When it comes to achieving your fitness goals, it can be difficult to decide whether to focus on losing weight or building muscle first. It's important to understand that both are important for achieving your desired results. If you have more than 15% body fat for men or 23% body fat for women, you should focus on burning fat first. If you are between 12-15% body fat for men or 20-23% body fat for women, you can focus on building muscle first.
Losing body fat and gaining muscle go hand in hand, so a little muscle building will be part of your initial fat loss phase. To accelerate fat loss, you should control your calorie intake, spend calories with cardio, and increase your metabolism by building lean muscle. If you are an experienced man with more than 15% body fat or a woman with more than 23%, you can choose to build muscle first. No matter what your goal is, it's important to have a complete fat loss program that includes cardiovascular, dietary and resistance exercises to build muscle.
Weight loss is not linear and depends on many factors, including genetics, medical conditions, medications, and other lifestyle factors such as sleep and stress. If you're skinny and fat, new to strength training, have body image issues, or are more concerned about your performance in the gym than your appearance, you'll benefit from building muscle first before attempting a fat loss phase. It's quite possible that you fit into that last category, in which case yes, it's definitely possible that you're building some muscle while losing fat. When it comes down to it, the decision of whether to lose weight or build muscle first is up to you. Creating a calorie deficit of 500 to 1000 calories per day will help you lose 1 to 2 pounds of fat per week.
With a combination of diet and exercise, you can reach your goals and achieve the body of your dreams.
