Lose Fat Gain Muscle - Fact or Fiction?

Lose fat and gain muscle. Can you really do it at the same time?

There is a lot of conflicting information out there about this, so it is time that you learned the truth about the "lose fat gain muscle" question.

1. You can maintain muscle while losing fat.

If you diet the right way and make strength training a part of your fat loss approach, then you can maintain or even gain a little bit of muscle while losing fat. However, if you go on an "extreme" diet such as 500 calories per day, then you will find your metabolism slowing down and your muscles feeling weaker.

Muscle can be your best friend when losing fat. Please don't confuse this with "getting big and bulky." When you gain muscle from fat loss training, you will not look like one of those huge bodybuilders. This is a myth that is important for you to understand.

Strength training for fat loss will result in maintaining and even adding muscle, but will not result in putting on more weight and being heavier than before.

So yes, you can gain muscle while losing fat. However, the result will be to a lesser degree than the typical "bodybuilder" most people associate with gaining muscle.

2. Fat cannot be converted to muscle.

This is another big myth about the effort to lose fat and gain muscle.

Muscle mass and fat (adipose tissue) are two entirely different things. Muscle mass is what your skeletal muscles are made of. You are born with these muscles, and will have them your whole life.

When strength training fat loss, these muscles get stronger and slightly bigger if trained correctly.

Fat (adipose tissue) on the other hand is stored energy from excess calories in your diet. When you "burn" fat calories, they are metabolically processed to be used as energy. This is similar to how your car uses gas for fuel.

At no point does fat tissue ever become muscle mass. If you do the right things, muscle will actually use stored fat for energy!

3. Gaining muscle and creating a caloric deficit has a synergistic effect on fat loss.

If you really want to lose fat and gain muscle, then creating a caloric deficit is absolutely crucial. This means that you are burning more calories than you are taking in. If you can raise your metabolism by strength training and cut back in calories in your diet, then your fat loss efforts will be all but guaranteed!

So in conclusion, I hope you learned about how the "lose fat gain muscle" question works. Combining a caloric deficit with additional muscle mass will turn you body into a fat burning machine.

Lose Fat Around Stomach - Why You Need To Forget the Fad Diets and Infomercials

A lot of people want to lose fat around their stomach.

Unfortunately, they try to use things such as the following:

1. Doing lots of crunches

2. Fad diets

3. Infomercial exercise gimmicks

4. Doing lots of same speed cardio for long periods of time

Now, why are these things not very conducive to someone's effort to lose fat around their stomach?

The answer is simple, none of these things are a long term solution to decrease the number of calories you take in or help to raise your metabolism.

Thats right, the real key to lose fat around your stomach is to:

1. Decrease the number of calories you take in.

2. Increase your active and resting metabolism.

A lot of people try to do lots of crunches to lose fat around their stomach. Unfortunately, doing lots of crunches doesn't help to reduce fat in that specific area. If you lose fat, you are going to lose it in the same proportion all around your body!

Lets take a look at the two ways we just talked about to help you lose fat around your stomach.

1. Decrease the number of calories you take in.

This is absolutely crucial to understand if you really want to lose fat around your stomach. If your daily diet does not change, your body will not change either.

If you decrease how much you eat overall and focus replacing the bad foods with the right ones, you can start to lose fat around your stomach and other places without starting to exercise!

A great tip to keep in mind when trying to lose fat is to avoid bad carbs. Bad carbs are stored as fat because they raise your blood sugar. Then, your body releases more insulin to store the excess blood sugar as fat.

2. Increase your active and resting metabolism.

This is accomplished by exercise, mainly by a combination of strength training and interval training.

Strength training adds muscle. The added muscle mass then burns more calories while being active and while at rest. So, if you want to lose fat around your stomach and all over your body, strength train!

Interval training consists of going back and forth between high and low intensities. For example, you might try warming up for 5 minutes on a bike, then pedalling slow for 2 minutes and then fast for 1 minute. Repeat this 2-1 minute cycle 3-6 times and you have a great interval training set to help you lose stomach fat!

So if you want to lose fat around your stomach, you want to concentrate on combining a great diet that has less overall calories than you are used to. Of course, you want to avoid the "bad carbs" as well. Then, combine strength training and interval training 3-4 times per week.

You can lose fat around your stomach and all over your body if you do these things right.

So stay away from the fad diets and the infomercial gimmicks. The best way to lose fat around your stomach comes from diet, strength training, and interval training!

Remember that your safety is the most important thing, so you will want to check with a doctor before beginning an exercise program.

Good luck, stay persistent, and know that you can be successful!

To Lose Fat Naturally, You MUST Apply These Ideas!

What does it mean to lose fat naturally?

