Food Calorie Surplus to Gain Muscle Mass…Really?

My hypothesis: Given appropriate exercise and protein levels, a person can build muscle mass while eating at a calorie deficit that will result in loss of body fat (and perhaps even weight loss). My contention is that the body fat contributes to the body’s calorie needs as well as food, and until there is insufficient body fat a person should expect to be able to gain muscle mass AND lose body fat and even body weight simultaneously. What think ye?

People will tell you, based on personal experience, that it does happen (assuming the calorie deficit isn't too large). People will also tell you that it's not possible... that without a surplus of building materials (calories), new muscle ain't gonna happen.

I don't think it's an either/or issue... I think that with a calorie surplus, muscle gains will be easier and faster (though "faster" is a bit of a misnomer... it's never fast, it just won't be AS slow). I also think that the amount of body fat a person is carrying is a factor.

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I keep reading that in order to gain muscle mass, one needs to have a caloric surplus that includes appropriate quantities of protein (and of course muscle mass building exercises). My question focuses on the food piece of this equation – I want to know if body fat calories count toward the surplus.

My hypothesis: Given appropriate exercise and protein levels, a person can build muscle mass while eating at a calorie deficit that will result in loss of body fat (and perhaps even weight loss). My contention is that the body fat contributes to the body’s calorie needs as well as food, and until there is insufficient body fat a person should expect to be able to gain muscle mass AND lose body fat and even body weight simultaneously. What think ye?

I am looking forward to the debate as to why this may not be true and learning a few things along the way...

Contradicted by available evidence and known physiology. The body doesn't break down extra fat so that it has more available calories to build muscle. If the body is breaking down its own tissue to generate enough energy to stay alive, then it isn't going to be trying to build mass. That's just how it goes.

I keep reading that in order to gain muscle mass, one needs to have a caloric surplus that includes appropriate quantities of protein (and of course muscle mass building exercises). My question focuses on the food piece of this equation – I want to know if body fat calories count toward the surplus.

My hypothesis: Given appropriate exercise and protein levels, a person can build muscle mass while eating at a calorie deficit that will result in loss of body fat (and perhaps even weight loss). My contention is that the body fat contributes to the body’s calorie needs as well as food, and until there is insufficient body fat a person should expect to be able to gain muscle mass AND lose body fat and even body weight simultaneously. What think ye?

I am looking forward to the debate as to why this may not be true and learning a few things along the way...

Contradicted by available evidence and known physiology. The body doesn't break down extra fat so that it has more available calories to build muscle. If the body is breaking down its own tissue to generate enough energy to stay alive, then it isn't going to be trying to build mass. That's just how it goes.

Would you say that an overweight person could build muscle while on a deficit, though?

I think it depends significantly on what you mean by "build muscle." I know there are all these stories of fat people "building muscle" while losing, but I think there's something physiologically different going on there than when you build muscle on a calorie surplus. I don't think that new tissue is getting created. I have no evidence for that claim, but it doesn't make sense to me. I think that a change in how/where glycogen and water and other things are getting stored, and a change in the chemistry of the adipose tissue, are probably what generate those measured differences.

Either way, even in the most extreme verified cases, there isn't that much muscle mass created. Someone who is merely overweight and not very obese is probably not going to build any significant amount of mass - and even if they did, it wouldn't be any sort of long-term growth.

I do agree with what Jonnythan says about long term growth. I don't think anyone on a calorie deficit regardless of starting weight/mass is going to end up looking like The Rock or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I had the same question when I first started.

To build new muscle mass the body needs at least two things, energy AND the building materials. You can not build something from nothing, right?

You provide your body with plenty of building material (protein) but not enough energy? It prioritizes the need for energy before the need to build new mass. This is to keep us alive. Repairing tissue, breathing, hormone function, immune system and so on. Since protein can be used as energy your body will use it until it meets it energy needs. If you are in a deficit this leaves no building materials. The body will then go to fat stores for any additional calorie needs but the extra energy and building material never occurs at the same time in a deficit. When you have eaten food the body produces hormones that prioritize using the ingested food for energy. It will not go to fat stores while this is in progress and then only when we are in a deficit.

There are instances where there seems to be exceptions to this but they are pretty short term and only small increases. Very overweight, new lifters, and people returning to training who regain lost muscle.

We see studies and observations where lean body mass is increased while the subject lost weight. This is often used as evidence that muscle CAN be built but lean body mass does not always equal muscle. Water is a significant contributor to LBM and can vary widely day to day. There is also some degree of inaccuracy to the testing methods. Even in a daily calorie deficit there are times during that day that you are not in a deficit for immediate caloric needs. Small amounts of new mass could be created during that time also. Over the long term this could allow for some body recomposition.

Just my 2 cents... The body can't convert it's own fat to muscle, if that's your question. That being said, if you were to get seriously strict about nutrient timing, specifically peri-workout, it is possible to have an overall (think weekly or monthly) caloric deficit and still gain muscle.
That being said, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a bodybuilder or powerlifter who got big without eating at a surplus.

Lyle McDonald's thoughts on the matter.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/adding-muscle-while-losing-fat-qa.html

Now, if you look out across different time frames, it becomes clear that yes, you CAN add muscle while eating at a deficit. Spend 8 weeks on a bulking cycle, and then 8 weeks on a cutting cycle, and you will have eaten at a net deficit over the 16 weeks, while (in effect) turning fat into muscle.

