---
title: 'How to Burn Fat and Build Muscle at the Same Time'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=fD-qF0cHAP4'
video_id: 'fD-qF0cHAP4'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 0
---

# How to Burn Fat and Build Muscle at the Same Time

> Source: [How to Burn Fat and Build Muscle at the Same Time](https://youtube.com/watch?v=fD-qF0cHAP4)

## Summary



## Transcript

can you lose fat while gaining muscle at
the same time this is one of the age-old
fitness questions that people continue
to be curious about and for good reason
these are both excellent goals for one's
overall health and fitness but there can
be a little bit of confusion with this
many say that you can lose fat and gain
muscle at the same time While others say
that you can't and need to alternate
between phases of bulking or muscle
building with phases of cutting or fat
loss so which is correct well it is
possible to lose fat and Gain muscle at
the same time but it depends on multiple
factors it doesn't work well for every
single person so today we're going to
discuss what type of person this can
work well for talk about the best
strategies on how to do it from calories
to strength training and even get into
if cardio is a good idea for trying to
lose fat and gain muscle at the same
time so let's get into this anatomical
and physiological
awesomeness losing fat and gaining
muscle at the same time is known as body
recomposition you are changing the
composition of your body tissues and in
this case decreasing the amount of fat
while increasing the amount of muscle
now some may Define true body
recomposition as changing the
proportions of these body tissues while
maintaining the same total tissue Mass
so in other words if you had a 180 lb
person that person would stay at 180 lb
but eventually less of that weight would
be coming from fat and more of that
weight would be coming from mus muscle
but again you'd stay at 180 lb however
there are situations where people may
not want a complete pound-for-pound swap
of fat for muscle and I'll give an
example of that a little bit later on
but what are some of the challenges with
losing fat and gaining muscle at the
same time well first losing this stuff
atap POS tissue or fat requires a
calorie deficit you need to burn more
calories than you consumed so that your
body starts to tap into the stored
energy that is in the fat and as a
reference a pound of fat F contains
about 3500 calories so if you wanted to
lose a pound of fat each week you'd want
to average a calorie deficit of about
500 calories per day however building
this tissue skeletal muscle tissue
typically requires a calorie Surplus
giving your body extra calories and
energy to repair and grow muscle tissue
after workouts and so obviously these
seem to be contradictory goals because
you can't be in a calorie deficit and a
calorie Surplus at the same time another
reason why body Rec composition is a
difficult goal is because you can
usually burn fat at a faster rate than
you can build muscle just go back to
that example again of losing fat if you
were in a calorie deficit of 3500
calories per week for 8 weeks you could
potentially lose 8 PBS but imagine
trying to add 8 lbs of muscle in that
same 8we period that's difficult to do
even in a calorie Surplus when someone
is not trying to lose weight however
there are situations where body
recomposition does work and so let's
cover some of those situations there are
pretty much three categories of people
that body recomposition works pretty
well for the first category is beginners
to resistance training and if that
beginner is also a young person like in
their teens and early 20s that further
gives an advantage because of those
raging pubescent hormones but with any
beginner their bodies are so primed for
muscle development because when the body
is first exposed to such a powerful new
stimulus like resistance training it
creates an extremely strong drive for
protein synthesis that it's almost as if
the person is on natural steroids and
you've probably seen someone or maybe
notice with yourself that you gain
strength and size very quickly in the
beginning beginners can follow almost
any resistance training protocols and
get great gains in strength and size and
so because of this strong drive for
protein synthesis that beginners benefit
from even in a calorie deficit the body
will continue to liberate the energy
from the fat in order to continue to
provide the energy and resources to
promote muscle growth begin could
successfully burn fat and gain muscle
for over a year in some cases but
eventually this is going to be harder
and harder to do which we'll address in
just a second but the second category
would be people that are returning to
training so if you took a long break
from exercise when you return you kind
of benefit from those beginner gains
again but this doesn't last as long as
those true initial beginners gains
because you typically gain muscle back
more quickly than when you first gained
it you could consider this a form of
muscle memory and we actually have a
whole video video explaining how you
gain muscle back faster in our muscle
memory video that I'll link at the end
of this video the third category would
be individuals with higher percentages
of body fat if you have a higher
percentage of body fat you'll obviously
have more stored fat and in a way your
body isn't going to respond to a calorie
deficit the same way as if you had like
