Keeping muscle

[ffviifan]

What’s the best exercises to do when you’re trying to lose weight to make sure that you don’t end up just burning through your muscles instead of your fat? I’m not exactly built or anything but I don’t want to lose what I’ve got. I just want to lose the extra fat on my body.

Does anyone have any recommendations about the best workouts for that and how to actually do them? I’d really appreciate it.

[tara]

This is a really careful balance. A lot of people burn muscle as well as fat when they are dieting which is SO frustrating! It's not what you want to burn AND it slows down your weight loss.

So here's what works for me. Make sure that you don't eat too little food. Eat your calorie minimum without going over your maximum. Make sure that you drink lots of water because that's great for muscles as well as for weight loss. Get your protein every day. Don't forget to eat it in an attempt to keep your calories down. Muscles NEED protein.

Finally, make sure that you actually use your muscles! Exercise every day of the week. Do cardio most days, strength training (very important to keeping muscles!) at least twice a week, and flexibility at least once per week, if not more.

[tobetinytina]

eat carbs before your workout and protein afterward. Make sure that you always stay hydrated the entire time that you exercise. A dehydrated muscle is one that won't survive as well as one that is filled with water.

Make sure that you don't forget to actually do your workouts with weights or that use your own body weight to build muscle. If you're not actually using the muscle then you can't expect to actually maintain it!

[bruceH]

They say if you don't use it, you'll lose it. That's what you need to keep in mind with keeping muscle. Use them. You may be focusing on cardio to burn calories but if you want to keep your muscle then you've got to do some strength training, too. You don't need to join a gym. Just grab some had weights and do some bicep curls and kickbacks, do some crunches for your abs. That sort of thing.

[Maggie]

It’s all about workouts and nutrition, but you need to focus on hydration. Everybody seems to forget about hydration when it comes to saving muscle. If you want to build muscle while you’re burning fat, you need to make sure that you’re drinking water before, during, and after your workouts. If you miss it at any of those points, you’re not doing yourself any favors. YOu’ll just make muscle recovery harder and you either will grow more slowly or you’ll risk hurting yourself. Skip the sports drinks, though. Those really only benefit athletes who are doing well over an hour of exercise at a time. If you use them when you don’t need them, you’re filling up on empty calories that you don’t need.

[bonniekins]

eat carbs before your workout and protein afterward. Make sure that you always stay hydrated the entire time that you exercise. A dehydrated muscle is one that won't survive as well as one that is filled with water.

That's exactly the key to it. Protein is absolutely vital after you have done your workout. THe sooner the better. You might want to make sure that you have some protein powder handy and prepared so that you can grab it up and you don't skip that step. That'll get you started during the bets part of the period for muscle recovery. Then, later on, make sure that you eat a meal that has lean meat like chicken (white meat) or tuna, or something like that in it. That'll polish off your protein need and save your muscles. Keep it up!

[suzie]

One piece of advice I have is to avoid protein powders. Just skip them. It's so much easier and better to get protein through whole foods. Just chug down chocolate milk after your workout. Or once you've hit the showers and cooled down, have some blueberries and cottage cheese. The cottage cheese is huge in protein (and low in fat if you select a 2 percent or lower) and blueberries are very high in antioxidants which are important to muscle growth. So if you just have that, you'll do way better than protein powder.

[ChristySmiles]

One piece of advice I have is to avoid protein powders. Just skip them. It's so much easier and better to get protein through whole foods. Just chug down chocolate milk after your workout. Or once you've hit the showers and cooled down, have some blueberries and cottage cheese. The cottage cheese is huge in protein (and low in fat if you select a 2 percent or lower) and blueberries are very high in antioxidants which are important to muscle growth. So if you just have that, you'll do way better than protein powder.

That's really good advice. I used to be a protein powder junkie. I thought that I should be taking it after pretty much every workout because I was very afraid that I would end up burning muscle instead of fat if I didn't. I mixed it with milk, yogurt, or pretty much anything else it would mix with, so that I 'd enhance everything with protein.

Even worse is that I'd just buy whatever was on sale. I didn't really focus on what ingredients were providing the protein, whether it was soy, casein, whey, or whatever else. I wouldn't even have known the difference anyway.

The problem is that they are extremely highly processed. That's really not the best way to get nutrients into your body. It's really not that hard to get protein from food when you make the right choices.

[tracy1976]

The secret to both keeping lean muscle and burning fat is to keep up both cardio and strength training exercises and to eat right. Eat a good balance of carbs, proteins and fats within a healthy range of calories. Don't go extremely low in calories and don't go too high, either.

Get out there and use those muscles, but make sure that they have the food that they need to actually grow (or maintain). That is mostly in the form of proteins and carbs. Carbs before your workout and proteins afterward. This doesn't have to be immediate. It's not like you have to drop your weights and eat a steak or something. Just make sure that you're eating a proper balance when you have your next meal or snack.

[kellykatt]

Don't forget to rest. As much as nutrition and workouts are really great, rest is one of the most important part of your routine for keeping your muscle instead of burning it.

So one day per week, take a day off. Make sure that you're not strength training the same muscles every day. You might want to do abs on Mondays, arms on Tuesdays, glutes and thighs on Wednesdays, then repeat that cycle, taking Sunday off, completely. That will give your muscles time to actually repair themselves after workouts.

[Kyra]

eat carbs before your workout and protein afterward. Make sure that you always stay hydrated the entire time that you exercise. A dehydrated muscle is one that won't survive as well as one that is filled with water.

I've heard that formula too. Carbs before a workout give you fast energy so that you'll be able to put more into your exercises and keep going longer, and then protein afterward to give your muscles the nutrition that they need for growing, faster recovery, and to stave off hunger, for that matter. Hydration is key throughout the whole thing.

[Paplo]

When it comes to your health and the way that your body looks and acts, you have to pay attention to everythign that you eat and everything that you do. make sure that you hav ea really well balanced diet and that you are active every day but in different ways. This will help your body to be exactly what it should be at its best.