How does Re Composition Work ?
Let me start with the following:
Any one who had been exercising and dieting PROPERLY for a long time had actually been under re composition process. Recomposition itself is an automatic process that happens with high quality life style. The real question is how can we re comp quickly, but in order to do so let us define and understand what re composition actually is.
Re Composition Meaning | Definition :
Re composition is the process of building muscles and losing fat in the same time. In other words, re shaping your body into better look. Obviously, this is the goal for lot of people, However, it seems unachievable for most of us.
The process of breaking fat storage and utilizing it as energy can happen within hours after exercising and starting proper diet. This is because your body uses fat as energy as soon as you run out of glycogen. This is easy to achieve especially if you delay your post workout meal. On the other hand, building muscles is a slower process that takes place when applying proper resistance on muscles over time and providing proper recovery for muscles to get bigger and stronger in order to adapt to the applied resistance used consistently. This is very obvious if you notice the amount of time needed to build some muscle mass after starting weight training.
Can I use body fat to build muscles ?
YES! Although it may seems bad news that building muscles takes much longer time compared to losing fat, in reality it is a big advantage. Not only a big advantage, it is actually the reason why we can prevent muscle loss, build muscles and burn fat over time.
To understand the above summary, we need to differentiate between the three processes :
1- Preventing Muscle Loss
2- Burning Fat
3- Building Muscles
The natural energy production system in human body is the connection between the first two processes (preventing muscle loss and burning fat). The point where your body is forced to use storage fat once glycogen is depleted in muscles and liver, is actually the reason why you can prevent muscle loss. This happens naturally so you do not have to worry about muscle loss. Now of course there are some cases where you can lose muscles but this happens with very poor nutrition and recovery.
While the energy production system in human body represents the connection between the first two processes, the huge time needed for the last process (building muscles) is our big advantage that enables us to burn fat on dialy basis while building our muscles slowly over time. This difference in timing between losing fat (which happens within hours everyday) and building muscles (which needs weeks and months) is the reason why re composition itself is an automatic result of consistent training and dieting.
Is it Possible to Speed Up Re Composition ?
YES! After explaining how re composition takes place naturally with consistent training and proper nutrition, let us discuss how can we re comp more quickly to get the results we want in few months instead of waiting years. Simply, we need to optimize our life style and daily habits in favor of building more muscles and burning more fat, with taking into consideration the importance of balance between the two processes.
1- Balanced Diet & Natural Food
Please stop following diets with low fat or low carb guidelines. Building muscles in shorter time needs a balanced diet that includes all macronutrients without excluding carbohydrates or fats. A balanced diet is crucial if you really want to build muscles in shorter time. Beside balanced diet, you need to exclude all the processed food from your diet. Just be realistic, If you really want quicker results, then you need to stop consuming processed food even it is claimed to be healthy. One of the reasons is that ingredients used in processed food are negatively affecting mitochondria ability to produce energy and therefore affecting your performance while training your muscles.
Another point is that eating a balanced diet that consists of unprocessed natural food will prevent you from worrying about how much is too much. This is because there is no way you can overeat from a natural food sources especially if you consider balanced proportions of the macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats and proteins).
Assuming you workout 4,5 or 6 times a week, consider around 1.6 grams of protein per kilo gram of your target body weight. Consider 20%-25% fat of your whole food intake, and fill up the rest with complex carbohydrates like barley, oats, and other high quality carbohydrates. Consider fruits as snacks.
To prevent over eating from certain macronutrient, keep in mind the following distribution :
- Proteins 30-40% (Depending on your target body weight)
- Carbohydrates 40-50%, (Depending on your type of exercises, Higher intensity needs more carbs than lower intensity).
- Fat 20-25%
2- Rest, Hormonal Balance, Mental Health & Stress
Although we need alertness and excitation to perform our daily tasks, we need also to have enough amount of recovery for our organs to keep doing the productivity output.
Adrenaline increases when doing certain exercises like heavy lifts, compound movements and high intensity training. This increase is resulted from the explosiveness and speed needed to perform such exercises. The continual stimulation of nervous system with the release of adrenaline can have a negative impact on your hormones and ability to sleep and rest which eventually decrease your body ability to build muscles, and burn fat. Therefore, you need to be wise about managing your daily tasks to avoid exhaustion. Finally, avoid stress at all costs. (check this article on oxidative stress by NCBI).
3- How Much Weight To Lift
Regardless of your diet plan or fitness goal, your training should always be progressive. The worst thing you can do is to pick lighter weights when trying to re comp or lose weight. This is because once you switch to lighter weights, your muscles will feel less resistance than what it already capable of, which makes it less in size as a response or adaptation to the new routine. The progressive mindset will prevent muscle loss because it will force your muscles to grow or at least maintain their size to keep moving the same weight regardless of your goal.
4- Do I Need Cardio or High Interval Intensity Training
For faster re comp, you need them both. Consider two days for each type. Why I Need Cardio or HIIT ? In order to have better and faster re composition, you need to be the healthiest version of your self. low and medium intensity cardio is not only necessary for burning fat, but it is also needed for your cardiovascular health. HIIT or high intensity training on the other hand enhances the functions of mitochondria as well as nervous system. Both cardio and HIIT have many other benefits on hormones, mood, etc...
Summary:
Re Composition is an automatic process for anybody who is exercising and dieting properly. However, you can improve it and speed it up with high quality nutrition, healthy life style and reasonable progressive resistance training. Building muscles does not happen over night, while fat loss can be noticed within a week, and this is why people often feels that they are losing muscles while doing a cut or re composition.