How to gain muscle, gain weight, lose weight or burn fat. Outcomes over solutions
Outcomes Over “Solutions”
you want to lose weight or get stronger.
The next question is, “What do we need to do to make that happen?”
There is a lot of confusion and information that makes a simple thing unnecessarily complex.
We want to strip away the “noise” so you can reach your desired outcome.
In this post we will cover the mechanisms behind the outcomes you want. Outcomes like:
Losing weight
Gaining weight
Fat-burning
Muscle-building
Let’s start with weight loss.
You want to Lose Weight
There is a ton that goes into weight loss, from the endocrine system to even impulse control. But, what we want to do is make things as simple as possible for you.
So, what should you focus on?
If you want to lose weight, you need to focus on a net caloric deficit. — meaning using more than you take in.
There are a lot of other factors that contribute to weight loss. All of which are very context specific. For example:
Yes manipulating macronutrients is effective
Yes HIIT has research to support increased fat oxidation
Yes carnitine helps with lipolysis
The problem is: these do not work in every situation or all the time.
What does work consistently? Burning more than you take in.
Specifically:
Are you burning more calories than you take in through exercise?
Versus are you lowering your total calories to be a deficit without exercise?
We are a gym and fitness program. So we recommend that you burn more than you intake through a combination of exercise and lowering total caloric intake.
In the end it comes down to sustainability and being healthy.
(Disclaimer: we are not saying that the impact of hormones does not slow this or speed this up.)
Great, so we’ve covered weight loss. Next up… Gaining Weight.
YOU WANT to gain WEIGHT
What strategy do you need to focus on here?
if you want to gain weight, focus on net caloric surplus — our intake is greater than what we expend.
Just as with weight loss, people struggle to make these changes because they do not have a sustainable plan, not from a misunderstanding of eating more or less.
When it comes to big results, net caloric changes for a week are obviously less effective than changes for a month, three months, or even a year.
The commitment to a plan of attack is the limiting factor for both weight loss and weight gain.
But what if you just want to burn some fat?
you want to burn fat
Depleting glycogen is the ticket here.
The distinction between what burns through our carbohydrates and what directly uses adipose (fat cells) and fatty acids (components of fat) is important.
Net caloric deficit combined with exercise, specifically glycolytic (lactic) exercise, is the key mover behind improving body composition.
What does glycolytic exercise look like? It has many forms, but..
strength training is the best form of exercise to achieve fat loss.
Bold claim, we know. Why is it the best?
Strength training allows you to manipulate muscular positions and contractions to achieve different desired intensities for a desired durations. This provides a mechanical and metabolic stimulus that other methods can’t achieve. A stimulus from strength training that can be extremely potent, yet assuringly safe.
This stimulus also includes the ancillary benefit of improving tensile strength of the muscle fiber and subsequently build muscle, which conveniently helps if you want to build muscle.
you want to build muscle
Breaking down muscle fibers and building them up bigger comes down to:
Applying enough intensity combined with
Time under tension to stimulate protein synthesis
The biggest goal is to:
Pick a specific time under tension
Match with maximal intensity
Do repeatedly to achieve increases in muscular size.
There is an element of nervous system and experience involved, but the universal truth is to increase mechanical tension on the muscle fiber. Group that with rest and recovery, and the muscle will grow.
in Conclusion
While we may have erred on the side of simplicity, this post is an attempt to distill things down. We want to combat the constant bombardment of fads and trends with simple and proven information.
If you desire one of the changes above, and get presented with new information, ask yourself:
Does this change adhere to what works at the most basic level?
Notice we made no mention of a single exercise. The truth is, it is context specific and not universal. However, this does not mean everything is different for everyone.
If you have previous injuries or limited experience, there might be certain exercises that are omitted.
What enables us to achieve success without having to do a specific exercise, protocol, or diet, are the basic physiological principles that underly us all.