The Basic Two Steps to Lose Weight and Gain Muscle
It is really no surprise that the two basic steps how to lose weight and gain muscle is diet and exercise. No big secret there. But what is the correct diet and what are the correct exercises that will make you lose weight and gain muscle? Opinions vary for these questions and the answers can be quite misleading.
You Are What You Eat
Therefore if you eat the wrong things this usually will lead to being overweight. Again, this is no big secret here. So in order to lose weight what should you eat? The first question to be asked is:
1. What is it that you enjoy to eat that will make you leaner and healthier?
2. What program will help control calorie intake?
The answer is to eat a wide variety of foods with high nutrition but with low calories. Studies have shown that people with higher protein intake are less likely to have the lost weight come back on their bodies. Also, you should try to lean more toward vegetable protein than meat protein. So here is a short list of foods that will help you with your diet.
Fruit:
Berries (blueberries,strawberries) that will provide natural fructose.
Apples contain high fiber.
Cantaloupe and melons provide good nutrition.
Vegetables:
Greens-are low in calories and include spinach, zucchini, lettuce, cucumbers and broccoli. They also provide high protein.
Carrots which are low in calories.
Beans and peas, which are low in calories.
Lean Protein Meats
Chicken Breast
Alaskan Salmon
Grass fed Beef Steak.
Whole Grains
100% whole wheat bread.
Brown rice (not white rice).
Oatmeal and Barley cereals.
Yams and Sweet Potatoes.
This is just some of the foods you can eat when you are trying to lose weight and gain muscle. You should obtain a good nutrition guide for helping you follow your diet. This guide will provide detail about the number of calories to consume and how they should be broken down between protein, fats and carbohydrates.
Exercises to Lose Weight
Just increasing your metabolism will start to help you lose the weight. The start or increase in your exercise program will speed up your metabolism. However, you have to exercise correctly. You could become a member of a gym and use the treadmill for thirty minutes but make little or no progress. You should either consult with an expert or find a good exercise guide to help you with doing the right exercises.
Here are some exercises that will start building your muscle mass which in turn will burn off your calories and increase your metabolism.
Push Ups:
As with all exercises you need to do them correctly to gain any benefit so let’s go over the correct way for doing a push-up.
1. Tighten your abdomen muscles and maintain your body in a straight line from your toes to your shoulders at all times.
2. Your hands should be positioned slightly more than the width of your shoulders.
3. Slowly lower yourself down until you are about 3 inches from the ground.
4. Lift yourself using your chest muscles, shoulder and triceps.
Dumbbell Workouts:
On a Bench
1. This exercise can be done on a flat or incline bench at about 45 degrees.
2. Raise the dumbbells above your chest with arms at full extension. You can have your palms facing down toward the floor.
3. Slowly lower the dumbbells down to the chest level along side of your head. Repeat to extend the dumbbells as explained in step #2.
Squats:
1. While standing with your feet about shoulder width apart have a dumbbell in each hand.
2. Take a long step forward.
3. Bend your back knee to the ground and lower your body bringing your front thigh parallel to the ground.
4. Keep your body upright and do not bend your back.
5. return to the upright position and perform the same exercise with the opposite leg.
Factor in your physical shape and with your personal physicians approval, you can work up to doing 30 push-ups in a set. You can eventually work up to 75 pounds for the dumbbells on the bench exercises for 10 reps. When doing your squats you can work up to 85 pounds for the dumbbells while doing 10 reps.
Keep Your Diet and Exercise Program Alive
When trying to lose weight and gain muscle, remember that you have to stay with your diet and exercise program. All to often people have started and given up. Fight the exercise boredom by teaming up with a partner who will motivate you to reach your goals. Having the right mindset to lose weight and gain muscle is very important and not to be overlooked. Stay confident and purpose driven.
All “hard gainers” want to get big as fast as possible, but how do you guarantee your gains are muscle and not excess fat. The one thing you need to know is how to gain muscle mass without excess fat.
Before you jump headfirst into a muscle building program you need to know that no matter how hard you try you will always end up with some extra body fat. This is because of the extra calories you will be consuming and how your body processes it. Some calories are converted to be stored as body fat.
How do you get around this? You copy a simple and highly effective body building trick. Spend time bulking up and then burn off the fat.
Bodybuilders know that by increasing their muscle mass they speed up their metabolic rate, this allows them to burn off excess fat and show off their huge, shredded bodies.
