How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time, According to a Fitness Researcher

One of the biggest misconceptions about fitness, especially for people trying to change how their body looks, is that losing weight is the key to getting the body of your dreams. And while reaching a healthy weight can help you look better and lower your risk for a variety of diseases, it won’t give you that toned, muscular look many people are after. The only way to achieve that is by building muscle and losing—specifically—fat. Old-school lifters might say you can’t gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, but the concept of body recomposition proves otherwise.

Simply put, body recomposition is the process of transforming your physique by reducing body fat and gaining muscle at the same time (this might not result in a lower weight, but it will lead to a healthier, more-toned body). While many people believe this requires a strict calorie deficit, long thought to be the gold standard for fat loss, renowned nutrition researcher and fitness expert Alan Aragon says that’s a common misconception.

"Like 10 years ago, we thought, okay, you need a caloric surplus to gain muscle and you need a caloric deficit to lose fat," he said in a recent interview with Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. "But what happened in these studies...was a lean-mass-gain-dominant recomposition. In other words, more lean mass was gained than fat was lost. So there were net gains in body mass by the end of these trials, which would very strongly imply that fat was lost in a caloric surplus."

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And this process isn’t just for competitive athletes. According to Aragon, the average person can successfully recomp their body, too. The key? Research shows that slightly increasing your calorie and protein intake can support muscle growth. Pair that with three to four strength training sessions per week and a bit of cardio, and you'll be on your way to transforming your physique. 

"I would say sort of the simple and direct answer is you try to keep the caloric surplus pretty judicious," Aargon said. "So 10 percent above maintenance conditions, which could be somewhere between 200, possibly 300 calories above what you see as maintenance. And the common thread amongst these recomposition studies was that protein was very high...somewhere between a gram to a gram and a half per pound of body weight."

Eating roughly your bodyweight in protein grams is a solid benchmark, but according to Aragon, bumping that number even higher can accelerate results. When people increase their protein intake beyond the basics, that’s when the real shifts in strength, muscle, and physique tend to happen.

"There's a series of studies done by Joey Antonio and colleagues where they fed the subjects 400 to 800 calories above and beyond their habitual intakes, just in protein," he says. "And either recomposition happened, or no significant change in body composition happened."