Latest / No Forking Nonsense - The Nutritionist UK / How to build muscle and lose fat at the same time

Transcript

How to build muscle and lose fat at the same time · No Forking Nonsense - The Nutritionist UK

• 0:00
  @paulthenutritionist: Hello and welcome to No Forking Nonsense, the second most listened to nutrition podcast in The United Kingdom. And we've got one goal to answer your nutrition questions with no nonsense. To send your question in email podcastthenutritionistuk dot com. Give me your name, what your problem is, what your question is, a little bit about yourself and we'll get your questions answered. Let's get stuck in to today's question.
• 0:24
  This is from Danny who's 34 from Cardiff Hypol. I want to lose my belly but I also want to actually build some muscle and look like I lift. Everyone tells me you can't do both at once that you have to pick either bulk and get fat or cut and get skinny, so I keep flip flopping between the two, eating loads for a few months then starving myself and honestly I just end up going in circles and looking the same. Is it actually possible to build muscle and lose fat at the same time or am I chasing something that doesn't exist? This is a brilliant question, and I certainly was victim to this in my twenties.
• 1:05
  And to be fair, what Danny has described here is what about eighty percent of men who go to the gym are trying to achieve the endless bulk and then cut cycle like back in the 90s, where you end up back where you started and without much progress, so it's hopefully going to help a lot of people. Now I know for a fact that half of you listen to this probably want the same thing, even women, you know, you're going to the gym, you don't want to look like Paula Ragcliffe, it's like you want to look like women often use the word tote, you want to lose the softness around the middle and you want to look like you actually go to the gym. I have lot of girls who say to me, you know, how do I look like I go to the gym without looking bulky? First thing to say, I mean, is a bit of a tangent, but I've been going to the gym since 2005 and it's now 2026. If it was as simple as lifting in the gym and you will get bulky, quote unquote, I would look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and I certainly don t.
• 2:07
  So it s really important that certainly females you recognise it is not as easy as you lift in a few weights and then suddenly you re going to look bulky, but obviously you want to, men and women want to look leaner and stronger at the same time, and you ve been told the same thing that Dani probably has, that you can t, you have to pick one. So today I'm going to tell you what the honest answer is, which is more hopeful hopefully than you can't do it, but a little bit more nuance in the fitness kind of influences that you see online tell you it is because the truth kind of sits in the middle and once we understand it, then you can do it and you can stop getting in circles. So the first answer, guess the straight answer is that you can actually build muscle and lose fat at the same time. It is real, it s a documented thing and this is evidence of people who do bodybuilding shows like bikini shows if you re a female. But basically it called body recomposition or re comp for short.
• 3:07
  For years the accepted wisdom was that it was impossible because building muscle needs a calorie surplus, is eating more and losing fat needs a calorie deficit, which is sitting there and you can t do both at once, you can t be in a calorie deficit and a calorie surplus at once. And on the surface that obviously sounds quite logical but the body is much smarter than that because you ve got kind of a secret fuel source sitting right there and that s your body fat and in the right conditions your body can pull energy out of fat stores to help build muscle. Even when you re eating slightly less overall, so you re effectively powering the muscle building using your own belly, which when you think about it is a beautiful bit of engineering. The research backs up as well, so there s a well known study led by a research called Longland back in 2016, where they took two groups on a calorie deficit, both were training really hard and they put one group on a very high protein diet and the high protein group actually gained muscle and they lost fat over the month, at the same time in a deficit.
• 4:12
  Both things at once can happen, it does happen with the right conditions. For Danny, you're not chasing something that doesn't exist, but and this is the important bit, worked far better for some people than it does for others. The honest part is that recomp is easier for three types of people. Firstly, the beginners. If you're new to proper training, your body is much more responsive and that it'll probably, well, happily build more muscle and drop fat at the same time, and we call that newbie gates, and they are real and they're pretty generous as well.
• 4:47
  Secondly, people coming back after a break, if you used to train and you've had time off and you're you've probably put on a bit of body fat, your muscle has a memory and that comes back fast so you re comp really well. Thirdly, if you're carrying more fat to begin with, the more spare fat that you've got the more fuel your body has to build muscle from, so there's plenty in the tank. So Danny given that you're kind of flip flopping and clearly not a seasoned lifter yet, you're actually in a great position for this, But it works slowly for lean experienced lifters who ve been training hard for years, so someone like me, that s said I m going to gym since 2005, it s unlikely that I m going to see too much progress without putting myself through absolute murder for six months in terms of where my body gets to. If you re already 12% body fat with a decade of training, re comp becomes really slow and that s when the classic bulk and cut approach starts to probably make a little bit more sense, but that s probably not most people.
• 5:54
  Most people asking this question are probably holding on to more body fat than they think, they probably haven't got as much muscle as they think. To hold you actually do it, there's three levers, and you need all three. So firstly, shock protein. So this is a non negotiable. Protein is what makes the recon possible, it s the raw material for building muscle as many of us know and it s also the most filling nutrient, so it s going to keep you satisfied in a deficit.
• 6:20
  This is probably the difference between people who recon well and people who just end up losing weight. A solid target for someone who is lifting a significant amount is two to 2.2 grams of protein per kilo of body weight. If you're not lifting heavy weights, could probably start at an absolute baseline of 1.6 grams per kilo body weight. I like to operate between one point eight and two point zero and there's really good evidence, including a very, very, very big review by a research called Morton, that muscle building benefits plateau at roughly that level of kind of two to 2.2. So you don need the ridiculous amounts that some people are pushing, but you do need to actually hit your protein every day.
