How to lose weight while keeping muscle mass?

How to lose weight while gaining muscle mass? What are the best food to help you lose weight but keep the muscle mass you’ve already built up? Is it even possible? Read the article.

Today we will tell about the so-called process of “recomposition” – that is, reducing kilograms and body fat while building muscle mass. This process is not at all as complicated as the name suggests. Recomposition is simply a change in the structure of the body, thus – burning fat while building muscle mass or preserving the muscles that you built during the process of building muscle mass. It is possible with the inclusion of an appropriate diet and effective training.

Let’s start with a concept that is very important when considering weight loss. Fat-Free Mass is an index used in tests and body measurements to determine the decrease or increase in muscle mass in the body. FFMI is believed to be anything in the body that is not fat – water, bones, organs, connective tissue. Muscles are also part of Fat-Free Mass.

You’ll be on a caloric deficit during this process. As you already know, a caloric deficit is not conducive to building muscle mass. How to change the eating system and what dishes to choose so that this fact does not interfere with your goals? We will tell you about it in a moment, now let’s focus on the most important information that will help you determine whether this recomposition will work for you.

Have you had a long break from training? You are in an ideal situation. This is a great option if we have a well-formed figure and muscle mass, but – during a break from training – we gained fat and a few extra kilos. The muscles have the so-called “muscle memory”, which responds perfectly to the return to training – definitely better than in people who have not trained before. It is the muscle memory that makes us recover much faster after months – or even years – without training activities. Completely different than people who are just starting their adventure with strength training.

Why is this happening? Muscle cells (myocytes) have the ability to systematically increase their size thanks to the so-called training “stimuli” and the appropriate distribution of macro-ingredients in the daily diet. During the growth processes in muscle cells, the number of cell nuclei increases. As a result, the effective production of muscle proteins takes place. In short, myocytes with more cell nuclei grow faster.

Research confirms that the muscles that you subject to stimuli during strength training in the first phase increase the number of cell nuclei, and then the protein synthesis is increased. When your training activity decreases, the process of reducing your muscles progresses, but the number of cell nuclei is preserved. It is this phenomenon that is responsible for the occurrence of muscle memory.

Are you just taking your first steps in the gym? Recomposition will also work for people who do not have too long training experience, but cannot afford weight fluctuations. This mainly applies to people who do not intend to make radical changes in their figure, and thus – do not want to increase the caloric value of meals or go into the typical process of building muscle mass.

The most important factor in the diet during recomposition is to maintain a zero or low caloric deficit (up to 150 kcal). Do you want to calculate your caloric requirement? Use our application or the online calorie calculator.

Do you want to calculate your caloric requirement? Use our app or the online calorie calculator.

What mistake do we most often make when composing the menu in the recomposition process? What food to choose to gain muscle mass and lose weight?

Most often, unfortunately, we forget about the right amount of protein. After all, protein is the basic building block of muscles. The optimal amount is 2.2 g per kg of body weight, so if you weigh 90 kg you should consume 198 g of protein per day. It’s best to consume it by eating foods with an appropriate chemical composition, e.g. eggs, meat, fish, and dairy products – such as cottage cheese. It is usually a good idea to include protein supplements that will provide the right amount of protein with a low level of calories and fat at the same time, which is very important when composing a menu in the recomposition process, when we need to exceptionally control the sum of calories and fat consumed – more restrictively than during “typical body building process”. We must remember that we are in a caloric deficit, so increasing the calories with all gainers and other nutrients of this type simply does not make sense. Let us simply focus on the calories of – let us emphasize – valuable food.

How to set the level of macro components? The most constant parameter is the amount of protein. Then we rely on energy from fats and carbohydrates (which will be extremely important for good performance during strength training). But nothing prevents you from carrying out the recomposition process while on a ketogenic diet. Same as on carbohydrate. If you choose a ketogenic diet, it will be 40g of carbohydrates. However, if you decide to go with carbohydrates – 0.8 g of fat. Remember, however, that reacting to the proportion of macronutrients is an individual trait. It is worth monitoring your body and making changes on a regular basis.

Which training plan to choose? Your workouts should be multi-joint workouts such as barbell squat, deadlift. These exercises involve large muscle groups, especially the deep muscles, which we should not forget. They cause the release of valuable hormones after training. Base your training on such exercises. Get in good with the barbell and pull yourself up on the bar. Don’t forget about bench press and proper regeneration. Adequate sleep, reducing stress and at least one day’s break between workouts are the key to success. It is worth thinking about full body workout (FBW) – it involves 3 workouts a week with 48 hours of break between sessions, which seems to be the optimal solution when it comes to the proportions: number of training units per body part / regeneration time.

The most popular training system that you often watch while at the gym is split, which comes from bodybuilding and involves training each part of the body once a week, which in practice usually looks like this: training chest + triceps + shoulders or back + shoulders + biceps.

Yes, it is an option that will offer us gains in muscle mass (actually, like any strength training we do regularly), but this approach is not the optimal solution and wastes your potential to build muscle mass.

How long to recompose? You will notice positive changes day by day. When you stop this process is up to you.

You can monitor your diet, water intake and physical activity using the Fitatu application. More information about Fitatu can be found at: https://www.fitatu.com