Can I lose fat and gain muscle following a muscle and size program

[drd3000]

This is my first post and I am hoping that someone will be able to give me some sound advice.

I am 30 years old, 5"10 and my weight seems to fluctuate between 195-203 pounds, I am not 100% sure of my body fat but a machine I just looked at read it at 35% (I have had machines read it at 22%).
I am currently following the muscle and size programme Mon - Upper body, Tues - Lower body, Thurs UB, Fri LB Weekend off. I try and play squash on my gym rest day. I work in an office with zero physicall effort

I have been training for 18 months although there was an eight month gap due to a broken arm, back now though. You can tell I train (big arms, big chest etc) but there is not the desired definition

My diet has been bad, takeaways and too much alcohol during the weekends. I understand that this is the first thing I must address before anything else. Given the fact that this bad diet stops, my questions are as follows:

[B]Can I lose body fat while intaking the amount of carbs recommended to increase muscle?
If I dont eat the carbs, will my body use my excess fat to achieve the muscle growth?
I am currently taking a protein, creatine, HMB etc supplement (competitor equivalent to MyProtein Hurricane - soon to change to MyProtein ). Is this a good thing to take in my situation or should I just take protein?
Do I need to follow a weight loss programme before building muscle?

Sorry if my questions seem naive but I know nothing about diet and it seems that 80% of what I want to achieve (mens health physique) is down to diet. Any help appreciated.

[stronglikewood]

Quote

This is my first post and I am hoping that someone will be able to give me some sound advice.

I am 30 years old, 5"10 and my weight seems to fluctuate between 195-203 pounds, I am not 100% sure of my body fat but a machine I just looked at read it at 35% (I have had machines read it at 22%).
I am currently following the muscle and size programme Mon - Upper body, Tues - Lower body, Thurs UB, Fri LB Weekend off. I try and play squash on my gym rest day. I work in an office with zero physicall effort

I have been training for 18 months although there was an eight month gap due to a broken arm, back now though. You can tell I train (big arms, big chest etc) but there is not the desired definition

My diet has been bad, takeaways and too much alcohol during the weekends. I understand that this is the first thing I must address before anything else. Given the fact that this bad diet stops, my questions are as follows:

Can I lose body fat while intaking the amount of carbs recommended to increase muscle?
1. If you are following the 2-3g of carbs per lbs of bodyweight you are probably best keeping this to the lower end of the scale. You can lose bodyfat on either of these ammounts as total calories is probably most important. It could be quite a miserable diet with quite a lot of hunger if you reduce calories but still eat 2-3g of carbs per lbs of boydweight. For fat loss I prefer less than 50g perday but as a beginner switching to 1-1.5g of carbs per lbs of bodyweight, per day would have good results initially if you have been eating 2 or 3g per lbs previously.
If I dont eat the carbs, will my body use my excess fat to achieve the muscle growth?
2. If you eat a low carb, higher fat diet with a decent ammount of protein it is possible to alter the ratio of fat to muscle of your body over many months without any noticable scale weight changes. This is very possible in a beginner but takes increasingly longer as you become more advanced to the point where someone advanced is better off bulking and cutting seperately. This may not be the case for a beginner and they may be able to lose weight yet build muscle at the same time for a little while atleast.
I am currently taking a protein, creatine, HMB etc supplement (competitor equivalent to MyProtein Hurricane - soon to change to MyProtein ). Is this a good thing to take in my situation or should I just take protein?
3. No these are fine even on a cut, and probably more useful on a cut as a diet can often lead to deficiencies.
Do I need to follow a weight loss programme before building muscle?
4. No, but it might be useful to get reasonably lean before you start trying to gain weight. If you are overweight and try to gain more then quite often you just get fatter as it is difficult to tell what is muscle and what is more fat. Apparently the ratio can be 4:1 Fat:Muscle if you are already overweight. I read that from Dr John Beradi a few years back.

Sorry if my questions seem naive but I know nothing about diet and it seems that 80% of what I want to achieve (mens health physique) is down to diet. Any help appreciated.

Hi mate, I tried to answer your questions as best I could. If my answers aren't right then hopefulyl someone else can chime in. I hope they help somewhat though!

[SpiderDan]

SLW's advise is pretty sound.

If you were untrained, I would have stuck you on an isolcaloric diet, greatly improved the quality of your food choices and got you in the gym for a few months.

But given the fact that you have been training and you're not underweight a fatloss program should work for you. Pick a plan though it makes it a lot easier to keep track...

Just a few:

Lyle McDonald seems to know what hes talking about

Berardi has been mentioned got good results.

Christian Thibadeaus early stuff (carb cycling codex, war room strategies for fat loss, refined physique transformation) seems to have worked well for people

Intermittant fasting has taken off on this website maybe look into that.