Building muscle mass and losing fat is perhaps the most prevalent fitness goal in most of the people that belong to your gym. Looking at the odds, there’s a good chance that you’re right there with them. In order to build muscle, lose fat, and look your best, there’s a few key health and fitness components that should not be overlooked. These not only have to do with what you are doing to build muscle mass in the gym, but what you are doing to build muscle in the kitchen. Eating foods with nutritional value is more important to your workouts than anything else you do. That being said, if you’re eating foods with proper nutritional value, but your workout plan is haphazard at best, you won’t see the results you are looking for. Lucky for you, I’m going to lay out a crash course in everything you need to know about building muscle, losing fat, and keeping it that way.

Watch What You Eat and Track Your Calories

There’s this ominous vibe that comes with “calorie counting” in regards to diet. But you know what? There shouldn’t be. If you put the effort into adding up the weight plates on your barbell at the gym, you should be just as concerned with how many calories are on your dinner plate at home. Maintaining an ideal weight while building muscle is all about the calories that you’re taking in, and the calories that you’re using up. Eating foods with substantial nutritional value will aid in your build muscle, lose fat goals. In order to build muscle mass, you should aim to eat at least your body weight in grams of protein each day. In order to do this without consuming excessive calories, you have to eat meals with proper nutritional value, and keep a steady eye on your calories. Try to consume carbohydrates that contain filling dietary fiber (whole grains, oatmeal, beans), and eat healthy fats that also contain protein (low-fat cheese, almonds, nut butters). You can keep a journal to track your calories, or keep track in your head, but just make sure that everything that is going into your body offers some nutritional value.

Fight For Muscle Failure

Building muscle mass is all about pushing your muscles until failure in the gym. This means that you not only need to put a high level of intensity into your workout sessions, but you also need to vary your exercises. Changing up your workouts is a key player in the fight to build muscle and lose fat. If you go into the gym everyday and use the same machines while hardly breaking a sweat, you’ll get nowhere. About once every month or two, you should completely switch exercises and machines. This prevents plateauing which does not benefit your goals of building muscle mass. Trade in the lat pulldown for the standard pull-up bar. Try hammer curls instead of barbell curls. And when you do these exercises, fight for fatigue! To build muscle mass you need to feel like you cannot lift up another pound. It is only after your muscles are completely exhausted will they be able to rebuild and grow.

Keep That Metabolism Going

The human body converts calories into energy, and uses that energy to fuel us through our days. There are ways that you can speed up the process of energy conversion in order to make sure that you are not at a huge caloric surplus at the end of the day. The two topics I previously discussed are very important. Exercise – in almost any form – requires energy. This energy comes from the food you eat, so picking foods with high nutritional value is very important. In addition to this, drink a lot of water. Water pushes the vitamins and minerals from our foods to our necessary organs. This aids in building muscle mass, losing fat, and maintaining ideal weight. Cold water also needs to be warmed up by the stomach, which uses energy and burns calories. So drink your water with ice cubes in it!

Don’t Skip Cardio

Cardiovascular exercise is important in building muscle, losing fat, and increasing your daily metabolic rate. By keeping your heart rate up through cardio exercises, you can increase your muscle tone while burning fat at the same time. How do you accomplish this? Through high intensity sprints at differing intervals. That steady twenty minute jog won’t help you build muscle and lose fat as much as performing 6-8 wind sprints with a slow jog in between.

There’s a lot you can do to build muscle, lose fat, and live a leaner, healthier life. And surprisingly, you don’t really need to change that much. Incorporate foods with more nutritional value, work your muscles to fatigue correctly, and get that high intensity cardio going! If you take advantage of my four simple tips for the build muscle, lose fat battle, I’m sure you’ll see the results you’ve been craving.