Should You Lose Fat Or Bulk Up First To Be In Elite Shape?

Most men over 40 I talk to tell me they want to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club, Jason Statham in Transporter or Richard Butler in the movie 300.

It’s inevitable that to look like that you need a high muscle to fat ratio.

This means a lot of muscle mass with very little bodyfat.

One without the other doesn’t really give you a complete look and leaves more to be desired when seeing yourself in the mirror.

If you only lose fat, you will look skinny and weak.

If you only build muscle, you will look big and soft.

So with the goal of more muscle and less fat in mind, this leads us to one key question:

Is it better to bulk up or lose fat first?

Let me walk you through the mainstream approaches first, and then I’ll show you the Kinetic Method way.

Most conventional fitness programs have you go on a muscle building phase first.

The idea is that you put on as much muscle as you can, while inevitably accepting some fat gain in the process.

By the end of this phase, you may have acquired a solid 10 to 15 pounds of muscle with a near-equal or equal gain in fat.

This is the type of program bodybuilders follow.

The muscle building phase is their routine during the off-season.

During this time, they look almost unrecognizable from the way they appear on stage during competition.

Just do a Google search for “bodybuilders off-season vs competition” and you’ll see what we mean.

The Kinetic Method Way follows the complete opposite approach.

I have enough scientific and practical evidence to believe that losing fat first before bulking up is the smarter and more effective way.

There are 2 reasons for that.

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1. It takes about 4x longer to build muscle mass then it does to lose fat.

You can lose 1-2lbs of fat per WEEK, but you can only build 1-2lbs of muscle per MONTH.

Most men would like to pack on at least 20 pounds of muscle.

This is a slow process that takes at least a year, if not two years of consistent & intelligent training.

By contrast, it takes about 10-20 weeks to drop 20lbs of pure fat (not scale weight).

This is assuming that you’re following a science based approach like the Kinetic Method.

If you were, say, at 16% body fat level, then it would take about three months to hit 10%.

You can then transition to packing on muscle mass while maintaining your six pack.

While you may gain back some body fat in the process, it would only be by about 1% to 2%.

So going from 10% bodyfat to 12% bodyfat will still have you look very lean and strong while carrying around an extra 15-20 pounds of lean muscle mass.

If you follow conventional methods and did bulk up first at 16% bodyfat, then you would be at about 18% body fat by the time you’re done with the phase.

At that level, you won’t have much definition.

You’ll have more of a powerlifter physique.

Looks great when you wear clothes, not so great when you're naked or at the beach.

The hard-earned muscle won’t look dense and will definitely lack the sharp angular proportions.

You may actually look less muscular shirtless than let’s say a guy with 10 pounds less muscle mass than you.

Basically, you don’t look like you even lift.

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When you lose fat first you’ll look chiseled, and the results will even be more noticeable in your face as your jawline is more defined.

You’ll at least have the body of a male model, which is always nice even if you don’t yet have the desired muscle mass to go with it.

2. The second reason are hormones

Specifically, insulin and testosterone.

Body aesthetic isn’t the only reason to lose fat first.

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Having less body fat actually elevates testosterone levels, which helps you during the bulk up phase.

The more body fat you have the more estrogen your body produces, and vice versa.

The reason for this is because fat cells contain the estrogen-storing enzyme aromatase.

Estrogen, as you may know, is the dreaded female hormone that’s absolutely detrimental to testosterone gains.

We all know that testosterone is correlated with more muscle growth.

So at a lower % of bodyfat you’ll put yourself in a win-win situation.

The higher testosterone will make your muscle building efforts easier.

The second hormone is insulin.

When you’re leaner, your insulin sensitivity is improved.

Your A1C levels, fasted blood glucose and fasted insulin on a blood panel are in optimal range.

When that happens, your body is able to store more of the extra nutrients you give it during a bulking phase as muscle instead of fat.

This is key to staying lean while packing on muscle mass.

By eating about 200 calories more during a lean bulk, maybe 180-190 of those calories will be used to build lean muscle mass while the other 10-20 calories will get stored as fat.

For every 10 pounds of muscle mass you gain, you only gain 1 pound of fat.

That's a pretty great trade off.

With poor insulin levels, which happens when you have too high bodyfat, from those 200 calories extra only 120-130 may be used to build muscle mass, and 70-80 calories will be stored as fat.

In this case for every 10 pounds of muscle mass you gain, you have about 4 pounds of fat that come along with it.

That’s about 4x more fat storage!

By following the Kinetic Method Way you put yourself in a very desirable situation that when eating more, the extra calories go straight into your biceps, your chest, your shoulders and large back while taking a big turn around your belly and love handles.

Many guys make the mistake to not go down all the way to 10% bodyfat because they are too scared to look skinny.

What’s overlooked is that you don’t have to stay there, it’s just one milestone.

Then you pack on muscle mass and you’ll look amazing.

Don’t let that stop you from going al the way down to 10%.

You don't want to be the guy who cuts down, then bulks up, cuts, bulks and stays in mediocrity for the rest of his life.

You only need to lose all the fat once, remember that.

So what if you’re too skinny?

Some men fear that they’ll look too skinny if they lose fat first.

This is especially true for men prone to the skinny fat physique or those who were grossly underweight in the past.

These people may already appear lean in the arms, face, and other parts of the body except in the midsection where they have a noticeable girth.

For some men, the fat stores in the belly is the last part to go.

If this is you, then I still recommend cutting up first to lose the belly fat.

Don’t be so focused on how you look now and keep your eyes set on how you’ll look in six months.

Delaying gratification is key here!

Don’t make a big deal out of it if you look pencil thin for the first few months.

With all that being said, I don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach.

This is why I believe there are exceptions on the lose-fat-first paradigm.

I actually believe it may be beneficial to bulk up first if you have already lost a sizable amount of weight from following some other diet program.

In this case, it may be best to go on a lean bulk just to give your body a break from the constant calorie deficit.

This also allows your testosterone and leptin levels to go up, not to mention your metabolism.

Once you’re done bulking up and transition to a fat loss phase, the fat will also come off easier since your body is in a more optimal hormonal state.

It’s why every new client fills out an initial intake form where I personally outline the full strategy from A-Z to get them six pack lean with 10-20lbs of muscle mass on top of it.