How to Lose Weight Without Losing Muscle

While conversations about bodyweight usually revolve around fat, the truth is that multiple factors contribute to our overall weight, including muscle. Of course, most dieters are focused on losing excess fat and wish to maintain (or even grow) their muscle mass. Reducing the amount of fat in your body while preserving your muscles will give you a healthy, toned physique while keeping you physically fit.

Read on to learn how to shed unwanted pounds without losing the muscles you’ve worked so hard to grow.

1. Asking the Right Questions

Unfortunately, when people ask for advice on losing weight, the answer usually focuses solely on reducing the number of calories in the diet, causing fat and muscle loss. This is because asking how to lose weight isn’t the whole question. Instead, you should ask how to lose weight without losing muscle.

Initiating a conversation about how to gain muscle while losing weight can be difficult because conventional plans regarding weight loss and muscle gain are in direct opposition. Traditionally, weight loss results from a caloric deficit, which leads to loss of both muscle mass and fat. Meanwhile, muscle gain happens when your body has a caloric surplus, which can lead to gaining weight, including fat. Fortunately, there are a few ways to be more intentional about your weight loss plan, allowing you to lose weight healthfully without sacrificing muscle.

2. Plan Your Strategy

There are two main components to the process: your diet and your physical activity. When seeking to alter your diet to lose weight without losing muscle, the first step is to reduce calories less drastically. When you dramatically decrease your caloric intake, your body responds by burning through all the fuel available in your system.

If you make minor reductions to your caloric intake instead, your body can adjust more readily, targeting only excess fat. This strategy is also more effective in the long term because your body has time to become accustomed to the lower number of calories in your diet instead of signaling hunger pains or discomfort.

The other important change to make is incorporating foods with high protein into your daily meals. Not only does protein help satisfy your hunger more than other foods, but it also promotes the growth of muscle mass. By switching to a high-protein diet, you can ensure that you remain well-nourished without gaining fat. Nutmeg State Nutrition has a wide variety of foods with high protein available, ranging from sweet and savory snacks to full meals.

3. Get Active

Another important piece of the puzzle is engaging in the right kind of exercise. Total-body strength training, which encompasses traditional strength training and resistance training, is critical to preserving your muscles while on a limited-calorie diet. Starting with small, regular workouts that build over time can help you further develop those muscles and become stronger.

In between or at the end of your workouts, you can use low-intensity aerobic exercises as a method of recovery. While these will be less effective and should not be the sole source of your physical activity, they can help keep you from pushing your body too far.

4. Choose the Right Foods

Adhering to a high-protein diet with products such as those offered by Nutmeg State Nutrition will help ensure that your body receives the fuel it needs to support itself without leading to weight gain in the form of fat. Meanwhile, the right exercises will further trim the fat from your body while building your muscle strength. Together, these strategies allow you to lose weight without losing muscle in a healthy way and provide you with the long-term results you want.

For more information about healthy eating, weight loss, and our diet food products, contact us today!