I got an email from a reader recently and wanted to share with you the general recommendations I have for simultaneously building muscle and losing body fat.

Rules of thumb for gaining muscle and losing fat simultaneously are:

• High protein
• Low carb
• Moderate to high fat (kind of comes with the high-protein territory, so to speak)
• Plenty of milk, eggs, beef, poultry, fish, nuts, protein powder (for between-meal snacks)
• 3 days a week weight training
• 3 days a week high-intensity cardio, coupled with 3-4 days of moderate-intensity cardio

How much protein? I'd shoot for an average of 1 gram per pound of body weight. This may sound high, but it's really not that hard to consume, if you're taking in 3 regular meals and 3 snacks a day. Even easier if you break it into 8 meals.

I'm a big proponent of cycling diet, supplementation, and training. By this, I mean that you should eat big 3 days in a row, then take off a day (same with training). Cut out all the supplementation (except for the joint supplements and daily vitamin/mineral) on this "off day" to give your body a chance to rest a little. I have had good success actually juice fasting on this "4th day" where I only ingest juice and water. It really sets the body up to load up on carbs the following day.

Your muscles will really swell the next day.

As for dieting "clean" – I do believe in cheating. On your diet! Meaning, once a week, eat nearly whatever you want in any portion you want.

All other days, eat virtually whatever you want, but in smaller portions than you may like. You'll get the flavors you need but you won't be taking in excess calories.

If you're interested, I've got some meal plans posted up on the User Forum – http://ow.ly/189YQ

You'll need about 3300 calories to maintain your weight (this is a rough estimate – there are a lot of factors that play into this) – if you want to gain weight, add 500 calories; if you want to lose weight, subtract 500 cals.

You may be in a situation where you want to maintain your weight, but just redistribute body fat weight to muscle weight…modify accordingly.

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