Today, we’re going to answer the question: Do you need to lose fat before you build muscle? And because I hate when people unnecessarily drag content out, before they get to the answer, the short answer is no. You don’t need to lose fat before you build muscle. In fact, you should probably think about building muscle as your primary objective, regardless of whether you have fat to lose or more muscle to gain, or if you want to do a complete body recomposition. For the vast majority of people, they should just learn how to build muscle as their highest priority, especially with their training, and then let their well-balanced diet look after body composition.
Do You Need To Lose Fat Before You Build Muscle?
It’s very common for people to think, “Okay, I want to get into better shape. I’m going to lose the fat first, and then when I’ve achieved the body fat levels that I’m happy with, I’m going to focus on muscle building.” This is a very common thing we hear when people come to us for coaching, and while on the surface it sounds like it makes sense, in reality, it isn’t the best way to go about things.
If you just focus primarily on fat loss first, before you engage in habits that will build muscle, you’re just going to become a smaller version of yourself. That might be something that you’re actually aiming towards, but the vast majority of people who are trying to change their body composition have a specific look in mind. What they’re trying to do is potentially lose some body fat, but they only want to do that as a means to create a certain shape, and it’s muscle that gives you that shape. You don’t want to just lose a load of body fat and end up looking like a smaller version of yourself. You want to lose that body fat while actually crafting the look of your physique.
You are still able to build some muscle as you diet, and this is especially true if you are someone who hasn’t built muscle before (i.e. you’re a beginner, a novice in the gym). It’s very easy to build muscle even in a calorie deficit. While yes, it’s not going to be the most amount of muscle you could possibly build, that doesn’t mean that you can’t build any muscle. That’s really important to keep in mind.
The next thing that you need to take into account if you do still think that you need to lose fat before you build muscle is that if you do eventually want to focus on building muscle, why would you not build the habits and understanding of how to go about building muscle right away? Why are you putting it off and waiting until the future to learn how to lift weights correctly, or to learn how to structure a good training program? You can still build all that understanding, knowledge, and habits while you are focusing on fat loss. But then, when it comes to muscle building, you’re able to just go, “Okay, now I can really put my effort into muscle building and I can really put all my focus into that,” because you already have the understanding. You already know what to do because you’ve been doing it while you were focusing on fat loss.
Further to this, if you do know that you want to build muscle in the future, you should start as soon as possible, because muscle building takes a long, long, long time. Fat loss is actually relatively easy. It’s a much quicker process compared to muscle building. You can lose fat at an incredibly fast rate, whereas building muscle, even if you are on all the anabolic drugs in the world, you still don’t build muscle as fast as you can lose fat. If you are struggling with fat loss, then muscle gain is also going to be a struggle because it’s also going to be something that takes time, patience, dedication, and lots of effort. We discuss realistic rates of muscle gain in this article on setting up your nutrition.
Now, the final thing I want to bring up is that people who generally focus on fat loss first tend to favour training programs which aren’t as favourable or don’t lead to good overall training adaptations. They’ll focus on these kinds of wacky routines they find online, focusing on doing super high reps because they sweat more and they feel like they burn more energy (this is because they tend to not have a good understanding of calories and calorie balance). Whereas if you just go into it with the idea that, “With training, I’m focusing on building muscle, and the time I spend in the gym is muscle-building focused time.”
Should You Be Focused On Losing Fat Before You Build Muscle Conclusion
When we coach people, we generally don’t change a training program massively whether someone is focused on muscle gain or fat loss. We will still be focusing on doing resistance training two to five times per week, really trying to build muscle and strength, and then trying to get some sort of cardiovascular training in as well. Generally, focusing a lot more on the aerobic system rather than the anaerobic system, but some anaerobic work in there can be quite beneficial. And then we let the diet take care of the fat loss. We let the diet create the calorie deficit, and yes, that can be further potentiated with the addition of extra cardio, for example. We can also add in stuff like extra steps per day. Maybe you’re doing 5000 steps; maybe we get that up to ten thousand, maybe we even get it up to 15,000. We do have the ability to use movement to create a larger calorie deficit. However, it’s not generally going to be the thing that moves the needle. It’s way easier to just not eat an extra 100 calories than it is to do 100 calories of cardiovascular training or burn 100 calories with resistance training or anything like that.
So to wrap this up, no, you don’t need to lose fat before you build muscle. You should be focusing on muscle building from the start, if you do actually want to create the physique you desire. If you need help with your diet or training, then maybe online coaching would be of benefit to you. If you want to get certified as a nutrition coach, then take a look at our nutrition certification course. If you enjoyed this content, then make sure to check out the rest of our content on site, and consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.
Paddy Farrell
Hey, I'm Paddy!
I am a coach who loves to help people master their health and fitness. I am a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and I have a degree in Biochemistry and Biomolecular Science. I have been coaching people for over 10 years now.
When I grew up, you couldn't find great health and fitness information, and you still can't really. So my content aims to solve that!
I enjoy training in the gym, doing martial arts and hiking in the mountains (around Europe, mainly). I am also an avid reader of history, politics and science. When I am not in the mountains, exercising or reading, you will likely find me in a museum.