15% body fat with the extra fat your
body can more easily tap into those fuel
reserves while still building muscle and
again if this person is highly
overweight or obese most of the time the
person usually isn't looking to do a
pound-for-pound swap of fat for muscle
usually the goal is to lose much more
fat than the amount of muscle that they
want to gain which also makes this body
recomposition more doable in this
particular situation but with all these
situations they will only take you so
far because as someone has less fat to
lose and gets more and more advanced or
in other words those that have been
building muscle for an extended period
of time these people know that it takes
much more effort to continue to gain
muscle even in a caloric Surplus let
alone in a caloric deficit and so this
is where it starts to make much more
sense to focus on one goal at a time or
shifting to this idea of going on a
bulking phase where the focus can be
purely on building muscle alternated
with a cutting phase where the focus
could be purely on losing fat and
maintaining the muscle that was gained
during the bulking phase because it is a
much easier task to maintain muscle
during a caloric deficit than it is to
build muscle but if you find yourself in
one of these three categories where
losing fat and gaining muscle is
feasible there are a few things that
need to be done while attempting this
first you must do resistance training
now I know that seems like one of the
more obvious ones but I've got to be
thorough here because you could lose fat
from a caloric deficit without working
out but that would do nothing for your
muscles and you would actually likely
lose some muscle with the fat if you
didn't combine the caloric deficit with
resistance training because there is no
way to get significant muscle growth
without a strong stimulus and again that
strong stimulus is lifting weights
compound movements are going to be your
biggest bang for buck here such as
squats deadlifts bench press shoulder
press pull-ups Etc you can throw in some
isolation exercises as well but again
the foundation should start with those
compound movements you also want to
apply the principle of progressive
overload which is trying to add a little
more weight to the bar every week or so
Progressive overload could also come in
the form of increasing the Reps and or
overall volume
and there are multiple ways to fit this
into a given week you could potentially
pull it off with two days of resistance
training a week but those would likely
need to be longer sessions 3 days a week
is a place that I often start with many
of my patients but we have some more
detailed videos on how to build muscular
size and how to implement this into your
routine that I'll link at the end of
this video next we need to start messing
with the calories and even the
macronutrients specifically the protein
like we mentioned earlier a deficit of
about 500 calories a day will cause you
to lose about a pound per week but I
usually recommend a 300 to 500 calorie
deficit when you're first starting out
and of course you need to make sure
you're getting enough protein now
protein recommendations are anywhere
from 1.2 to 2.2 gam of protein per
kilogram of body weight per day and the
higher end of 2.2 is usually recommended
for athletes and bodybuilders that are
serious about putting on muscle now many
of you may not consider yourself a major
athlete or a bodybuilder however since
we are in a calorie deficit some of the
ingested protein will likely get pulled
and utilized for energy instead of
muscle building so because of this you
would still want to hedge towards the
higher end of 2.2 gam per kilogram of
body weight which for us non-metric
people just a gram of protein per pound
of body weight to do the trick now a
quick word on cardio I love cardio there
are obviously some incredible fitness
and health benefits to doing cardio one
of those that it can be an effective way
to lose fat and again a whole bunch of
other benefits so I almost always
recommend it however if the main goal is
to lose fat while also stimulating
muscle growth we need to be a little
careful with how we implement the cardio
there is such a thing as the
interference effect which is if you were
to perform cardio and strength training
in the same exercise session the cardio
could potentially interfere with maximal
muscle growth now key word there was
maximal muscle growth it's not going to
completely blunt all muscle growth so so
if you absolutely have to combine cardio
and strength into the same workout it
won't be the end of the world but we are
already adding something else that can
blunt muscle growth which is the calorie
deficit so it's probably just going to
be best to do your cardio and strength
training on different days or if you
have to do them on the same day try to
do them in different workout sessions
separated by hours at a time for example
there are a couple days a week where I
do two a days where I'll go for a run in
the morning and then 6 to 8 hours later
I'll do some strength training but a
split I often start my patients off with
is something like strength training on
Monday Wednesday Fridays and then cardio
on Tuesday Thursday Saturdays and taking
Sundays off so hopefully that gave you
some useful information on if body
recomposition is right for you as well
as a good starting point and thank you
for supporting the channel let us know
what you thought of today's video in the
comments and we'll see you soon