How To Lose Weight And Gain Muscle At The Same Time

Thanks to some (very bad) science, for many years, the medical community clung to the idea that weight gain was a natural and largely unavoidable consequence of aging. This view was based on research data that showed that most adults get fatter as they get older. Unfortunately, the study failed to account for a number of very important variables, including physical activity, and following healthy weight loss tips. Subsequent re-search has indicated that people don't really get fatter as a direct result of aging per se. They get fatter because, as they age, the vast majority of people become less active.

When researchers delved more deeply into the phenomenon of aging and weight gain, they discovered that most adults were not merely gaining body fat as they got older, they were also losing muscle mass. This fact alone has enormous bearing on why people tend to gain weight as they age.

Muscle is a very special tissue. In terms of metabolic activity, pound for pound, muscle tissue is second only to nervous (brain) tissue. In other words, it takes more calories to maintain a given volume of muscle tissue than the same volume of just about every other tissue in the entire human body. And because we possess many more pounds of muscle than any other tissue type, the vast majority of our daily caloric expenditure goes to using, repairing, and maintaining our muscles.

This is true even if you lead a relatively sedentary existence. In fact, if you are currently sedentary, very marginal increases in muscle activity can greatly enhance caloric expenditure and fat burning. And if you are currently active, very modest increases in muscle mass will accomplish the same goal. In other words, the more toned you are, the more fat you will burn. Don't worry, you don't have to spend hours at the gym lifting weights to reap the benefits of a revved metabolism; a little extra muscle goes a surprisingly long way.

Additionally, the more muscle you possess, the higher your resting metabolic rate, and the more calories you will burn over time even if you're just lying around channel surfing. Of course, channel surfing is not the ideal way to accomplish muscle toning. The old adage "use it or lose it" is especially true when it comes to firm flesh. Adults who do not exercise regularly will typically lose between five and seven pounds of muscle mass every decade. To put this into perspective, a five-pound muscle loss translates to roughly 250 fewer calories burned each day. This can add up to over 25 pounds of fat gain in a single year.

How can you prevent this from happening to you? Simple! Adopt an exercise program designed to efficiently build and maintain adequate muscle to fuel around-the-clock fat burning. But is it really possible to add muscle while you shed body fat?

Intuitively, the idea seems to defy logic. After all, it takes an excess of calories to build tissue, and a caloric deficit to lose tissue. Right? Not entirely. Despite half a century of (good) science to the contrary, many people (including, unfortunately, many so-called weight loss experts) continue to view human metabolism like a bank account into which we deposit and withdraw calories like currency.

Weight Loss Tips - Recognizing Your Trigger Foods

The notion that you need to spend more calories than you consume in order to lose body fat is deceptive. Dozens of studies indicate that the appropriate dietary practices, coupled with regular exercise, will induce simultaneous muscle gain and fat loss - without counting calories. Physiologists are discovering that the quality of the calories you consume is far more important than the overall quantity. Likewise, the quality of the food is far more important than the food group to which it belongs. You will never have to sacrifice variety for good health, or good health for good looks. When it comes to nutrition, thankfully, they all go hand in hand.