Preserving Muscle on a Fat Loss Phase: Its Possible, Just Not For Everyone!

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Reducing fat without losing muscle is quite tricky and if you're trying to do it for the first time, chances are its going to be really difficult. This is because there are lots of processes going on inside the body at any random time. Fat loss or even muscle gain is not like an ON-OFF switch that you shift from one goal to the other in an instant.

Lots of bodybuilding and fitness enthusiasts take years figuring out how to manipulate certain dietary and exercise parameters so that they can preserve their hard earned muscle while on a fat loss diet.
Following are certain general guidelines that can be helpful:
  1. Monitor your calorie, macro, water intake regularly. Calculating Current Macros and Calories
  2. Do not reduce or play with sodium intake. It can be quite unrewarding.
  3. Train hard, with a good split. This does not mean go nuts every time you're in the gym.
  4. Get enough deep quality sleep. Sometimes even twice a day, if you need it.
  5. Reduce calorie as and when needed. Do not reduce too much food intake at once. For example, if current calories are at 2500 kcal, reduce about 250 kcal or lower, every few weeks. Reducing Intake for Fat Loss
  6. Keep low intensity cardio to its minimum and add a session or two of high intensity cardio like sprints, prowlers, farmers walk, battle rope, etc.
  7. Use lower rep ranges for compound movements (5 or less), while incorporating higher reps(6 - 20) for isolation or fluff stuff.
  8. Reducing calories should be done from a reduction in either carbs or fat, leave protein alone to do its job. Now, weather to reduce carbs or fat or both would depend on your individual parameters. For example, if you're consuming higher carbs as most ectomorphs do, reducing fat slightly may work for you. Similarly, if you're consuming higher fats (typical for an endomorph), reducing carbs may work for you. How much to reduce, would again depend on how much you currently take in.
  9. If your protein intake is not adequate, forget about any muscle being preserved while losing fat. For protein needs, checkout: Protein Intake: How much and a little more
  10. Monitor your body fat and weight on a weekly basis. Use callipers to track changes in body fat. Its easy and can be done from home. Lean Body Weight
  11. Lastly, have an end date before you start. If you don't achieve your goal within the selected time frame, don't keep going at it. Instead, take time off from fat loss, and cruise around maintenance intake or even a surplus calorie intake by reverse dieting, for a few months and try again next time as fat loss can easily get into the head and lead to unnecessary stress. Diet and Fitness -3 (Reverse Dieting)
What to do after weight loss???
Hope this helps.

Before starting/changing an exercise, dietary and supplementation program consult a qualified doctor/health care professional. 

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