You need to bulk up without putting on too much body fat and there are 3 things you need to know before you can achieve this.
1) Choose the right foods
You must get this right or you will only get fat. You will need to eat more and we will cover that shortly. If you eat the wrong foods you will only get fat.
You need to eat fresh fish, lean meats and other high quality protiens. Fibre packed natural carbohydrates, fresh friuts and vegetables. Don’t forget you will need unsaturated fats and oils such as olive oil.
2) Don’t overeat
Increasing your caloric intake is essential to bulking up. To put it simply you need to eat more than you burn. This is the opposite of burning fat, where you eat less than you burn.
You don’t however have a free licence to eat everything in sight. This approach will simply lead to excess body fat not muscle gain. Start by increasing the amount of calories you eat by 15% and slowly build up to 25%.
3) Get your heart pumping
Cardio is the most effective way to keep your body fat levels under control. It doesn’t have to be to serious. Focus on high intensity exercises but done over short periods.
Jump on a treadmill and go for a run for 10-15 minutes on the days you are not lifting weight. You will be doing just enough to burn fat without losing any muscle mass.
When you have reached a point where you are happy with your gains just switch to a fat loss routine and burn off that last layer to show off your shredded muscular body.
To discover another simple but highly effective trick to gain muscle mass while keeping your body fat levels low visit www.buildmemuscle.com/gain-muscle-mass/
When you are bodybuilding to gain muscle, it is important that you know exactly what exercises you should be doing to build the muscles in the right places. Inclusion of all these exercises will be a sure fire way to hit all the major muscle groups.
Bench Press
This is one exercise that was popularized in the military and focuses on upper body muscle building. For this exercise, you will need a bench and of course the required weights for the exericse execution.
Make sure you always have a spotter to help you with the weights to maintain safety during this exercise.
Squat
The squat can be done with or without weights, depending on your exercise program. Body builders who want to gain muscle in their thighs and legs can use this particular exercise to strengthen their muscles there and keep them taut.
Focusing mainly on the lower body, it takes a lot of control to do this exercise well and effectively. When done correctly, it can be one of the most powerful exercises to develop lower body strength.
Deadlift
This basically involves a person bending down and being able to lift weights or a barbell from the standing position only. When done properly, this is one exercise that can strengthen the back, abs, forearms, biceps, quads, hamstrings, glutes, traps, and neck all at the same time.
This exercises has to be done with the correct form to prevent any kind of injury from happening to the bodybuilder, which is why it is vital to ask a trainer how to best implement this exercise to be most effective in strengthening the body.
Military Press
Also known as the front press, this exercise will strengthen the upper body appropriately and thoroughly. People who do this will gain muscle in their shoulder and arms. Developed further by the military from the bench press, the front press is a great exercise that minimizes any injury to shoulders like a regular bench press can cause.
Bent Over Rows
If you want to work on developing muscles in your lats and upper back, then bent over rows are the way to go. There are a variety of ways that you can do this particular exercise that may involve different positions with the sternum, abs, gripping, and palms.
Many body builders attest to the effectiveness of this exercise to gain muscle and strengthen it, especially on the back.
Clean and Push Press
This is an exercise that focuses on building and strengthening muscles in the forearms, triceps, biceps, shoulders, traps, back, quads, glutes, hamstrings, and the calves. The best part is that your shoulders will be improved upon by doing this particular exercise.
Ultimately, with these mentioned exercises you can be sure that you will have the body of a professional bodybuilder in no time. Consult a trainer on the proper form of each exercise to gain muscle first before simply trying it out to lessen injury and make the exercise more effective on your body.
If you want to gain muscle a proper diet is just as important as exercise. Diet is an important factor to every exercise schedule. Without the proper diet, your body will not get the nourishment that it requires to convert into muscles. Similarly, there are some food items that you must avoid if you want to gain muscle. We can list down 7 food times that you must avoid at all costs if you are planning to build your body.
1. Doughnuts:
When you see these round sweet treats you would hardly be able to avoid the smell of these sweet treats. It is worth remembering that these doughnuts are almost entirely made of fat. The fastest to get fat is on doughnuts. Each doughnut contains about 400+ calories. So think about that before you take a bite in to the next one when you are working so hard to gain muscles.
2. Cheeseburger with fries:
Another very common dish that has been your favorite every since your child hood perhaps, and a dish that you just can’t resist. However you should remember that all this is doing is adding more calories to your body. The entire dish has about 720 calories. This is excluding the mayonnaise that just adds on to the fat.
