Why can't you gain muscle at a deficit again?
Replies
-
correct, fat lacks nitrogen. Protein is made of amino acids which contain, you guessed it, nitrogen.1.They may look more muscular since they have lost body fat and retained lean body mass revealing their muscles.
2. I don't think there's any metabolic pathway to convert fat into muscle, therefore protein and an abundance of calories are needed.
Basically, all the macro nutirents are different forms of carbon and hydrogen (where the name carbohydrates comes from), but protein includes nitrogen.0 -
Angie, if you were "skinny fat," then you probably couldn't see the muscle definition. Isn't that pretty much what "skinny fat" is? A low(ish) BMI but high(ish) BF%?0
-
Strip away body fat and a body will look more muscular. Many adolescent males look muscular from low body fat without working out.I hear that in order for muscle to grow, you have to be eating at an excess of calories. But if that was true, why do people who do Insanity to lose weight finish looking not just thinner, but more muscular than they ever have?
Fat calories can't be converted to protein which are the building blocks of muscle.AND, scientifically speaking, if you need, lets say 500 calories of extra energy per day for your muscle to grow, & you have excess fat on your body, wouldn't your body break down that fat to get those calories in order to fuel muscle growth?
Again you're speaking about stored lipid energy vs taking in amino acids.Why would your body need a constant intake of extra calories when you already have loads of extra calories stored in your adipose tissue?
It's possible to an extent if one is obese/very overweight and/or has NEVER trained before, but even then the gain is minimal. To add muscle is to add mass. You don't add mass without calorie surplus (with the exception of the mentioned).I can understand for a guy who's only 140 pounds and wants to bulk up to a muscular 180, then sure he needs to eat more. But for someone who's overweight and wants to gain muscle WHILE losing their fat, why isn't that possible?
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
:flowerforyou:
Yup.
Also, scientific laws dictate that you cannot create something out of nothing and the nothing would be a deficiency in calories consumed.
What is this...science?!?! LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS?!?!
You have no place here, dream-killer!
You can synthesize most amino acids via transamination with ketones which can be derived from fatty acid or glucose oxidation but that is not to say you're converting the FA/carb to protein. Plus you need another amino acid with which to perform the transamination. So you're not making anything *new*, you're just making an amino acid that's more important than the one you traded in. Like ModoVincere said, AA's have nitrogen and neither carbs nor fat have that.0 -
is transamination like the process of changing some beater car into a Trans Am?0
-
Strip away body fat and a body will look more muscular. Many adolescent males look muscular from low body fat without working out.I hear that in order for muscle to grow, you have to be eating at an excess of calories. But if that was true, why do people who do Insanity to lose weight finish looking not just thinner, but more muscular than they ever have?
Fat calories can't be converted to protein which are the building blocks of muscle.AND, scientifically speaking, if you need, lets say 500 calories of extra energy per day for your muscle to grow, & you have excess fat on your body, wouldn't your body break down that fat to get those calories in order to fuel muscle growth?
Again you're speaking about stored lipid energy vs taking in amino acids.Why would your body need a constant intake of extra calories when you already have loads of extra calories stored in your adipose tissue?
It's possible to an extent if one is obese/very overweight and/or has NEVER trained before, but even then the gain is minimal. To add muscle is to add mass. You don't add mass without calorie surplus (with the exception of the mentioned).I can understand for a guy who's only 140 pounds and wants to bulk up to a muscular 180, then sure he needs to eat more. But for someone who's overweight and wants to gain muscle WHILE losing their fat, why isn't that possible?
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
:flowerforyou:
Yup.
Also, scientific laws dictate that you cannot create something out of nothing and the nothing would be a deficiency in calories consumed.
What is this...science?!?! LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS?!?!
You have no place here, dream-killer!
You can synthesize most amino acids via transamination with ketones which can be derived from fatty acid or glucose oxidation but that is not to say you're converting the FA/carb to protein. Plus you need another amino acid with which to perform the transamination. So you're not making anything *new*, you're just making an amino acid that's more important than the one you traded in. Like ModoVincere said, AA's have nitrogen and neither carbs nor fat have that.
