"You don't build muscles in a deficite"

yirara

I've read above comment here many times. yet I just did a search on pubmed and found several articles suggesting that it's possible to build muscles with a very moderate deficit. Where does this quote come from, and are there any properly done, peer reviewed studies with a big enough sample group to support this?

usmcmp

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10343909/lose-fat-gain-muscle-in-before-newbie-gains#latest

Not everyone makes the blanket statement of you can't build muscle in a deficit. If someone says they haven't lost weight and they started lifting two weeks ago, then others reply that they built muscle, that's often when people jump in to say you can't build in a deficit.

sunnybeaches105

It's simply an overstatement. It's possible, but not nearly as easy as when in a surplus.

ETA: this is one of my pet peeves since the people asking on MFP are often (not always) overweight and untrained, so they fit one of the exceptions to the "rule." The link referenced above is excellent.

SezxyStef

I will make that statement when faced with "oh you must have built muscle that's why you aren't losing"...but I preface it with unless you are obese, new to lifting or a teenage boy.

Recomp is building muscle and losing fat at a very small deficit or at maintenance....so yes it is possible to build muscle in a deficit but not the way most say it here.

yirara

Villae81 wrote: »

You build muscles in your kitchen and on your bed

Thats the first time I heard about that! Do you have any pear reviewed studies to support that claim?

_Bro

Muscles grow during your recovery time...
The impact of a deficit? Depends upon the duration and amount.
Cyclical diets can work really well if you are trying to get down to a really low bf% but tends to be counterproductive if you have a lots of weight to lose.

Spliner1969

If you are overweight you can be on a moderate deficit and still build muscle. I did. But only to an extent, and it took 5x longer. Increasing protein will help, but once the fat stores are gone and you're closer to you're goals you'll have to start reducing the deficit to keep it up, or start going the opposite direction. My humble opinion of course, at least that's been my experience over the last year or so.

sijomial

Where does the saying come from? Often from the people who can't build muscle in deficit - the very lean and already highly trained. So the logic becomes if I can't then no-one can!

The so called exceptions who can build some muscle in a deficit actually encompass large swathes of the population:
Overweight, under-trained, new to strength training, returning to strength training after a break, genetically gifted, young males in particular, a novel training stimulus.

When you are out and about amongst the general population as opposed to gym members you realise the lean and highly trained are really the exceptions. Sad but true.

Obviously being in a deficit hampers growth (or speed of growth) and excessive deficit is going to stop growth (unless there are exceptional circumstances like recovery from recent muscle loss - been there).

My personal tipping point as an older guy with decades of training but below my former strength peak seemed to be a deficit about half a pound a week. I lost mass at 1lb/week but saw and measured growth at 1lb/month loss.

rankinsect

Yes, you can build muscle in a deficit. It's slower and your muscle growth will plateau sooner, but most people could gain some.

No, the reason you haven't lost weight in two months in spite of a "deficit" is not because you gained 8 lb. of muscle.

blues4miles

Study shows some women losing both fat and muscle, (but only diet and aerobics I believe, no weight lifting):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3949547/

Study that was looking for potential drop in TDEE after calorie-restriction, but does show drop in fat AND muscle on average:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3075130/

This one seems to be a LOT like what you're looking for, though it's a small study, they were trying to figure out WHY people lose muscle mass when losing weight (what function/mechanism is the cause) though all the participants were sedentary and they describe they fed them fairly low protein to avoid the protein itself having an impact on the study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291735/

Study that shows the preserving effect of muscle for women when using a high protein diet:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12816768

Resistance training better preserves muscle in post-menopausal women (weight loss from weight loss surgery) they still appear to have lost some muscle though:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19247271

Young men who actually built muscle at a deficit consuming really high amounts of protein while doing resistance training. More protein made a difference, the ONLY study that shows muscle being built at a deficit, and since it was only young men hard to say if testosterone was a factor:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2016/01/26/ajcn.115.119339.abstract?sid=78fc4efb-e348-43c3-9701-2a59be984e27

jessef593

Certain "supplements" will allow you to build muscle on a mild deficit. I've tried to do it without that extra supplement and I got nowhere. My first profile picture is me after 4 months of lifting progressively, eating 170g of protein a day while on a 250 cal deficit. I got extremely lean, but build next to no muscle.

