Whenever people start getting into improving health, physique, and strength, first step that most people want to accomplish is to burn fat and build muscles. Ideally, we all would like this to happen at the same time. Although we cannot exactly do this at the same time, but we can work on either process and promote the other.
You'll need to understand that process of burning fat and building muscles are two separate process. Burning fat is what we call catabolism where the body breaks it down for either usage or as a waste in the form of heat. On the other hand, building muscles are anabolism or build and store for the usage. So how can we have these processes happen more efficiently.
Role of Insulin
Insulin plays very important role in both burning fat and building muscles. When burning fat, you will want to have the insulin level to be low. Therefore, diet such as fasting or low carbohydrate diet works very well.
On the other hand, because you want more building blocks for muscle building, whether for strength or mass, you will want the insulin to be higher so that muscle cells can receive more nutrients. Of course, this building muscle process can happen when you apply stress to your muscles through strength training.
Prioritize Fat Metabolism
So how do we balance these processes? If you already have higher body fat percentage (m>25%, f>30%), you may want to keep the insulin level low by reducing the carbohydrate intake and/or reducing meal frequency. And assuming that you are exercising, you should add more vegetable based carbohydrate such as broccoli, cucumber, asparagus and so on, on the meal after your workout. This will help promote the muscle recovery faster, which mean will help build muscles. Rice, pasta, bread, fruits should be avoided until reaching the goal.
Here is a tricky part. How your body can process insulin is based on how sensitive your cells are to insulin. When your body is insulin resistance for whatever reasons (too much carb, lack of sleep, overly stressed) the receptors in cells will not accept insulin where they are carrying nutrients, which is why it is called insulin resistance and may lead to obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic illnesses.
As the body fat decreases, your insulin sensitivity will drastically improve. Therefore, you will want to prioritize fat burning by focusing more on lowering insulin level for longer period of time to reduce the body fat. However, by stimulating your muscles through strength training and physical labor insulin sensitivity can improve.
Focus On Recovery Not Building
Another scenario is people who have less than 20lb to lose. These people should have higher insulin sensitivity compared to people who need to lose more. At this point you will need focus more on improving the insulin sensitivity more and recover from the strength training sessions as fast as you can. Muscle is being built when recovering from the training sessions. Therefore, you will not get stronger or able to build muscle if you are exercising but not recovering.
Since you still have few more pounds to lose, you will need to have time when insulin level is low so you can promote fat metabolism. Which means you may want to practice short duration of fasting (12-16 hours), or 2-3 meals a day. Each meal will now be focusing on recovery rather than fat burning because you've already done 12-16 hours of it. Meal will still need to have nutrient dense food such as, vegetables, meat, fish, nuts, and so on but may want to add in about fist size portion of carbohydrate of your choice such as rice, bread and pasta. If you are not favor of those types of carbs, you can substitute potatoes (preferred baked and not fried).
As mentioned before, more muscles you can build and keep on using them, you're insulin sensitivity will improve, which will lead to higher metabolism and immune system. Higher metabolism means your body requires more food to maintain. And as you create better habit of eating natural foods sources, the body will received more nutrients, which will lead to better immunity.
Strength Training Over Cardio
If you are working out 2-3 times per week, you should be focusing your workout on strength based training, or exercises that requires you to work against the gravity. This includes exercise such as squat, deadlift, push, and pulls. You do not necessary have to lift heavy but you will want to stress your muscles so the growth will happen as you recover.
If you are working out more than 3 times per week, you will want to balance between strength training, cardio, and mobility work to improve on your recovery from each sessions. This also means that you will want to pay attention to amount and quality for food you are eating along with hydration and sleep.
Remember, if you are not recovering from your exercise, this usually does not mean that the exercise routine is too strenuous. It is more of what you are putting in your mouth. Muscle and joint stiffness along with low energy is all due to the body has not been fed and rest properly.
Personal Experience
From personal experience, I've done both extended fasting up to 7 days with water and supplements. From this experience I practiced 16 hours fasting and low carb or ketogenic diet everyday for about 3 months. My goal for exercising is to improve my performance in soccer, which means able to kick the ball harder, sprint faster, and also able to withstand any physical contact. Those fasting and keto diets worked great for a while but my recovery was not happening where lifting weight became struggle even at 50% of my usual lifting weight. I was stiff all the time with aches and pain almost everyday. I kind of blamed my age at the time but it was more of the recovery programming not appropriate for what I wanted to accomplish and for the body's response.
So I've analyzed and revisited what I wanted and how to do it. What I wanted was to maintain bodyweight and increasing strength so that I can move faster.
I am currently practicing 16-24 hours fasting on none workout days and eat 3 meals properly on workout days, which is 4 days per week. On both days I make sure to eat until I'm full rather than counting calories.
Workout days consists of 1 of 4 primary heavy lifting per session (squat, deadlift, bench, weighted chin up) with 3-5 accessory exercises.
My meal consists of cycling meat and fish throughout the week and eat variety of vegetables with small portion of carbs, which is usually a rice. Some minor adjustment I've made was selection of fat or oil (mostly extra virgin olive oil or pastured butter) I use for cooking and use of quality sea salt to up my salt intake to about 6 g per day. To avoid possible lack of nutrients I do take, Omega 3, multi-v, vitamin d and occasional probiotics.
Something else that I've worked on and still working on is sleep. More than quantity of sleep, I'm focusing on quality of it. To do so, I makes sure to keep the bed time and waking time as same as I can.
Do I follow the above routine all the time? Not really but 5 days out of 7, I'm striving towards following it.
What is the results? Well, bodyweight is being maintained within 2-3lb difference and able to lift heavy again without any muscle stiffness or joint pain. There is a soreness but recovering a lot faster.
Things that I've learned is any diet that is out there is just a guide and there is no one diet that works for everyone because individual goal usually is different from person to person. However, by understanding how the body works, you will learn what need to be done to achieve your health and fitness goal.
What Should You Do?
Start with 2 things that is listed below.
Identify your primary goal. Is it fat loss focused or muscle building focus?
Think of how you want your insulin to work for you. Do you want the insulin to stay low to promote fat metabolism or do you want insulin to bring in more nutrients?
It is fun to be healthy and strong. It does take sometime but it is not complicated.
Kota Shimada
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