• 7:02
  Most people who can t build muscle are just not eating enough protein consistently, or they re eating most of their protein in one meal, which again, separate conversation, but you need to be spreading that out. Second, you want to lift weights and get stronger over time. You cannot re comp just doing cardio, You're going to end up looking like Mofar or Paula Radcliffe. You have to give your body a reason to keep muscle and build more, and that reason is lifting weights, proper progressive lifting three or four times a week, where you gradually add weights or reps over the week. That progression is the signal that will tell your body to keep the muscle and build more.
• 7:42
  Without it, a deficit just eats into your muscle along with the fat. So this is why people on menjaro and zen pit look really gone. Thirdly, a small calorie deficit, and the key thing is small here. If you're doing massive swings, so eating loads and starving, then eating loads and starving again, a recon just isn't going to work for you because it needs the opposite. A gentle modest deficit, so you eat slightly under what you burn, not a lot, and if you slash your calories too hard, there's just not enough energy or material to build muscle, and you end up just losing weight and you're going to lose muscle as well.
• 8:19
  So you want a small deficit, high protein, hard training, and that's recipe. I say this a lot, you should never be hungry, and you should feel like you have enough energy. If you re starving all the time and if you re feeling that you haven t got much energy, then your calories are wrong. That s the bottom line. We now need to address the mistake that Danny is certainly making, because it s probably a common one, and many of you will be doing the same thing.
• 8:47
  The reason why Danny is looking the same after all of this effort isn t that the recomp is impossible, it s that the bulk then cut cycle done the way that most people do it just kind of cancels itself out. You bulk and often people will dirty bulk like you know they go well I m just eating loads and loads, they re eating loads and yet you build a bit of muscle but you also pile on the fat because the surplus is too aggressive, and then you panic because you look in the mirror and you look fat, so you crash diet and you slash your calories too hard to try and strip the fat off, and a big chunk of the muscle that you ve built also disappears, so you land back where you started and you end up just kind of going round the circles. The dirty bulk followed by the crash is the single most common reason that people end up just not making any progress. Recom breaks the cycle because you stop the kind of wild swings of bulk and cut, bulk and cut which is not a thing. Certainly if you re above 25 it s very unlikely that s going to have any impact anyway.
• 9:47
  You need to pick a lane, a modest deficit, loads of protein, progressive lifting, and you hold it steady for a good stretch, months not weeks, which brings me on to the most important thing. Here s what you have to make peace with. Recomp is fucking boring. It is slow and the scale becomes almost useless because you re losing fat and you re gaining muscle at the same time. The scale sometimes will barely move, especially with the training, the emphasis on your training and the stresses on your body, you'll find that probably you're holding on to a little bit more water, training stimulus, that's the word I'm looking for, And if you re only watching the number on the scale, you think that not a lot s happening and you re quick, when actually things are working quite well.
• 10:32
  So you have to change your measures, progress photos, how your clothes fit, your strength getting up in the gym is probably most important, the mirror, a tape measure around your waist, which is really important because these things will tell a story when possibly the scales aren't moving so much. This is certainly the case for females as well. Someone who is mid recomp can look dramatically different in the mirror, whilst the scale number is fluctuating or barely changing, because muscle and fat take up very different amounts of space. So if you take one mindset thing from what I m saying here, I'd probably say maybe don't worry too much about the weight on the scales, you're not trying to weigh less, you're trying to look and perform completely different at a similar way. So the bottom line is that yes, you can build muscle and lose fat, it's called recomposition, and it's especially doable for you because you're not super lean, a decade deep lifter, you're exactly who it works for.
• 11:32
  So stop the wild swings because stuffing yourself and starving is not the way. Instead, hit your protein hard every single day, lift weights, chase getting stronger over the weeks, make sure that those numbers in the gym are going up, you should be recording your weights if you're not using an app, sit in a small sustainable deficit where you're never hungry and your energy is fine, and then be patient, and judge it by the mirror, the numbers in the gym and your clothes, not by this scale. You do that, hold it for a few months, not a few weeks, and you stop down in circles and finally start to look like you actually train. I say this a lot nutrition and the results from nutrition are fucking boring. We have a saying within my clients where we say we ve just got to bore on, and what I mean is we rarely change things really dramatically where we rip the rule book up and we go we're going to change all of this, we're going to drop your calories by 600 and change your macronutrients by x percent because actually we've just got to bore on and be consistent.
• 12:35
  Your body loves consistency and if you consistently do the right things it's impossible for you not to make progress. Some take time, certainly if you're female, it takes a little bit longer, but eventually you keep boring on, you will make programme. Don't forget that this Friday we have a rewind episode and this week it's about why you need to eat more to lose weight. So give that a listen and other than that I shall speak to you next Wednesday with another question. Thanks for listening to this episode of No Forking Nonsense.
• 13:06
  If you would like to get your question on a future episode email podcastnutritionistuk dot com. If you would like a free meal maker resource, click the top link in the description. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram Paul, the nutritionist. Chat to you next week.