Lose fat and gain muscle?

I always wondered if it is possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time? If you are trying to lose body fat, I think the best way (in general) to do it is through a sustained caloric deficit over a period of time. However, if you do cardio for an hour a day at the optimal target heart rate for fat burning, aren't you burning off some fat doing that cardio? And then when you strength train, you're breaking down tissue and require additional protein to build new muscle tissue. So wouldn't it make sense that if you ate just enough to replace the calories you burned in a day + a bit extra to grow new muscle that you would continue to lose bodyfat and increase muscle mass? Some people say this is impossible, and that when you are in "fat loss" mode, your body is in a catabolic state and you will lose a bit of muscle for every pound of fat you lose. But I suspect that the real answer is somewhere in between. I think that would be a great subject for an article on this site if the authors were so inclined.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

delicious | digg | reddit | furl | google | yahoo | technorati