Can somebody please explain this to me..?

tina2222

Many, many people on here have said that "you cannot build muscle on a calorie deficit". If this is true then how is it possible for me to be eating a calorie deficient diet, not lose any weight but lose a lot of inches? After losing a few lbs and a few inches when i joined mfp, i reached a plateau and I have been at/around the same weight for the past four weeks but have lost a dress size! How can this be? Btw i am not and was not obese when i started this journey and was only 2kg/4lbs overweight (according to BMI)

Secret_Agent_007

People seem to have mixed replies on this topic. I asked the same question. IMHO, it depends on your body and how much weight you lift when you train.

yesiwillbeloosingit

Many people say many things-- It does not mean that is true or correct.. It might be true for them - but it does not mean it is for your body.

I think you can build muscle on a calorie deficit.. BUT is it healthy ? - how much of a deficit are you talking about and so on..

I think you should listen to your body instead of what "many people" say and see what it is telling you.. GL with everything

BeautyFromPain

Jillian Michaels and a lot of other PT's say it is possible so I listen to them..

flimflamfloz

I think you can build muscle on a calorie deficit.. BUT is it healthy ? - how much of a deficit are you talking about and so on..

This pretty much.

Everyone (potentially) can.

Except (for example) if you are at 10% body fat, a hardgainer, bodybuilding all day long and eating 3500 cals a day already. No, this person would not gain on a calorie deficit. And there are many other scenarios where the muscle gain would not happen...

So if that works for you for the moment, just keep doing it!

PS: As a general rule, when you start lifting weights, you will gain muscle/lose fat. Then it slows down.

tina2222

Many people say many things-- It does not mean that is true or correct.. It might be true for them - but it does not mean it is for your body.

I think you can build muscle on a calorie deficit.. BUT is it healthy ? - how much of a deficit are you talking about and so on..

I think you should listen to your body instead of what "many people" say and see what it is telling you.. GL with everything

Well in my experience i think i HAVE built muscle on a calories deficit. I see a huge improvement in muscle tone all over my body - and its not just because the fats gone lol i FEEL strong. I weight train most days for up to an hour using free weights. I love it! So poo to all the people saying i havent gained muscle. Lol you explain it to me then! And btw its not water weight keeping me at the same weight. I drink btween 10 and 14 glasses a day and my sodium is always under...

tina2222

Jillian Michaels and a lot of other PT's say it is possible so I listen to them..

LOVE jillian. I will listen to her too

Chairless

Yep i still dont get this

I may be on a calorie defecit but i also have fat to lose, so muscle can only be produced from energy from fresh food and not break down fat and use that energy? i dont buy it.

People say you need protein to build muscle which is true but fat is stored everything, including protein.

Coltsman4ever

This same subject came up yesterday.
Research has shown that a beginner can gain muscle by weight training while in a calorie deficit.
From the research I've done, the average person will only gain about 1 pound of muscle per month if working out at a pretty intense level 3 times per week. These gains can be expected for about the first six months. After that it will be hard to gain muscle in a calorie deficit. You can work out to maintain the muscle you have during the deficit, however.

Editied to add: I forgot to mention, out of the studies I read, they were done using young men. Women may see slower progress.

tina2222

This same subject came up yesterday.
Research has shown that a beginner can gain muscle by weight training while in a calorie deficit.
From the research I've done, the average person will only gain about 1 pound of muscle per month if working out at a pretty intense level 3 times per week. These gains can be expected for about the first six months. After that it will be hard to gain muscle in a calorie deficit. You can work out to maintain the muscle you have during the deficit, however.

Editied to add: I forgot to mention, out of the studies I read, they were done using young men. Women may see slower progress.

great answer, thanks! I am seeing quite fast progress and i am a woman. I do weights five times a week and cardio 6-7 times a week at the moment, but my partner who is doing weights has seen much more muscle build up than i have lol which is good, cos i dont want to be manly muscly like him!
So i agree with what you are saying. I will hopefully be at my goal in the next month so i will be working out hard to keep my new, better than before baby body!

shakybabe

I believe it is possible. I can't actually lift weights but have a condition which means my muscles contract on their own several hundred times a day (Dystonia) particuarly in my arms and legs.

