Bodybuilding is not just about accumulating body mass but specifically, building compact muscles. Development of muscle fibers basically involves two bodily processes: accumulation of additional protein derived nutrients to facilitate the ever increasing demand for energy in workouts and the conversion of fats into both energy and fibers.

Ten percent of the calories a body burns in a day is to process the nutrients consumed. Human muscle cells burn calories relatively faster than they burns fat cells. This essentially means that the more muscles a body builder develops, the more calories he can burn. When a body builder deprives the body the essential calories while engaging in demanding workouts, the body automatically slows down the metabolism so as to conserve fuel.

If aerobics are incorporated in bodybuilding, they boost fat combustion for a maximum duration of an hour. Therefore, body builders don't have to exercise to burn their calories because any kind of movement like walking, climbing heights or mowing the lawn adds up to fat burning incentive. This helps reduce unnecessary body weight to save up "space" for compact muscles.

The body composition of a body builder is the best indicator of fitness than body weight, since at the very basic, muscle tissues are heavier than the fat tissues. The successful conversion of fat to muscle fiber, bodybuilders alter the essential composition and shape of their body.

But fat is not all bad in the body. Concentrated fat molecules are known to slow down the digestion process. This helps maintain a constant energy supply to the body, without feeling hungry at odd times or between meals. Fat is a very crucial constituent of all cell membranes. It assists in absorbing digested vitamins A, D, E and K. The body builder needs these four vitamins for better vision, firm and rigid bones, a healthy heart and effective blood clotting ability, respectively.

There are some right kinds of fats like monounsaturated fats and omega3 fatty acids. These fats are risk-free. The key for any builder is eating the right types of fat and to ensure that he doesn't eat more fat than his body needs. The number of grams of fat that should be consumed can be calculated by multiplying the number of calories you consumed daily by the overall percentage of calories essentially from fats that are preferred in the diet divided by nine.

A good example of such a calculation is for a person who consumes roughly 1800 calories while the percentage of calories derived from fat in the preferred diet is about 30% or .3. Thus such a bodybuilder can eat 60 grams of fat.

For those body builders with more fat in their frames than necessary, they should eat a healthy breakfast, then eat small and frequent meals throughout the day and then improve their workouts to constitute aerobics. Incidentally, this will also help add more muscle. This in turn improves the efficiency fat combustion useful in toning the body, because the more muscle you have, the quicker you burn fat.

The body builder's quickest way to shape up is incorporating strength and toning exercises alternated with aerobic exercises.