I need to burn fat AND build muscle(please give advice)

I'm 6' 2" 200 and I want to burn fat but I lost about 40 pounds in the past year because I started working at a warehouse lifting boxes all day and I stopped drinking soda so I look waaay too small IMO. I still have a fairly high body fat percentage. I want to burn that nasty fat off but I don't want to look like a sickly thin dude especially since I used to be so big. People I know think i'm sick and shit. So I want to burn the fat but also gain muscle. I do push ups and crunches and squats but that's pretty much it. I bought designer whey and I have a big shake every night after work, after I do my 100 push ups. Can anyone give me some more advice on what else to do to burn the fat BUT still maintain my 200 or even gain lean muscle weight? Any advice would be much appreciated because i'm a complete newbie at this diet and exercise thing.

 

ummm lift weights

 

hahaha OK


I guess lifting and cardio right?

 

add eat basic foods and you have a winning combination.

 

That is what I am doing bro.

Monday: 2 hours BJJ
Tuesday: 2 hours No Gi BJJ
Wednesday: 2 hours BJJ
Thursday: 30-35 minutes Cardio
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 3 hours BJJ + light weights
Sunday: Weights

Once I drop some pounds of fat, I will start lifting more and doing less BJJ.

 

You can't efficiently gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously. That's why there are cutting and bulking phases. You have to decide which one you want to do first.

 

From what I have read, doing strength training will help you cut weight, and maintain muscle.

 

Strength training won't cut weight. Cardio and diet cuts weight.

 

Just lift weights and eat properly. There are like a million threads about this.

You can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, but it is very slow. This is why most advocate bulk-gain and cut phases.

 

If calories in are < calories out, you will lose weight. Strength training burns calories. Building muscles burns calories. Idle muscle supposedly burns more calories than idle fat. How will strength training not help cut weight?

Granted, he shouldn't be doing all strength training and no cardio, but it would help to do it 2-3 times a week.

 

Breathing burns calories. Sleeping burns calories. Sitting and watching TV burns calories. That argument doesn't work.

And bodybuilding builds more muscle than strength training. Strength training is more about the Type II muscle fibers than actual muscle.

Weights are used to maintain strength and prevent atrophy during cutting, not to actually lose weight.

 

Yep.

You can influence all these factors, and speed up your rate of burning calories using some, or all, of the following tactics:

(source: http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/calories/burning_calories/burn_more_calories.htm)

1) Build Muscle

Increase the amount of muscle in your body. For every extra pound of muscle you put on, your body uses around 50 extra calories a day. In a recent study, researchers found that regular weight training boosts basal metabolic rate by about 15%. This is because muscle is

 

You do know that to build muscle you have to EAT, right? Which is contrary to cutting. My point was that cardio and diet on their own will cut fat, while the same can't be said for strength training.

 

Unless you're tremendously out of shape (i.e. obese), it is impossible to both gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. One is an anabolic process, the other is a catabolic process. The hormones and chemical pathways operating during each process are different. The way you throw your body into anabolism and catabolism is different.

Always try to eat cleanly, but during anabolism (building up) eat more. A lot more. And lift heavy and hard. If you want to lose fat, eat a little less, do more high intensity interval training for cardio, and continue to lift to maintain your muscle.

 

Lifting weights burns a lot more calories than sleeping or sitting on the couch. Any activity at all will help losing weight. By your logic, cardio burns calories, as does sitting on the couch. Therefore, sitting on the couch is equal to any type of activity that burns calories. Lifting burns a lot more calories than sitting, period. Even if he only burns an extra 50 calories per session and does this 3x a week, he will be losing an additional 150 calories a week. He will probably burn more calories than 50 while doing any type of weight training. That is beside the point.

"From what I have read, doing strength training will help you cut weight, and maintain muscle."

Lifting weights will burn more calories than sitting around. It WILL help cut weight, reguardless of how nit-picky you are trying to get. The second part of my statement, you agree with. What exactly is your argument?

 

My point was saying that it merely burns calories isn't a valid argument when the same can be said for EVERYTHING. Nobody is arguing that lifting doesn't burn calories, dude.

Not in a noticeable enough manner that you would recommend it as a weight loss device.

 

I think losing weight and then gaining muscle is what you should do. The mosy effective way for a person to lsoe weight is by there diet and im not telling u to eat less and not move around but focus more your eating habits to lose the weight. Once your ready to gain muscle i highly recommend u work out on a daily basis which would mean getting a gym pass and also you should base your eating habits on 40% protein 30% Carbs 30% fats

 

So what reidar is saying is that, for this gentleman to lose weight, he has to do cardio to "cut". Being that he hasn't lifted weights before, is just starting to work out, and has a high percentage of bodyfat (not to mention the fact that he doesn't want to look "small and sickly"), that is the worst advice I can think of.
Anyone who starts weight training after not having done it is pretty much guaranteed to gain muscle because their body isn't used to the stress and has to adapt. Even if he is in a caloric deficit, more calories will go towards building muscle than fat. If he does cardio only (cutting, being catabolic) he is going to lose more muscle and get even smaller. If he starts to lift weights he is going to gain muscle and burn fat at the same time, because the muscle he gains is going to burn more calories when he isn't using them, than what he has right now.
It is very possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Numerous people (including myself) have experienced great results doing HIIT. I have gained two pounds in the last month and have actually gone down 1% in bodyfat.
My best advice is to read about HIIT in the conditioning thread, and spend a bit of time in the S&P forum.

 

Reidar is wrong. I personally don't post much in these threads, but I checked it because I knew someone would say "you can't lose weight and build muscle at the same time." That is total and complete crap. You can, and it is easy.

I think this is analogus to "Can someone train for sprinting and a marathon at the same time?" Of course you can. Unless you are going for a gold medal, its completely possible. You are telling me, unless the person is basically in a walker (analogus to really obese), that if they train for both their times will cancel out and they will not get better? Most people, even athletic people, could decrease their times for both with training. Now, if you want to be a world class sprinter don't run marathons and vice versa, but normal people can do both and see tremendous gains.

Now, with the problem at hand. Do what seems smart/right. You have the knoweldge to do this. Eat right, you know whats good and bad; eat more good, less bad. Eat less overall and instead of 3 big meals, 5-6 smaller ones. Then, hit the gym and lift weigths. Do this as a minimal amount of exercise. Go over to S&P and learn how to lift weights and do big taxing exercises such as squats and deadlifts. Then if you have extra time to some cardio, either running/biking or a sport like Bjj.

Reidar, if this guy does this (a simultaneously bulking and cutting program) what do you think will happen? He can easily do this and not burn out. He will gain some strength/size and at the same time cut out some extra fat around him. He will use some of his food/storage fat to build muscle, and his calorie deficient diet will help him lose some weight.

The reason why this myth exists is because you are not being the most efficient for both. This is along a continuum. In a perfect bulking phase you would never do anything that is catabolic to muscles. You'd do heavy weight lifting, eat a superflous caloric diet and never walk around and sleep well to maximize recovery. In a perfect cutting diet you'd eat very little and do a lot of aerobic exercise to burn even more calories. So, for some reason people don't understand if you do a little of each you can still get huge results. Will you win the Mr. O contest? Doubt it. Do you care? I seriously hope not.

 

i hear the supplement hot-rox helps keep you from losing muscle while your cutting weight, thats just the claim and what i read of user reviews, i do not know the scientific reasonings but it has something to do with "T3" or something along those lines. id say if you really wanna cut and keep/build muscle it would be worth your time to google hot-rox