Build Muscle Without Fat

There are two general bodybuilding goals - to build lean muscle mass and to shed excess body fat.  Unfortunately, for the most part, the two goals are at conflicting ends of the field.

Building lean muscle mass is going to require you to take in more calories than usual because, well, let's face it, you can't build muscle if you have nothing to make it out of.

Losing body fat on the other hand is going to necessitate you to be in a negative calorie balance because that is what will get your body burning off extra body fat.

Pushing to achieve both goals at the same time is hardly ever a good advance because more than likely you will just end up going around in circles, achieving nothing.

Most weight lifters will have to allow some fat gain when they are looking to increase weight, however how much fat gain they need to put in is question. It is this variable that we are hoping to sway.

Can you really increase weight without putting on fat?

When building muscle mass there are two ways you can go about it.

Most people just eat whatever is in sight. Their life rapidly becomes one long 24-hour buffet in their mission for muscle mass as they are under the assumption that the more food that goes in, the more muscle production that will go on.

This thinking is greatly defective. The body can only take in so much muscle tissue at one time and after it has done so, any residual calories are simply going to be stored as body fat. Plain and simple.

For those guys who are out there taking in five thousand or more calories per day, this is noticeably going to be way more than they could do with and will result in a considerable amount of surplus fat weight over a period of three to six months.

The next option is to take on a more moderate approach and only eat so many extra calories to support this muscle growth and that's it. This will allow you to with any luck get as much lean tissue gained as possible without the buildup of a hideous body fat.

So that leads us to the next problem you're probably wondering. How much muscle can you build?

You've probably already heard of the guy who claims he's put on 25 pounds of lean muscle in the short timeframe of six weeks.  While this may be a very uncommon event among an individual who is brand new to weight lifting, has insanely good genetics and utilized an outstanding training and nutritional program, the fact of the matter is that most guys are basically not going to be able to come even close to putting on this much muscle tissue.

A natural trained human being can expect to attain about half a pound to one pound of muscle per week - if he's doing the whole thing right.  If he doesn't have the greatest genetics or isn't feeding himself optimally, this will reduce even further.  So as you can see, at a meager two to four pounds of muscle growth per month, you aren't going to be needed to eat insanely high calorie intakes. 

The higher your eating is, the more you risk putting on extra body fat.  As a universal rule, keep it to about 250 to 500 calories above maintenance in hopes of putting on mostly muscle without too much body fat.  Keep track of your present body fat levels and appearance and if you see that too much of your weight gain is coming on as fat mass, reduce your calorie ingestion slightly.

It is always best to go by REAL WORLD consequences since you are in the real world after all. You can study as much as you like as to how many calories you should be eating, but this does not mean that's going to be the exact number that will create results.  Different people have different metabolisms that will respond to an increase in calories in various ways. So as you go about your bulk, adjust according to the results you are getting.

Remember that the more tolerant you are with your muscle gains and the slower you go, the more time you can spend adding muscle mass and the less time you have to use dieting off the additional fat you gained - which as I'm sure many of you already know, is not a pleasing experience.

So next time you decide you are going to do a 'bulking' period, take a slower approach. Not only are you much more likely to preserve a positive appearance this way but your mind will thank you as well.  Nothing kills self-confidence levels faster than seeing all muscle clarity go out the window in a matter of weeks, so keep the weight gain under control so you don't have to deal with this.

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