runjenrun's Journal

Burning Fat or Building Muscle? Confused!
Nov 06 2009 10:16

I am so friggin' confused right now about how I can burn fat without either putting my body into starvation mode by limiting calories too low, or catabolising my own muscle and losing muscle mass.

Here's what I recently posted in the Fitness Forum:

"I want to build muscle and lose fat. I've been told that it's hard to do both at once effectively as you need to be at calorie deficit (Tom Venuto recommends 20% below your normal calorie needs), but to build muscle you need to be taking at least your normal needs if not more - building muscle is nigh impossible at a deficit.

At the moment I'd rather burn fat than build extra muscle as I do have a large layer of it over my stomach, I can feel lots of muscle definition from doing many muscle tone classes but feel the muscle definition is hidden under the fat.

However, I currently need 1420 from the calorie count calculator to maintain. 20% less than this is 1136 which is lower than the minimum of 1200 recommended for women. Previously I was eating only 1200 a day (or eating 1400 and burning 200 a day with cardio). However, I was recommended that this was putting my body into starvation mode and it was holding onto the fat making me "skinny fat".

SO how on earth do I burn the fat without going into starvation mode or catabolising my muscles?!

Do I put myself at a 100 calorie deficit of around 1300/day, eat 1g protein per 1lb to prevent catabolism? I've had people from all angles telling me I should be putting on weight and eating more calories but I can confidently say I have more fat on me than I have ever done in my life and I want to burn it but not to be 'skinny' but to be 'ripped'.

I'm 5'4, 101lbs, 24 years old female. I eat very a healthy, mixed diet aiming for 100grams of protein a day."

Having done more research online it comes down to:

- to build muscle, you need to increase calories and protein intake.

- to burn fat (or 'lose weight') you need to cut calories.

I think one of my problems is that I don't want to 'lose weight' but I do want to 'burn fat'.

I think I'm moving towards the following:

- HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). This won't burn as many calories, apparently, but it will burn more fat. So instead of doing 30 minutes on the treadmill for 5k, I'll go for 20 minutes interval training. I'll aim for this 2 - 3 times a week.

- Full Body Weight Training 3x a week. Right now I don't want to build lots more muscle until I've burnt some fat, so I'm not concentrating on any particularly area but just building more lean mass.

- Aiming for 100g proten a day, so I have 1g protein per 1lb body mass.

- Eating 1300 - 1400 calories a day. I currently need 1420 to maintain. I don't want to completely cut too many as I will go into 'starvation'. I did lose fat at 1200 but reached a plateau quickly and the moment I increase my calories, the fat increases again as well. I want to lose it slowly so it stays off.

I'll see how it goes, but I am getting so confused!