As a coach I’m often asked for the best diet plan for fat loss / muscle gain. In fact, this might be the most common question any strength or conditioning athlete asks! After all who doesn’t want to build muscle and lose body fat. The good news is that it’s certainly possible to do so, provided you follow a reasonable diet and training plan. In this article I will review recent research that examined over 514 studies on this very subject. Keep reading to see their conclusions.
As you might imagine I’ve done quite a bit of research for this article. No, I didn’t read all 514 studies myself. I’m of the opinion that it’s better to work smarter, rather than harder. Instead, I’ve read several recent research summaries that cover all aspects of gaining muscle mass, and losing body fat.
When looking for the best studies to include in this article, I’ve tried to restrict myself to literature regarding natural bodybuilders. However, there are a few decent articles that include information on enhanced athletes, which I will include to give some perspective. Take a look below for an overview of the best training and nutrition practices for muscle gain and fat loss.
Research Based Diet Plan for Fat Loss / Muscle Gain
- Weekly weight loss rates should be kept to 0.5 – 0.7% of bodyweight
- Protein intake should be between 1 – 1.4 g / pound of bodyweight / day
- Carbohydrate intake should be between 0.9 – 2.3 g / pound of bodyweight / day
- Fat intake should be between 0.23 – .45 g / pound of bodyweight / day
- Training volume should be between 20-30 sets per muscle group per week
- Cardiovascular training should be no more then 480min per week
- Creatine is best used at 3-10 g per day
- Caffeine can be ingested at 0.5- 2.7 mg / pound / day
The majority of this research is based off of research analysis from competitive bodybuilders. I’ve done my best to restrict the literature I’m including to natural athletes, as that is most applicable to more people.
As you’ll see, the research is fairly straight forward. There are no special tips that cause the fat to melt, with no effort. The most important factor is to follow a reasonable fitness routine, and nutrition plan.
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The Best Diet Plan for Fat Loss / Muscle Gain: Research
After reading quite a bit of research, it’s clear that there are some strong correlates that can help you create the best diet plan for fat loss / muscle gain. Most of the literature is agnostic on the types of food you eat. Instead, it focuses on achieving the right macronutrient strategy.
In this research article entitled, “Achieving an Optimal Fat Loss Phase in Resistance-Trained Athletes: A Narrative Review” we see just that. It covers just about everything you need to build a research backed diet plan to lose body fat. Here are their recommendations.
Best Diet Plan for Fat Loss / Muscle Gain: Macro Nutrient Recommendations
This narrative review recommends that athletes follow a high protein, moderate carbohydrate diet, with the balance of calories coming from fats. They recommend the following macronutrient ratios, which you can see below.
- Protein Metric Units: 2.2 – 3 g / kg of bodyweight / day
- Protein Imperial Units: 1 – 1.4 g / pound of bodyweight / day
- Carbohydrates Metric Units: 2 – 5 g / kg of bodyweight / day
- Carbohydrates Imperial Units: 0.9 – 2.3 g / pound of bodyweight / day
- Fats Metric Units: 0.5-1 g/kg bodyweight/day
- Fats Imperial Units: 0.23 – .45 g / pound of bodyweight / day
For meal timing and frequency, the authors recommend 3-6 meals per day, with four to five protein intakes. Ideally there would be protein ingested before and after a resistance training workout, within 2-3 hours on either side.
These recommendations are fairly wide because most research shows that as long as you’re eating the right amount it doesn’t much matter when you eat it. They also recommend a multi vitamin when dieting due to decreased diversity in food choices.
While this gives us the range of food to eat, it doesn’t give us the amount we should eat to achieve optimal fat loss. This is what we’ll discuss in the next section. If you’re looking for an awesome functional bodybuilding program to pair with your nutrition plan, then check this out.
Optimal Fat Loss Rates for Athletes
Here the authors recommend a weekly weight loss rate of 0.5 – 1% of body mass per week. Most research indicates that lower levels of weekly weight loss correlate to increased retention of muscle mass. In other words, the more severe your diet is, the more muscle mass you stand to lose.
In my own diet plans, I like to aim for 0.7% loss per week. I find that this level of weight loss lets me maintain my strength and muscle mass. I tend not to diet to single digit body fat percentages, like most bodybuilders do.
It’s only at these extremely low body fat levels, that most muscle mass is lost. To demonstrate this let’s take a look at an interesting case study of a elite natural bodybuilder.
A Natural Bodybuilding Case Study
In this research case study entitled, “Alterations in Body Composition, Resting Metabolic Rate, Muscular Strength, and Eating Behavior in Response to Natural Bodybuilding Competition Preparation: A Case Study,” we see some interesting effects across a competitive bodybuilding season.
