As we head into the new year, many of us are starting to set fitness goals for 2025. When getting in shape, most people focus on losing weight or gaining muscle. However, it is possible to achieve both at the same time through body reorganization. But unlike if you just want to lose weight, it’s difficult because you need to plan carefully to make it work.
Body recomposition can be difficult as you need to reduce body fat at the same time and building muscle. To lose fat you need to eat fewer calories, but to grow muscle you need to eat more calories than you burn, and achieving balance can be difficult.
We’ve outlined some surefire ways to approach body recomposition to help you reach your fitness goals in the new year. And don’t forget. Daily activities also count as exercise and can have a big impact on how many calories you burn.
Body composition refers to the percentage of body fat and lean body mass.
What is body composition?
Body composition is the ratio of fat to lean mass in the body. Body composition is sometimes used interchangeably with body fat percentage, but body fat percentage is only one part of total body composition.
Lean body mass includes muscle, bones, ligaments, tendons, organs, other tissues, and water, i.e. everything except body fat. Depending on the method you use to measure your body composition, you may see a percentage of water itself.
What about body reconstruction?
Body reconstruction refers to the process of changing the ratio of fat mass to lean mass, i.e., reducing body fat and increasing muscle mass. The goal of body recomposition is to lose fat and build muscle, as opposed to the traditional approach of “gain and lose,” where you first intentionally gain weight (muscle and fat) and then lose weight through a large calorie deficit. is to increase at the same time. Remove fat and reveal the muscle underneath.
If your goal is to rebuild your body, use a tape measure instead of a scale to better track your progress.
Forget about weight loss
Reshaping your body is not about losing weight. It’s about fat loss. A body reconstruction plan allows you to maintain your current weight or even gain weight. Remember when you heard “muscle weighs more than fat”? This is a half-truth. Muscle is denser than fat.
During body reconstruction, it is your size, not your weight, that changes. As your body restructures, you may notice changes in your body, such as an overall more toned appearance or a change in the way your clothes fit. At the end of your body reconstruction program, you may have gained weight but become smaller.
For example, my weight now is exactly the same as before I started exercising and eating healthy. But I wear smaller clothes and my body has more muscle tone than before. I also feel much stronger than I did before I started the strength training program (there are no aesthetic benefits to body recomposition). Therefore, you can ignore the scale because it does not differentiate between fat loss and muscle loss and weight loss is not the main goal of body reconstruction.
However, there is one caveat to consider. If you want to lose a large amount of body fat but don’t intend to gain much muscle mass, you may lose weight in the long run.
Reconstitution of the body is a long-term battle
You can’t treat a body reconstruction plan like a fad diet because you’re trying to do two things at the same time: lose fat and gain muscle. Healthy weight loss and healthy muscle gain both take a long time to achieve on their own. By combining these, you can achieve long-term effects. However, the slow and steady process of body recomposition produces sustainable results, so as long as you maintain these habits, you can enjoy your new body shape.
Body recomposition is a fine balance between building muscle and losing fat.
How does body reconfiguration work?
Body reconfiguration is ultimately based on specific health and fitness goals. Unlike traditional weight loss methods, such as a very low-calorie diet or a period of very intense aerobic exercise, there is no real protocol for recomposing your body.
There are basic guidelines to follow. To successfully change your body composition, you need:
how to reduce fat
Fat loss ultimately leads to calorie maintenance. To lose fat, you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. Aerobic exercise, or a combination of aerobic and resistance exercise, and a healthy diet still serve as the best techniques for fat loss. There’s no way around the science. Losing fat in a safe and sustainable way also means having realistic goals and not depriving your body of the nutrients it needs. Disordered eating habits are never worth the risk.
Strength training is necessary to build muscle.
how to train muscles
To build muscle, focus on two main factors: weight training and protein intake. Strength training is essential for changing body composition. If you don’t challenge yourself, your muscles won’t grow.
Additionally, you can’t build muscle without a calorie surplus, so you need to eat more calories than you burn to promote muscle growth. All macronutrients are important, but protein is especially important for building muscle. Without enough protein, your body has a hard time repairing the muscle tissue destroyed during weight training.
Additionally, research shows that; High protein diet helps reduce fat and gain muscle at the same time. According to research This means that even if you’re in a calorie deficit, you’ll maintain more lean body mass (aka muscle mass) if you eat more protein than you would if you were in a calorie deficit without changing your protein intake.
People who are already on a strength training program, increasing their protein intake, and maintaining a heavy weight lifting habit Leads to improved body composition.
Bodybuilders are known for their ability to achieve incredibly toned and muscular physiques. This is obviously not everyone’s goal, but it’s a great example of what’s possible with body reconfiguration.
To sum it all up: Calorie Cycling
It may sound confusing that to lose fat you need to eat fewer calories than you burn, but to build muscle you need to eat more calories than you burn. Once you learn the concept of calorie cycling, it’s actually quite simple. This means changing your calorie and macronutrient intake to fit your goals for the day.
The first thing you need to do is figure out your maintenance calories, or the calories you burn on days you don’t exercise. To find this number, you can consult a certified personal trainer, nutritionist, or other medical professional, or use an online calorie calculator. This from Mayo Clinic mifflin centior equationprofessionals consider this the gold standard.
On days you do aerobic exercise, you should burn enough calories to meet your maintenance numbers. Burning maintenance calories on cardio days creates a small calorie deficit to promote fat loss, but not a calorie deficit so large that your body starts using muscle tissue for fuel. I want muscles!
On days when you do strength training for 30 minutes or more, consume more calories than your maintenance calorie intake, mainly from protein. Add 5% to 15% to your maintenance calories, depending on how much muscle you want to gain and how fast you want to gain it.
On days when you don’t exercise at all, eat slightly less than your maintenance calories and reduce that number by 5% to 10%. This number is called your “rest day calories.”
A weekly plan to achieve your body recomposition goals.
Think of it this way. Every day you burn new calories and your body has to decide what to do with those calories. Your body basically has three basic options. You can burn calories for immediate fuel, use them to repair and build muscle tissue, or store them as fat.
If you want to change your body, you don’t want to store calories as fat. However, your body wants to burn new calories to repair the muscles destroyed during weightlifting training.
So you’ll be consuming more calories (and protein) on weight training days, and your body will use those calories and nutrients as fuel for muscle repair and, in turn, muscle growth. Also, on days you do cardio or don’t train, you consume fewer calories because your body uses the fat it already has for fuel instead of using new calories for fuel.
By combining these two tactics, you can achieve successful body reconfiguration.
