What do you think – did I lose fat WHILE building muscle in this 12 week diet? 

(difference is 18 lb)

Look… 

Most people typically fall into 1 of 2 camps:

1. You primarily want to get leaner, and build some muscle size or definition along the way

2. You primarily want to get bigger, and don’t want to gain much or any fat along the way

If you’re in the first camp, you’re scared that losing fat will make you look smaller, like I did when I lost 55 lb the first time, and ended up looking like this. 

If you’re in the second camp, you’re scared that getting bigger will make you fatter. 

So, should you aim to maintain your weight and try to lose fat while building muscle or “main-gain”? 

Probably not.

You’ll likely just end up around the same weight a year from now, with a VERY slight amount more muscle, and a very slight amount less fat. 

The difference won’t be visually staggering

That’s because you’re robbing yourself of your most potent tools for losing fat and building muscle. 

Your most powerful weapon for losing fat is a hypocaloric diet, or a diet that causes you to lose weight over time. 

A hypocaloric diet causes you to lose fat through hormonal signaling that tells your cells that it’s time to give up their fat storage. 

And your most powerful weapons for building muscle are a hypercaloric diet, or a diet that causes you to gain weight over time, and training with weights. 

Both of which create an environment in your body that supports muscle growth. 

But those things are in contrast because it’s impossible to both lose weight and gain weight at the same time. 

Herein lies the problem. 

Your best bet is to stop being so short sighted

Zoom out your time horizons on what building muscle WHILE losing fat means – instead of looking at it on a 6-12 week time span, try looking at it on a 1-2 year time span. 

I know this isn’t the sexiest piece of advice if you were wanting.

You want to get twice as jacked while getting a 6 pack before your next Mexico vacation… but wouldn’t you rather look awesome a year from now, instead of spinning your wheels for the next 2-3 months and looking the same? 

Uncle Matteo is serving up the truth here. 

If you’ve never made a serious attempt to transform your body, this is what it takes. 

This is where a phasic diet approach starts to make more sense. 

Distinct periods of muscle growth dieting interspersed with distinct fat loss diets, or bulking and cutting. 

Let’s say you’re in the first camp, and you primarily want to lose a LOT of body fat and be more muscular when you get there.

Do this for fat loss

Aim to lose something like 10% of your body weight over the next 12-16 weeks by using a hypocaloric, fat loss diet.

You don’t have to worry about whether or not you’re qualified enough to build muscle along the way… being beginner, fat, time-offed, or steroided enough. 

You just do your absolute best to continue sending a signal to your body to build muscle by training properly for muscle growth, eating enough protein, and sleeping plenty while you lose the fat. 

Your body will take care of the rest, I promise.

Best case scenario, you gain some muscle along the way and end up with 5% less body fat, and an extra few pounds of muscle 3 months from now. 

Worst case, you lose slabs of body fat from your whole body, and just hold onto the muscle you currently have. 

But you look more defined and muscular since there’s less fat on you. 

“The fastest way to look like you gained 10 lb of muscle is to lose 10 lb of fat”

Now you’re leaner, and you can decide to do another fat loss phase if your goal is still primarily to lose more fat. 

Or you can slowly gain back the weight you lost over the course of a year while training hard for muscle growth. 

Now you’re back at your starting weight, but with an additional 10lb of muscle or so. 

Rinse and repeat. 

Now what if you’re in the second camp – and you’re primarily wanting to get bigger and more jacked, but you don’t want to get any softer than you currently are? 

Do this to build muscle without getting fat

If you’re not ready to get ANY fatter than you are right now as a tradeoff to gain as much muscle as you could – follow the advice above, and do a fat loss diet to get yourself to that point. 

Once you have some ‘runway’ where you can gain uninterruptedly, run a hypocaloric muscle gain diet. 

If you’re really scared to gain any fat, you can do 2 things to mitigate your fat gain: 

1// Keep your gain rates low

Around 0.25% of your bodyweight per week, to start. 

This will likely cut into the overall muscle growth potential of your bulk, but can dramatically reduce your fat gain along the way. 

2// Use minicuts 

Run a 12-20 week weight gain diet. 

Then do an aggressive 6 week fat loss diet. 

You gain 7 or 8 lbs on your muscle gain diet, with some fat and some muscle. 

Then you lose 5 or 6 lbs of fat. 

Repeat. 

Take home message: 

[1] Stop worrying about whether it’s possible for you to gain muscle while losing fat. 

Staying at the same bodyweight is keeping you from making visible progress. 

[2] Choose a primary goal of either fat loss or muscle gain and commit to it by using a hypocaloric or hypercaloric diet. 

So you stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress. 

[3] Use a phasic dieting approach to gain muscle after you lose fat, or to clean up any fat gain you incurred while gaining muscle. 

This way you capitalize on the powerful effects of weight gain or loss. 

[4] In any case, train for muscle growth, eat enough protein, and get plenty of sleep.

You’ll build more size while gaining, and build (or retain) muscle while losing fat. 

It’s a win-win

[5] Your body will take care of the rest. 

Work the plan, and everything else will fall into place. 

Hope that helps. 

Matteo