The question then is....how tight can you get those timeframes? Can you do this on a week to week basis? At what point are you cycling so fast between bulking and cutting that the benefits of either/both are lost?

I don't have the answer to that. But I suspect it strongly relates to the exercise volume and type.

I keep reading that in order to gain muscle mass, one needs to have a caloric surplus that includes appropriate quantities of protein (and of course muscle mass building exercises). My question focuses on the food piece of this equation – I want to know if body fat calories count toward the surplus.

My hypothesis: Given appropriate exercise and protein levels, a person can build muscle mass while eating at a calorie deficit that will result in loss of body fat (and perhaps even weight loss). My contention is that the body fat contributes to the body’s calorie needs as well as food, and until there is insufficient body fat a person should expect to be able to gain muscle mass AND lose body fat and even body weight simultaneously. What think ye?

I am looking forward to the debate as to why this may not be true and learning a few things along the way...

It happens all the time on "The Biggest Loser". I think the difference is that those people are overweight/obese. A thin person with virtually no muscle mass will probably have to eat a calorie surplus.

Did you just use a reality TV show as evidence for...anything?

My hypothesis: Given appropriate exercise and protein levels, a person can build muscle mass while eating at a calorie deficit that will result in loss of body fat (and perhaps even weight loss). My contention is that the body fat contributes to the body’s calorie needs as well as food, and until there is insufficient body fat a person should expect to be able to gain muscle mass AND lose body fat and even body weight simultaneously. What think ye?

It's not enough to say all the pieces are available, the appropriate metabolic pathways need to be there, and the pathways need to be wide enough to support the load.

For example, an issue with fat stores is they release energy much more slowly than the body burns them during exercise. A 50 pound fat reserve will yield somewhere around 1200 calories a day of potential energy, but this energy is only accessible at a rate of around 50 calories per hour. This means the internal "batteries" (ie glycogen stores etc) are going to get hit during exercise. This in turn means a portion, possibly a significant portion, of caloric intake is going to restoration of glycogen etc. If you're in a high-protein, low-carb kind of regimen, this means burning ingested protein for fuel, instead of using it for muscle growth.

So to make your argument, you'll need to lay out the principle metabolic pathways, caloric intakes, etc, and demonstrate that Point A is actually connected to Point C, so to speak. Personally, I'd love to see someone lay out an energy balance map showing all this.

This is definitely food for thought. I like your approach to the issues, and I would also love to see the energy balance map.

I keep reading that in order to gain muscle mass, one needs to have a caloric surplus that includes appropriate quantities of protein (and of course muscle mass building exercises). My question focuses on the food piece of this equation – I want to know if body fat calories count toward the surplus.

My hypothesis: Given appropriate exercise and protein levels, a person can build muscle mass while eating at a calorie deficit that will result in loss of body fat (and perhaps even weight loss). My contention is that the body fat contributes to the body’s calorie needs as well as food, and until there is insufficient body fat a person should expect to be able to gain muscle mass AND lose body fat and even body weight simultaneously. What think ye?

I am looking forward to the debate as to why this may not be true and learning a few things along the way...

It happens all the time on "The Biggest Loser". I think the difference is that those people are overweight/obese. A thin person with virtually no muscle mass will probably have to eat a calorie surplus.

Did you just use a reality TV show as evidence for...anything?

Yeah, probaby a bad idea. But they were at a calorie deficit, and they have muscles at the end of the show. Well, most of them, anyway. I think someone earlier made much more sense though when they said that they likely had all that muscle to begin with carrying their 300 or 400 pound bodies, and losing the fat just made them visible. Now bulk? They wouldn't fit into most definitions of bulky because they look lean, not huge like a bodybuilder.

I want to know if body fat calories count toward the surplus.

yes. this makes it possible to "recomp". this highly depends on BF level and how long you have been training though and will always lead to much slower muscle gain than a (clean)bulk-cut approach.

instead i would suggest to focus entirely an strength while cutting. by way of neuromuscular adaptation you can gain strength even when loosing muscle mass. when you start focusing more on hypertrophy after you finished your cut and eat in a surplus your muscle mass will shoot up due to better muscle-recruitment.

DISCLAIMER... this is based on very little actual knowledge, a bit of logic, a lot of reading, and probably influenced slightly by what I want to believe.


The body is constantly adapting to conditions... burning cals, storing cals, directing blood flow, etc etc. The list could probably go on forever regarding processes that change based on need/conditions.

So take the average person who works out once per day, 3ish times per week. The energy needs during and following the workout (assuming you give any credibility to the whole anabolic window idea) are very different than those while the person is at work sitting in front of a computer all day.

So if the person feeds properly around their workouts, why couldn't they build muscle during that 4 or 6 or 10 hours when muscles are being worked, damaged, and repaired? Then if they ended up in a slight calorie deficit over the course of a week, why wouldn't there be fat loss? I'm not saying those gains would be the same as those seen during a traditional bulk, but seems like they would be more than the "negligible gains" most people are willing to concede when on a deficit.

Yes, clearly this is influenced by all the reading I've done on things like IFing, carb backloading, calorie cycling, etc. But much the way the lay person's logic says you can't build if you're short on materials, the same logic says you can build if you have the materials when the body wants to build.