Are you saying that if I use nitrous oxide I can transanimate my fat into muscle? I'm down with that.0 -
Strip away body fat and a body will look more muscular. Many adolescent males look muscular from low body fat without working out.I hear that in order for muscle to grow, you have to be eating at an excess of calories. But if that was true, why do people who do Insanity to lose weight finish looking not just thinner, but more muscular than they ever have?
Fat calories can't be converted to protein which are the building blocks of muscle.AND, scientifically speaking, if you need, lets say 500 calories of extra energy per day for your muscle to grow, & you have excess fat on your body, wouldn't your body break down that fat to get those calories in order to fuel muscle growth?
Again you're speaking about stored lipid energy vs taking in amino acids.Why would your body need a constant intake of extra calories when you already have loads of extra calories stored in your adipose tissue?
It's possible to an extent if one is obese/very overweight and/or has NEVER trained before, but even then the gain is minimal. To add muscle is to add mass. You don't add mass without calorie surplus (with the exception of the mentioned).I can understand for a guy who's only 140 pounds and wants to bulk up to a muscular 180, then sure he needs to eat more. But for someone who's overweight and wants to gain muscle WHILE losing their fat, why isn't that possible?
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
:flowerforyou:
Yup.
Also, scientific laws dictate that you cannot create something out of nothing and the nothing would be a deficiency in calories consumed.
What is this...science?!?! LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS?!?!
You have no place here, dream-killer!
You can synthesize most amino acids via transamination with ketones which can be derived from fatty acid or glucose oxidation but that is not to say you're converting the FA/carb to protein. Plus you need another amino acid with which to perform the transamination. So you're not making anything *new*, you're just making an amino acid that's more important than the one you traded in. Like ModoVincere said, AA's have nitrogen and neither carbs nor fat have that.
Are you saying that if I use nitrous oxide I can transanimate my fat into muscle? I'm down with that.
If I could like stay baked on excessive Lortab usage 24/7 and gain muscle mass that would be sweet.0 -
It seems counter-productive to me. I have around 200 pounds to lose - I'm currently 367 lbs and would like to get down to 170-200. Currently I am trying to keep my calorie count between 2000 and 2500. I'm also doing strength and cardio training 3x a week and plan on bumping it up to cardio 5x a week. I do not eat back the calories I burned exercising, I don't even really track them other than using the default counts provided here.
Should I eat the extra calories or should I wait until I've lost some of the weight before adding them back in.
Does weight loss really have to be more complicated than eat less and move more?0 -
It seems counter-productive to me. I have around 200 pounds to lose - I'm currently 367 lbs and would like to get down to 170-200. Currently I am trying to keep my calorie count between 2000 and 2500. I'm also doing strength and cardio training 3x a week and plan on bumping it up to cardio 5x a week. I do not eat back the calories I burned exercising, I don't even really track them other than using the default counts provided here.
Should I eat the extra calories or should I wait until I've lost some of the weight before adding them back in.
Does weight loss really have to be more complicated than eat less and move more?
When you've got a lot of weight to lose, you have quite a bit more wiggle room. A guy your size (or mine) could handle pretty easily a 1500-2k calorie deficit, and assuming you ate right and lifted wouldn't have that many issues. As you get closer to your ideal body weight though, it becomes harder. Higher and higher deficits will just strip muscle mass, your TDEE will be lower anyway so those deficits will take a larger chunk out of your available calories, and closer to your ideal weight it's just plain harder to lose. You can get away with a lot more at first.
That being said, it would behoove you to work out the details of how you respond to things, what your TDEE is, etc now so that when you do get closer to the ideal you're not struggling as much.
EDIT: Also make mini goals instead of just worrying about the big one. Focus on getting to 350, then 325, and so on. It's much more manageable (in my opinion, anyway) that way.0 -
That makes sense. I know that I'll have to make adjustments as the weight comes off and it's a struggle to change my eating habits right now. Going from a "see-food" diet to actually thinking and planning what I eat is hard enough. I worry that if I start adding calories back in I'll end up sabotaging myself.
My goals right now aren't about the pounds. Goal 1 is to exercise 3x a week for the month of January. Goal 2 is to stay under 2500 calories for the same period of time.0 -
Strip away body fat and a body will look more muscular. Many adolescent males look muscular from low body fat without working out.I hear that in order for muscle to grow, you have to be eating at an excess of calories. But if that was true, why do people who do Insanity to lose weight finish looking not just thinner, but more muscular than they ever have?
