Gaining muscle while at a calorie deficit

If you are noticing your TDEE rise, and believe it is because of muscle mass gain...

Chances are it is because of what you are doing to gain the muscle mass. Strength training. As you get stronger and stronger the calorie cost of recovery from strength training goes up and up.

The effect can get very large, up to a 10-15% rise in TDEE (mine goes up 10%, I've noted this multiple times in my data) . It isn't the muscle mass gain, it is the strength gain and fatigue it brings.

Once you get reasonably strong, if you are working primairly compound movements and not doing a bro split, chances are any estimate for the calorie burn of strength training that you will find is laughably low. Even if the estimate is good for the burn in the gym (a la the circuit training entry), there is still no accounting for the 10-15% rise in your non-exercise TDEE due to recovery.

I do a bro split...*sad face*

This thread is overly complicated. You need more caloric income to support more intense activity and the recovery and repair after. Especially the leaner you are.

If you just have enough straw to just repair the existing house the big bad wolf blew down there will be no making of bricks to reinforce it the next time he comes around.

Also, 6 cal/kg shouldn't be compared to 11 cal/lb or whatever the value really is. Conversion, ugh.

^ Can you explain what you're getting at with the above?

I thought it was 6cal/lb as the commonly accepted value in terms of LBM. Just trying to understand further.

Oh, only that someone threw out 6 cal / kg, but the table for comparison says 11-12 cal / lb.

Merely wanted to point on difference in values is kg vs lbs.

If not heard the 6 value anyway, so not even in that discussion, just noticed possible communication issue with conversion not being done.

But since you said 6 cal / lb, perhaps the kg was wrong?

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?

Ahhh I see... I would assume bulking and cutting but doesn't mean that it's the most effective way;

What people are realising now through studies etc. may prove a lot of these long held body building beliefs to be less than effective.

6 - 8 meals a day has been debunked a fair few times now and oats every morning is looking to be just as futile.

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?

Ahhh I see... I would assume bulking and cutting but doesn't mean that it's the most effective way;

What people are realising now through studies etc. may prove a lot of these long held body building beliefs to be less than effective.

6 - 8 meals a day has been debunked a fair few times now and oats every morning is looking to be just as futile.

There have certainly been a lot of myths debunked, but I don't think "mass can't be created out of thin air" is going to be one of them. I don't see how one could possibly add mass to their body without putting more mass into it than it burns off.

Mass, as in overall or of the muscle?

Because just looking at eating at a deficit in general to lose weight. And make this a decent deficit, not extreme. No exercise in the equation.

Your body is using the nutrients you eat for all the required things it needs it for first. Muscle is repaired, rebuilt we know even if not more of it. Hair and skin are grown (well, energy needs of my hair are less anyway). Glucose stores in muscle and liver are refilled. Bunch of other stuff is done, with less being taken in than is really needed.

And at a deficit, the body is using fat stores for remaining energy needs. Perhaps simplified, but even if some surplus at a meal is stored as fat, same basic effect. If decent deficit, fat is used to meet other energy needs.

So skip the deficit, just create the same need for all those nutrients, repairing and building stronger more muscles, and the extra energy that is needed is taken from fat still.

No the over all mass can't go up (outside extra glucose stores with water), but the muscle mass and LBM can go up while the fat mass drops.

So if a 10% deficit to TDEE is perhaps decent and not extreme, and say is 250 calories, how do you figure out how much lifting to do that would require that 250 calories and don't really take a deficit.?
But now your muscle building is going to use that 250 calories instead of a deficit.
The extra energy needed is still going to come from fat.
Mass won't go up (outside water weight), but muscle mass outside of that could go up, right, according to a few studies.

Of course, early in the weight loss journey, perhaps 500 cal deficit is decent, but you only take a 250 deficit and try to figure out how to get the muscle building to get the other 250 cal's.
And at this fatter stage, enough fat to still supply other energy needs.
So this would be a case of total mass going down 1/2 lb weekly, and muscle going up ..... ?

So I know I've seen estimates all over the place as to how many calories it takes to build a lb of muscle. I know if converted to glucose that it's about 600 calories worth there, but much more for building.

So what would 250 calories a day, 1750 a week, 7000 a month get you for building muscle?

