Eating at maintenance
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chicbuc
Posts: 478 Member
I think I've decided to eat at maintenance for awhile. I want to build muscle, and I'm afraid I just won't be able to with even a small deficit. Will maintenance allow me to grow muscle? Will I still be able to lose "fat" even if I'm not losing "weight?"
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As I understand it, the only way to truly build muscle is to eat at a surplus, so maintenance + more. The amount NROL4W gave me was about 200-400 daily more than maintenance (determined by MFP). But, what goes along with this is if you want to gain muscle you will gain fat along with it. Which is why people do cut/bulk cycles...0
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What Kristen said. However, Lyle McDonald explains it in detail here:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/adding-muscle-while-losing-fat-qa.html0 -
In my opinion, growing muscle is REALLY, REALLY hard for women to do. Seriously hard. There is *research* out there, but I'm not astute enough to post any of it here.
I will say that, and this is anecdote, so NOT evidence....one lady I know, who is VERY lean (<17% body fat - measured by DXA), made an attempt in 2012 to do some recomposition and, during that year, I MEAN THE WHOLE YEAR, she ended up being able to put on 1.2 lbs of lean mass...out of 3 lbs. This was with controlled diet, proper (heavy) weight-lifting, etc., etc. OMG ALL THAT EFFORT for a gain of 1 lb of muscle mass!!
Because we don't have testosterone, like the dudes, I believe that if you eat more than maintenance calories, most of the "weight" you put on will be FAT.
That's what I think!0 -
I'm going to take a slightly different approach after a little research. I'm going to eat like I want my body comp to be and lift heavy and run a bit. For me, that's 135 and 24% body fat which equates to about 100 calories less than my current maintenance. What have I got to lose?0
