How do you choose between two popular questions, Burn Fat or Build Muscle? Yet the more popular question that NOW people ask is, how to burn fat AND build muscle. In this article I am going to give you a quick overview on a few things and help you decide what you should be or NOT be doing to achieve your goal.

When you look at the mirror, what do you see, skinny fat or overweight?

The Skinny Fat Protocol

If you said skinny fat, you need to focus on building muscle. If you said totally obese, you need to focus on burning the fat off because trying to build muscle with excess fat will only help you put on more fat than muscle.skinny fat

If you are skinny fat, you are way below the recommended weight for your height. If you are 5 ft 8”, you should weight at least 150 lbs. Add 5 more lbs to every inch taller and reduce 5 lbs for every inch shorter. It’s simple as that.

If you are below you recommended weight, you should focus on eating more calories. You should stay away from cardio (stick to slow cardio 2 times a week if you want). You should focus on putting on progressive training, break PR’s and train to failure.

You calorie intake should be 500 calories above maintenance level. 1.1 to 1.2 grams of protein for every lb of bodyweight, 30% of you intake should be from healthy fats like almonds, olive oil etc… The rest of the calories should be from healthy carbs like oatmeal, brown rice, vegetables and fruits etc…

The Overweight Protocol

If you are 10 lbs above the recommended weight or higher, then you should be focusing on losing the fat. The burning question that people ask here is, “How to burn fat and build muscle”. Well, it’s no magic but the only effective way to burn fat is by focusing on building muscle. This is a little different from the idea I gave for skinny fat folks.overweight

In this scenario, you will be eating 500 calories BELOW maintenance level to trigger your body’s fat furnace to keep burning up the fat. You are better off keeping starchy carbs like brown rice and oatmeal to a minimum and try to eat as much high fiber vegetables and fruits as you can to burn fat and build muscle fast!

You workouts would be pretty similar to that provided for skinny fat folks, but in this case, you don’t have to train to failure all the time. Stick to training with 1 rep left to failure, but keep focusing on breaking PR’s and progression. Also add at least 3 to 4 interval training sessions for the week for super fast fat loss results.

By doing this, you will be burning fat and also enjoy the bonus advantage of putting on lean muscle at the same time. I hope you have figured out what you need to do when trying to decide between the idea of burning fat or building muscle.

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Filed under: Build Muscle • Diet • Exercise

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