I lifted for 7 months eating at maintenance. The first 3 i dropped fat and gained muscle. The last 4 I did neither. I did a proper cut and dropped 25 more lbs. Started a proper bulk and have gained 14 (some fat of course) What has your fat loss and muscle building journey looked like? How many people have you seen who truely built SIGNIFICANT amounts of muscle over a sustained time period while not eating a surplus? What would someone without a lot of fat do in your scenario?

Those still trying to lose 25-50 lbs probably don't have focus on building significant amounts of muscle. But any extra real muscle besides just making it stronger would help the situation of increasing their RMR and weight loss.

The effects of actual muscle gain on metabolism are absolutely trivial unless you've gained a lot of muscle mass.

Most estimates put the calorie burn of 1 lb of muscle at 4-6 cal/day. Start stacking quite a bit of bulk, 20-30-40 lbs, and this adds up.

To someone who might gain a pound or two while cutting, this is borderline irrelevant.

Well, those are the BMR figures for LBM, so while sleeping and sitting at your desk, very true. Actually, it's calculated to be 10 cal/lb of LBM.

But the half the day of actually using the muscle in the slightest actually means a bigger effect.

There's normally one misquoted stat from a study about how much extra calories muscle burns, but that was only during normal usage, not lifting, but just movement through the day. But it's always misapplied to the idea that it means all day and night.

That is exaggerated.

As you state, probably half the day is resting at minimal increase. But there's still another half of the day where if you have some movement you are likely using it all to some degree.

Not sure you read my first post.... I'm presently eating at a 500 - 1000 cal EXCESS on training days using a carb backloading protocol which is allowing me to gain muscle and lose fat at around 1% a month.

What I've seen for the most part about timing of food does not suggest that there is a significant impact to eating carbs late. And I'm frankly concerned that it is too restrictive (mentally) in my lifestyle so that CBL might only give me small value versus a more normal diet but really screw up the rest of my life/work style.

It is something I am not sufficiently read up on to be sure one way or the other.

Well, keep reading. It works. Nutrient timing works. Insulin manipulation works. How would it be mentally restricting in your lifestyle?

Sorry i missed your first post.
I will, I'm currently reading up on BMR variability but I'll get to it.

The lifestyle issue is:

1) I prepare a lot of meals for my daughters and both cooking and eating with them is important to me. Complicating that by a different meal plan is not so easy. I'm trying to get them to eat well, eating different things at the table is not were I want to place them/us mentally - there is already too much of that.

2) I'm still figuring out some basics in terms of macros and the effects on me and I want to understand that prior to trying some thing else. My level of effort and time in the gym, my goals (not those of a bodybuilder) more of a multi-sport athlete (think soccer player build) can probably be best served by the focusing on the basics - go to gym 3-4 times, lift heavy, eat at my macros and continue to lose weight -- looking at CBL or other methods will wait until/if I want to bulk up. I am perfectly capable of going into an "analysis/paralysis" loop.
Hell, I've already tried to estimate an observation vs predictive BMR model using variable moving averages and weight loss=f [(fat loss %), (LBM gain%)].

When I read something like this, it doesn't support doing much more than focusing on protein. But obviously, it is just one article.

Dietary protein to support muscle hypertrophy.
van Loon LJ, Gibala MJ.
SourceDepartment of Human Movement Sciences, NUTRIM School for Nutrition, Toxicology and Metabolism, Maastricht University Medical Centre+, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Abstract
Intact protein, protein hydrolysates, and free amino acids are popular ingredients in contemporary sports nutrition, and have been suggested to augment post-exercise recovery. Protein and/or amino acid ingestion stimulates skeletal muscle protein synthesis, inhibits protein breakdown and, as such, stimulates muscle protein accretion following resistance and endurance type exercise. This has been suggested to lead to a greater adaptive response to each successive exercise bout, resulting in more effective muscle reconditioning. Despite limited evidence, some basic guidelines can be defined regarding the preferred type, amount, and timing of dietary protein that should be ingested to maximize post-exercise muscle protein accretion. Whey protein seems most effective in stimulating muscle protein synthesis during acute post-exercise recovery. This is likely attributable to its rapid digestion and absorption kinetics and specific amino acid composition. Ingestion of approximately 20 g protein during and/or immediately after exercise is sufficient to maximize post-exercise muscle protein synthesis rates. Coingestion of a large amount of carbohydrate or free leucine is not warranted to further augment post- exercise muscle protein synthesis when ample protein is already ingested. Future research should focus on the relevance of the acute anabolic response following exercise to optimize the skeletal muscle adaptive response to exercise training.

I will read up.