How to build muscle and burn fat after 50

How to build muscle and burn fat after 50 requires a plan that involves a mix of strength training, cardio training, a good diet plan, discipline and consistency.

In other words, it is far easier said than done.

Let’s examine each of these issues.

The diet formula for building muscle and burning fat

Building muscle while burning fat presents a bit of a conundrum.

To build muscle, the body needs to be fed.

You need a significant amount of protein to allow the body to adapt to your training by building muscle.

You also need a decent amount of carbs in order to have the energy to train.

At the same time, you need to operate at a calorie deficit to burn fat.

Therefore, you have to walk a fine line.

If you eat too much, you won’t burn any fat.  If you eat too little, you won’t build any muscle.

Here is the process you must follow to determine how much to eat.

First, determine your initial target weight.

Let’s say you are 55 years old and you currently weight 250 pounds, and you stand 5’10 inches tall.

Head on over to Calculator.net and calculate your Base Metabolic Rate (BMR).

Your BMR is the number of calories you need to maintain your weight without doing anything more than sleeping.

If you meet the description above and you are a male, you need to eat 1,975 calories per day just to maintain your weight.

Now, multiply that figure by 1.375.  That equates to 2,716 calories.

This is the amount you must eat to maintain your weight with a very moderate level of exercise each week.  This would be your daily target.

When you are training, you will actually be burning more calories on a daily basis than you would at this moderate level of exercise.

Next, you want to determine how much protein to consume.

If your initial goal is to get down to 225 pounds, you will want to consume anywhere from 175 to 225 grams of protein per day to build muscle.

Here you must figure out your primary sources of protein and determine how many grams of protein you will get from a serving, and how many calories are contained in that serving.

Once you have all that figured out, you round out your diet with carbs and a low amount of fat.

As you can see, you WILL need to count your calories… every last one, if you want to achieve your goal.

Muscle Building

There are literally a gazillion routines you can follow to build muscle.

However, we also want to build a good amount of strength as we are building muscle.

The more strength we have, the more weight we can lift, and therefore, the more muscle we can build.

Also, increased strength will allow you to enjoy a higher quality of life… who doesn’t want that?

Based upon my own experience and research, I’ve come up with a program that hits the sweetspot for building muscle and strength.

The training revolves around the four big compound movements for building strength… the squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press.

However, unlike some popular programs focused on developing pure strength, we train these exercises with a higher amount of reps, but our training frequency with the exercises is reduced.

The effect is that we will add strength a bit more slowly, but when we add in the accessory exercises to the program, more work is done.

As a result, we will build a good amount of muscle.

For example… a couple popular strength training routines will have you squat three days per week in the early stages of training.

Instead, we’ll train three days per week, but we will only squat every other workout.  On those days, we will add in a couple other leg exercises such as leg extensions, lunges, etc.  Also, we will do a few more reps with the squat as well.

The goal for training this way is to not only add muscle and strength, but to burn a few more calories than we normally would if just training for pure strength.

How to build muscle AND burn fat

Ok, we’ve talked about building muscle and dieting at a small calorie deficit.

Now we’ve got to burn some more calories during the week.

When we are strength training, our workouts will typically last anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes.

However, the reality is that we are only burning a few hundred calories at most during these workouts.

Therefore, on our off days, we need to continue burning more calories.

Here is another conundrum… too much cardio exercise with too much intensity will actually result in muscle loss.

Therefore, we need to be smart about our cardio training.

Another goal of cardio training, aside from fat loss, is to build cardiovascular endurance and improve our metabolic function.

Strength training helps in both of these areas.

However, there is a type of cardio training known as Zone 2 cardio that allows you to build significant cardiovascular endurance AND improve your metabolic function through increasing the efficiency of your mitochondria.

Zone 2 cardio involves less intensive cardio exercise that is also very efficient at burning fat.

The best way to do a Zone 2 workout is indoors on a bike, elliptical, treadmill or rower where you can stay at an even pace for the entire workout.

You need to be able to stay at the same pace to keep your heart rate in Zone 2, which is about 60%-70% of your maximum heart rate.  This allows the body to burn fat for energy.

Zone 2 work is a bit boring, so instead of doing Zone 2 cardio on all your off days, do some higher intensity cardio exercise now and then as well.

Higher intensity exercise will also help you develop more cardiovascular endurance and keep your metabolism at a higher level for longer.

However, you want to limit this type of exercise to less than 35 minutes per session, as you will start to use up muscle as a source of energy.

I recommend doing two Zone 2 sessions per week and one higher intensity routine once per week.

Increase your daily activity

One of the big keys to changing your body composition, i.e., building muscle and burning fat, is to increase your overall daily activity.

If all you do is sit at a desk all day, and workout for 30 to 90 minutes, you may not get the results you want.

Therefore, it’s a good idea to find an activity or two that helps to keep you off your ass more than you need to be.

Some activities can replace the cardio sessions.

Long walks, yard work, hiking, rucking, training in a martial art, pickleball, tennis and even golf are activities you can do that will help you burn some calories outside of your training sessions.

You’ll also probably get more enjoyment from them than from doing a 60 minute Zone 2 workout on an exercise bike and still get much of the benefit.

Discipline

If you want to build muscle and lose fat after 50, you are going to need to be disciplined in your approach.

Yes, it will require you to make some lifestyle changes.

The biggest one will likely be diet.  You will need to learn to eat to live, rather than live to eat.

Many people treat food as a pleasure rather than as a necessity.  This tends to lead to overconsumption.

If you want to achieve your goals, discipline will be key.

You’ll need to exercise discipline when shopping, dining out, or just visiting with friends and family.

Consistency

Lastly, you will need to remain consistent with your training.

The longer you stick with it and experience results, the easier this will become.

Many people dread working out or going to the gym, or they just don’t like it.

Those are the people that make any excuse to skip a training session.  Therefore, they rarely experience the results they desire.

Final thoughts – how to build muscle and burn fat after 50

One advantage you have if you are starting out a bit overweight is that your body will burn fat for energy while you are dieting at a calorie deficit.

Therefore, as long as you are training and consuming enough protein, you will still build strength and muscle.

That advantage will disappear slowly over time as you become leaner.  Then you will have to pay closer attention to your diet and training in order to thread the needle, so to speak.

There is one caveat for people over 50… we synthesize protein into muscle less efficiently than we did when we were younger.

This is why younger people can build muscle while consuming less protein.

Consuming enough protein can feel like a job at times, so you may want to incorporate a protein supplement into your diet.

If you are reading this looking for a solution, you may feel a bit overwhelmed.

The key is to just get started and go from there.  The longer you put things off, the more difficult the process will become.

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