By: Joan M Willem

To lose one pound you need to burn 3500 calories MORE than you are already doing in your basic life activities. So in other words, doing lots of cardio, eating low fat, low carb, and low protein diet, and either lift weights or do some other form of brute work. And here is the tricky part, to gain muscle you must do as little or no cardio as possible, eat a high carbohydrate, high calorie, and high fat(not trans)diet and of course once again, be lifting weights to a greater degree. So you may ask. What are you saying? So its impossible I have to be either fat or huge? And then answer is no, you can be skinny and muscular, you just have to do it at different times. Or in phases.

So since you have to do both activities separate I will describe what is needed for each separately.
I will start with how to burn or lose fat.

The biggest thing that will help you to burn off those pesky pounds. Endurance training. Now endurance training is very helpful because it helps your body look more lean, and muscular, allowing you to feel more confident in yourself, and it increases your metabolism and helps it stay UP. I am saying that it helps it stay up because long periods of aerobic training

will bring your metabolism up, but for a short while, shortly after you have finished training your metabolism will be back to normal, so forget everything you have heard about the "Miracle Exercise that will let you get skinny feel great and look fantastic in no time" because the fact is, its just not possible. However when you are doing endurance training you are also gaining muscle and since muscles require a great amount of calories to run your metabolism will be increased, and stay increased for a much longer period of time. It has been proven that endurance or resistance training will increase your body's metabolism by 15% and keep it there! That means the average person can have up to 500 more calories in their daily diet!

Endurance training can consist of many different exercises, it can be something as simple as:

1.10 minutes of light cardio (walking in place or at a slow speed)

2.Do two sets of as many of the following exercises as you can in each section with a 40 second break in between then move onto the next section.

A1: Standard pushups

A2: Body Squat

B1: Stationary Lunges

B2: Pull ups

C1: Burpees

C2: Plank

Example: 30 pushups, 30 squats, 40 second break, 30 pushups 30 squats. 40 second break 30 lunges, 5 pullups, 40 second break etc.

3.Take a breather slow down and go back to 5 minute of very light cardio.
It doesnt have to be complicated just think of some exercise routines that will use all of your body especially your stomach and legs (for this is where most people would like the weight lost)

And that is pretty much the basics on losing fat now we can move on to building muscle!
building muscle is a pretty simple process, and yes i did say simple, NOT easy. To build muscle you must be consuming a good amount of protein, carbohydrates, and calories. This is because muscle needs more energy to be built up then fat does.
The basics of muscle building:

Now when i say muscle building I mean getting strong, not getting skinny with a six pack, if you want a six pack refer back to losing fat because have you ever seen the worlds strongest men? Those people are amazing athletes they have more power behind them then a freight train but then look at a model. There will be a huge difference. Because see they are out for two different things, models want to be skinny and look strong, and the strongest men want to build up and be strong. Here are some exercises you might want to try.

1. Lifting weights. Definitely one of the most efficient ways to build muscle why?
Because it works more muscles then most other exercises and allows you to learn to control the bar, works your body in natural motions not fixed ones, and there are countless different ways you can exercises with one barbell.

2. Eat, as i have said before eating is vital so the top 2 muscle building tips are lifting weights and eating because eating allows your muscles to build and repair faster.

So in this article i have told you all about some common myths to losing weight and/or gaining muscle, and how to do a bit of both. So i hope this has helped you and that you will be on your way to either a skinnier or stronger, happier you.

My name is Joan and i have been into body building for a good number of years now, and i have to recommend that if you found this article helpful i can guarantee that you will find [http://www.fatsecrets.tk] ----- For more secrets to fat loss and, [http://www.nononsense-musclebuilding.tk] ---- For amazing muscle building guide So thank you and i really hope you consider checking those out they will be well worth your time.