Gaining or maintaining your muscle can post quite a challenge once you switch into diet mode. Perhaps you have an event coming up and want to shed just a few more pounds off your already lean frame. Or maybe you’re a beginning to bodybuilder and have a lot of weight to lose and a lot of muscle to gain. The fact is; the longer and harder you have to diet, the most muscle you risk losing.

As your body weigh and lean body mass increases, so does your body fat. Eating more calories is the quickest way to gain muscle right along with fat. Dieting is a great way to lose the fat, but unfortunately, it’s also a great way to lose that muscle you’ve worked hard to build.

The key to retaining muscle can actually be through the one kind of food most people are taught to “fear” and that is carbs. Carbs and insulin have been labeled the deadly duo for weight loss and with good reason. Eating too many carbs will have you gaining weight fast, but this same food group can also have you retaining muscle when eaten correctly. Even those dieting, that are taking in a lower than normal amount of carbs, can target them as a way to retain muscle and keep energy levels high.

The trick in making this work is all in the timing and in the numbers. You do need to limit carbs in order to lose fat, but you also want as much glucose in your body as possible to spare your muscles. Remember that fat and carbs go hand in hand when dieting, so you also want to be sure your protein intake is where it should be.

The body is typically dominant in one of the two types of calories burning, ketogenic metabolism and glucose metabolism. One is generally higher than the other at given times. The body either uses glucose (carbs) or fat for energy. Keeping your intake of fat low while dieting will enable you to eat more muscle-sparing carbs.

The more the body is restricted from cabs, the more time the body spends burning fat, along with muscle. A loss of only a pound or two a week, while dieting, can ensure that muscle is being spread as much as possible and there are enough carbs still in the diet to maintain it.