Fat calories can't be converted to protein which are the building blocks of muscle.AND, scientifically speaking, if you need, lets say 500 calories of extra energy per day for your muscle to grow, & you have excess fat on your body, wouldn't your body break down that fat to get those calories in order to fuel muscle growth?
Again you're speaking about stored lipid energy vs taking in amino acids.Why would your body need a constant intake of extra calories when you already have loads of extra calories stored in your adipose tissue?
It's possible to an extent if one is obese/very overweight and/or has NEVER trained before, but even then the gain is minimal. To add muscle is to add mass. You don't add mass without calorie surplus (with the exception of the mentioned).I can understand for a guy who's only 140 pounds and wants to bulk up to a muscular 180, then sure he needs to eat more. But for someone who's overweight and wants to gain muscle WHILE losing their fat, why isn't that possible?
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
:flowerforyou:
Yup.
Also, scientific laws dictate that you cannot create something out of nothing and the nothing would be a deficiency in calories consumed.
What is this...science?!?! LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS?!?!
You have no place here, dream-killer!
You can synthesize most amino acids via transamination with ketones which can be derived from fatty acid or glucose oxidation but that is not to say you're converting the FA/carb to protein. Plus you need another amino acid with which to perform the transamination. So you're not making anything *new*, you're just making an amino acid that's more important than the one you traded in. Like ModoVincere said, AA's have nitrogen and neither carbs nor fat have that.
Are you saying that if I use nitrous oxide I can transanimate my fat into muscle? I'm down with that.
No, it doesn't quite work that way. We can't fix nitrogen (N) to hydrogen (H) to create the amino group (NH2). We are just moving amino groups around. The NH2 (amino group) is just being taken off the carbon backbone of an amino acid and being stuck into the carbon chain of a ketoacid to make a different amino acid. Your nitrous oxide is N2O.0 -
is transamination like the process of changing some beater car into a Trans Am?
Well...sure, if the Trans Am is more important to you than the beater car.
It would be more like attaching a Trans Am kit to your beater car lol 0 -
I read on a body-builder site that it is impossible to gain more than about 1 pound of muscle per MONTH! Is that true? It isn't any wonder then that crash diets just strip off muscle and make you add fat when you go back to regular eating. Now, the "muscle sparing" effect of eating healthy carbs makes sense to me. If you are not eating enough carbs and fat (I notice that the lower my carbs go, the higher the proportion of fat in my diet) you will burn muscle instead---not a good idea. You can go on a low-fat diet and burn carbs or you can go on a low-carb diet and burn fat (a better idea to me because of the appetite suppressing effect of eating lower carbs) but you cannot do both as you are working at cross-purposes if you are trying to simultaneously gain muscle. I also read that if you eat a lot more protein than what your body needs to build muscle that you will just end up burning protein and you don't want to train your body to burn protein as it will ultimately work against your muscle growth.0
-
I dunno, Loveys. I am consistently getting stronger and stronger because I have been challenging myself since my early twenties. My ability to deal with increasingly heavy weights - which, I THINK means my muscles are "growing" happens whether I am eating more or eating less calories, so all I can say is..... Get to know your OWN body.... :flowerforyou:
That's assuming that strength equates to building muscle though. You can make your muscles stronger without growing new ones - it might even make your current muscles swell with water which makes them looking bigger, but you're not building new muscle tissue. The body just doesn't work that way 0 -
I read on a body-builder site that it is impossible to gain more than about 1 pound of muscle per MONTH! Is that true? It isn't any wonder then that crash diets just strip off muscle and make you add fat when you go back to regular eating. Now, the "muscle sparing" effect of eating healthy carbs makes sense to me. If you are not eating enough carbs and fat (I notice that the lower my carbs go, the higher the proportion of fat in my diet) you will burn muscle instead---not a good idea. You can go on a low-fat diet and burn carbs or you can go on a low-carb diet and burn fat (a better idea to me because of the appetite suppressing effect of eating lower carbs) but you cannot do both as you are working at cross-purposes if you are trying to simultaneously gain muscle. I also read that if you eat a lot more protein than what your body needs to build muscle that you will just end up burning protein and you don't want to train your body to burn protein as it will ultimately work against your muscle growth.
