Lose weight without losing muscle

The most important things in brief

• Most people are probably aware that losing weight is primarily about reducing body fat and fat reserves.
• A problem that often occurs: we also lose muscle mass at the same time.
• But this is counterproductive.
• In this post, we show how exercise, diet, and other factors can prevent you from losing muscle while you lose weight.

The pounds should tumble - a goal that most of us have certainly had in mind in life. But without a good plan, there's a real risk that you'll lose at least as much muscle as fat on the diet. And that's counterproductive, since muscle burns a lot of calories even at rest and is therefore a decisive factor in body weight. Here we tell you how to lose body fat and lose as little muscle mass as possible.

It starts with nutrition

Because strength training plays an important role in this context, the first thing to do is to adjust your diet - in the direction of proteins. If you don't eat enough protein, you won't be able to meet the requirements of weight training - which we will come to later. Protein-rich foods are very valuable for a number of reasons.

On the one hand, proteins curb the feeling of hunger. On the other hand, they ensure that more fat is burned, which reduces the risk of abdominal fat. In addition, the metabolism is balanced if you eat more legumes such as beans, lentils or foods made from soy. Pumpkin seeds, almonds, oat flakes and quinoa and, of course, eggs also have a lot of proteins and essential amino acids.

Dietary fiber - and a healthy sleep

Sleep helps you lose weight? That's the way it is! A good sleep pattern is definitely beneficial for weight loss. Lack of sleep damages the hormonal balance, and this leads to food cravings. And it also stimulates the "normal" appetite, which of course makes it harder to lose weight.

To get rid of belly fat, fiber such as whole grain products are recommended. But legumes, flaxseed and psyllium are also filling foods because they are digested slowly. Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli also belong to this category, as do beans and passion fruit. You should avoid refined carbohydrates such as white bread, pasta and sugary foods anyway.

Weight training to avoid losing muscles

These nutrition tips are only half the value if you don't combine them with strength training. Because only this form of training helps you to preserve muscles or even build new ones. Strength training involves the muscles overcoming resistance, such as weights, a resistance band, or your own body weight. This sets stimuli that cause you to build even more muscle mass. At the same time, the visceral fat in the body is broken down - this is the fat that forms in the abdomen around the internal organs.

In order to reduce the proportion of body fat even more, strength endurance training is the method of choice, also known as high-intensity interval training (abbreviated to HIIT). The point is that you combine strength exercises with endurance units. For example, you can interrupt a long jog on the treadmill to lift weights. This is ideal for building new muscle mass - and it burns up to 30 percent more calories than classic endurance sports such as swimming, cycling or jogging.