To lose fat naturally means to lower your body fat percentage without relying on unnatural fat-burning supplements or steroids.

In a world full of fat-loss gimmicks and pills which boast to help you lose tons of body fat without much effort, it my seem simple to lose body fat if you have the money to shell out for these products.

The truth is, nearly all of these products will not do a thing for you if you're not dedicated to a strict diet and exercise program. Furthermore, even if you are already on a great program, these products will contribute to very little, if any, of your success.

To lose fat naturally, you must first possess these basic things:

1. The burning desire to lose fat naturally. The more we think about and desire something, the better chance we have at achieving it.

2. The correct knowledge of the proper nutrition and exercise routine required to lose fat naturally. Everybody is biologically different, so what works for one person will not necessarily work for another.

3. The willingness to make sacrifices in order to adhere to a strict diet and exercise routine.

4. The consistency to apply this routine day in and day out until you reach your goal. Consistency is absolutely CRUCIAL in order to lose fat naturally.

5. The ability to use trial-and-error feedback in order to break fat-loss ruts and plateaus. You will inevitably come to a point in your fat-loss journey where you will find it more difficult to shed that extra fat. To break through, you must carefully analyze all aspects of your nutrition and diet regimen and make adjustments. For example, if you're stuck at a plateau, you may consider adding another session of cardio to your week or lightly decreasing your daily caloric intake. This is where many people give up, or resort to money-wasting supplements rather than trying to lose fat naturally.

6. Recognize the idea that there is no such thing as failure. For each time you slip up or hit a road block, do NOT think of it as a failure, but rather as a learning experience in which you have gained knowledge of what NOT to do again.

7. DO NOT GIVE UP. Very cliche sounding, I know. But I wouldn't say it if it weren't true. In order to lose fat naturally, you have to live by this idea because it can be tempting to throw in the towel at times. DON'T DO IT THOUGH!

Many people simply do not want to put in the hard work and determination that it takes to lose fat naturally. Instead, they think that some magic supplement is the answer, and waste tons of money. Once you've understood the ideas I've listed, you will be ready to learn exactly what to do in order to lose fat.

Losing Fat Without Losing Muscle

One of the trickiest aspects of losing weight is to find a way of losing fat without losing muscle. Many people are under the impression that weight loss is weight loss - period. However, often times when people lose weight they are losing water weight or muscle instead of fat which won't give them the body that they are hoping for. Rather than aiming for weight loss it is important to change your thinking and work toward losing fat without losing muscle instead.

Losing fat without losing muscle allows you to get that sleek, toned look and lose the "jiggle" that excess body fat can cause in any part of your body. Losing body fat can also help reduce your risk of certain types of health problems and can leave you feeling energized, healthy and strong. Not only that, but having a great body can help to improve your confidence level and make you feel more comfortable in your own skin.

One important thing to keep in mind when you are focusing on losing fat without losing muscle is that you can't trust your scale. It is easy to fall into the trap of putting a lot of importance on your weight, however the numbers on the scale are not necessarily an accurate reflection of what is happening with your body.

Many people start a diet or exercise program only to get frustrated and give up because they don't see the scale budging, however if they would look at their body measurements they would see that they had actually lost inches and are more firm and toned than when they began. Rather than watching your scale, take your body measurements and try to get measurements of your body fat percentage that you can refer back to to track your progress.

If you don't work on keeping your muscle while losing your fat you are actually sabotaging your weight loss efforts and won't get the results that you are hoping for. Having muscle in your body helps your metabolism to run in high gear, which means that you burn more calories and can lose weight more easily.

However, if you start losing weight and you are losing muscle along with losing fat, then your metabolism slows down because of the decreased muscle in your body and makes it more difficult to lose weight. That's why so many people eventually hit a plateau with their weight loss efforts using traditional diets or weight loss techniques.

Because of this it takes a different type of diet and exercise approach than you may be used to. You need to look for a program or diet specifically created to help you focus your weight loss efforts on losing fat while maintaining your muscle tone.

What's The Type Of Best Food For Losing Fat?

Are you searching for foods that can help you lose fats more quickly? Millions of people around the world are searching for diets to help them lose weight, but most of them think that by simply dieting, they will lose a lot of fat. I am sure that if you have tried dieting before, you would already know that fat loss is not an easy thing to accomplish. This article will explain some good ways to reduce your fat intake, and the best diet you should try for fat loss.

Many dieters complain that though some of the diets they have tried helped them lose weight, it was only weight lost from lean muscle and water weight loss. Once they started eating normally again, all the weight they had lost before came back on.

Combine Exercise And A Good Diet

Studies show that oxygen is a necessary component to help you burn fat, therefore you should aim to exercise more regularly. Other than doing more exercises, a right diet is another, if not the more important factor in determining whether you can lose fat successfully.

