Only recently have nutritionists and sports scientists started to realise that in order to lose weight, gain muscle. It seems strange but makes perfect sense when you take a closer look at the process.
After all, muscle requires a lot of nutrients to keep it in perfect condition so naturally someone with more muscle will burn more calories, and so lose weight easier, than someone with less muscle.
There is something of a problem here though - and that is that gaining muscle requires additional nutrients in the diet typically, whilst weight loss requires fewer calories than are required for maintainance levels.
There are a number of books which have mereged recently however which aim to solve this riddle.
It seems that in order to lose weight and gain muscle at the same time you should eat a similar number of calories to your standard level (as worked out using one of the many online calorie calculators) but to consume these nutrients in a very specific form.
That form, of course, is in a low fat, moderate carb and high protein diet. Carbohydrate sources are selected carefully so that the body has to work hard to break them down into a useable form, thus slowing the flow of sugars into the blood and reducing the chances of any being stored as fat.
Ideal carb sources include brown rice, wholewheat pasta and a range of non-starchy vegetables. Add into this mix low fat and high protein sources like cottage cheese, egg whites (or substitute) and a range of meats and you have the basis of a diet that will enable you to lose weight and gain muscle.
You may find initially that you do put on a small amount of weight but this shouldn't be a major concern as don't forget that muscle weighs more than the fat you are trying to lose so this exchange may cause a few peaks and troughs to appear.
However over the longer term you should find your fat levels start to drop whilst your lean muscle mass increases, enabling you to lose weight and gain muscle together.
Advice #1 - Nutrition
