Body Drying Guide: How To Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We talk about nutrition, training and recovery.

What is body drying and why is it needed

Drying is the period during which a person reduces the percentage of body fat, while trying to maintain muscle mass and strength indicators to the maximum.

In bodybuilding, drying traditionally follows weight gain. The builder first builds muscle through strength training, calorie surplus, and plenty of protein. Then, when there is enough muscle, the calorie content of the diet is reduced. As a result, the percentage of fat is reduced, and the relief becomes more distinct.

Also, weightlifters, powerlifters, boxers and other athletes who are forced to adjust to weight categories pass through this period. In this case, the goal is not a beautiful muscle relief, but the desired figure on the scales while maintaining power indicators.

Regardless of the purpose, the methods of drying and the body's response to this stressful period are approximately the same. Therefore, the rules for effective weight loss will not differ.

What happens to the body during drying

The universal rule of thumb for losing weight is that you need to create a calorie deficit to lower your fat percentage. In other words, consume less than spend. In this case, it does not matter how it is achieved: reduced calorie content, increased activity, or all together. If the body lacks energy, it starts burning fat stores.

Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding preparation: nutrition and supplementation are considered to require 7,716 calories to lose a kilogram of fat. It turns out that this can be achieved in a month if you cut the daily diet by 250 calories. And if you limit yourself even more, for example, by 500 kcal, you will burn 2 kilograms.

It sounds logical, but when it comes to the body, mathematical models don't work. The problem is that our body is perfectly adapted to survive in hunger conditions and has a number of metabolic adaptations for this:

• Reduced energy waste … In response to a lack of calories, the body decreases the production of thyroid hormones, including triiodothyronine, which regulates metabolic rate. As a result, you spend less energy both on maintaining life and on physical activity.
• Hunger is increasing … Cutting calories and losing weight reduce levels of leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells that regulates satiety. And the concentration of ghrelin - the hormone of hunger - is growing. As a result, you are hungry all the time.
• Muscles are burned … A lack of calories lowers the anabolic hormones insulin and testosterone and increases the concentration of cortisol, a glucocorticoid that promotes muscle breakdown. As a result, along with fat, you lose muscle mass.

The more scarcity you create, the more these adaptations manifest themselves. Moreover, they persist even after you increase the calorie intake back. That is why, getting off of strict diets, people, as a rule, quickly return to the previous weight or gain even more, and frequent drying of athletes increases the risk of being overweight.

Thus, the main task during drying is to avoid metabolic adaptations of the body to hunger. And the main way to do this is to act gradually.

How long should drying of the body last?

Both Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation, and the trainers of The Complete Guide to Bulking and Cutting, How To Plan Your Strength Training While Cutting (Ultimate Guide) agree that it is most effective to fold 0.5– 1% of body weight per week. This speed allows you to avoid a strong decrease in metabolism, lose fat and at the same time maintain and even increase the Effect of two different weight-loss rates on body composition and strength and power-related performance in elite athletes muscles. In this case, it is worth considering its own characteristics.

The higher the percentage of body fat, the less Body fat content influences the body composition response to nutrition and exercise of muscle you will lose on the diet.

So, if you have a high percentage of fat, you can use more aggressive diets in the first weeks of drying to lose 1.5% of your weight per week. With proper nutrition and training, this speed will not lead to loss of muscle mass by Effect of two different weight-loss rates on body composition and strength and power-related performance in elite athletes.

Over time, when the percentage of body fat decreases, it is worth Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation to switch to a softer diet so that it does not go away Changes in psychological state and self-reported diet during various phases of training in competitive bodybuilders muscles. In the second month, aim for a loss of 1% of the weight per week, in the third - to 0.5% per week.

If you want to dry out for yourself and are not tied to any deadline, there will be no problems. Just keep an eye on your weight and adjust your calories so that you don't lose more than a kilogram per week.

If you need the result by a certain date, start drying 8-12 weeks before it. The How To Plan Your Strength Training While Cutting (Ultimate Guide) is not recommended to continue drying beyond this period: even with a small calorie deficit, a long diet will negatively affect your metabolic rate, muscle percentage and your performance.

How to adjust nutrition when drying your body

To lose the desired percentage of weight per week, you need to cut back on the calorie intake. In order to preserve muscle at the same time, you need to correctly select the percentage of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Below we will explain how to do this.

How much to reduce calorie content

First, cut your daily calorie intake by 250-300 kcal and watch the results. If you begin to lose 0.5-1% of your weight per week, maintain this regimen until the weight stops. If you are not making progress, you can add more physical activity, such as 2-3 cardio sessions per week, and see if the pounds are gone.

If not, try cutting back 500 calories a day. With the right balance of macronutrients and strength training, such a diet will not result in the loss of muscle mass by Effect of two different weight-loss rates on body composition and strength and power-related performance in elite athletes.

If your weight still doesn't change, try adding more physical activity or looking elsewhere for the problem. For example, in the absence of good sleep, high stress levels, or hormonal disruptions.

If you start losing more than 1.5% of your body weight per week, it is worth reducing the deficit in order to slow down weight loss and maintain muscle.

How much protein, fat and carbohydrates to consume

The most important macronutrient for drying the body is protein. It enhances A randomized crossover, a pilot study examining the effects of a normal protein vs. high protein breakfast on food cravings and reward signals in overweight / obese “breakfast skipping”, late-adolescent girls feel full and accelerates Presence or absence of carbohydrates and the proportion of fat in a high-protein diet affect appetite suppression but not energy expenditure in normal-weight human subjects fed in energy balance metabolism, and also helps maintain a positive Whole-body protein utilization in humans protein balance. This is a condition in which muscle protein synthesis exceeds protein breakdown.

