Can You Build Muscle and Lose Fat At The Same Time?
You must have heard bodybuilders say, “I am on a bulk!” or “Hey, I am cutting right now.” This does not mean the bodybuilder is eating away to glory or is not eating at all. Everyone wants to look good all year round. However, this is not as easily done as said. To get the perfect physique, several athletes are asked to give up food choices. Does this mean there is a magic diet that lets us eat regular pasta while still giving us a six-pack? The answer may look like a straight no, but fortunately, it isn’t so. The answer here is the process of ‘Carb Cycling’, the perfect way you can build muscle and lose fat, both at the same time.
Carb-cycling was once known to be the secret of professional bodybuilders apart from using supplement like legal steroids gnc, as it is the type of diet that allowed them to lose fat while still building muscle. This may go against several health advices you’ve heard, but carb cycling isn’t that tough to master.
You may be looking for a calorie deficit or surplus here to enable you to gain muscle or lose fat, but that’s not needed. Carb cycling is simply the process of switching your carbs and fats.
The reason behind this constant switch is that while we hear several success stories of people who lost tons of weight by cutting down carbs, they develop a slow metabolism. Your body just gets very efficient in working in a low carb environment. Thus limiting the amount of calories you burn each day.
Athletes often rely on carbs, looking for explosive energy to fuel their workouts and hence add some mass. While carbs give energy, they also increase insulin, which is a fat storing hormone. While a high carb diet may enable you to gain weight easily, it also converts excess carbs to sugars and stores them as body fat, which ruins your aesthetics.
Proteins and fats, on the other hand, are muscle-building foods, which is ideal for people who don’t have a very active job. Weight training requires glycogen for energy generation, unlike cardio, and a low-carb diet won’t give you that.
Thus, you need to reach a point midway where you can get enough carbs to fuel your workouts and daily activity, but also get enough proteins to build muscle and not increase your body-fat. In a cycling diet, the high carb days will give you enough energy for your workouts, and low carb days will keep a calorie deficit and keep your fat levels low. Your body, always guessing, never settles down and maintains your metabolism.
Here’s a simple carb cycle diet for you to try out:
Day 1 – carb day (protein/carbs)Day 2- carb day (protein/ carbs)Day 3 – No carb day (protein/ fats)REPEATThis is a simple basic carb cycling diet, when coupled with proper training, will give you some major gains pretty quickly.