Even though I've been sat in a chair the last 6 years and had put weight on around my middle my arms and legs are still quite muscular, even though I haven't walked for 6 years. It has actually stopped my muscles wasting which happens in cases of most wheelchair users after they reached 5yrs+.

I found once I dropped wheat and reduced overall carbs I lost loads of water and also dropped weight and inches. I've very restricted to what I can do workout wise but still have lost 12" off tummy and 6 " off waist.. and nearly a stone and half in weight (18lbs).. 3 lb to go to reach half way mark!... I just wish I'd have known years ago I could drastically reduce my weight just from dropping bread & pasta etc! ... I struggle to make 1200cals a day most days, but my lean muscle mass has still increased.

FairyMiss

i think it depends on what you think about in terms of building muscle, if you are out of shape not alot of muscle going for you and you start eating healthier and working out, yes ofcourse you will build some muscle even at a deficit and probably noticable for you. but not some much in the range of a young arnold swartxnegger.

dad106

My two cents of this topic.. you can't gain muscle(as in muscle mass and make them bigger) on a calorie deficit. You need a surplus of calories for that to happen.

Can you maintain the muscle you have, and make that muscle stronger? Yes.. and I think thats whats happens to most people.

Since they don't know the difference though, they just assume they are gaining muscle.

Edited to add:
If you think about it logically, on a calorie deficit, yes some of those calories are going towards gaining muscle, but a lot of them are going towards daily bodily functions(like breathing, beating of the heart, etc). Wouldn't you think, that you needed extra calories, so that they can be used towards the building/gain of muscle instead of just totally on bodily functions?

ced9916

There was some reference to Jillian...I recall an episode of the BL when she freaked out on someone because they used the "i'm toning/building muscle" as an excuse for not losing lbs (although this woman was still severely overweight.)
I've read so many conflicting articles on this topic. My personal experience says that the gains on a calorie deficit are quite minimal and water retention plays in, quite a bit...

ArroganceInStep

Well in my experience i think i HAVE built muscle on a calories deficit. I see a huge improvement in muscle tone all over my body - and its not just because the fats gone lol i FEEL strong. I weight train most days for up to an hour using free weights. I love it! So poo to all the people saying i havent gained muscle. Lol you explain it to me then! And btw its not water weight keeping me at the same weight. I drink btween 10 and 14 glasses a day and my sodium is always under...

I don't want this to sound like an attack,and it isn't meant as one. You CANNOT claim to be gaining muscle mass just because of how you feel or how you perceive yourself. You would have to actually get your LBM measured for me to put much stock in that claim. If you are on a decent strength training regimine, regardless of if you're eating at a surplus or not, you will get stronger (this isn't taking into account injuries or overtraining and such). How much stronger you get depends on a lot of factors like your current level of strength, the effectiveness of your routine, genetics, and so on. You will get stronger. That does NOT have to mean you've gained muscle. It could mean you have gained muscle, or that you've learned to utilize the muscle you have more effectively (i.e. made it stronger), or some combination of the two. If you're new to lifting (I know you said you weren't tremendously overweight, so I'm not listing that as an option) then it is entirely possible that it is some combination of the two.

Your weight staying the same could be the result of a number of things. You mentioned water weight and sodium. Retaining water isn't solely a factor caused by sodium intake. If you're beating on your muscles as you are, they retain water to repair torn tissue. There are also other potential causes for losing a dress size but staying the same weight that are not building muscle, but I don't know enough about them to speak intelligently on the subject.

You can't make something out of nothing. If you're eating at a deficit, your body is not going to starve it's primary functions to layer on a bit of muscle. This can happen early in a workout routine (this won't last very long)or for someone who's very overweight (where the body's primary functions won't starve), but the gains tend to be very minimal.

