Adding muscle while dieting

fat is good for muscle building, too.
Studies link sat-fat to increased testosterone production.

you should expect muscle GAINS while dieting-just highly unlikely for the most part. Eat ENOUGH protein, meaning 1g/lb LBM, and then split the rest between carbs/fat.

Lift weights 3x per week. Don't have a MASSIVE deficit (15-20% max).

If you are on a caloric deficit, you won't gain muscle, you will lose fat or some muscle depending on your training and diet. You can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time too, but most people find it hard to do, because it a very slow process. That's why lots of people are doing bulking and cutting cycles. Focusing at one goal for a certain period.

For your macros, know your TDEE, and from there you determine the caloric deficit you want (15-20%) and then get at least 1.0-1.5g protein per pound bodyweight and then the rest will be carbs and fat. You can also use a 40/40/20 split for your macros, that's a pretty good starting point and then adjust accordingly depending on your needs.

Hope that helps man. Good luck.

I don't know how people eat so much protein... Just sitting at home eating boiled chicken breasts, sounds like. At 1.5g/lb of body weight, I'd need over 275g of protein!

Is that just for weight lifting days, or every day?

you dont need 1.5.. and its for LEAN body mass... so a 6ft non-athletic person weighing 230 could easily have a LBM of only 155-160... 150g of protein isnt too much to ask for.

198 * .85 = 168g of protein.

Daily is ideal but if you fall short on non lifting days then no biggie.

168g of protein = 19oz of chicken. That's not THAT much...you could conceivably eat 12 oz each meal (lunch/dinner) and exceed your needs)

alternatively:

12oz chicken = 72g
2 cups milk = 16g
1 cup greek yogurt = 20g
2 oz cheese = 14g
8oz sirloin (raw weight) = 48g

Plus your veggie/grain protein. It's really NOT that much.

whey and chicken are awesome --

2 scoops (25g per servings) and 1 cup milk = 58 grams of protein

then 12 oz chicken (72g) and 1 cup quinoa (8g) = 80 grams

You're already basically there without snacks. A protein bar can be 20g and that would finish it off for you.

168g of protein = 19oz of chicken. That's not THAT much...you could conceivably eat 12 oz each meal (lunch/dinner) and exceed your needs)

Thank you, this helps a lot. Actually, it's possible I've been getting enough protein all along. I think MFP has wildly different protein amounts per 1oz of chicken. This is another stupid question, but is that amount above cooked or uncooked chicken?

This seems to be a problem with MFP in general. Do you have nutritional source for food, especially proteins?

1 raw ounce of chicken has 6g protein. 1 cooked ounce has more at 9g. So a pound of raw chicken= 96 grams total. Pair that with your protein shake and you've met your needs.

Just to give you an idea, 1 cup cooked = 43 grams. I can totally eat 2 cups of protein in a sitting, that's 86 grams (about 9.5 oz cooked/ 14 oz raw CHICKEN). 2 shakes a day w/ 2 scoops protein each would be 100g protein. Plus the milk adds another 16g.

If you watch what you're eating it's easy to get the protein in. I consume about 280gm's/day and it's not a stretch. Each meal has meat, typically some kind of grilled chicken, supplement in some whey, and then the small amounts of protein in the rest of my food make up the rest. When people eat things like cereal bars and other "low-fat" / "low-cal" snack foods, even some yogurt, they typically lack any meaningful amounts of protein so you hit your calorie goals but you miss out on the protein.

I'm not a big meat eater, so I really have to try with chicken. Most of the time, I don't really want to eat more than about 4 oz of meat at once.

4oz is like 2 bites. Sounds like protein shakes will be your best friend. 3 a day --for snacks --2 scoops each.

Are you in a big rush to lose?

You can always microcycle bulking and cutting, from the leangains level of extreme of a every other day to a less extreme workout-cycle bulk and cut where every 4-6-8 weeks you shift between bulking and cutting, coinciding with exercise fatigue cycles.

Over time you'll gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, even if strictly speaking you aren't doing both simultaneously. When you are gaining/losing 0.5-1.0 lb/wk in shorter cycles like that it will appear that you are both losing fat and gaining muscle simultaneously. The fat gains duing bulk cycles will be minimal, bodering on irrelevant.

Th positive benefit of doing this as opposed to dieting down to a low BF% right away, is that your metabolism will be less prone to protesting. The hardest time to get to a low BF% is after you've been dieting a while, as your metabolism has been adjusting to the loss for a while. Likewise you won't have to deal with stalled out strength gains while in a deficit for long chunks.