Gaining muscle while at a calorie deficit

EvgeniZyntx · October 2012

Physiologically speaking - it is, of course, possible to gain muscle while at a calorie deficit. The general mantra "you can't gain muscle at a calorie deficit" makes sense because it's difficult to have BIG gains at a deficit and something else is going on...

I decided to look at the equations on TDEE, BMR, etc and see if my TDEE was correct.

Here is a surprise for people trying to build up muscle - you need to recalculate your TDEE based of your BF% more often than you think - BMR (and therefore TDEE) goes up fast, with increases in muscle mass. And you must use one of the equations that is dependent on LBM such as Katch-McArdle.

Member Heybales published an excellent spreadsheet that can be used for that. Or if someone want mine, I will share it once it is cleaned up.

I'm upping my calories as I write this. If you check your BF% and recalculate your TDEE are you now getting a higher number?

Looking forward to reading input.

Edit: For example, my change from 30% to 20% in BF represents close to 300 calorie increase.

kinmad4it · October 2012

I'm in a similar position. I'm currently at 180 ish lbs with a bodyfat % of 24. I don't want to lose any weight overall, just decrease bodyfat and increase muscle while remaining at 180 odd lbs.
I would imagine a good way would be to work out how much energy doing weights will require and add that to my daily allowance, whilst also reducing my fat intake and upping the protein.

There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer as I've looked online at a lot of sites and there are so many conflicting opinions it's impossible to make head nor tail of it all. It's even more confusing when I try to look at what exercises to do, when and how often to do them and how much rest is required.

I'm going to take a trial and error approach with it all and pick one and try it for a month or so and see how it works, if nothing happens I'll try another one. It's not as if there aren't any to choose from out there.

TriNorm · October 2012

It seems I'm in a similar spot; I'd like to lose another 8 or so pounds (check the ticker for the exact number), but I'll get there pretty soon - my big issue will be getting my body fat number down. In the past I was able to get my body fat low by going on a relatively high protein diet, but any other advice/opinions are welcome. And I'd love to see your spreadsheet once its done.

EvgeniZyntx · October 2012

The issue with predicitive equations used to add xx calories for activities is that we tend to under-calculate the daily effort.
I would suggest you take a look at one of the spreadsheets and play with the different activity levels to get a sense of how these impact TDEE. Your NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) or the calories we burn outside of the gym and cardio can vary from 20% to 90% of TDEE so the activity is important in the actual energy expenditure.

But just as important is keeping it sufficiently simple to not go crazy.

Calculating a good TDEE that works, adding 200-300 for 45 min of gym is one of the general advices given here (see the new road map thread or the heybales worksheet) or working off of a sedentary TDEE and logging every activity (which is what I was doing, but might move to the other method).

My comment and the point of this post was to suggest that even though these are estimates and ideally we are best served by observation and adjusting our practices, it can also be helpful to recheck TDEE with BF% changes and increase the TDEE settings as BF% decreases - especially if it decreases more early on for those that are more novice to weight lifting like myself - initial big gains in LBM should should result in adjustments.

nml2011 · October 2012

Someone who is very overweight will lose fat and build a little muscle on a deficit.

Someone new to weight training will see some gains and lose fat at the same time on a small deficit but this will cease after the first few months.

If you are eating at a 500 cal + deficit you will almost certainly not gain muscle (will gain strength) but you will appear to get larger muscle as you strip away more fat.

If you want fat loss and muscle gain you are better eating at a very slight excess and look into carb backloading - presently maintaining 88kg BW and losing approx 1% bf a month but I am eating at a 500 - 1000 cal excess on training days.

Trial and error is required and slight changes to the diet month on month to keep the fat coming off.

fwalz3 · October 2012

Bumping to read later

EvgeniZyntx · October 2012

I went from

SW: 97kg BF:30% or so
CW: 86kg BF:20% or so

which sugests that I kept all my LBM or gained a kg or so over 3 months. (high protein, weight training x 3, reduced cardio from very high to med/low activity)

I'm not yet convinced about carb back-loading.

heybales · October 2012

Yep, trying to nail those numbers with minor deficit (though might be bigger than thought) and good protein.

The other idea being used seems to work for many, but requires basically only lifting, no cardio. 24 hrs after lifting is bigger eat, 24 hrs rest is bigger deficit.

That's a new section in the spreadsheet under deficits for calorie cycling.

And here's one study where already athletic males got some more muscle and LBM.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/447514-athletes-can-gain-muscle-while-losing-fat-on-deficit-diet

FullOfWin · October 2012

How did the guys with the most muscle in the world (natural) do it? Not guaranteed but stands to reason however they did it is the fastest way?

nml2011 · October 2012

I went from

SW: 97kg BF:30% or so
CW: 86kg BF:20% or so

which sugests that I kept all my LBM or gained a kg or so over 3 months. (high protein, weight training x 3, reduced cardio from very high to med/low activity)

I'm not yet convinced about carb back-loading.

This is the first 3 months you have been strength training?

Good results, 10% bf and approx 10% bw drop so you have kept the lbm.

nml2011 · October 2012

How did the guys with the most muscle in the world (natural) do it? Not guaranteed but stands to reason however they did it is the fastest way?

Most of the people with the most muscle mass didn't do it naturally.

Those that are suposedly all natural spent 10 - 15 years plus stuffing themselves with food and training as hard as possible and have the best genetics for this.