Very simplistically, there are a few options that are most likely the cause for your experiences (not mutually exclusive, I would bet it's some combination of all of these):
A) Your muscles are getting stronger so you feel stronger, and you're losing some fat so you can see them better
Assuming you're new to lifting, you have had some very minimal muscle mass gains
C) Your muscles are retaining water to aid in tissue repair from your workouts
D) You misestimated either your daily caloric intake or your daily caloric expenditure (or both) and might not have quite the deficit you thought you did.

tina2222

[/quote]

I don't want this to sound like an attack,and it isn't meant as one. You CANNOT claim to be gaining muscle mass just because of how you feel or how you perceive yourself. You would have to actually get your LBM measured for me to put much stock in that claim. If you are on a decent strength training regimine, regardless of if you're eating at a surplus or not, you will get stronger (this isn't taking into account injuries or overtraining and such). How much stronger you get depends on a lot of factors like your current level of strength, the effectiveness of your routine, genetics, and so on. You will get stronger. That does NOT have to mean you've gained muscle. It could mean you have gained muscle, or that you've learned to utilize the muscle you have more effectively (i.e. made it stronger), or some combination of the two. If you're new to lifting (I know you said you weren't tremendously overweight, so I'm not listing that as an option) then it is entirely possible that it is some combination of the two.

Your weight staying the same could be the result of a number of things. You mentioned water weight and sodium. Retaining water isn't solely a factor caused by sodium intake. If you're beating on your muscles as you are, they retain water to repair torn tissue. There are also other potential causes for losing a dress size but staying the same weight that are not building muscle, but I don't know enough about them to speak intelligently on the subject.
You can't make something out of nothing. If you're eating at a deficit, your body is not going to starve it's primary functions to layer on a bit of muscle. This can happen early in a workout routine (this won't last very long)or for someone who's very overweight (where the body's primary functions won't starve), but the gains tend to be very minimal.

Very simplistically, there are a few options that are most likely the cause for your experiences (not mutually exclusive, I would bet it's some combination of all of these):
A) Your muscles are getting stronger so you feel stronger, and you're losing some fat so you can see them better
Assuming you're new to lifting, you have had some very minimal muscle mass gains
C) Your muscles are retaining water to aid in tissue repair from your workouts
D) You misestimated either your daily caloric intake or your daily caloric expenditure (or both) and might not have quite the deficit you thought you did.
[/quote]

to answer your points on here.

A) yes i have lost some fat and i do feel stronger, but this doesnt account for my weight staying the same.
i agree
C) there is no way your muscles can hold on to that water for a MONTH and not vary. It is usually gone after a day or so of weight training
D) i weigh every little bit i eat and log even if i take a bite of something. Also i use a HRM so my valories burned arent overestimated. And no its not a ****ty little piece of plastic one it a polar rs100.

So no offence byt i think your points are discredited here. Have done a little research since i posted this and have taked to a sports performance coach and nutritionist and found my answer. Will post later when i get to a computer, so check back if you want!

ArroganceInStep

To answer your points on here.

A) yes i have lost some fat and i do feel stronger, but this doesnt account for my weight staying the same.
i agree
C) there is no way your muscles can hold on to that water for a MONTH and not vary. It is usually gone after a day or so of weight training
D) i weigh every little bit i eat and log even if i take a bite of something. Also i use a HRM so my valories burned arent overestimated. And no its not a ****ty little piece of plastic one it a polar rs100.

So no offence byt i think your points are discredited here. Have done a little research since i posted this and have taked to a sports performance coach and nutritionist and found my answer. Will post later when i get to a computer, so check back if you want!

I am interested in hearing what your coach and nutritionest had to say.

To respond to your comments:
A) This was more aimed at the fact that feeling stronger and looking more muscular doesn't necessarily equate to increasing muscle mass (staying the same weight I feel was addressed in other points)

Agreed then .

C) I used to be a power lifter in high school and college. Since I graduated 5.5 years ago, I've gone back to my lifting regime 3 times with the hopes of increasing strength and hastening weight loss. Each time I've done this, I noticed a weight gain about 10 for anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks (I'm a big guy). I have always believed that that was water weight retained while my muscles were getting used to the old routine again. I do NOT think they only hold water for a day or so. This is anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt. I don't have the time right now to look up research to back up my claim, but I plan to either later today or tomorrow.

D) I was careful to mention both caloric expenditure and caloric intake. If you weigh everything you eat then that is a pretty close estimate, I certainly won't contest that. HRM's are also only an estimate, but are as good a measure as any other. How did you measure your BMR though? That can vary wildly based on estimates, and can also change from day to day. My point with this was not that you were doing something wrong in your logging, but was rather that your logging is only an estimate of reality. It might be close, but even being 'close' could have your estimates differ from reality by hundreds of calories per day.