Are you looking for a diet plan to lose fat and gain muscle? Every athlete knows that the best way to get rid of body fat is to lower the intake of carbs and base their diet on protein and essential fats.
We All React Differently To Diet Plans
What they do not know is that everyone reacts differently to a different diet plan. The trick is to adapt specific rules from certain diet plans to fit your needs the best and to help you achieve your goals.
What all the diet plans in this article have in common is that they help to reduce body fat and increase muscle mass. Lowering the intake of carbs prevents a sudden increase in insulin and urges the body to use the fat reserve as fuel.
At the beginning of every weight-loss diet, making the body uses piled-up body fat as fuel instead of the carbs you are eating is very difficult. That is why people who start a low-calorie diet feel weak during workouts.
Low-calorie diets benefit our body when it comes to burning fat compared to diets with the same calorie values and higher amounts of carbs. One of the reasons is that intake of protein and fat helps to entice your metabolism to burn calories while you are resting, which leads to using fat as fuel.
3 Types of Diet Plan
We will describe to you the differences between the three types of diet so you can determine which suits your needs the best. We’ll be looking at the Paleolithic diet, keto strategy, and carb rotation plan.
Some of the methods are a bit controversial, but that does not mean they are not efficient. The fact is that each of these three diet plans can help you get rid of body fat and gain muscle.
3 Best Diets Plans To Lose Fat and Gain Muscle
Paleolithic Diet
Our ancestors didn’t have a chance to go to the marketplace, grocery store, or fast-food restaurant. Their diet was limited to the plants and animals they hunt and forage.
That means that their menu consisted of a lot of meat (when they could catch it) and plants that were a meat substitute. They were eating berries, greens, and also bugs (which we did not include in this diet).
What wasn’t included in their menu were cereals, large amounts of sugar, and starchy products. With that in mind, supporters of this diet plan claim that our body is genetically predetermined to much better process food that we used to eat millenniums before the agricultural revolution and the modern junk food industry.
Consummation of this ancient food leads to better health, muscle growth, and the reduction of unwanted body fat.
How To Apply Paleolithic Diet?
Many athletes use protein from milk sources as well as sugar during the period of training to influence the increase of muscle mass and decrease body fat.
Menu Example For Paleolithic Diet
Breakfast: eggs, salmon, fruit
Snack 1: chicken breast, spinach salad with olive oil
Lunch: lamb, sweet potato, asparagus
Before workout: chicken breast, fruit
After training: egg white, fruit
Dinner: steak, baked potatoes, vegetables
Snack 2: hard-boiled eggs
What Should You Eat?
Meat, meat and more meat, vegetable, fruit, tubers (all variations of potato), nuts and beans, and oils such as olive oil and coconut oil.
What Shouldn’t You Eat?
Cereal, legumes, dairy products (especially with a low-fat percentage), processed food, sugars and salts (except sea salt), artificial sweeteners, and vegetable oil.
Advantages Of Paleolithic Diet
This is a very good diet plan for those bodybuilders that want to remain slim during the year and slowly increase muscle mass. You can eat as many calories as you want since they come from protein and healthy fats.
Why Should You Decide To Practice Paleolithic Diet?
Only consider if you are trying to increase muscle mass and lower body fat but without any competitive ambitions. If the answer is yes, then this diet is good for you.
Keto Diet
When you decide to cut the carbs out of your diet, your body must find an alternate energy source. For that purpose, the body starts burning muscle tissue as fuel for daily activities.
However, if you intake sufficient protein daily, you will preserve muscle tissue and entice the body to use the piled-up fat reserves as fuel instead.
The Keto diet is a way to fool your body that it is in a starvation state even tho you are eating enough calories from protein and fat to satisfy the sensation of hunger and preserve muscle mass. Ketosis is the state of the body in which it releases piled-up fat to be burned.
How To Apply Keto Diet?
You can eat a lot of dairy products with no carbs, but you should avoid milk because of lactose.
