Confused; should I restrict cals or not? Lifting..

If you're new to lifting, you might see some gains. However, you're not going to make significant gains eating at a deficit. But, lifting heavy will help you retain muscle. So, lift, create your deficit, lose some fat, then when you get your body fat lower, you can up your cals and work on gaining.

You certainly won't be as awesome as you can be if you eat 'dirty'.

If you feel that 2600 is your balance point, you are likely to loose muscle mass and weight if you eat less. Simples.

You're not fat, you're just in "DYEL bro" status. I'd say eat at maintenance or slightly below it and take advantage of newbie gains for the next 6 months or so. Then reevaluate your progress and decide if you need to bulk or cut next.

I received this email yesterday:




I've never seen a low calorie diet fail, when setup properly.

...for years people have challenged me saying that low calorie diets slow down the metabolism.

They are right (but it doesn't matter).

Here's the deal...the metabolism doesn't slow down enough to stop fat loss.

Lyle McDonald worded this perfectly:

"In general, it's true that metabolic rate tends to drop more with more excessive caloric deficits... But here's the thing: in no study I've ever seen has the drop in metabolic rate been sufficient to completely offset the caloric deficit . That is, say that cutting your calories by 50% per day leads to a reduction in the metabolic rate of 10%. Starvation mode you say. Well, yes. But you still have a 40% daily deficit."

A good example is the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.


Scientists recruited 36 young healthy men to participate in a yearlong study divided into several phases: a 12-week normal control period, a 24-week starvation phase where calories were so dramatically reduced that participants lost approximately 25% of body weight; and, finally, a recovery phase to renourish participants

The Results of the Study?

First, all participants lost weight. Starvation mode does not result in your body hanging onto extra fat or calories in an effort to "preserve" your body. But, it's more complicated than just losing weight. All of the participants also experienced a drop in their metabolic rates - approximately 40% below baseline. At no point did they stop losing fat until they hit a rate of approximately 5% body fat near the end of the study.

Here's a study from Cambridge University

In the first 2 days of starvation, there is a small absolute increase in basic metabolic rate relative to values obtained from overnight fasting. Overnight fasting is what every one of us does during our sleeping hours. So it is not true that going below recommended calories for one day is going to slow down your metabolism -- quite the contrary, it may speed it up just a little.

...but after a period of time the metabolism does slow down (but not enough to offset fat loss).

Lean individuals lost great amounts of fat-free, lean tissue during starvation, but obese individuals lost much more fat tissue. The loss of lean mass is not as critical to the obese person simply because an obese person has more lean mass than a person of the same age and height but normal weight.

...but you don't want to lose muscle...right?

Here's Brad Pilon's stance on this.

(In regards to people who lift weights when dieting for fat loss).

"Here's the truth about losing muscle mass while dieting. I don't believe it. Not at all.

I have taken over one hundred body fat measurements on amateur body builders and fitness models.

None of them lost any more than 1 or 2 pounds of lean mass while dieting for a competition!

They drop anywhere from 20 to 50 pounds of fat, but lose almost no muscle!"

So simply lift weights while dieting to ensure no muscle loss.

Hope that clears up the confusion a bit.

Cheers,

-Rusty Moore

Abs Blueprint & Visual Impact Fitness Courses

PS: There is a way to make a larger differential between how many calories you take in vs how much you burn.

Creating a large "differential"...a larger deficit...by keeping your metabolism as high as possible...while keeping the calories low...is the key to fast fat loss.

I like to call it the "Perfect Storm" of fat loss.

Will talk about that in the next email

And how do you make sure you wont get fat by eating at surplus? I mean my concern is, if I eat at surplus to gain muscles, i will just end up with a bigger belly even if i work out 3 days a week and lift heavy.

And how do you make sure you wont get fat by eating at surplus? I mean my concern is, if I eat at surplus to gain muscles, i will just end up with a bigger belly even if i work out 3 days a week and lift heavy.

You will almost inevitably gain some fat as well. If you're meticulous with your macros and keep just a slight surplus, you can "lean bulk", in theory. It's easy enough to cut the fat back once you've added some muscle+fat.

So what you are suggesting is, gain muscle and fat first with calorie surplus of -lets say- 200-300 cals at day, then once you have built some nice muscles, just do calorie deficit for a while and lose the fat?