The natural way is a long slow process.

SideSteel · October 2012

I'm curious what you believe is driving up TDEE as LBM increases, aside from the actual LBM, unless you're assuming quite large gains.

General consensus seems to be that LBM burns about 6 calories per pound. (<--- and typically, you're not gaining massive amounts of LBM, so this value tends to be small in terms of net)

I would understand a situation where LBM increases, total bodyweight increases, calories are at a surplus and quite likely NEAT increases, which collectively would amount to a significant TDEE increase.

But eating at a deficit, with AT/NEAT possibly downregulating things, bodyweight decreasing even in the face of a potential LBM increase, I'm curious where that big of a TDEE increase would come from.

Thoughts? Curious if I'm missing something here, or just misunderstanding the post.

Bohohippy · October 2012

My boyfriend started going the gym a while ago but isn't losing weight and is building muscle under the fat and now looks bigger and feels terrible :S Is there anything he can do to reduce the fat and not build the muscle as quickly? Or is he doing it the right way and eventually the fat will come away?

FullOfWin · October 2012

How did the guys with the most muscle in the world (natural) do it? Not guaranteed but stands to reason however they did it is the fastest way?

Most of the people with the most muscle mass didn't do it naturally.

Those that are suposedly all natural spent 10 - 15 years plus stuffing themselves with food and training as hard as possible and have the best genetics for this.

The natural way is a long slow process.

So building muscle eating at a surplus is slow in comparison to building muscle eating maintenance or below?

FullOfWin · October 2012

My boyfriend started going the gym a while ago but isn't losing weight and is building muscle under the fat and now looks bigger and feels terrible :S Is there anything he can do to reduce the fat and not build the muscle as quickly? Or is he doing it the right way and eventually the fat will come away?

Eat less while changing nothing else.

kiachu · October 2012

How did the guys with the most muscle in the world (natural) do it? Not guaranteed but stands to reason however they did it is the fastest way?

Most of the people with the most muscle mass didn't do it naturally.

Those that are suposedly all natural spent 10 - 15 years plus stuffing themselves with food and training as hard as possible and have the best genetics for this.

The natural way is a long slow process.

So building muscle eating at a surplus is slow in comparison to building muscle eating maintenance or below?

No. Building muscle naturally is slower then when your on drugs.

FullOfWin · October 2012

How did the guys with the most muscle in the world (natural) do it? Not guaranteed but stands to reason however they did it is the fastest way?

Most of the people with the most muscle mass didn't do it naturally.

Those that are suposedly all natural spent 10 - 15 years plus stuffing themselves with food and training as hard as possible and have the best genetics for this.

The natural way is a long slow process.

So building muscle eating at a surplus is slow in comparison to building muscle eating maintenance or below?

No. Building muscle naturally is slower then when your on drugs.

Yes I know that. The point of my first post was, how did the guys who have built the most muscle naturally do it? By bulking and cutting or by eating maintenance or below with some dietary timing tricks?

jg627 · October 2012

This is probably gonna turn into a flame war.

FullOfWin · October 2012

This is probably gonna turn into a flame war.

It has the potential. A controversialsish topic and a guy named FullOfWin being slightly antagonistic.

JasonDetwiler · October 2012

I went from

SW: 97kg BF:30% or so
CW: 86kg BF:20% or so

which sugests that I kept all my LBM or gained a kg or so over 3 months. (high protein, weight training x 3, reduced cardio from very high to med/low activity)

I'm not yet convinced about carb back-loading.

What are your questions about CBL? It works.

EvgeniZyntx · October 2012

I'm curious what you believe is driving up TDEE as LBM increases, aside from the actual LBM, unless you're assuming quite large gains.

General consensus seems to be that LBM burns about 6 calories per pound. (<--- and typically, you're not gaining massive amounts of LBM, so this value tends to be small in terms of net)

That's an excellent question - I just ran that in the worksheet and create the following table (if the formatting does not work, I'll post an image)

For the person with the same weight but different LBM the calories per lb of LBM seem to be around 11-13 when calculated from the Katch-McArdle formula. Why might these be if 6 cals per pound is the accepted value? I would gues that part of it *might* be that the 6 cals per pound are at basal metabolism and the remaining are from the the activity multiplier (1.2 in my example) which does not cover the other 4-5 cals. Could this be NEAT?

I would understand a situation where LBM increases, total bodyweight increases, calories are at a surplus and quite likely NEAT increases, which collectively would amount to a significant TDEE increase.

But eating at a deficit, with AT/NEAT possibly downregulating things, bodyweight decreasing even in the face of a potential LBM increase, I'm curious where that big of a TDEE increase would come from.

Thoughts? Curious if I'm missing something here, or just misunderstanding the post.

These calculations are prior to any calorie restriction so downregulation should not be occurring. But you bring up an import point - for someone dieting for extended periods the AT/NEAT down regulation might impact or kill the TDEE increase. Perhaps that is why we get the 6 cal/kg measurement versus the 11-12 from the equation. I don't know if the data evaluation from Katch-McArdle was done with a static population or a over a changing period.

If anyone wants to play with these numbers and (un)validate them just take the spreadsheet and enter the data and vary only the percent BF. Then calculate the change in cals per change in LBM.

I'm curious to hear other thoughts.

edit: image

Gaining muscle while at a calorie deficit

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