Body Recomposition
This article will show you how to achieve body recomposition, or build muscle and lose fat at the same time.
Do you lose weight in body recomposition?
During body recomposition, your weight stays constant. You may also lose weight. However, you maintain or even build muscle as you lose fat.
How Long Does it Take for Body Recomposition?
Body composition usually take about three to six months. During this time frame, you can lose fat while you build muscle. This will allow you to change your body composition without your weight changing much or at all.
How Many Calories do I need for Body Recomposition?
To change your body composition, you can eat as many calories as it takes to maintain your weight. You can also create a small calorie deficit.
For instance, if you need around 2,000 calories to maintain your weight, you could eat around 1750 to 2000 calories on a body recomposition plan.
However, you will need enough protein to help build and maintain muscle. I would recommend you eat about .8 to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight daily. If possible, split this protein up into 3 to 5 meals per day.
Make sure you also drink enough water and eat an overall healthy diet.
Body Recomposition Workout
To complete a body recomposition phase, you want to perform rigorous weight training. This type of routine will help you build and maintain muscle mass.
Try to weight train 3-5 times per week using primarily compound movements. Also, make sure you use challenging weights to help your body build and maintain muscle. You should try 3 to 15 reps per set for most of your weight training exercises.
You should aim for progressive overload in your weight training program. This means you add weight, reps, sets or training sessions to your routine over the long term. Achieving progressive overload will help you build more muscle even while losing fat.
However, you should not train to failure most of the time. Keep a few reps in reserve during your weight training program.
For cardio, stick to mostly low impact, low intensity cardio two or three times per week for 30-60 minutes at a time. Walking, using an elliptical or easy cycling can all help you to burn calories while preserving muscle.
Intense or high impact cardio, however, may interfere with muscle building.
Who can do Body Recomposition?
Anyone can lose fat while gaining muscle. The process may prove easier for beginners, but can still be possible for advanced bodybuilders.
Research that Supports Body Recomposition
Numerous research studies find that athletes and lifters can gain muscle while losing fat.
Cava and others found that a high protein diet helped dieters to retain muscle mass and that resistance training preserved muscular strength and endurance during a fat loss phase.
In 2000, Demling and others found that overweight police officers lost fat while they gained lean muscle mass when they weight trained and ate a high protein diet.
“>Paoli and others found that elite Italian male gymnasts lost fat while gaining muscle mass on a low calorie, ketogenic diet.
The gymnasts recruited in the study were at an elite fitness and strength level before the study. After the dieting period, their performance in various strength and performance tests did not decrease.
In a 2020 article in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning, Barakat and others write that “many chronic randomized controlled trials conducted in resistance-trained individuals…have demonstrated body recomposition.”
In their meta-analysis, they cite numerous examples of both male and female drug-free bodybuilders who actually maintained or even gained muscle as they lost fat to prepare for competition.
Does Body Recomposition Actually Work?
Body recomposition actually works. You can build muscle and lose fat at the same time. If you want to improve your body composition without traditional bulking or cutting cycles, you can definitely do it.