How much muscle you can gain per month depends on gender and how much muscle you already have along with other genetic factors.
As for macro levels, just eat minimums of 1g pro and .45g fat per lb of lean body mass. If you do that and eat at a proper caloric level, you aren't going to eat too much or too little of any macro.0 -
Strength can be tremendously increased (to an extent) without gaining size. It's neuro muscular adaptation you're experiencing.I dunno, Loveys. I am consistently getting stronger and stronger because I have been challenging myself since my early twenties. My ability to deal with increasingly heavy weights - which, I THINK means my muscles are "growing" happens whether I am eating more or eating less calories, so all I can say is..... Get to know your OWN body.... :flowerforyou:
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
Strength can be tremendously increased (to an extent) without gaining size. It's muscular neuro adaptation you're experiencing.I dunno, Loveys. I am consistently getting stronger and stronger because I have been challenging myself since my early twenties. My ability to deal with increasingly heavy weights - which, I THINK means my muscles are "growing" happens whether I am eating more or eating less calories, so all I can say is..... Get to know your OWN body.... :flowerforyou:
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
Yup also known as motor neurons and motor units but even then they peak out.0 -
Well no because people who are new to lifting, doing correctly, providing correct nutrition and getting enough rest can easily put on one pound of muscle.I read on a body-builder site that it is impossible to gain more than about 1 pound of muscle per MONTH! Is that true?
I believe that what the bodybuilder is referring to is that "seasoned" lifters, bodybuilders, athletes would have a problem doing it. You'll see lots of supplement ads stating "lost 20lbs and gained 11lbs of muscle" and some bulked out dude with an after "cut" pic for visual effects.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
Well no because people who are new to lifting, doing correctly, providing correct nutrition and getting enough rest can easily put on one pound of muscle.I read on a body-builder site that it is impossible to gain more than about 1 pound of muscle per MONTH! Is that true?
I believe that what the bodybuilder is referring to is that "seasoned" lifters, bodybuilders, athletes would have a problem doing it. You'll see lots of supplement ads stating "lost 20lbs and gained 11lbs of muscle" and some bulked out dude with an after "cut" pic for visual effects.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
I would like to add that it is not uncommon for natural bodybuilders (no roids) to gain 2 lbs of muscle in a months time. Granted they eat,sleep and train to perfection.0 -
Didn't read everyone's replies, but here we go...
Your body has two primary modes: Catabolic and Anabolic. In the catabolic state, your body breaks things down for energy, this can be fat, muscle, and other tissues. In the anabolic state, your body builds things up such as fat, muscle, and again, other tissue.
Your body is never fully in one state or the other. There is always some breaking down going on and some building up.
To gain muscle, you need a high enough anabolic rate to cover general bodily repairs and have left overs to build muscles. More muscle will require more of your anabolic rate to maintain.
The only way to increase the rate of anabolism in the body (without drugs) is through a caloric surplus. But this is not REQUIRED to put on muscle for beginners and people that have taken long breaks.
Why is that? Well, their level of anabolism even with a caloric deficit is more than enough to maintain their body, with extra left over. This allows the extra to be used to build muscle. Eventually, the extra muscle will add to the maintenance and in time, there will be no extra wiggle room. So, the deficit needs to be reduced or a surplus needs to be created.
So yes, you can create muscle at a deficit. But this all depends on the rate of anabolism in the body and your capacity to support more growth. Once you have reached your capacity, then you have to reduce the deficit or go full surplus to actually make gains.
In time, even at a huge surplus, you'll have reached the maximum you can support through your own anabolism. This is why non-drugged body builders do not turn into skyscraper sized beasts that can bench planets.
TL;DR
Anabolism does maintenance, repairs, and growth.
So long as maintenance and repairs do not take up your entire anabolic rate, you can have growth.
A caloric surplus will maximize your anabolic rate.
A caloric deficit will reduce it, larger the deficit, the smaller the rate.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392.9K Introduce Yourself
- 43.7K Getting Started
- 260.1K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.8K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.5K Fitness and Exercise
- 415 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.9K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.6K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.5K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions