Consistency the Key to Staying Fit by Losing Fat and Gaining Muscle

Dr. Stuart Phillips, a professor from the Department of Kinesiology at Mcmaster University has come out with a new study just released yesterday, which according to its summary allows that "researchers have uncovered significant new evidence in the quest for the elusive goal of gaining muscle and losing fat, an oft debated problem for those trying to manage their weight, control their calories and balance their protein consumption." Using forty men in two groups of twenty, Phillips had both enter into a nutrition and exercise regimen that lasted for four weeks, on a diet that had one group consuming a high protein diet at 2.4 g/kg of bodyweight and forty percent less calories than required and the other a low protein one at 1.2 g/kg of bodyweight, while still working out six days a week, four doing total body weightlifting resistance workouts using compound exercises and the other two using high intensity circuit interval timed sprint training. The results should not surprise anyone that the consumption of the high protein diet was more effective than consumption of the low protein one in promoting increases in lean body mass and decreases in fat body mass when combined with a high volume of intense anaerobic resistance exercise, as the low protein group lost 7.7 pounds of fat versus 10 pounds by the high protein group, while the high protein group had gained about 2 pounds of muscle versus around 0 by the low protein group. There is no surprise that when people lose bodyweight, fat makes up between two thirds to three quarters of that loss from the body, whereas one  quarter to one third is made up of muscle, yet in this study we find the negligible muscle loss during such a deep energy deficit without energy dense foods do confirm what all of us already practiced.

Yes, a combination one two punch of a high protein nutrition and an anaerobic resistance exercise regimen both helps to preserve lean body mass, purge storage body fat, and promote both positive changes in body composition externally and serum cortisol internally. Better yet still, alternate intermittent fasting will further promote such positive body changes using simple fat oxidation via basic calorie restriction, with just less energy to burn and only more nutrients to build. The protocol as a proof of principle remains intact even when lengthened out to studies of 12 and 16 weeks, so whether short term or long, the original premise of the study and point to its protocol maintains that burning fat and building muscle can be done at the same time.

I flashback to almost one decade ago back in Hamilton, when my good friend, graduate of the Kinesiology program at Redeemer specializing in biomechanics and neuromuscular physiology, and then recent graduate from Mcmaster Chris Cubitt was just starting to get me back to my own athletic comeback. Cubitt, whose grand work in the areas of athletic functional training, corrective exercise, and nutritional consulting with Primetime performance systems had led to many a breakthrough inside and outside the gym for various clients, being the methodically versatile professional that he is actually kept me in line running step by step his strategic plan, execution, and delivery that mirrored the aforementioned study from the same university that graduated him academically and athletically on its football club. Likewise, the results from his successful program allowed one to gain better shape by reducing size while increasing strength yet still improving overall fitness and beyond into the elite levels again, so I say today kudos to Dr. Phillips for proving at the present what Chris was able to make real and true only ten years in the past to bring us back to the future of fitness in the 21st century.