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Anonymous
All right, /fit/, I;ve heard a lot of people say,
"You can't lose weight while gaining muscle!"
And, due to the close relation most people have between weight and fat, I have gotten confused. Does this mean that it is impossible to have a workout system that focuses equally on fat loss as much as muscle gain, or just it just mean that I'm misunderstanding as someone points out that muscle has more density than fat?
>> Anonymous
You can lose fat and gain muscle, but it's almost always more effective to focus on gaining muscle, and then focus on losing fat.
>> Anonymous
standard rule of thumb is 500 calorie surplus will help build muscle, while a 500 calorie deficit will help lose weight/fat.

Bulking/cutting is seen as more effective since you can build up your muscles, and it makes it easier to work harder or longer to burn the fat off.
>> Anonymous
Think of it this way. Any any given point in time, your body will either be burning fat or gaining muscle, but not both. The frequency at which you alternate between the two states determines how effective each state is. If you're always in muscle building mode, you won't lose any fat (in fat you'll probably gain some, from high calorie intake), but you'll gain muscle as your peak rate. If you're always in fat burning mode (low calores, lots of low stress exercise) you won't build any muscle, and may lose some if your calorie deficit is low enough for your body to resort to breaking down muscle for energy.

Due to the nature of the states, attempting to alternate between them too quickly (build muscle and burn fat in the same day) will mean you're actually just stuck in one (building muscle if you have enough calories, burning fat if you don't). This is why bodybuilders go through bulk and cut phases; each phase has a minimum (the time it takes to repair your muscles, or the time it takes to burn some fat) before a switch can be made without losing the benefit.