Most bodybuilders and athletes consume A systematic review of dietary protein during caloric restriction in resistance trained lean athletes: a case for higher intakes, Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation 2, 3–3, 1 g protein per kg of body weight without fat. This indicator can be calculated using a smart balance with bioimpedance analysis. If you do not have access to these, use a calculator with average values for men and women.

You can also find out the amount of protein you need by your overall body weight. Research data show that 2, 4–2, 5 Pronounced energy restriction with elevated protein intake results in no change in proteolysis and reductions in skeletal muscle protein synthesis that are mitigated by resistance exercise, grams of protein per kg of body weight is enough to protect the body from loss of muscle mass in conditions of hypocaloricity.

It is also important to keep track of the amount of fat. They are essential in the diet to avoid hormonal disturbances during drying. In particular, consume at least 15–20% of your calories from fat to maintain normal testosterone levels.

Carbohydrates are needed to maintain high performance in training. Calculate the required amount of protein and fat, and finish off the remaining calories with carbohydrates.

If you notice that your performance has dropped dramatically in class, increase your carbohydrate intake from fat and see how this affects your performance and weight.

How to exercise while drying your body

In order to preserve the muscles, it is important to continue strength training and make it as intense as before drying. You can also add cardio loads for additional waste of calories, but with the proviso that they will not reduce your performance in strength exercises.

How to do strength training

You shouldn't change your workout routine to a lot of repetitions with light weights. You will use cardio to burn calories, but the goal of strength training remains the same - to provide the muscles with the stimulus to grow.

Use the following Recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: Resistance and cardiovascular training scheme:

• Train each muscle group twice a week. You can use four-day or five-day splits.
• Do 6-12 reps per set with 70-80% of your one-rep max (1RM). On average, do about 40 to 70 reps per muscle group per workout.
• Rest between sets for 1-3 minutes.
• Do not use sets to muscle failure in complex multi-joint movements such as squats, deadlifts, bench press, bench press, and bent-over rows. You can only use them in simple single-joint movements for small muscle groups.

Load your body heavily, but remember that your body is under stress due to lack of nutrition. If you feel like you can't finish a set with good technique, quit. Better not to finish than to get injured.

How to do cardio

Cardio is a great way to increase your calorie deficit, but Recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: Resistance and cardiovascular training should not get involved in aerobic exercise.

Long cardio sessions tire the central nervous system (CNS) as much as strength training. As a result, you will spend more calories, but at the same time, you will reduce the volume of strength loads and lose muscle mass.

Do no more than 4-5 cardio workouts per week. If strength performance drops, reduce the amount or time of aerobic activity.

Alternatively, you can replace long cardio with high-intensity interval training, which will burn a lot of calories and spend less time exercising. As for the effect on the central nervous system, short intense loads are less Effects of fatigue duration and muscle type on voluntary and evoked contractile properties, Mechanisms of fatigue differ after low- and high-force fatigue contractions in men and women, Central and peripheral fatigue in male cyclists after 4-, 20-, and 40-km time trials are costly than long, medium-paced work. Still, you shouldn't do HIIT every day: due to the high intensity, the risk of injury increases, especially if you do strength exercises as well.

You can alternate between different types of aerobic activity, for example, do two long sessions at an average pace and two HIIT per week. Either way, do cardio after strength training to get you started with a fresh central nervous system and can do the volume you need to maintain muscle.

How to recover

In addition to nutrition and exercise, it is very important to provide the body with all the conditions for a quality recovery. Here are some important points.

Sleep at least 7-8 hours

Lack of sleep increases ghrelin levels Interactions between sleep, stress, and metabolism: From physiological to pathological conditions, which increases hunger and cravings for sugary foods, negatively Insufficient Sleep Undermines Dietary Efforts to Reduce Adiposity affects protein balance, slows recovery and reduces your ability to lose fat.

Learn to deal with stress

Chronic stress raises cortisol levels and lowers the A Link Between Sleep Loss, Glucose Metabolism and Adipokines levels of adiponectin, a hormone that is involved in the breakdown of fat. You cannot influence external factors, but you can change the reaction to them. To do this, for example, master relaxation techniques - meditation and breathing practices Effect of short-term practice of breathing exercises on autonomic functions in normal human volunteers, Abbreviated Resonant Frequency Training to Augment Heart Rate Variability and Enhance On-Demand Emotional Regulation in Elite Sport Support Staff.

Observe the diet

Irregular meals are another stress for the body. Eat 3-6 times a day at about the same time.

Try recovery techniques

Go for a massage, use THE EFFECTS OF SELF ‐ MYOFASCIAL RELEASE USING A FOAM ROLL OR ROLLER MASSAGER ON JOINT RANGE OF MOTION, MUSCLE RECOVERY, AND PERFORMANCE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW, start taking BCAA Amino acids and central fati reduce delayed muscle pain, avoid stiffness and loss of strength 24–72 hours after strength training.

How to get out of body drying

After reaching your desired body fat percentage or the competition you were preparing for, you should not dramatically increase your calorie intake. No matter how hard you try to speed up your metabolism, it will still decrease during drying.

A sudden transition to a previous diet can lead to rapid weight gain.

To prevent such changes, correct the Metabolic adaptation to weight loss: implications for the athlete gradually, over several weeks. "Reverse diet" will help restore the level of circulating hormones, increase metabolism and not regain the pounds of fat that have just been shed.