Gaining muscle in caloric deficit?

Princesail

Is this possible? And............ go!

jdlobb

at first, yes. long term, not really.

estherdragonbat

Maybe some small gains right at the beginning which taper off quickly. Otherwise, you can't gain muscle in a deficit, but you can retain and strengthen what you already have. And as you lose fat, you're likely to discover muscle definition, not because you've gained muscle, but because as the fat burns away, the existing muscle becomes more visible. (I've been in deficit for about ten months and a few weeks ago, I realized I had deltoids and quads.)

Depending on how heavy you are, you may have a surprising amount of muscle built up. My starting weight was 254 and the top of my ideal BMI is 140. So, carrying around an extra 114 lbs every waking moment (sorta like giving a smaller teen/adult a constant piggyback ride) does require a certain amount of strength. The problem is that without some sort of strength/resistance training, a significant amount of that muscle will be lost with your body fat. Which is why doing strength training during weight loss is a wise move even if very little new muscle will be built.

psuLemon

Minimally... but it tapers fairly quickly and is not ideal. The best reason to do resistance training is to help maintain muscle as it's easier to maintain muscle as opposed to grow new muscle.

sijomial

If you want an absolute answer to your absolute question then yes - of course it's possible.
Your body doesn't actually have a mode switch that it throws at TDEE minus one calorie.
Even if it had a way to "know" you were in a deficit of course.....

How big that deficit is makes a huge difference from my personal experience.

cwolfman13

Noob gains...especially if you have a ton of weight to lose. These are rather minimal though and don't last long...it's not like you're just going to pack on muscle in an energy deficit...muscle takes a lot of energy to grow and maintain...basically you can't really create something from nothing. To really build muscle you have to be in an anabolic state (calorie surplus)...when you're in a deficit, you're catabolic all the way.

MilesAddie

I can only speak from my experience:

When I started getting back into fitness, I had close to 40 pounds to lose (still have about 6) and I could eat at a '1 pound a week' weight loss deficit and developed muscle. I'm only 5'6, so thats good amount of weight on my frame. To be fair, I did eat usually about 400 more calories than was recommended by MFP (~2100 vs 1700) and lost and avg of 1.7 lbs a week. I had measurements taken and made significant gains in strength.

However, when I lost ~28 pounds, those gains stopped. And now that I have lost 34, they have started to go backward. And those sleeves that my arms filled out so well in my shirts - not so much.

It has got me thinking if I should drop all the way down to 160, or sacrifice that 1 or 2% body fat and get back to maintenance so I can get back to properly achieving my fitness goals.

Anyway, my 2 cents

AnnPT77

As a brand new lifter, lifting progressively with a sound program, you might gain a bit of muscle mass, especially if you are young, male, getting plenty of protein & generally sound nutrition, have quite a lot to lose, don't overdo the calorie deficit.

But almost anyone new to lifting can gain quite a bit of strength, even without gaining muscle mass, and strength is a wonderful thing to have. Furthermore, the lifting program will help you preserve existing muscle while losing weight, so you'll look better and feel better. The latter can happen, even for those not new to lifting.

Why worry about whether you'll gain mass? Strength training is totally worth doing, calorie deficit or otherwise.

xvolution

Sure there will be some gain as your body does a little recomp, but they'll be small gains.

Unknown

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ninerbuff

Possible yes. Probable unless one's diet and nutrition and/or PED's are involved, not likely.

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

weightlosschoripan

What I read is that with weight loss some muscle loss is inevitable. So I think you could maintain muscle mass but you are not going to get all kinds of gains while in a deficit...