Should You Start Eating Low Fat Food?

If your current diet consists of many fatty foods, you should start replacing them with healthier fats with less calories and able to increase your body metabolism. The following tips should help you lose fat naturally.

Top Ways To Reduce Fats In Your Food

#1: If you are cooking non-vegetarian curry, refrigerate it overnight first before you heat and cook. It will make it easier for you so slice off the layer of hardened, white fat.

#2: Trim all visible fat from meat before cooking.

#3: Use pureed of ground vegetables like carrots and onions instead of using corn flour or coconut to thicken gravy.

#4: When cooking masalas, try to grind roasted masalas and add water instead of oil as the cooking medium to make them low fat.

#5: To lose fat, you should reduce the amount of sugar intake in your diet. Instead of drinking sweet drinks, go for sugar free ones and eat more fruits. When you eat desserts, try to use fruit juices as sweeteners instead.

#6: When you are using salad dressing, use vinegar or lemon juice instead of salad oil to reduce the fats.

How to Permanently Lose Fat in 3 Steps

So you've been struggling with the vicous cycle of diets that you hate and don't work, the self image you hate, and then the binge eating aftermath? Fear no more! Here, I will show you the proper way to permanently lose fat.

Eat More

"Wait, eat more to lose fat?!?" Yeah, I know what you're thinking: it's counter intuitive. What most fat loss companies want you to believe is that you must starve yourself, quench your hunger to lose weight and fat. This is one of the most ridiculous ideas today. The diets and pills will starve your body, but what that does is cause your body to go into starvation mode. What this starvation mode does is it retains more of what you eat, and it slows down your metabolism - your fat burning process. Eventually, the drop is weight you initially noticed, stops. What happens next? You can't take it anymore, and you binge eat because you're starving. Why is this bad? Well, remember that you body is now in retain-what-you-eat mode. So now, your body retains more food than usual. Now, you're upset and frustrated that you've "bounced back" to your prior weight. So how should I eat more then?

For women, ideally, you should eat every ~4 hours, and for men, ~3. This means eating a small meal 4~6 times a day. Of course, this isn't exactly easy, so it's best to prepare meals beforehand and then microwave them. Each meal MUST include a complex carb and lean protein. And because you're trying to lose fat, you must keep each meal smaller than usual (around 20% smaller calorie wise).

You need the protein to maintain your muscles: think of muscles as fat-burning furnaces. The more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn just by doing nothing. "But wait, I don't want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger! I don't want to look all bulged up! That looks disgusting!" Don't worry, you won't look like that anytime. Why? Firstly, you're eating less, and this will create a calorie deficit that makes you lose fat while MAINTAINING muscle. Realize that maintaining muscle and gaining muscle are two different things. And contrary to what most people think, you CANNOT gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. By eating smaller but more frequent meals, you'll lose fat, and not gain muscle.

You need the complex carb because only complex carbs slow release energy. If you eat too much simple carbs, your body will process them faster and create an insulin spike. This might sound a bit technical and complicated, so let me just simplify this for you. When you get an insulin spike, your body starts storing much more fat (so you get fatter). Then the insulin spike will cause an insulin crash. Now this causes you to starve, and binge eat.

In a nutshell, if you eat more simple carbs, like high fructose corn syrup, you'll be storing fat, and causing you to eat more unhealthy food. If you want to lose fat, you MUST eat more complex carbs. If you want to lose fat, you MUST eat your lean protein (protein without too much fat).

I won't dispel all the dangerous myths regarding fat and how it's unhealthy so let me briefly list the conclusions:

1. Eating fats doesn't make you fat. What makes you fat is eating too much simple carbs with saturated fats and trans fat. You need to eat the essential fatty acids. 2. Beware of foods that say "Low Fat". It might be low in fat, but they probaby dumped it full of simple carbs like sucrose, fructose, glucose, etc. (Keep in mind you still need simple carbs, like from fruit, but just don't eat too much. Watch for too much simple carbs on the labels.) 3. Don't worry about the grams of sugars in a product; they may be natural sugars. Just watch out for the simple carbs and saturated/trans fats.

So how much of protein, complex carbohydrates, and fats should you eat? Again, I won't go too much into this, but the answer depends on each individual. There's no one-size-fit-all solution, but here are a few guidelines. For the idle person, a 60% carb, 20% protein, 20% fat is suitable. But guess what, you're not going to be an idle person, you're planning to lose fat! So if you want to lose fat, you should eat somewhere along 50% carb, 30% protein, and 20% fat. Of course, you should tweak it to better suit your body's individuality.

Just by eating healthier, you can lose fat, but to accelerate the fat burning, let's explore some more topics.

