What’s Your Game Plan?

May 31st, 2007

Since I wrote about Tom Venuto’s Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle in my last post, I figured I would keep the health theme going by explaining to you a very important concept that will keep you laser-focused on your health goals.

Some Basic Fitness Facts

One of the most misunderstood ideas in the world of health is the fact that it is almost impossible to do 2 things at once. For example, most people try to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. For very rare individuals that can actually happen, but they are a VERY small minority and got lucky with amazing genes. For the rest of us, well, too bad I guess.

Before you start on a weight loss or muscle building program, you need to figure out exactly what you want. Do you to gain more strength? More endurance? Lose weight? Gain flexibility?

A few of them can go together like endurance, flexibility, and strength. However, when it comes to losing weight and gaining muscle at the same time, it just doesn’t happen.If you want to build muscle, it’s going to come at the expense of gaining fat. How much fat you gain is pretty much up to how often you eat, what food you eat, and when you eat it. If you’re very strict and have the knowledge that’s laid out in Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle, you can dramatically decrease the amount of fat you’ll accumulate.

However, you WILL gain fat - guaranteed. The reason you build muscle is because you consume more calories than you burn off. The calories feed the muscles growth and allow them to rip apart and grow back bigger. With a calorie deficit, this can’t happen.

As with losing weight, you WILL lose muscle. Again how much muscle you lose depends on how much of a calorie deficit you’re in, what food you eat, and when you eat it. Losing weight happens when your body burns more calories in a day than it consumes. The unfortunate thing is that without perfect nutrition and advanced weight loss strategies (again, those that are laid out in Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle) your body will eventually start burning your muscle for calories. This makes you lose muscle.

You Need A Strategy To Succeed

The reason most people don’t get many results is that they’re trying to accomplish an almost impossible task - that of gaining muscle and losing weight at the same time.

What you need to do to maximize your success is take one strategy and stick with it. This is known as the “cutting” and “bulking” cycles.

Most people like to “cut” for the summer months and “bulk” for the winter months, for obvious reasons.

When you cut you should still weight lift to minimize muscle loss, but you still have to be in a small calorie deficit on most days. After all, that’s the only way to lose weight :).

When bulking, you should usually consume more calories than you burn, in order to feed your muscles and make them grow.

Mixing these 2 approaches is the reason most people fail. You see, there is a synergistic energy that happens when you stick with one or the other for an extended period of time. You lose weight faster and gain muscle faster by sticking to either a bulking or cutting cycle.

I suggest that as soon as you’re done reading this, figure out if you want to lose weight or gain muscle. Then get yourself educated, follow the steps, take action everyday, and achieve your goals.

Don’t let another day go by where you aren’t focused on creating the body of your dreams. Start today, and never look back.

PS - In order to lose weight quickly and permanently, you NEED to understand how your body works. Take a look at Tom Venuto’s Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle and let him teach you.

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