Building Muscle While Burning Fat
When most of my clients come to me, its for weight loss. I have my first client who wants to build some serious muscle, as she thinks her arms and legs are too skinny, which I have to agree. The picture on the left is an actual picture of her and the picture on the right is a picture of what she would like to accomplish through our muscle building program.
To do this, we have to seriously change her workouts and cardio, along with her nutrition, but she is willing to take on the challenge.
First thing I told her she needed to do was to increase her protein to between 120-150 grams each day. She also needed to increase her calories closer to 2000 calories each day or at least on the days we workout. I told her just to take each meal/snack and add on half to the amount she is already eating but to make sure she is still eating a clean diet. She said this was tough the first week, and that she always felt so full! I told her once we get into her intense workouts, she will be burning most of those calories off and will start to feel better.
Second thing we did was change up her workout routine. We went from doing 3 days of supersets of 10-12 repetitions with 5 days of cardio to 3 days of 4 sets of 6-10 repetitions of heavy weight and cutting back on the cardio, at least for the time being.
We are going to closely moniter her body fat to make sure she is moving in the right direction. If her body fat starts to increase we will add in more cardio.
We will be using mostly dumbbells for our workouts and doing exercises such as squats, lunges, chest press, bicep curls and working the triceps.
I also suggested a few supplements that will help her with muscle recovery and are supplements that I take, especially around my workouts.They are ZMA, Glutamine and Amino Acids.
So stay tuned to find out how she is doing as I will be doing monthly updates!
Angie Schumacher is a Certified Fitness Professional who trains clients in her home and is a Women's Boot Camp Instructor in Colorado. She is the author of The Fat Blasting Boot Camp Program and has offered a one stop website to help you with all of your health and fitness needs. Please visit www.BuildingABetterU.com to find exactly what you are looking for!
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This is my exact situation– I’m tired of being skinny and fit, I want to see more muscle definition. I have dropped running (I was running outdoors w/ intervals on some days for about 30-45 3x a week, between 9/12 miles a week) and now lift heavy DB about four days a week alternating between days of jumping rope w/ direct ab work for about 30 min. 2 days a week. I eat very clean, but hate, hate, hate keeping a food journal. Is this a must so that I can calculate my protein & calorie intake? I’ve been following this program for about three weeks and see a small difference but still not enough! I don’t want to get huge, just see some results for all my hard work! My BF percentage is low but no long desired ab muscles have shown up. Is it just my body type, should I just appreciate my health and gain acceptance of how far I’ve come or is there still hope? I’ll be following this client if I can– please continue to post and thank you for any help you can send my way. I love your site and all your advice and recipes. Thanks so much–Kat
Kat, I don’t think its necessary to keep a food journal as long as you just make sure you are eating clean (which you say you already are) and get enough protein with each meal. Give it time..3 weeks is not that long. Your body needs to adjust…just be patient and I know you will see the results you are working towards. Don’t give up..you can do it!
Thanks for stopping by and I am so glad you love the site!