Are You Losing Muscle As Well As Fat?
This month, I want to
_______
How would you fill in that blank?
Although I don't know you, I'm guessing that you'd like to finish the month
with more muscle or less fat than you have right now. Maybe you're after a
combination of the two.
This applies to people who say they don't want to lose weight, but just
want to look "more toned." Think about it. What's a more toned body, if it's
not one with less fat and more muscle?
Regular readers will know that I've talked about this subject many times. In fact,
I've done it so often that I'm worried you're getting annoyed at me right
now for bringing it up again.
However, I think useful information bears repeating, especially when new theories
about diet and exercise seem to appear every week, and experts continue to
argue about the "best way" to do things.
The problem with most health and fitness "news" is that it's
nothing more than "noise." Newspaper headlines, magazine articles and TV babble
about the
latest diet, exercise gimmick or fitness fad isn't just useless.
It's actually worse than useless, because it distracts you from
the things that are really important and misleads people into
thinking they know something.
This mass of confusing and conflicting information leaves many people so confused
about what to eat and how to exercise that they end up doing nothing.
Sometimes the real problem isn't too little information but too much.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that a lack of good information
is preventing you from reaching your goals. The fundamental principles you
need to lose fat without losing muscle have been out there for
some time. And they won't be changing anytime soon.
One good illustration of these principles comes from a research team led
by Dr. Donald Layman, professor of food science and human nutrition at the
University of Illinois.
In the study, researchers compared the effects of a high-protein, low-carbohydrate
diet against a high-carbohydrate, low-protein diet combined with exercise in
48 obese women. Both diets contained 1,700 calories, 30% of calories from fat,
and about 17 grams of fiber.
However, women on the high-protein diet substituted high-protein
foods (e.g. meats, dairy, eggs, and nuts) for foods high in carbohydrate
(e.g. breads, rice, cereal, pasta, and potatoes) to get about 30% of their
total calories from protein (1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight).
Women
on the high-carbohydrate diet ate about half that amount
of protein (0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight) and got about 60% of their
daily calories from carbohydrate.
The women also followed two different exercise programs.
Exercise in group one involved voluntary "light walking activity." Women
in this group averaged about 100 minutes per week of added exercise.
While group two walked a minimum of five days per week, they also did resistance
exercise (30 minutes of weight training) twice weekly. The exercise
was supervised and averaged 200 minutes or more each
week.
After four months, both groups of dieters lost weight. Not surprisingly,
body composition tests show that women who did resistance exercise
lost less muscle and more fat.
- High-protein
dieters who did resistance exercise group lost an average of 22 pounds
and less than one pound of muscle.
- High-carbohydrate dieters who also did resistance exercise group
lost an average of 15 pounds. But they also lost over 2 pounds of muscle.
So, nearly 100% of the weight lost in the high-protein group was
fat, while around 15% of the weight lost in the high-carbohydrate
group was muscle. This was due mainly to their low protein intake, which averaged
just 0.7 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day.
What about the group who only did the walking?
The high-protein dieters in this group lost an average of 19 pounds.
However, over 4 pounds came from muscle. The high-carbohydrate group lost
17 pounds, but nearly 6 pounds came from muscle.
"Both diets work because, when you restrict calories, you
lose weight. But the people on the higher-protein diet lost more weight," says
Professor Layman. "There's an additive, interactive effect
when a protein-rich diet is combined with exercise. The two work together to
correct body composition; dieters lose more weight, and they lose fat, not
muscle."
The main weakness with the study is that calorie intake was self
reported. This is a notoriously inaccurate way to measure calorie intake, and
goes a long way to explaining why the high-protein group lost more fat than
the high-carbohydrate group.
Anyway, that's enough of the theory. Let's get to the practical application.
If you want to
lose fat without losing (or even gaining) the precious muscle tissue you've
worked so hard to build, it's very important that you get enough protein in your diet.
How much is enough?
For most people, 1 gram of protein for every pound of your target body weight should be sufficient. In other words, if you want to weigh 170
pounds, you'll eat 170 grams of protein.
What about exercise?
In my opinion, an optimal fat-burning exercise program will include some form
of cardiovascular exercise. But I don't think it's essential, particularly
if your diet is set up correctly.
If you only have a limited amount of time to spend in the gym, resistance
exercise will do a far better job of preserving lean muscle than even the most intense cardiovascular workout.
Most of the routines in How to Fight Fat and
Win 2.0, for example,
combine resistance and cardiovascular (both steady state and interval exercise)
exercise. But the two-day routine comprises just two total-body resistance
workouts. That's right — NO
aerobic exercise!
In other words, even if you only have the time (or motivation) to exercise
twice per week, it's still possible to lose the love handles, flatten your
stomach and improve your muscle definition, just as long as those two workouts
are set up correctly.
A nutrition and exercise program based on these simple principles will work
for most people. Chances are it will work for you too.
About The Author
 Christian Finn holds a master's degree in exercise science, is a certified personal trainer and has been featured on BBC TV and radio, as well as in Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Fit Pro, Zest and other popular fitness magazines.
If you're stuck
in a rut with your current exercise and diet plan... fed up with
only losing a pound here and there... or still skinny after months
(or even years) of trying to build muscle and gain weight... click here now for instant access to his step-by-step muscle-building and fat-burning workout routines.
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Reference
Layman, D.K., Evans, E., Baum, J.I., Seyler, J., Erickson, D.J., & Boileau,
R.A. (2005). Dietary protein and exercise have additive effects on body composition
during weight loss in adult women. Journal
of Nutrition, 135, 1903-1910
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