3. Fried chicken:
How can you ever give up fried chicken? It’s a part of your life. However you should remember that this piece of your life adds on around 420 calories with every piece. The deep frying process not only adds the fat but it also means most of the nutritional value of the chicken is lost. Therefore you are not really gaining anything out of the meal except more cholesterol in your body.
4. Oscar Mayer’s Lunchables:
You might love them because they are easy and convenient, but you should remember that they are also unhealthy. About two thirds of this contains only calories. They contain no fruits or vegetables and provide absolutely no nutrition. Therefore you need to make sure that you are away from them when you are on your mission to gain muscle.
5. Sugary Cereal:
The kids love it. You can’t live without it. It will never help you gain muscle. These cereals are sweetened and dyed and puffed. That’s why these should never form a part of your diet.
6. Processed meat:
Things that fall under the category are bacon, jerky beef and hot dogs. You should make sure that you stay away from these the minute you plan on going on a diet to gain muscle. If you are planning to build muscle then these are your worst enemies.
7. Canned soup:
You though it was healthy? Many other did too. However, contrary to popular belief canned soup is very unhealthy. This is because canned soup contains trans fats in high amounts. Also artificial preservations and quantities of sodium make it all the unhealthier. Hence if you are trying to gain muscle, this is one thing that you should clearly avoid.
Many would recommend that you stay away from all forms of fat when you try to gain muscle.
This is a common myth, in fact some fats are helpful for trying to gain muscle. This is because fat itself is necessary by the body.
However to much fat or the wrong types of fat will cause all sorts of problems. The fast moving lifestyle of toady has made people resort to fast food that is usually easy to prepare and to make. Therefore if you are looking for the right kind of fat that can be used to gain muscle then you can narrow then down to 4 sources.
Fat From Meat Protein Sources:
The fat and protein from meat and fish are very important. This is one of the most essential components of the human body. To ignore this will cause serious deficiencies in the human body and this may lead to many complications in the body.
You should be however careful to not over consume meat or fish. Whenever possible, stay on a lean meat diet that will help you to acquire your required dosage of fat and at the same time not accumulate fat in your body.
Oleic acid:
This is a kind of fat that can be manufactured by your body. However sometimes, especially when you are looking to gain muscle, you have to make sure that you have extra sources of this fat in your body. You have to make sure that you have plenty of such fat so that you can gain muscle in a short period of time. Also this fat will help to reduce the chances of your heart attack. This kind of fat is commonly found in sources like avocados and various kinds of nuts.
Linolenic acid:
This type of fat is found in various supplies of food but you should give this fat special attention when you are trying to Gain Muscle and specifically go for food items that have large quantities of such food supplies.
Flaxseed oil has the highest amount of such fats.
Scientists have shown that salmon, nuts and avocado have lots of this fat in them.
Therefore including these in your diet would help to make up for the deficiency for this fat if you are lagging behind it in your regular diet.
This fat helps you become more flexible and also aids in the circulation of oxygen in your body.
Conjugated Liolenic Acid:
These are the fourth type of fats that are essential for your body to gain muscle. These are found in sources like beef and chicken. Vegetarians however might find it difficult to fill in for this fat source.
They however have alternatives such as sunflower grape seed and hempseed oil that will help to substitute for the non vegetarian sources of this fat.
This is one of the essential fats that are required to build muscle mass and these must be taken in appropriate quantities if you are trying to gain muscle fast.
People that want to gain mass often enter the world of bodybuilding and weight training trying to find out exactly how to build mass. Starters are often lost simply because of the sheer number of myths which have surrounded bodybuilding for decades. The easiest way to learn body building and to build lean mass is to follow a program with regularity and fully. You need to be able to get on a program and stick to it until you get to where you want to be. I’m not saying that you should get off the program once you have achieved but then you can probably let yourself go a tad bit.
You aren’t supposed to perform those exercises that pro bodybuilders since that’s the biggest mistake you can make. Big names who have been bodybuilding for decades aren’t like the rest of us, they are both genetically gifted and have a solid base. Copying their exercises is not going to get you anywhere. The stronger you are the more muscle you will put on.
In order to build muscle you need to do strenuous exercises. You need not visit a gym to start exercising on the latest machines known to man but a simple old fashioned barbell will work great. When you lift free weights it enables you to become stronger which in turn means that your body will put on more lean muscle mass. If you are an absolute beginner start by lifting an empty bar just so that you familiarize yourself with the technique later you can add weights endlessly.
