One Goal At A Time
Old Spice started making body wash when I was in high school.
It was a big deal.
Their ads got me hooked. I knew that this was something I needed to use, I knew that this scent would make me more popular with the fairer sex.
I remember the first time I actually went and bought one.
Old Spice High Endurance 2 in 1 Body and Face Wash and Shampoo.
It did all 3 things, and it would smell great doing it.
I was really excited. I used this stuff every day for a couple weeks. I loved it.
My skin was perfect. It smelled and looked great.
After a few weeks, however, my face was breaking out and my hair dry and brittle.
I kept using it, and my face kept getting more pimply and my hair kept getting more like a tumbleweed.
About a week later younger, dumber Pat had a realization.
You can’t really do two things at once and do them well.
I would keep using the Old Spice as body wash, but I’d ignore the shampoo and facewash because while it was great as a soap, it was god awful as the other two things.
Even though I learned this lesson quite early I kept making the same mistake with my fitness, and it’s a mistake I see guys make all the time.
Almost every single guy I’ve given an assessment to, had a coaching call with or just talked to casually has said:
“I want to build muscle AND lose fat.”
And they want to do it at the same time.
Is that possible?
Sure it’s possible if you fit into very narrow demographic categories:
1. You’re obese
2. You’ve never touched a weight before in your life
3. You just starting taking anabolics
4. Your balls just dropped and you’re entering puberty
For the rest of us, it’s not possible.
Here’s how it goes for most guys.
They go to a memorial day party at the beach. They take their shirt off and they feel like a pile of playdoh. They’re big in all the wrong spots, and soft in all the wrong spots. They don’t look great.
They decide they need to change, they need to shed some fat and get jacked at the same time.
So they spend the next year trying to do that. Trying to lift to get jacked and trying to eat to get jacked but lose fat at the same time.
They do that for a whole year, and at the next year’s memorial day party they take their shirt off and…
they look exactly the same as they did the year before.
They busted their ass in the gym and have nothing to show for it, because they tried to do two things at once.
This is a mistake I’ve made countless times in my life. You’re stuck between two goals. Building muscle and losing fat are two separate goals that need to be treated as such.
Building muscle and burning fat are two separate processes.
And it really comes down to fuel.
To build muscle you need an excess of fuel.
To burn fat you need a deficit of fuel.
And that’s what trips most guys up. The training is pretty much the same. Whether you’re trying to gain muscle or lose fat you still need to lift pretty much the same.
But you need to structure your diet much, much differently for each goal.
Building muscle demands more of your metabolism than losing fat. Building muscle is expensive.
To build muscle you need to eat at a serious caloric surplus. Around 500 calories over your resting metabolic rate every day.
You’re not going to lose fat eating 500 calories over what your body demands.
Losing fat is much less taxing. You can lose fat by eating only 100 calories below your resting metabolic rate.
You’re not going to build muscle eating 100 calories less than your body demands.
These two processes are completely different metabolically. If you’re a normal human male you will not be able to achieve muscle growth and fat loss at the same time.
These two goals are like body wash and shampoo. They work great separately, but when you combine them they’ll be awful and frustrating.
If you’re one of those stuck guys who busts his ass but can’t seem to change, it’s because you’re trying to accomplish two things at once.
Your body’s not going to work that way.
You need to decide which goal is more important to you, and attack that first. Then you can move on to the other.
I know a lot of coaches put out bullshit cookie cutter advice about when to build and when to lose, but it’s really a personal preference. You have to make the decision about:
1. Which is more important to you
2. Which process you’re willing to commit to
And then you need to structure your schedule and plans around that goal. You can achieve both in the same year, but you can’t achieve both simultaneously. This is why a long term plan is so important.
Training to build muscle and burn fat at once isn’t going to work long term. It might work for a few weeks, but that’s it. It’s like trying to use one type of liquid to wash your body, your face and your hair.
It’s just not going to work.