Reducing fat and increasing muscle have diametrically opposite requirements for calories. First of all, muscle is an expensive tissue of human body. Muscle consumes a lot of energy and needs a lot of nutritional support. To gain muscle, sugar, water, protein, sleep and so on are indispensable. An important prerequisite for muscle gain is that calorie intake is greater than consumption. An important condition for reducing fat is that calorie consumption is greater than intake. Fat is the body's excess energy reserve. To reduce fat, exercise and diet must be controlled so that energy consumption is greater than energy intake. Therefore, in the real fat-reducing period, it is almost impossible to gain muscle in the state of energy loss.
Is it possible for the body to use the energy of fat burning to support muscle growth? Is it impossible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time? The answer is difficult. The main nutrients needed for muscle fiber synthesis are amino acids (decomposed from protein), and muscle cells also store glycogen and water. Fat decomposition can ultimately provide energy for muscles, but it can't directly promote muscle growth. Moreover, the sensitivity of human body to heat balance is systemic. When the body uses fat (reserve oil) to supply energy, the endocrine environment of the human body will also be in a state of stress, which is not conducive to muscle synthesis.
Of course, there are exceptions, which can increase muscle while reducing fat:
1. For people with large weight base and serious lack of exercise at ordinary times, at the initial stage of fat reduction. Due to the lack of exercise at ordinary times, when I first started exercising, my muscles were stimulated and slightly proliferated. At the beginning of fat loss, you may gain one or two kilograms of muscle, but this is essentially different from real muscle gain-gain 5 kilograms of muscle, 10 kilograms, and gain 20 kilograms of muscle.
2. Use steroids and other hormones. Hormones are powerful drugs, and small doses have great effects. Some hormones can make people lose weight and gain muscle at the same time. But steroid hormones are also very harmful. I believe that most ordinary people who like fitness will not try those hormones because of this. After all, it is not worth the loss to damage your health in order to grow some muscles.
Some people, especially girls, will clap their chests and say, "My legs are really thick" after some strength training (such as four-minute weight-bearing squat and high-intensity fast family fitness (1)) at the initial stage of fat reduction. Maybe, but your so-called thick leg is muscle congestion, and glycogen storage leads to water storage, which is not really protein synthesis. Once you stop exercising, it will fade. To really gain muscle, the strength of weight-bearing squat is far from enough (to see what high intensity is, click here for 25 minutes of high-intensity leg training). Moreover, there are few male hormones in girls, so it is very difficult to gain muscle, so rest assured to squat.
If you don't believe me, let's see how long the muscles are. You break the muscle fiber through training (causing minor damage), and then give it nutrition and time to repair. The repaired muscle fibers are thicker than before. Muscle fibers can be roughly divided into two types: Type I fiber belongs to endurance type and is not easy to thicken (imagine a marathon runner); Type II fiber belongs to explosive type, which has greater potential for hypertrophy and thickening (imagine a sprinter). Most people do running, intermittent aerobic exercise, weight-bearing exercise and other exercises during fat reduction, most of which stimulate type I muscle fibers, so the possibility of thickening is very small. In addition, muscle is used and discarded, and you must constantly tear it, let it repair, and give it a reason to grow. Most people who lose fat are far from strong enough to gain muscle.
Some people who have just started strength training say that I have really gained muscle because my strength has increased. The increase of strength of most beginners is the improvement of the coupling degree of nerve and muscle control. To put it bluntly, your nerves mobilize more muscle fibers that you had before, rather than the increase of muscle fibers. Strength training will eventually lead to muscle increase, but generally speaking, the total weight lifting (such as squat, hard pull, etc. ) Increase the strength of 10 times by 50kg, and the muscle can be increased by 2.5 to 5kg (note that it is the whole body muscle, not local). Many people's strength growth is much lower than this figure, so the so-called muscle growth, if any, is very small.
Since it is difficult to gain muscle during fat loss, why do you need strength training? Muscles are like engines, and fat is just a fuel tank. If you want to consume fat, you must exercise. Although it is difficult to increase the engine volume (gain muscle) during fat loss, you can try your best to maintain muscle, increase engine power, increase fuel consumption, improve your basal metabolic rate, and make your fat loss efficiency higher and it is not easy to rebound.
It is difficult to gain muscle, and it is difficult to go to the sky. It is more difficult and almost impossible to gain muscle during fat loss. Rest assured to do strength training.
Hope to adopt. Thank you.