sijomial

Bed time reading!
This is very informative article by Lawrence Judd & Eric Helms with quite a few studies linked....

http://shreddedbyscience.com/can-you-gain-weight-in-a-calorie-deficit/

yirara

Whoa! Thanks a lot all! Very interesting reads! I read an abstract for a study that looked at the amount of muscles gained while being at a deficit earlier at work today. I think the conclusions where something like people with a very tiny deficite (for losing less than 1kg of fat per month I think) resulted in a minor gain. A higher deficit resulted in no gains, no muscles lost but I don't have the exact numbers anymore. *sigh* should have saved it.

sijomial

I've lost a few links since swapping laptops but there's a well known study done on high level athletes (but not in strength sports) comparing results with faster/slower rates of weight loss.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21558571

There's one I couldn't find again which I remember colloquially as "the fat policeman" study. (Apologies to law enforcement officers everywhere!)

Larissa_NY

amyrebeccah wrote: »

rankinsect wrote: »

Yes, you can build muscle in a deficit. It's slower and your muscle growth will plateau sooner, but most people could gain some.

No, the reason you haven't lost weight in two months in spite of a "deficit" is not because you gained 8 lb. of muscle.

THIS. Sure it's an overstatement, but people also drastically overestimate the amount that it's even possible to build on a surplus, let alone on a deficit.

For real. It is HARD to put on muscle. I'm actively trying to, and it really irritates me to hear overweight middle-aged women in the gym happily reassuring each other that they've put on five pounds of muscle since last week. NO YOU HAVEN'T, BTCHES. /issues

ninerbuff

It's not impossible, but when people are complaining that they gained 3lbs instead of lost 3lbs over a day, responses of "you are building muscle" do happen and that's inaccurate.
Muscle takes time to build even if one is INTENTIONALLY trying to gain it in a surplus.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

cwolfman13

I believe this stems more from the, "I've been working out for two weeks and I've gained 5 Lbs...is it muscle?" It takes a lot of time even in a surplus to put on any substantive amount of mass...yes, you can build muscle in a modest deficit, but it's incredibly slow...nobody is putting on slabs of muscle in a deficit in a matter of weeks and nobody is putting on muscle at a rate that is faster than their fat loss.

I've been maintaining for three years and in that time have been re-comping...it's taken me three years to put on about 5 Lbs of muscle...I don't log, so I assume there were times of deficit and times of surplus...but I'm leaner now with more muscle mass and slightly heavier.

kshama2001

jessef593 wrote: »

Certain "supplements" will allow you to build muscle on a mild deficit. I've tried to do it without that extra supplement and I got nowhere. My first profile picture is me after 4 months of lifting progressively, eating 170g of protein a day while on a 250 cal deficit. I got extremely lean, but build next to no muscle.

What did you do from picture 1 to picture 3? Nice job

cajuntank

Eric Helms has an article going into some researched studies on this topic, but also has some simple take home points. Good read.

http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/

amusedmonkey

Given that most people who are seemingly building muscle in a deficit are a) women b) on a 1200 calorie diet and c) apparently gained 3 lb of lean mass within a week, it's safe to say the above statement (though an oversimplification) is reasonably accurate for most of these cases. It's one thing to have newbie gains as a young man in a tiny deficit, a woman on a diet with a steep deficit is an entirely different beast.

jessef593

kshama2001 wrote: »

jessef593 wrote: »

Certain "supplements" will allow you to build muscle on a mild deficit. I've tried to do it without that extra supplement and I got nowhere. My first profile picture is me after 4 months of lifting progressively, eating 170g of protein a day while on a 250 cal deficit. I got extremely lean, but build next to no muscle.

What did you do from picture 1 to picture 3? Nice job

I worked out 5-6 days a week. Recorded all of my lifts with number of reps, sets, and weight. Ate at a surplus of 250-500 a day and went from 153 to 170lbs over the course of about 8 months. A bulk and cut is the way to go in my opinion.