5 ways to lose fat while building muscle

Here's what you need to know...

1. People who build fat easily need better insulin sensitivity. Use metabolic techniques such as descending sets, supersets, complex sets and intervals.
2. Keep carbohydrate intake in the lower range for much of the day, but use pre- and post-workout supplements that contain carbohydrates. Save carbohydrate meals for after your workout.
3. Heat therapy increases the body's core temperature, which initiates a "heat shock" response. This increases insulin sensitivity by suppressing inflammation and increasing blood flow.
4. You can increase the amount of brown (good) adipose tissue you have by exercising intensely. You can also activate brown adipose tissue by eating spicy foods and getting more sun exposure.
5. So-called glucose disposal agents - agents that promote a reduction in blood glucose levels and the use/storage of this glucose in glycogen stores - increase insulin sensitivity and ensure that the carbohydrates are stored as glycogen in the muscles and not as fat.

Build muscle without getting fat

If you build fat easily, it can be an own goal to follow workout and diet advice designed to help skinny guys build muscle mass. Here are five ways that can help people who build fat easily shed the flab and still continue to build muscle.

1 - Train at a higher frequency and volume

Training heavy and frequently is a basic requirement if building muscle is your goal, but if you're a fattie then you need to use a slightly different approach to a 60 kilo skinny boy. High-volume training that keeps your heart rate elevated is perfect for anyone leaning more towards the endomorph body type.

Fortunately, heavy training with weights increases the sensitivity of muscle tissue to carbohydrates. After a heavy training session, your muscles are eager to soak up carbohydrates to aid recovery. This means that the higher your daily training volume, the more sensitive you are to carbohydrates.

In other words, your goal is to increase insulin sensitivity, which is especially important for endomorphs.

The bottom line is that you should train with progressively higher volume as many times per week as your recovery allows, while incorporating metabolic techniques such as descending sets, supersets, complex sets and interval cardio into your program to maximize fat burning.

2 - Reduce carbohydrates when you are inactive

Eliminating carbohydrates completely - which is also known as a terribly bad diet - has negative connotations, and with good reason. Just the word "diet" in the term ketogenic diet smacks of deprivation, starvation and resisting temptation. And any diet that restricts certain things for too long is doomed to failure.

But in general, those striving for fat loss need to keep insulin in check during inactive times of the day. Sure, insulin is a potent hormone when it comes to improving amino acid uptake and protein synthesis, making it a key to a muscular body, but insulin is also a double-edged sword.

Insulin is effective at moving carbohydrates into muscle and liver tissue (which is good), but it's just as good at moving carbohydrates into fat tissue (which is not so good).

Avoid carbohydrates at breakfast and during the first part of your training day to get the best of both worlds. To do this, replace the carbs with healthy fats and keep your protein intake constant.

This means eating something like a three-egg omelette with spinach instead of a high-carb breakfast of pancakes and waffles (you may be able to eat the waffles and pancakes later in the day - see below).

Having said that, it should be mentioned that we don't want to completely catabolize our muscles so that at the end of the day we look like one of those guys who just successfully finished a Weight Watchers diet. As training time approaches, it's time to eat carbohydrates to maximize recovery.

This isn't really new information, but one study found that 50 grams of pure carbohydrates in a drink consumed during a weights training session eliminated any increase in cortisol levels compared to a carbohydrate-free control drink.

The subjects with the lowest cortisol levels - and the greatest muscle gains - were all in the group that drank the carbohydrate drink, while the subjects with the highest cortisol levels showed the least muscle gains. One subject from the placebo group even lost muscle mass during the study!

A training drink containing cyclic dextrin (due to its low osmolarity) and rapidly absorbable di- and tripeptides, which are quickly digested and activate protein synthesis, would be ideal.

After training, when your muscles will best absorb carbohydrates, you can consume complex carbohydrates - maybe even a few treats in moderation.

3 - Heat things up

Heat therapy - a visit to the sauna would be an example - improves insulin sensitivity by suppressing inflammatory responses. You'll see a consistent theme here - low insulin sensitivity is a common threat to fat loss and anything you can do to improve insulin sensitivity should be a priority.

A hot bath or sauna session causes the body's core temperature to rise, activating the cellular 'heat shock response'. This increases insulin sensitivity by suppressing inflammatory responses and increasing blood flow to working muscles.

