Metabolic Health
Three Tips for Retaining Lean Muscles While Losing Visceral Fat Steadily
Contrary to perceptions, I explain why fat loss and muscle retention are jovial activities with simple lifestyle habits.
The muscle is a critical organ for our survival and well-being.
I offer three proven methods to retain muscles while losing fat in this post. Losing excess fat is important but maintaining lean muscles is critical for survival and well-being. I keep this article as simple as possible, only highlighting the key lifestyle factors.
These three points revolve around lifestyle choices not requiring medication, supplements, or medical procedures. Two of them are very easy for most of us.
However, one of them requires a bit of effort and self-discipline. Nevertheless, if we do the two easy ones, they can significantly impact keeping muscles while losing actual body fat.
We all desire to lose excess fat, especially visceral fat, a risk factor for our health. Some of us do it in desperation for health and aesthetic reasons. However, some people act too quickly in desperation to lose excess fat and face serious health issues.
If we don’t make fat loss diligently, and if we do it in a rush, it can cause more harm than benefits to the body. For example, we might lose valuable muscles and slow down our metabolism, which might cause more fat gain in the long run.
One of the dangerous aspects of quick weight loss attempts is cutting calories too much by sacrificing essential nutrients and undertaking too much exercise overstressing the body.
The body needs energy to survive. So when we cut calories too much by eating less and exercising more, complex chemical interactions might attempt to create energy from internal sources.
Even though stored fat is a preferred energy source for the body as a priority, immediately accessing the fat stores can be challenging if the body is not fat-adapted yet.
Therefore, in desperation, the body attempts to use amino acids from muscles as a quick energy source. However, if this attempt happens for a prolonged time, we may lose valuable muscles and slow down our metabolism, which causes more fat gain.
Here are three tips for maintaining our precious muscles while losing visceral fat gradually.
1 — Consume Adequate Bioavailable Protein and Healthy Fats.
Building and retaining muscle requires activating mTOR, a catalytic enzyme that regulates cell growth and protein synthesis. One of the essential ways of activating mTOR is to consume an adequate amount of bioavailable protein.
The body turns protein ingested via food into amino acids and then synthesizes them. Nine amino acids are essential for protein synthesis. They are leucine, isoleucine, valine, lysine, histidine, tryptophan, methionine, phenylalanine, and threonine.
Of these nine amino acids, leucine (one of the branch chain amino acids) makes the most significant impact on activating mTOR. Therefore, bodybuilders supplement with leucine after heavy workouts to prevent muscle loss.
However, too much and too frequent mTOR activation is associated with cancer risks. Therefore, a methodical activation of mTOR with diligence might reduce the risks. I will cover this point in another article.
We also need healthy fats for energy and hormonal balance to retain muscle. While fats provide the required calories, they also catalyze various hormones needed to build and maintain muscles.
For example, the body needs adequate insulin, growth hormone, and sex hormones (e.g., testosterone) for muscle growth. While too much insulin causes fat gain, too little insulin can prevent the muscles from getting the required glucose. Therefore, the balance of hormones is critical for muscle building and retention.
It may sound paradoxical, but we need to eat fat to lose fat. The central mechanism is the hormonal balance that healthy fats provide the body.
I shared three nutritional mistakes that caused my metabolism to malfunction, inducing fat gain and weakening muscles in an article before.
The key points were fear of healthy fats, frequent eating with multiple snacks a day, and consuming too many refined carbohydrates.
2 — Improve Sleep Quality and Recovery.
Improving sleep quality and investing in timely recovery is essential to balance critical hormones. Some hormones are anabolic, and some are catabolic.
It means that anabolic hormones contribute to muscle building and retention, while catabolic hormones cause muscle loss. For example, growth hormone is anabolic, and cortisol is catabolic. Thus, I guided decreasing elevated cortisol and naturally increasing growth hormone.
Why do I mention hormones related to sleep?
The main reason is quality sleep can increase growth hormone and decrease elevated cortisol, which is the stress hormone. Sleep is also essential for recovery after workouts when the muscles are damaged.
The body especially needs deep sleep to recover the muscles when damaged. Thus, melatonin is a crucial hormone for getting deep sleep.
Micro-tears in muscle fibers through resistance training are essential for growing muscles.
However, suppose they are not fixed timely via quality sleep and rest. Then, catabolic hormones like cortisol might discard damaged muscles as this catabolic hormone might consume the necessary glucose that provides energy to muscle cells.
3 — Reduce Excessive Cardio and Undertake Resistance Training or HIIT.
As mentioned in the previous point, the primary problem with excess cardio is the increasing stress hormone cortisol, a catabolic hormone, causing muscle loss.
Elevated cortisol also contributes to insulin resistance. In a recent story, I provided tips to optimize cortisol to reduce visceral fat and keep lean muscles. In a nutshell, they are recovering from the effects of workouts, improving sleep quality, and resting with fun activities.
Even though moderate cardio is essential for cardiovascular health and several other reasons, we can still reap these benefits by reducing excessive cardio and replacing them with high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and resistance training in the form of weightlifting and calisthenics.
The additional benefit of resistance and HIIT training is to increase anabolic hormones (e.g., growth hormone) and decrease catabolic ones (e.g., cortisol). In addition, these workouts might reduce insulin resistance and increase leptin sensitivity.
However, resistance and HIIT workouts might not be for everyone as they might induce acute stress on the body. Therefore, it is critical to obtain the support of qualified healthcare professionals before starting these types of training regimes, especially if an individual has underlying health conditions.
A wise approach to resistance and HIIT workouts is to start slow, allow the body to adapt to the load, and gradually increase the frequency and pressure.
Conclusions and Takeaways
While muscle is essential for numerous metabolic activities allowing us to survive, this critical organ can also contribute to reducing visceral fat as muscles can consume calories in the form of glucose.
The body can convert fat to glucose via the lipolysis mechanism, which is essential for fat mobilization. We can initiate lipolysis via caloric deficit by eating less, exercising, and exposing the body to cold, which creates a thermic effect.
The beauty of cold exposure is increasing brown fat, which is metabolically active, so it could consume more calories and initiate autophagy, improving our health.
In addition to nutritious fat, exercise, sleep, and recovery, losing fat and retaining muscles require an excellent hormonal balance. The good news is that healthy lifestyle habits like eating well, resting, and having fun can contribute to balancing hormones.
So, paradoxically, fat loss and muscle retention are festive activities contrary to perceptions. In other words, we don’t have to stress ourselves to lose fat and retain muscles. However, balancing our lives requires care, intelligence, diligence, and concerted effort.
I’d like to conclude this piece with three practical takeaway points to retain our valuable muscles while burning unnecessary visceral fat.
Here are the three takeaway points from this article.
1 — Consume adequate bioavailable protein and healthy fats.
2 — Sleep better and recover fast.
3 — Replace excessive cardio with resistance training or HIIT.
Fat loss and muscle retention are not rocket science. They are indeed joyful activities. They just require re-wiring our brains for a joyful lifestyle.
For example, even a minimalist lifestyle can be great for achieving these goals. We can start with a spark and enjoy it in a good mood by remaining calm.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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