Losing Weight doesn’t tell the whole story. If you want to”Adjust”, use this method instead
As a personal trainer, clients often tell me that their main fitness goal is to“Get stronger”. Although they may not realize it, these people are actually referring to body rewiring: the Act of changing your physique by burning fat and gaining muscle. This requires a health and fitness approach that differs from the typical weight-loss mindset.
Many people mistakenly believe that true body restructuring is impossible because it’s a hard nut to crack: To Lose Body Fat, you have to eat fewer calories than you burn, but gain muscle, you must eat more calories than you burn. However, your body is smarter than you think, and by keeping a close eye on your diet (especially what you eat when) and training, you can definitely gain muscle while losing fat.
Here’s what you need to know about reorganizing your body and how to make it happen. Ready to hit the Gym? Make sure you have the best shoes, the best tights and the best headphones for your workout.
What is body composition?
Your body composition is the ratio of fat to lean meat in your body. Sometimes, body composition is used interchangeably with body fat percentage, but body fat percentage is only a part of your overall body composition.
Lean meat includes muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons, organs, other tissues, and water-in other words, everything that is not body fat. Depending on how you measure your body composition, you may see water as a percentage of itself.
How’s the restructuring going?
Body restructuring is the process of changing the ratio of your fat to your lean body mass-that is, reducing body fat and increasing muscle mass. The goal of body restructuring is to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. This is different from the traditional“Weight gain and weight loss” approach, in which you first intentionally add a lot of weight (muscle and fat) , then you burn calories intensively to lose fat and expose your underlying muscles.
Forget about losing weight
Reorganizing isn’t about losing weight; it’s about losing fat. You may be able to maintain your current weight, or even gain weight, in a weight-loss program — remember how you heard“Muscle is heavier than fat”? It’s half-true. Muscle is denser than fat.
It’s not your weight that changes during the process of reorganizing your body, it’s your physique. As you reorganize your body, you may notice changes in your body, such as a stronger overall look, or a different way of dressing. You may even gain weight, but by the end of the program, you’ll be smaller.
For example, I now weigh exactly the same as I did before I started exercising and eating healthily. But I wear smaller clothes and my body has more muscle lines than before. I also feel a lot stronger than I did before I started my strength training program (a non-aesthetic benefit of body restructuring) . Therefore, you can give up the scale because it does not distinguish between fat loss and muscle loss, and weight loss is not the main goal of body restructuring.
However, there is one caveat to consider: if you want to lose a lot of body fat without gaining a lot of muscle, you may lose weight in the long run.
Body reconstitution is a long game
Because you have to do two things at once-lose fat and gain muscle-you can’t make a weight-loss program a fad diet. Healthy weight loss and healthy muscle building take a long time on their own. Put them together, and you can stick with them for a long time. However, the slow and steady process of reorganizing your body provides sustainable results, so as long as you maintain these habits, you will enjoy your new physique.
How does the reorganization take place?
Reorganizing your body really comes down to your specific health and fitness goals. Unlike traditional weight-loss methods, such as very low-calorie diets or very vigorous aerobic exercise, there is no real agreement on body restructuring.
There are some basic guidelines to follow. To successfully change your body composition, you need to：
- Cardiovascular exercise to reduce fat
- Resistance (weight) training to build muscle
- Reduce overall calorie consumption to reduce fat
- Increase protein intake to promote muscle formation
How to lose fat
Fat loss ultimately comes down to your calorie retention rate. To lose fat, you must eat fewer calories than you burn. Cardiovascular exercise, or a combination of aerobic and resistance exercise, and a healthy diet, remain the best techniques for reducing fat — scientifically impossible. Losing fat in a safe and sustainable way also means having realistic goals and not depriving your body of the nutrients it needs-a disorganized diet is never worth the risk.
How to build muscle
To build muscle, focus on two major factors: strength training and protein consumption. Strength training is essential to changing your body composition-if you don’t challenge them, your muscles won’t grow.
In addition, you can’t build muscle unless you’re in a state of excess calories, so you have to eat more calories than you burn to promote muscle growth. While all macronutrients are important, protein is particularly important for building muscle. Without enough protein, your body will have a hard time repairing the muscle tissue it breaks down during weight training.
In addition, studies have shown that a high-protein diet can help reduce fat while increasing muscle mass. Studies have shown that people who are low in calories are less likely to be low in calories than those who are not changing their protein intake, eating more protein can help you maintain a lean body weight (that is, muscle mass) .
For people who are already doing strength training, increased protein intake and heavy weight training can lead to improved body composition.
Put It all together. Calorie cycle
As confusing as it sounds, you have to eat fewer calories than you burn to lose fat, but you have to eat more calories than you burn to build muscle. When you get to the concept of calorie cycling, it’s actually pretty simple: modify your calorie and macronutrient intake to match your goals for the day.
The first thing you need to do is figure out your maintenance calories, or how many calories you burn on days when you’re not exercising. You can find this number with a certified personal trainer, dietitian, or other health professional, or you can use an online calorie calculator. Mayo’s calculator uses the Mifflin-st-yorre formula, which experts consider a gold standard.
On aerobic exercise days, you should burn enough calories to meet your maintenance count. Burning maintenance calories during aerobic exercise ensures that you are in a slight deficit to promote fat loss, but not so much that your body starts using muscle tissue as fuel. We want muscle!
Eat more calories than you need for 30 minutes or more of strength training. Focus on protein. Depending on how much muscle you want to gain and how fast you want to increase your muscle mass, increase your maintenance calories by 5 to 15 percent.
On days when you’re not exercising at all, eat a little less than your maintenance calories-cut that number by 5 to 10 percent. This number is called your“Rest day calories.”.