The researchers tracked and measured all aspects of the subjects training for 11 months. They examined food intake, lifting volume, cardiovascular training, as well as body composition. Interestingly enough, they actually found that he was able to gain muscle mass and lose body fat during the beginning of his diet.
The subject is a white male, starting at 219 pounds, before the diet. At that bodyweight he was 9% body fat, which is very lean by normal standards. In the first month he lost 1.3% body fat, and gained 0.6% fat free mass. In the second month of the diet he lost an additional 1% body fat, and gained about 0.1% fat free mass.
To put that in absolute terms, he lost about 5 pounds of fat, and gained 1.5 pounds of muscle. This is very impressive considering that he is already near his genetic potential for muscle mass, and started his diet in a very lean condition.
More impressively, the researchers also measured his muscle thickness with a more accurate method, ultrasound. They found that he increased muscle thickness 3% in the first month of his diet. However, that was never going to last, as he got leaner.
Losing Muscle Mass While Dieting
The authors noted that the subject maintained muscle mass throughout the first five months of the diet. He began to lose mass in months 6-8, ultimately decreasing muscle mass by 7%. Not to worry, these levels of muscle mass quickly increased post competition back to baseline. Check out this chart below.
You can see that much of the muscle mass was lost as he got to the competitive season. This coincided with his lowest body fat levels, which ended around 4%. This is good news for us as I bet the majority of you reading this would be perfectly happy with a 7-9% body fat level. In fact, if you read this review of performance stats for top CrossFit athletes, you’ll see that the ideal body fat level for elite performance is generally around 10% for males.
Now that we’ve covered macronutrient intake, as well as the optimal weight loss rate, we can move on to some other important aspects for creating the best diet plan for fat loss / muscle gain. In the next section we’ll review some guidelines on fitness routines, as well as the ideal amount of cardiovascular training.
Fitness Programming and Cardio
This is another area where there is a lot of scientific agreement. In this research study entitled, “Training, Supplementation, and Pharmacological Practices of Competitive Male Bodybuilders Across Training Phases, ” we see exactly what kind of programming these top level athletes are engaging in. The authors in this study sent out an in depth questionnaire to determine which kinds of bodybuilding practices they actually used. These are their findings.
- 85% of athletes performed split routines with 4-7 sessions per week being most common
- More than 50% trained major muscle groups twice per week
- Most common session duration 60-90 minutes
- Off season training volume: 2-3 muscle groups, 2-3 exercises per group / per session
- Most athletes chose 3-4 sets per exercise
- 72% of athletes kept the training load to 7-12 rep max
- 80% chose a 1-3 minute rest period between sets
For pure bodybuilding training, this level of difficulty falls right in line with most research recommendations for advanced athletes. When bodybuilders switched to their fat loss phase, the quite often focused on fewer body parts per session, and engaged in more cardiovascular training, increasing overall activity level. This brings us to our next question. Just how much cardio should you do to lose weight?
If you want a super challenging bodybuilding program, then you should check out my advanced plan below.
Dieting and Cardiovascular Training Volume
This is one area where research and coaching recommendations differ somewhat. You can find a lot of research showing that high intensity interval training HIIT is superior for fat loss. In general, an increase in heart rate during cardio training, is associated with an increase in weight lost. However, there are some practical drawbacks of HIIT training, especially for non obese athletes.
In this research study entitled, “Bodybuilding Coaching Strategies Meet Evidence-Based Recommendations: A Qualitative Approach,” we see exactly what coaches are recommending. This study was very interesting as the authors sent surveys to the most successful bodybuilding coaches. To qualify they must have coached at least one professional IFBB or NPC bodybuilding athlete. Many of them had coached several championship athletes over the years.
Approximately 67% of these coaches recommended fasted cardio to their athletes. They did so because it quite often worked out for the athletes schedule. Research shows, there is no additional benefit to fasted cardio, in terms of enhanced fat loss. Check out their recommendations from the excerpt below.
Relative to exercise intensity, low-intensity steady state (LISS) and moderate-intensity steady state (MISS) were the most common across all groups. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) was almost never mentioned, with the only exception being in the enhanced male competitor category. On a weekly basis, cardiovascular exercise duration was higher in female competitors, ranging from 40 to 740 min per week for both natural and enhanced female competitors. Cardiovascular exercise duration was between 0 and 480 min per week for enhanced male competitors, and 40 and 480 min per week for natural male competitors.
Bodybuilding Coaching Strategies Meet Evidence-Based Recommendations: A Qualitative Approach
I did find it interesting that they had different recommendations for athletes using PEDs and natural athletes. If we focus our attention on the natural athletes, we see this works out to roughly 80 minutes of cardio, six days per week, on the high end for natural competitors.
