Turning Fat Into Muscle: For Real?

Yes – for real. With the right approach, turning fat into muscle is easy – but it doesn’t happen in the way most people imagine it would (i.e. fat transforming directly into muscle so peoples double chins are now rock hard muscle) because we’d end up physically deformed. It happens in a completely different way, which is more of a trade. The energy from body fats can be freed (i.e. fat loss) into the system and used to repair and build muscle mass – provided certain conditions are present. You will learn in this article how to set the conditions to make this happen.

Why do we store body fat?

For such a basic, everyday physical ‘problem’ (read: process) very few people really understand the purpose of storing body fat. It can seem like a conspiracy to make you look bad in your summer clothes but the physiological reason isn’t petty at all: it’s all about survival.

Fat is stored energy. Our body elects to store surplus energy from meals rather than waste it, which is actually a very smart mechanism. So, when you eat a meal your body burns what it needs to service its current requirements and stores the rest for later rather than wasting it.

Now, because stored fat is stored energy the body wishes to use later, it should be self-evident that the body is equipped to use that energy when it needs to. You simply need to set the parameters of your diet and training to make your body need to use the stored fat – in this case, by turning the fat into free energy and into muscle!

The Blueprint for Turning Fat into Muscle:

There’s no way around it, you absolutely have to get your diet right and make use of the right type of training or it simply won’t happen. Follow these guidelines and it’ll work…

Diet:

Not only will your body store fat if you eat an excess of calories, but it’ll have a very hard time releasing fat at all if you constantly supply it with easy energy – and that easy energy is carbohydrates (all carbohydrates but particularly simple carbohydrates; sugars).

Carbohydrates are the easiest nutrient for the body to break down into blood sugars, and since the body doesn’t like to have an excess of blood sugars floating around (which is bad for you) it releases insulin which forces the carbohydrates into the fat cells.

If you are leaving the figurative ‘fat door’ open and ushering fat into your fat cells, how can you expect to lose fat? You can’t.

You need a new approach:

Eliminate most carbohydrates from your diet (except maybe oats for breakfast or a carb up day once per week), and eat plenty of proteins – low carb whey protein, for instance, and healthy fats. But, ensure you eat less overall calories than your body needs.

Then, something happens… your body is no longer in calorie excess or blood sugar excess and so the fat storage door is slammed shut, and because your body is now in calorie deficit the body begins to burn fat to release energy to help service its physiological processes.

But, you have to embark on a training regime to keep your body burning fat and prevent it from burning muscle…

Training:

Fat isn’t the only body mass which is up to be burned to release energy if you are in calorie deficit – the body will also burn muscle. Muscle not only helps to give your body good shape but also keeps your metabolism (energy/fat burning) high so it’s imperative you preserve muscle mass when dieting.

To block the ‘muscle burning’ avenue off and keep your body burning fat, you need to train the muscles in a specific way to let the body know that your muscle mass needs to remain for survival (a theme your body takes more seriously than anything – unsurprisingly).

You need to use progressive resistance training (weights – lifting heavier and heavier each session). This type of training should be at the core of your fat loss because this is the only type of training which significantly challenges the all-out strength of the muscles. Aerobics doesn’t do this because it doesn’t involve the biggest and most powerful type 2a and 2b muscle fibers (fast twitch). Resistance training preserves both fast twitch and slow twitch muscles because it works them all – so it’s ideal to preserve maximum muscle mass.

Although aerobics won’t preserve muscle mass, a little aerobics (in addition to resistance training) will help to increase your calorie deficit thus increase your chances of fat loss.

And this is how your body really turns fat into muscle.