Eating To Gain Muscle Or Lose Fat – It’s Almost The Same

Are you trying to lose fat? Or to gain muscle?

That probably seems like a big question, huh?  In fact, I get questions from readers all the time asking things like “what are the best guidelines for eating when you want to lose fat?” or “I’m trying to add a lot of muscle – how should I eat?”.

It seems that people consider these two goals to require vastly different strategies.

What I might have to say about this may surprise you:

It’s that the two plans are not so different as you might think.

In fact, whether you are trying to shed fat or gain muscle, your eating plan would be nearly identical!

The Similarities

In both cases you want to:

1. eat frequent meals (every 2 to 3 hours or 5 to 8 meals a day)
2. eat natural foods – plants or animals that are in a form close to how they occur naturally; a box of Fruit Loops obviously is as unnatural as Mark McGuire’s homerun record
3. each day you want 30% to 40% of your calories to come from proteins, 30% to 60% to come from carbs, and 15% to 30% to come from fats; more carbs on workout days, less carbs on non-workout days
4. eat protein with every meal
5. eat a veggie or fruit with every meal
6. eat breakfast!
7. eat more carbs around your workouts, less other times of day
8. eat protein around your workouts
9. don’t eat high fats and high simple sugars in the same meal
10. eating fat doesn’t make you fat!  eating too many calories makes you fat, and you need to eat healthy fats
11. pick one meal a week that is fun and breaks the rules (but don’t go overboard)
12. lift weights [ok, not an "eating plan" but still critical so that your body composition ends with muscle and not fat]

The Differences

1. total calories eaten in a week; if you are trying to shed fat, you want to average about 300 to 500 calories below maintenance per day and if you are trying to gain muscle, you want to be above maintenance level for calories by about 300 to 500 a day on average
2. adjust your cardio; for fat loss, more cardio will help burn more calories and intense cardio (like HIIT) may burn more fat; on the other hand, if you are having trouble adding muscle, you might want to just do short, intense cardio

That’s about it!

Note that I specifically say “calories eaten in a week” because there are some advanced strategies that involve high days for calories and low days for calories.  Some people call it calorie cycling.  We’ll address that in a future post.

Clearly, I’m Oversimplifying

Of course it’s more complicated than this.  Otherwise all those diet-book authors wouldn’t have anything to write, right?

Sarcasm aside, there are certainly some subtleties I’m leaving out.  That’s because people make this stuff WAY too complicated.  It’s not that hard to get 80% of the way there.  If you are fat, the above plan is 80% of what you need to know.  If you are trying to gain muscle, the above plan is 80% of what you need to know.  When you reach a plateau (when you stop making progress after many weeks or months of great progress) then there are some more advanced things you need to consider.  But let’s focus on the simple stuff so that you can make some real progress and gain the confidence that you can really do this ok?  I know you can do it!

Questions?  Post them here!

Just starting out with weightlifting? Want to get bigger muscles this winter?
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Related posts:

1. Eat Like This To Gain Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time – conclusion
2. Portion Sizes & Calories Needed to Build Muscle, Lose Fat
3. What You Need To Know About Fasting for Fat Loss, Muscle Gain

Tags: diet, fat loss, food, muscle