They often recommended incline walking, elliptical machines, or cycling for cardio. This makes sense because these are low impact choices, and they have a very low recovery requirement. You don’t want to choose a high impact cardio method, like running sprints, when you’re already in a caloric deficit, and training hard in the gym. There’s just not enough ability to recover from all of that, while reducing calorie intake.
These top level coaches are recommending Zone 1 or Zone 2 cardio for their athletes. You see it’s not just hybrid athletes that can benefit from aerobic conditioning work! Now that we have some good guidelines to follow, let’s put together an example diet and training plan to lose some weight, and perhaps gain some muscle tissue.
Example Diet Plan
First we will start with our diet plan. I use the app My Fitness Pal to track total caloric intake and macros. It’s free, and many researchers have used it for their subjects. For optimal fat loss, you should aim for a 500-700 calorie deficit for the first two weeks. I recommend weighing yourself every day, so you can obtain a good average value. Remember we want a weight loss rate of roughly 0.7% of bodyweight per week.
As a practical consideration, you need to realize that even when you weigh and measure food there will be error. Not all nutrition labels are accurate, but a food scale does bring precision to measurements. I find that if I run a 1000 cal deficit I end up in the right weight loss range.
It’s likely that I’m actually in a smaller deficit, but those are the number of calories that work for me. You’ll have to play with your caloric intake to get the right weight loss rate.
Next you need to create meals that fall within the macro recommendations above. I like to plan for grams of protein first, and then carbs. For carbs you need to pick sources that are lower in calories. I prefer berries, some grains, brown rice, and few processed carb sources. Fats should make up the rest of the calories you need to maintain the correct deficit.
Try to choose nutrient-dense foods, with lower calories for your diet. These things tend to be lean meats, or dairy like greek yogurt, with fewer whole grains, and not too much fat. Remember each gram of protein and carb is 4 calories. One gram of fat is 9 calories. It can be hard to create a calorie deficit when eating a high fat diet.
The old CrossFit advice of sticking to the perimeter of the supermarket is still correct. There you’ll find foods with fewer calories with enough energy to meet your nutritional needs. It really is the best way to follow the dietary guidelines we spoke about previously. You’ll also find that meal planning, and cooking your food a few times a week will yield the best results.
Example Workout Plan
This is one area where I have you covered with just about any lifting program you could desire. I have pure bodybuilding programs, hybrid programs with lifting and cardio, or more traditional functional fitness programs. You’ll find a list of my most popular programs below. I recommend checking them out to see which ones appeal the most to you.
- The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (Most popular training program)
- 9 Week Functional Fitness Strength Program (Strength biased program with short intense WODs)
- 8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan (Best program for strength and endurance)
- 10 Week Functional Power Building Program (Best program for strength and anaerobic power)
- 12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (For advanced lifters)
As a practical matter, I like to engage in the higher end of the cardio recommendations. I find that it allows me to eat more food, without making it too difficult to recover from. My preferred method is using the online program Zwift paired with an Assault bike. This really makes cardio fun, and gives you a lot of in game goals to aim for. Zwift has really helped me achieve my goal bodyweight every time I do a diet.
If you’re choosing to follow a weight training program that doesn’t have cardio built in, make sure you engage in cardio training 4-6 hours away from the gym workouts. This will minimize muscle loss, and allow sufficient recovery. You can read more about that here. Now let’s finish this article up with some final thoughts.
Final Thoughts
We’ve covered a lot of detailed information in this article, but I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed. You don’t need to follow every recommendation to achieve your fitness goals. Don’t make perfect the enemy of good. Find foods that fit your specific caloric needs. Eat enough lean proteins, with enough carbs and fats to support your strength training and cardio requirements, while maintaining a weight loss rate of 0.5-1% per week.
It doesn’t really matter what the app says your deficit is. If your weight loss rate is within range, and you’re following a proper nutrition plan, then you’ll be ok.
Lastly, don’t neglect sleep. There is a lot of research showing that lack of sleep drastically inhibits your ability to lose fat. It also increases your cravings for sugary drinks, and fast food. This is not a viable method to decrease fat mass!
Lastly, I always think it’s a good idea to get some blood work, and consult with a medical doctor prior to your diet. It’s important to make sure you’re in good shape to start a diet plan. If you have any comments or questions put them in the section below, and I’ll get you an answer. Don’t forget to join the email list below. Now get out there and get training!
We are not affiliated with any other company . Each workout plan is entirely owned by Tier Three Tactical and we recommend that you exercise under the supervision of a professional coach. It’s also recommended that you seek medical clearance from a licensed medical doctor before starting any fitness program.
