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How long should I spend losing fat or building muscle?

Q. I know you can't be both anabolic and catabolic at the same time, so it's really tough to lose weight and gain muscle at the same time. What is the body's ability to switch states? Could you spend one week gaining muscle, and then one week losing fat? Since eating more raises testosterone levels, wouldn't your "week on" help keep it raised more frequently? Could it work with less time? Or is there a minimum amount of time to spend in each state? What would be the "sweet spot" to switch back and forth between each, especially for beginners who have a lot of muscle to gain, and a lot of fat to lose?

A. As you say, building a lot of muscle and losing a lot of fat at the same time is very hard to do, unless you're using drugs or (very) genetically gifted, for the reasons I've mentioned here.

I usually recommend that most people focus on one of two goals - building muscle while minimizing fat gain, or, losing fat while preserving muscle. It sounds like you want to know how long to spend on each cycle.

The typical approach used by bodybuilders is to divide their year into bulking and cutting phases. They bulk up, usually in the winter, by consuming a very high calorie diet, and then drop their calories before a show in an effort to get "cut."

This approach does work, just not very well. The problem is that most people get carried away during the bulking phase and end up gaining too much fat. To get rid of all this fat requires a very strict diet, which can then lead to the loss of muscle.

Here are two alternatives that I think will work a lot better:

The first approach is to...

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