When you use free weights they put stress on your body and the more stress your body has the more muscle your body will begin to generate in order to deal with the stress. You can use dumbbells but they are only good for assistance exercises.
I won’t advise that you start isolating parts of your body and exercising them. However they didn’t get this way by just doing isolation exercises. You should focus on doing compound exercises. Compound exercises ensure that every part involved in the exercise becomes stronger. Your exercises should focus on several parts of your body at the same time.
You should focus on doing squats and dead lifts. Squats are an important part of mass gaining exercises and are great for building muscle mass. The stronger your legs become the stronger every other part of your body will become. This is primarily due to the fact that your thighs are the largest muscles in your body So if you desire big arms you still need to exercise your thighs to achieve that.
You need to also focus on eating the right foods since they are more important than just weight lifting. You need to eat protein rich foods combined with good carbohydrates. Your body also needs to be supplied with the right minerals. You need to get proper rest between exercises because your body isn’t like those of pro bodybuilders. Your body releases growth hormones during rest which is how to gain muscle Mass.
I hope you enjoyed this article, I also have other related articles on my website that you might be interested. Go and check out Ultimate Muscle Building & Fat Loss Guide
Your abdomen (or ‘abs’) is vital to you. It’s a large muscle that contains your stomach, liver and intestines, your kidneys and bladder, and your reproductive organs, and helps to protect them all. Keeping it in good condition will help you to look toned (it’s a good way to get a six pack, in different words), and also to feel better about yourself.
Luckily, ab workouts are simple to do. The most well-liked is probably the ab crunch, which is whenever you lie flat on the ground, bend your legs after which contact your knees with your elbows. You too can attempt the simpler sit-up, which is a similar thing, solely putting your head between your knees every time instead. Which one you discover is simpler will depend in your physique – however it is most likely higher for you should you apply whichever one you discover the most tough! This manner you’ll tone-up your much less-used muscle groups as an alternative of specializing in ones that are already just fine.
You can even get varied machines and gadgets that will assist you in your ab workouts – the number is increasing day-after-day, in fact. Some of these are good, whereas others are just expensive rubbish. As a rule, don’t buy something that you just haven’t tried out for yourself – which means you can not get that particular deal from the shopping channel, unfortunately. Go to a store and insist that you need to check out a couple of completely different ones before you make your choice, and if they refuse, just leave.
One very last thing: you will need to realise that ab exercises are not any good at all for shedding weight. What you’re doing is building muscle, not so much burning fat – although some fat is burned, the impact is negligible, and ab workout routines certainly have no special effect on an overweight stomach.
It’s only natural, almost all individuals really want to look their very best, and working out their abdominal muscles groups is usually a substantial portion of a lot of workout programs. If so much time and effort is likely to be aimed on this particular muscle group, it is a good plan to realize what the most effective belly activities are. There are many guides out there for finding the best stomach workouts, and lots of people to express what they consider the very best, so exactly how can anyone choose on their own which really are the best exercises for exercising their tummy muscles?
Prior to even looking at which routines are effective, you should understand that exercises will only profit you if you do them. No matter how effective the exercise is, if somebody isn’t likely to complete them regularly the exercise is not going to help that particular person. It is also significant to be aware that the best abdominal exercises do not always involve equipment to accomplish them, although some machines and equipment might perform really nicely for some individuals.
If someone decides on a fitness program that involves abdominal exercises, it is most effective to include abdominal exercises that work the different portions of the stomach. If anyone simply concentrates on one area of their stomach, their workout will not be as beneficial. The best stomach exercises, combine working the obliques, which are the side muscles, the lower abdominals, the mid section plus the upper section.
There are a few different kinds of crunches, and, as a group, they are some of the most favored ab exercises. These are a extremely valuable exercises and rather convenient given that they can be carried out wherever with out any equipment. The next stomach exercise that is also quite well-known and goes together with the basic crunch is the side crunch, which works out the oblique.
Many people that are part of Pilates claim that the workouts included in this program are some of the most effective out there. The explanation for this is simply because in Pilates, the overall focus is on the core of the entire body which is the abdominal, or stomach muscles. Every single motion in a Pilate’s routine will work the abdominal muscles either directly or indirectly. These workouts can easily be found on the internet, either the routine by itself or videos that can be purchased.