Breathe More

Oxygen burns fat. Period. This is because fat is stored energy and oxygen is what is used to fuel the energy process. Where-ever you are, develop the habit of deep breathing. It's easy to do, and it'll burn fat.

Of course, the faster way to burn fat is to do aerobic exercise. Personally, I like to jog and sometimes swim. How should you jog? Again, it depends on your body's individuality, but let me list some guidelines:

1. You MUST jog for more than 20 minutes because the first 20 minutes used to burn what you ate, and not the fat you've stored. 2. A good heart rate is somewhere around 155~175 bpm. Of course, there are better equations out there and I encourage you to check them out (you need to know your body fat percentage, however). 3. Breathe deep!!! You know when your guts start to hurt? Shout in your head, "INHALE!" "EXHALE!" as you inhale and exhale deeply. The deep breathing will gradually lessen your discomfort, energize you, and burn even more fat. 4. Have a cool down and stretch your legs, especially your hips, so that your circulation improves and you don't get stiff legs.

I know, I know. You hate jogging, and that's why you've been looking for shortcuts like pills and what not. But again, don't fall for that marketing hype! Refer back to the negative effects of starving your body.

Lift More

Again, I know, I know. You don't want to be bulgy. But again, you're not going to be bulgy because you're not eating too much and if you're a woman, you're biologically designed not to get bulgy. What does this mean? Men have testosterone, a hormone that makes men aggressive and bulgy. Women don't have testosterone, so if you're a woman, you'd have to lift extremely hard and eat a LOT to get sort of bulgy. But you must have some level of muscle, because remember, muscles burn fat whether you're sleeping or sitting on your couch. And if you don't lift weights, your muscles will atrophy. If you don't get your protein, your proteins will atrophy. And you don't want that to happen, because your fat burning rate will decrease.

Stick to reps of 8~12 to focus on increasing volume. Reps of 4 or less focuses on strength training, and more than 15 focuses on endurance. You want volume because you're trying to increase the size of your muscles - and no, for the last time, you won't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Focus on at least 3 sets per muscle group.

So Now What?

We've come a long way - we've dispelled a few popular diet myths and women bulging up myths. We only scratched the surface of proper dieting and exercise, but it should be enough to inspire new habits, like reading the labels and deep breathing. Now you've realized that proper nutrition is the foundation for quality fat loss.

How to Measure Your Body Fat - Making Sure You are Losing Fat and Not Losing Muscle

Knowing how to measure your body fat can help you to stay on track with your fitness goals and get the body that you want. Surprisingly, even if you are thin you can still have a high percentage of body fat. That means that while you may look great with clothes on, as soon as you take those clothes off it is another story all together. If you are overweight, having a high percentage of body fat can cause many different health problems. It is important to get an idea of your body fat percentage and to track it while you are dieting and working out so that you can ensure that you are moving in the right direction and getting closer to the body you want.

Here are some tips on how to measure your body fat. You should choose a method of measuring body fat that is easy for you and not too much of a hassle to do so that you will measure it fairly often and always have a good idea of where your body fat percentage lies. You also need to track your body fat when you are losing weight to ensure that you are actually losing fat and not losing muscle or water weight.

The easiest way to measure your body fat is to use a body fat scale. You are probably familiar with the traditional bathroom scale that gives you your weight, right? The problem with a normal scale is that it just tells you how much weight you have lost - not whether that weight that you lost was fat, muscle or water. In order to get a sleek, sexy, toned body it is highly important to focus on losing fat instead of on losing weight.

That's where a body fat scale can help. These scales look like a normal bathroom scale and can be used to give you your overall weight. However, in addition they are equipped with special foot pads that send a small electronic pulse through your body that measures your body fat percentage. You can't feel the electrical impulse at all, but what it allows you to do is just step on a scale and get a good idea of where your body fat percentage lies as well as whether you are losing fat or muscle. This is much easier than using body fat calipers or any of the other methods of measuring body fat.

Body fat scales are not significantly more expensive than a regular bathroom scale and are a much smarter investment. They can be purchased at most stores and are easy to use.

Focusing your efforts on losing fat rather than losing weight is the only way you will get the toned body that you want. You should incorporate strength training to build muscle, cardio workouts and a proper diet specifically designed to target losing fat rather than losing weight to see the fastest fat loss results.

The problem with low fat, low carb, starvation diets and most other popular diets is that they don't give your body the nutrition it needs. Many people are surprised to discover that a low fat diet is not going to help them lose fat. Instead you need to use a diet that is specifically designed to help you lose fat while providing your body and muscles with the nutrition that they need. You can find out more about the types of diets designed to help you lose fat without losing muscles or water weight and which will help you get a sleek, sexy body at http://fatloss.s1so.com