add muscle/lose fat dilemma

[blackanddom]

Hey everyone. Ive been away for a while(3 years) and lost my connection with the workout world. I also gained a nice little beer gut.

I understand that you cannot both build muscle size and lose weight simultaneously due to the caloric needs of each. Over the last three years, I've worked out off and on, always being in enough shape to run a tough mudder, but not competitively. So working out is in my nature, but I go on in/out cycles. Two months ago I just started back with cardio/wieght training, and have finally passed the "beginner soreness" stage and started ramping up my workouts.

Here's my point- Im a skinny guy who looks like he works out a bit, an ectomorph i believe its called. Yet i developed a little beer gut "pouch" as a punishment for my daily drinking (half a bottle of wine/ 6 pack of light beer 6 days a week).
The drinking won't stop- unfortunately. ...Ill try and cut down, but it just wont stop. I've come to terms with that. In terms of my workout, I was wondering if there was an alternative to either cutting calories to lose the gut, but not gain much size, or try and maintain the amount of calories I need (im not loading) in order to build muscle and just hope my fat tire just "readjusts" to other areas of my body over time (fat to muscle conversion mainly). Id love to be able to increase strength and muscle size at a normal rate while removing my gut if there is a workout regime for this.

Im 28, male, desk job but i walk about 2 miles a day at work. I go to the gym MWF to weight train (full body lifts-squats, cleans, deadlifts, etc.) and do cardio Tuesday thursday (3 mileish run). Saturday or sunday I do interval training or an insanity workout. My weight training is only 40 minutes, as I only have time to workout at lunch. weight training is not possible on weekends, as my gym is an hour away- where i work.

Just looking for some thoughts on caloric intake/workout tips that might help me pinpoint whether I should cut or bulk first then cut, or if there is somehow a happy medium.

Thanks for your input.

-Rich

 

[Jrahien]

Firstly, you CAN burn fat and build muscle at the same time. You can burn fat during exercise, then eat properly to meet the protein needs for muscle buildup without going overboard and storing more fat again. People have this belief that to lose weight, you need to basically be eating rabbit's food, and to gain muscle, you really need to go crazy with the meat and other protein. However, you need to realize that the body has it's metabolic requirements that you need to meet either way. Even if you're just trying to burn fat, you still need protein intake for muscle recovery and repair. And if you're trying to build muscle, there's only so much protein that you're body will use before it starts to excrete it or store it.

Secondly, there's no such thing as fat-to-muscle conversion. There's absolutely no way for the body to turn fat into protein. Fat's only metabolic use is as energy. Also, you can't redistribute your own body fat. Where your body holds it is determined genetically. You either lose it all over your body at the same time or not at all.

And yeah, that amount of alcohol is a huge detriment. A 6-pack of beer has basically the same amount of sugar in it as a 6-pack of pop, if you need that comparison, and drinking that nearly every single night will certainly make it very hard to reduce your body fat. I know you said that you're going to cut back, and I'm hoping that you know how significantly you need to actually do that.