Menu Example For Keto Diet
Breakfast: bacon, eggs
Snack 1: cheddar, meat delicacy (without carbs)
Lunch: salmon, avocado (or chicken with mayo)
Before workout: whey protein, creatine, BCCA, glutamine
After training: whey protein, creatine, BCCA, glutamine
Dinner: steak, spinach with olive oil
Snack 2: hard-boiled eggs, turkey breast
What Should You Eat?
Meat, cheese, oils, fish, eggs, and protein products with no carbs.
What Shouldn’t You eat?
Processed food, sugar, cereals, and even fruit and vegetables.
Disadvantages of the Keto Diet
You can’t eat carbs and stay in ketosis, which makes this diet very strict. In the initial phase, it is best to cut out all fruit and vegetables to be sure that the intake of carbs is minimal and to reach the state of ketosis as fast as possible. You need to urinate on keto sticks to know that you have reached the state of ketosis, and also, once they reach ketosis, plenty of people experience bad breath.
Advantages of the Keto Diet
You can eat the same calories as before, so you won’t be hungry. Once you reach ketosis, you can add vegetables with fiber, such as broccoli, spinach, and other greens.
Athletes have reported that during the keto diet, they can endure straining physical activity since they do not get tired easily because they have fat reserves to burn, and their body does not rely only on carbs as fuel.
This diet can be used by fitness athletes that are preparing for competitions.
Why Should You Decide To Practice The Keto Diet?
The Keto diet is one of, if not the fastest possible diet for weight loss known to modern science since you can eat as much as you want during the day as long as you stick to allowed food. Some professional bodybuilders use ketosis to establish the success of their diet.
Rotation of Carbs Diet
Carbs have several roles in the body. When you eat too few carbs, your body uses piled-up fat as fuel, but your metabolic rate drops. However, with a drastic change in the carbs you eat daily, you can maintain your metabolic rate.
With the rotation of the carbs you eat daily, you will feel better and be able to burn more fat than in a low-carb diet.
How To Apply Carb Rotation Diet?
Instead of a daily menu, you need to know how many carbs you are allowed to eat each day since the diet plan drastically changes each day of the week.
A good source of slow digestible carbs are tubers, integral rice, oatmeal, and bread made of whole grain.
Fast digestible carbs are sugar, white bread, and honey. You can even eat deserts on certain days as long as they are low fat.
Menu Example For Carb Rotation Diet
Monday: 150g of slowly digestible carbs in the morning and fast digestible carbs before and after your workout split into same-size portions.
Tuesday: same as Monday
Wednesday: same as Monday
Thursday: 400-500gr of carbs during the entire day; on the days with a high intake of carbs, reduce dairy fat.
Friday: same as Monday
Saturday: same as Monday
Sunday: 300g of carbs. Preferably make one bigger cheat meal like pasta rather than eat carbs during the entire day.
Avoid carbs for dinner and during late night hours.
What Should You Eat?
Everything on an average bodybuilder’s menu depends on the day of the week. That includes protein-rich food: meat, eggs, protein shake, cheese, vegetables, and fruit.
Even food rich in carbs (with a low-fat percentage) is allowed on certain days.
What Shouldn’t You Eat?
Food that contains carbs and fat at the same time. This diet program allows you to eat food rich in carbs or fat, just not at the same time.
Disadvantages Of Carb Rotation Diet
Most bodybuilders follow the same eating system each day. A carb rotation diet forces you to change your plan depending on the day of the week.
Advantages Of Carb Rotation Diet
Days with high carbs give your muscles fuel while at the same time you are burning fat.
Why Should You Practice Carb Rotation Diet?
This is one of the best-planned eating regimes for maintaining muscle mass and burning body fat.
Conclusion
We gave you the comparison with all pros and cons. It is up to you to choose a plan that suits your needs the best and stick to it. Remember, no change happens overnight. As long as you persevere, the results will come.