You can achieve a similar response with a cold shower or cryotherapy, but I think most people will prefer a relaxing sauna session to an ice bath.

Going to the sauna a few times a week on non-exercise days could be just what is needed to maintain heat shock protein levels that are not activated during sedentary activities. In theory, this should help keep insulin sensitivity at the same level as after exercise, or at least close to this range.

4 - Encourage brown adipose tissue activity

There are several types of fat cells, of which white and brown fat cells are the most relevant.

White fat cells are like an endocrine organ and regulate a lot of body processes. The problem? If they get too big, then you too will go wide through mechanisms such as insulin resistance, inflammatory responses and troublesome cardiovascular problems.

You're much better off keeping white fat cells to a minimum and focusing on creating plenty of brown fat. If you are lean and less well insulated by white fat, you will already have a good amount of brown fat. If you are not lean, there are a few things you can do to "recruit" more brown fat:

Exercise more often

A 2012 study found a protein produced by skeletal muscle during exercise that turns fat cells into brown fat cells. This means train, train and train. You already knew you had to do this before anyway, but now you have another reason to push yourself hard.

Eat spicy food and drink green tea

Capsaicin, which is found in hot peppers, has a thermogenic effect and suppresses appetite. Although freezing seems to be the best way to increase brown adipose tissue activity, the spicy capsaicin strangely mimics the effects of cold on brown adipose tissue and stimulates it in the same way. Green tea works through a similar pathway.

Get a moderate amount of sun

When skin cells are tanned, melanin is activated. This antioxidant, which has been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties, could be the body's defense against obesity-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes due to these anti-inflammatory effects on fat cells.

You may have heard of a compound called melanotan II, which activates melanin and thereby increases the activity of brown adipose tissue. This compound has been used experimentally as a tanning and weight loss agent.

Eat the right foods

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and essential fatty acids are found in larger quantities in wild fish, meat from grass-fed cattle and supplements. These fatty acids mimic the activity of brown fat cells by stimulating fatty acid oxidation.

5 - Know your GDAs

So-called Glucose Disposal Agents (GDAs for short) - agents that promote a reduction in blood glucose levels and a utilization/storage of that glucose in glycogen stores - are another tool in your insulin sensitivity toolbox. They help ensure that carbohydrates are stored as glycogen in the muscles and not in fat tissue. (They can't make up for poor nutrition, of course.) Here are the best GDAs in my opinion:

1. Cyanidin 3-glucoside: C3G has the ability to control nutrients and direct them preferentially into muscle cells, rather than fat cells. C3G is a particularly effective insulin sensitivity tool. Use C3G before carbohydrate-rich meals or your workouts to build more muscle and less fat.
2. Cinnamon: Not only does cinnamon help insulin do its job better, but it also has insulin-mimicking properties, which means it can transport nutrients to the muscles even in the absence of insulin. Cinnamon is easy to incorporate into your diet right away. Everyone has cinnamon on their spice rack at home and it tastes good with many things.
3. Alpha Lipoic Acid: ALA occurs naturally in small amounts in muscle meat, heart, kidneys, liver, etc., but must be taken as a supplement to work as a GDA. The regular ALA version should be taken in a range of 600 to 900 mg per day (primarily after training and immediately before a carbohydrate-rich meal), while the recommended intake for R-ALA is about half this amount. ALA can be taken several times a day before meals with carbohydrates or once after training with your post-workout meal.
4. Tarpenning, K.M., Influence of weight training exercise and modification of hormonal response on skeletal muscle growth. J Sci Med Sport. 2001 Dec;4(4):431-46.1997.
5. Costin, G.E. and V.J. Hearing, Human skin pigmentation: melanocytes modulate skin color in response to stress. FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, 2007. 21(4): p. 976-94.

References
1. Tarpenning, K.M., Influence of weight training exercise and modification of hormonal response on skeletal muscle growth. J Sci Med Sport. 2001 Dec;4(4):431-46.1997.
2. Costin, G.E. and V.J. Hearing, Human skin pigmentation: melanocytes modulate skin color in response to stress. FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, 2007. 21(4): p. 976-94.

By Mitch Calvert | 02/20/15

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/5-ways-to-lose-fat-while-building-muscle

Related blog posts:

>>3 tricks for faster fat loss
>>10 mistakes women make when dieting