Another very good exercise that a number of health and fitness professionals consider to be one of the most effective ab workouts involves laying flat on your stomach, legs straight and then raising your body up using your arms as your hands are clasped together and trying to keep your body straight as if doing a pushup. Keep this position as long as you can stand. This is an excellent movement to improve the entire belly.
It is beneficial to recognize that there are many different stomach work outs, and there is no “most effective” exercise for everybody. Each person’s body is unique and will react differently to selected motions. Anybody serious about working on the stomach muscles will find it most helpful to try several varied stomach exercises and then decide which ones they can both really feel and see gains with. If one work out is simply too hard to do correctly, or does not really feel like it is doing anything for the muscle group worked, that routine is obviously not the very best and the individual ought to find what works best for them.
Your abdomen (or ‘abs’) is vital to you. It’s a large muscle that contains your stomach, liver and intestines, your kidneys and bladder, and your reproductive organs, and helps to protect them all. Keeping it in good condition will help you to look toned (it’s a good way to get a six pack, in different words), and also to feel better about yourself.
Luckily, ab workouts are simple to do. The most well-liked is probably the ab crunch, which is whenever you lie flat on the ground, bend your legs after which contact your knees with your elbows. You too can attempt the simpler sit-up, which is a similar thing, solely putting your head between your knees every time instead. Which one you discover is simpler will depend in your physique – however it is most likely higher for you should you apply whichever one you discover the most tough! This manner you’ll tone-up your much less-used muscle groups as an alternative of specializing in ones that are already just fine.
You can even get varied machines and gadgets that will assist you in your ab workouts – the number is increasing day-after-day, in fact. Some of these are good, whereas others are just expensive rubbish. As a rule, don’t buy something that you just haven’t tried out for yourself – which means you can not get that particular deal from the shopping channel, unfortunately. Go to a store and insist that you need to check out a couple of completely different ones before you make your choice, and if they refuse, just leave.
One very last thing: you will need to realise that ab exercises are not any good at all for shedding weight. What you’re doing is building muscle, not so much burning fat – although some fat is burned, the impact is negligible, and ab workout routines certainly have no special effect on an overweight stomach.
People who are learning how to build muscle mass at the gym approach me all the time with all kinds of questions. One of the things I am asked most is – does alcohol drinking have any affect on gaining muscle. Well if you had that question in mind than I’m sorry to disappoint you, but yes, consuming alcohol has a very direct, and negative effect on the results you will get with your burn fat gain muscle efforts. The damages that alcohol causes the human body are far worse than most people tend to think. Because of that, you should get a clearer understanding of how it effects your muscle building efforts. Understand that alcohol is basically a drug. And while we are not trying to preach here, you, as a person who wants to develop your body and keep healthy, should be aware of the effects that alcohol has on your health in general, and on muscle building specifically. 1) Alcohol has a negative affect on protein synthesis.
Protein synthesis is the process that takes place in your body, in which amino acids are joined into whole proteins. Too much alcohol slows this process down by twenty percent or more. Since gaining muscle mass fast must use proteins, it's obvious that there is a bad effect here.
It's also known that alcohol lowers the testosterone levels in your body while pusing the estrogen level up. If you have a low level of testosterone flowing through your body, than your ability to build muscle decreases, as this is a hormone essential to building muscle. Alcohol prompts your bdoy for dehydration. Alcohol in your system means the body invests huge effort in clearing it out. This pulls water resources from the body. As you may guess, this is very bad for the muscle building process that requires a lot of water. It can also be very dangerous. It's a well known fact the drinking forces minerals and vitamins out of your body. Vitamins A, C, all the B’s, zinc, calcium and phosphorus are being drained at a rapid pace from your body, as soon as alcohol hits the system. Quite a few vitamins are involved in the muscle building process, so losing them it not good for the process. 5) Alcohols makes it harder to rid of fat. Alcohol is 7 calories per gram, and that’s a lot. Fat storage is no good for anyone who considers himeslf a muscle builder. Drinking is obviously an important part of most people's lives and fun time. Having fun is good, but if you over do it with alcohol consumption that all your muscle building efforts will suffer. No need to panic - some alcohol drinking from rime to time is OK. Just keep it under control. If you do find yourself drinking too much, at least make sure you drink a lot of water and take some vitamins, as well as a protein rich meal. Next time you ask how to burn fat and build muscle you will know that drinking in a part of the solution. Being aware of the risk and damages that are caused by drinking to your body are half the battle. If you take care to keep the damage to a minimum than your building muscle efforts will not be effected too much.
