Is It Possible To Build Muscle And Lose Fat At the Same Time? The classic question. Many have asked, and many have attempted it. So, what’s the answer?

Well, the short answer is: No, it isn’t. But this comes with a few qualifiers. For example, very overweight or obese individuals will often both lose weight and build muscle when they first start working out. Eventually, they’ll plateau and hit a wall where they have to choose between focusing on either losing fat or building muscle. You can’t, as the saying goes, have your cake and eat it too.

Why Can’t You?

The common sense reason why you can’t simultaneously build muscle and lose fat is that building muscle requires a caloric surplus while losing fat requires a caloric deficit. You need to eat more, in other words, to build muscle and eat less to lose fat. That is not to suggest that you should only aim for one of these two goals. On the contrary, you should try and achieve both. But you should pursue them at different times.

First, you can focus on building muscle and then, afterward, worry about losing the fat or visa versa. Anyways, it is easier to pursue one goal at a time. You don’t want to put too much on your plate (pardon the pun).

Where To Start

You have to make time to exercise. Although just about everyone in the world today seems to pride themselves on being “busy” if you’re committed to getting into shape you can find the time. Some of the busiest people in the world find the time to exercise. If they can do it, you can do it.

If you’re just starting to work out for the first time and are trying to build muscle there are two things you need to start doing immediately 1) Going to the gym, and 2) Eating better. Notice we said “eating better,” not necessarily less. Because as we said the goal isn’t to build muscle and lose fat all-at-once, but rather to do each in its own time.

How To Build Muscle

You should plan on training each muscle group between 2-3 times per week. You can do by going to the gym 4-5 times per week and doing a split routine or by going to the gym only 2-3 times per week and doing a full-body routine.

Here are a few examples of what that looks like:

• Monday: Whole Body
• Tuesday: Off
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Whole Body
• Friday: Off
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

Or if you’re going for a 3-days-a-week, the whole-body routine you can do:

• Monday: Whole Body
• Tuesday: Off
• Wednesday: Whole Body
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Whole Body
• Saturday>: Off
• Sunday: Off

If you’re doing a split-body routine you can make your schedule something like this:

• Monday: Upper Body
• Tuesday: Lower Body
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Upper Body
• Friday: Lower Body
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

You get the point. The key to remember here though is that if you want to build muscle it’s better to do 2-3 days-a-week in the gym and work your whole body than it does a split routine like Chest one day, shoulders the next, legs the next, and then arms the next, where you only hit each muscle group once per week.