How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat by Eating More
When it comes to building muscle and losing fat, beginners have it easy. The reason is they’re so unfit, anything will get them results. It’s the newbie effect. The newbie effect: beginners regain their normal condition quickly.
The science behind the newbie effect is that unfit people beginning exercise will regain their normal condition very quickly. Males can gain 5-15 pounds of muscle while losing 5-15 pounds of fat in only two months, and females can lose the same amount of fat while gaining 2-5 pounds of muscle. Your body will soon regain shape regardless of the training regimen you choose. Your body is only getting back into regular, fit condition, so it should be relatively simple. This is why all the training programs out there offer training for at least 2 months. However, this is also the reason that after 2 months many people stop seeing results and hit a wall. This is because the program is poorly designed after the newbie effect has worn off.
If you’ve been training for more than two months and you’ve had results at first but they’ve slowed down or stopped, this book is for you. In the following pages I’ll reveal the three single most important things you can do to build muscle, lose fat, and feel & look good. They’re time-tested, and stem from my seven years of experience and research in weight training.
If your goal is to gain muscle, you’ve got to realize one thing: you want to gain weight. To gain weight, you need to eat more calories than you spend. Building a pound of muscle requires enormous amounts of calories. Where will you get those calories from? From food.
This is a good analogy: if you are building a house, you will need bricks, wood, mortar, stone, and other materials. The larger the house is, the more materials will be required. In the same way, when you’re building your body up, you’re going to need more materials (food) to build the extra muscle.
Simply put, the more you eat, the faster you build muscle. There’s only one problem: you’ve got to find the sweet spot where you eat enough to fuel muscle growth, but not so much that you’re also putting on fat.
Imagine this: Bob, for example, wants to add some muscle. He is somewhat unfit at 180 pounds and his weight is stable at 2,000 calories per day. He begins training at the gym, and his newbie effect brings him 10 pounds of muscle while shedding 10 pounds of fat. He is the same weight, but leaner and in better condition. He trains for another month the same way, but this time he hits a wall and doesn’t get any more muscular; his weight remains the same.
Bob finds good advice and begins to eat a little more every day: he’s now at 2,200 calories, and his weight goes up again. He’s not gaining much fat and is happy with it.
The next month, Bob decides it’s not enough: he wants to gain muscle faster. He starts eating more and is now at 2,400 calories per day. After two weeks, he notices he doesn’t gain muscle any faster and that he’s slowly putting on fat. That’s not what he wants, and he reverts to the 2,200 calories a day diet. Bob’s sweet spot is at 2,200 calories per day. He wasn’t growing at 2,000, and was putting on too much fat at 2,400.
As in this story, it is crucial to find your own balance or sweet spot because it dictates how much you need to eat to build muscle, but without gaining fat as well. It will be different for every individual according to their body types; some can eat a lot without gaining fat, some can’t. It’s a sweet spot that you’ll have to figure out for yourself.
Do this:
1. Weight yourself every other day for a month on % body fat scale (which gives you your weight and your fat %).
2. Are you gaining weight? If yes, is your % body fat increasing? If it is, eat a little less. If it’s not, congratulations! You’ve found your sweet spot.
If you’re not gaining any weight, add another small meal to your diet. This should be eaten preferably before or after a workout. Keep tracking your weight until you find a sweet spot. If you’re still not gaining weight, add more small meals every day until you are.
