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As a fitness personal trainer and weight loss consultant, I am often asked this question,"Can I lose weight and build muscle size at the same time?"

Now let me ask you a question. If you are building muscle mass, then you are building body tissues and since muscles are dense body tissues, they are heavy. That being the case, when building muscles, you must be gaining and not losing weight right?

What these folks actually meant was that whether they can lose body fat and build muscle mass at the same time. Yes, it is possible to lose fat and build muscles at the same time. However, the process can be rather complicated and it takes alot of discpline and knowledge to do that. Furthermore, results may be even slower than the conventional 2 steps bulking up and cutting down phase method.

You see, losing fat and gaining muscles are at odds with each other. This is because to lose body fat weight, you have to eat less calories than the energy your body used up in your daily activities. On the other hand, to gain muscles you have to eat more calories than your body used as its energy source. So they are contradictoins.So how to achieve the desired result simultaneously?

Well, as I said, it can be done but is quite complicated. This is the reason why most professional bodybuilders train in 2 phases. The bulking up phase and the cutting down phase.

The bulking up phase is when the bodybuilders train to put on muscle mass and don't even think of losing fat. In this process, they will actually be putting on alot of weight. They will put on muscle weight as as well as some weight from body fat because they have to eat alot to put on huge muscle mass.

When these bodybuilders put on enough muscles, they will then begin the cutting phase. It will also be alot easier to lose fat now because all the muscles they put on will help them to burn calories fast. Yes, muscles burn more calories because they need calories to sustain them.So these body builders become natural fat burner with their high metabolism at this stage.

The cutting phase is when the bodybuilders cut fat from all over their body to get that ripped definition. For ordinary people in this phase, they will get to see their body toned up nicely, their six pack abs will also begin to show. So if you want to have a well sculpted toned body, then take this 2 step approach to build muscles first and then cut the body fat when you achieve the muscle size you wanted.