and a gaining phase. They gain muscle or strength for 2-5 months, cut for 1-2 months, then go back to gaining muscle again. How do you gain muscle? You put on weight--meaning, you eat more. The weight that you put on will be about 5 parts fat and 1 part muscle, and that is why the cutting phase is necessary. Muscle is only gained with the fat and continued weight training, so burn the fat once you put on the weight. Whenever you attempt to lose fat, you will always inevitably lose muscle, so if you want to get buff, you can only do so much fat-burning exercises. That means keeping your runs at 10-15km, for example.<p>In summary, you can&#x27;t do both. You can only gain muscle and lose weight together if you&#x27;re really fat to begin with. If you&#x27;re within the average body fat % range, though, you still need to switch between cutting and gaining phases.

Just ask any competitive bodybuilder how to lose fat without losing much muscle and they will tell you about their &quot;cut&quot; diet, cycling, periodization, etc. Some of them (eg Ben Pakulski) work with scientists in fact, and go to ridiculous lengths in that regard. Except body builders drop carbs significantly and they always eat a ton of protein, cut or bulk. Of course steroids help to achieve and sustain single digit body fat percentages, but even without steroids you should see OK results if you&#x27;re willing to put in the work in the gym.

Here some tips after losing weight ( 25 kg = 55 lbs in 6 months) ( healthy way).. It was 1&#x2F;4th of my weight.<p>- Morning cardio, after a protein shake<p>- Eat every 3 hours ( no sugar please!)<p>- Men are easier at gaining &quot;muscle&quot; ( testosteron), i&#x27;m not a woman. But woman would have more effect with more cardio. Men have more effect with doing both<p>- If you eat more then 4 consecutive days too little, your body will cut on the daily energy requirements. Eat 1 cheat meal every 4 days. ( because of a hormone called leptine, it&#x27;s the reason why you can survive 30 days without food)<p>- Eat every meal ( morning, noon, in between and evening) || 6 meals a day will make you a king<p>- Last (small ) meal = 2 hours before going to sleep<p>- Protein to be lean, drop the carbs closer the evening. In my opinion, you should have the &quot;big meal&quot; in the morning, so you have to whole day to digest it..<p>- You don&#x27;t digest things in your sleep, it gets stored as fat ( you&#x27;re not doing anything, so your body doesn&#x27;t need it now)<p>- Sleep enough<p>- Weight exercise in the evening, if you want to do cardio. Do it afterwards.<p>- If you suck at running, don&#x27;t try Start 2 run. Run 1 minute, stretch 20 seconds and repeat for half an hour. Next time. Run 2 minutes and stretch. I ran 10 km in a month ( and i hate running and i was pretty fat :p )<p>- Don&#x27;t like running, try rope skipping<p>- Don&#x27;t like rope skipping, rowing is awesome!<p>- If you have pain, take care and don&#x27;t overdo it!<p>- 40% is exercise, 60% is better &#x2F; healthier food<p>- Fish is healthier then every meat<p>- Poultry is the best meat<p>- Repeat exercising every day, except 1 day in the week ( rest day)<p>- Don&#x27;t expect extreme results after a week, it will become more and more visible as your metabolism will improve<p>- Don&#x27;t check your weight on a scale daily... Do it monthly or biweekly<p>- Change your exercises regularly, your muscles adapt &#x2F; become more efficient at what you do the most. You don&#x27;t want that...<p>- A pure protein diet as in the commercials, will ruin your metabolism... ( Eg. When you eat after the diet, like you ate before the protein diet, you will gain weight faster then you lost it)<p>- If you want your weight to stay off, respect your metabolism. Eat always ( preferably small portions)<p>- Not every fat is bad ( transfats are), not every sugar is bad ( eg. fructose and dextrose)<p>- Probably some controversional theory, but they always say alcohol are empty calories. I also think that alcohol lowers your metabolism<p>You want reading material with more information? Try Tom Ventuo with &quot;Burn the fat, feed the muscle&quot;. ( you&#x27;ll learn more about calorie cycling and much more then what i&#x27;ve said here)<p>You want another good author ( short &#x2F; good articles), search for anything of Lyle McDonald. Eg. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bodyrecomposition.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bodyrecomposition.com&#x2F;</a>

They reduced calorie consumption, but also mandated that 50% of the diet comes from carbohydrates. Is it possible that for their average experiment participant the weight loss was a result of net reduction of carbohydrates consumed, not variations on a 50-35-15 formula?

In both groups %50 of their calories came from carbohydrates. Carbs are quick sugar energy, and the resulting rise in blood sugar tells the body that it has plenty of energy.<p>This would have been much more interesting if one group had low to zero cards, and high fat and high protein.<p>Such a diet has worked well for me to lose a hundred pounds in 8 months... without any exercise. (and I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;m losing muscle.)<p>The question is- can you cut carbs and become fat adapted (Which is what I have done, and the results are dramatic, my bodies response to fat is much different than before)... while still building muscle.<p>This is the next phase for me- the second hundred pounds I want to lose I will do while working out and building muscle.<p>In my case, this change in diet has become a change in lifestyle. I&#x27;m perfectly happy eating steak and BBQ and when I get a hankering for a pizza I make it with almond flour and have very little carbs. It&#x27;s easy and fun and I&#x27;m eating better now (and saving money) while feeling much better.<p>Like the people in the study I&#x27;ve also recently started experimenting with a shake. It&#x27;s called &quot;Keto Chow&quot; and you can find the recipe at diy.soylent.com. The nice thing about this is that I put my daily vitamins in the shake and some supplements so I&#x27;m getting better nutrition than I was before.<p>This is taking essentially no effort. Before when I dieted (low fat, high carb standard &quot;diet&quot;) it was very difficult because it took a huge amount of willpower.<p>This takes almost none.<p>Of course, exercising will take willpower so I&#x27;m finding exercises that I like to do. Dancing is my aerobic approach. Not sure what I will do for muscle building yet, though, because lifting is kinda boring. (but I do have dumbbells next to my chair and I pick them up and exercise a bit when I&#x27;m thinking.)<p>I think the whole theory of &quot;calories in &lt; calories out&quot; is BS-- people are different and some people are more sensitive to insulin the others.

I&#x27;ve been following this guide which has a lot of information on better foods and how your body functions: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ss.fitness&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ss.fitness&#x2F;</a><p>Most notably:<p>Cut grains&#x2F;flour&#x2F;wheat&#x2F;sugar&#x2F;baked goods from your diet completely.<p>Diet accommodates for about 60% of your body while exercise makes up the rest 40%. Give or take 20% depending on your type and metabolism.

anybody get to the conclusion?<p>&quot;Of course, by the end of the month, none of the men wished to continue.&quot;