Do You Need Fat To Build Muscle? - By: Sam C James

No you don’t need to have much body fat to build muscle. You can actually be very skinny and still pack on some serious muscle. All you have to focus on is getting your workouts and diet spot on, if they’re not, you’re not going to see the muscle gains you’re after.

A common misconception is that you have to gain a lot of fat if you want to build muscle. Some people have a daily calorie intake of 4000 calories when they are on a bulking diet. This is way too many calories; the body will not need this surplus of energy, so it will have to be turned into fat. It won’t make you build muscle any faster either, a more reasonable target is 2700-3200 calories a day.

This will provide the body with enough calories to build muscle whilst also minimising fat gains. Try and work out how many calories you’re taking in at the moment and if you’re generally losing, maintaining or gaining weight. A good rule of thumb is that if you know how many calories it takes for you to maintain your weight, add 200-300 calories a day extra when you want to build muscle. So for example if you currently take in around 2500 calories a day and maintain your weight, try having 2700-2800 calories a day to build muscle.

You do have to accept some fat gains when you attempt to build muscle. It won’t be masses, but expect to gain up to 0.5-1 pounds of fat per pound of muscle gained, you can find out how much muscle you might be able to gain in a year here - how long does it take to build muscle.

Remember that if you reach a point where you feel like you’ve built a decent amount of muscle but want to tone up, you can diet and focus on more cardiovascular exercise to lose any unwanted fat. What you will be left with is a new bigger and ripped body, and then you can start the whole process again by trying to build more muscle.

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