Eating at a deficit and gaining muscle

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1. newbie gains
2. fat loss that makes muscle show...

I am not sure if I am not reading your post correctly, but you seem to be conflating fat loss with muscle gain. The reason that your waist is smaller is because you lost fat and weight....

Question was asked "Can you gain muscle while eating at a deficit"
I say I did.
People keep saying "Newbie gains...newbie gains...newbie gains"
Newbie gains of...what? Say it with me now... Muscle.
At the same time I lost fat.

In the 15 months that I have been working on changing my life I have watched as for 11 months measurements got smaller and smaller, and then some of them started to get bigger while others, mainly my waist, continued to get smaller. Some of my measurements are now bigger than when I was fatter, and heavier.

For the first 9 months I was doing lots of cardio, and my lifting consisted of doing 15-20 rep sets on machines at weights that didn't leave me hurting the next day.
6 months ago I moved over to free weights, and started doing 5x5 Strong Lifts, and cutting back on the cardio. I also changed from eating 1300 to 1700 to 2000 to 2100...but with workout cals, I average 2400 now. According to Bodymedia, and 6 different TDEE cacluators I average burning 2900 cals a day now. Yesterday I burned 2362...Day before that 3439.
Two months after that is when I started noticing my arms, chest and thighs stopped getting smaller, while my waist was still shrinking.
Now I am at 4 months of seeing the tape tell me my arms are bigger than the month before, same for thighs and chest.
I looked at my numbers from Jan 2013...and those three things are higher numbers now then they were back in Jan 2013. If you put the numbers on a graph it would be a V. They went down for a long time, and now they are going up.

Now, gains are easy, because there is lots of untapped potential... Do I think I'll still be able to add muscle at a deficit after 2 years of doing this? No. I won't still have all this extra fat, nor will I have muscles that have been lying around basically unused for decades.
Does it mean I am not doing it now? Well, you all seem to think I am, as you keep saying I have newbie gains... of muscle.

If my measurements were still going down...well, then it would be just fat loss, no question. But when I started seeing my arms getting bigger...can any of you give me an answer as to what other than muscle it could be....6 months after I started lifting?
I told more than enough people on here "Water weight...new workout...muscles repairing themselves"...And if I am carrying 1.5" of water weight in my arms, why am I seeing more definition then I was before I started lifting heavier? So what else could it be?
And why has my weight basically stalled, while my waist is getting smaller, my arms, legs and chest bigger?

No
I'm not sure what your argument truly is here. You are trying to prove a point to have you been some sort of anomaly and want to disregard the notion of "noob gains". But then when someone reads what you wrote you are basically describing mood gains. You seem to want to believe what you want because it's what you want to be true. It's easy for us to do that.

You are saying that you spent months training on machines and didn't really get into a barbell routine with progressive overload until after 9 months and I get that but you are then taking the statement that noob gains will generally last between 6-8 months and applying it to your situation when that shouldn't be the case. During those months that you were on those machines there is a very high probability that you were not maximizing your strength training potential and doing everything possible to achieve option MPS. Especially with your statement that you were eating under 1500 calories and were training in a 15-20 rep range. Then you move over to a well structured routine with built in progressive overload and you think that just because you were on some machines for 8 months prior you maxed out your noob gains? It doesn't work that way.

You saw some increase in some physical areas but you have to look at the bigger picture, what really happens with our muscles with proper training. Increased glycogen, noob gains added strength mostly due to CNS adaptation. All of these factors coupled with fat loss creates the illusion of us putting on a considerable amount of actual muscle.

No.... I am saying I gained muscle, while eating at a deficit. That is the point I am trying to make.

If you cut my arm open there would be more muscle and less fat then was in there 15 months ago, 9 months ago, 1 month ago.
You can call it newbie gains, or even Sammy Hagar for all I care.
It is muscle, no matter what you call it.
Doctors can't look at a persons arm and point at a section and say "Well, that section is newbie gains" like a ring on a tree.
There is no biological difference between a pound of muscle added in the first 6 months of a person working out, and a pound added 10 years into working out....other than the guy who just started likely added it way easier.

OP asked if it is possible to add muscle while eating at a deficit.
I said yes.
So did some others who have recently gotten into lifting.
I pointed out I spent 9 months focusing on losing weight, and lost about 30lbs, before I started lifting...which is when I started adding muscle.
You are telling me that I added 1.5" onto my upper arm over 6 months, and that it is all increased glycogen/water...and yet, I have more definition now, then when it was smaller? Remind me again why bodybuilder dehydrate themselves before they go on stage.... Oh yeah, it is because the water dulls all the definition. And mind you, I am not saying I have huge arms...I am saying I've gone from 11" to 12.5" in 6months....but at 220lbs in Jan 2013 the same arm was 12.25".

Your body doesn't do once thing for the whole day. Its always repating itself throughout the day so yes you can but it wont last too long.

Honest question........

Are you even reading the replies before you post? People have clearly stated several times the situations where people can experience muscle growth like new lifters, obese etc.....yet you are saying you are telling the OP there is a way to do it because you did it as a new lifter. What am I missing here? You are describing the same thing a bunch of people here have already said can happen.

You also are clearly not reading if you're saying I said you gained 1.5 inches in glycogen only in 6 months. I never said that. I clearly said that's a result of several things. If you come back arguing something that has already been pointed out several time ls or saying I said something I didn't then don't bother replying because it's not worth going back and forth about nothing.

This is pretty much what I was getting at with my last post to him and why I didn't even bother to continue attempting to discuss with him. It was clear he did not read what I had written. I was going to add to my clarification post that he is basically a good example of the exceptions that everyone has already talked about (although I would add that Galatea's addition to my post about LBM is also very relevant in this situation as well).

IN!

Cause I got bored in the woman putting on too much muscle thread....

Damn I missed that one..apparently back again tho...going to that one next..

As for this whole debate...

Please...if you could gain muscle while on a deficet I would be gaining muscle...I lift heavy, I get in lots of protien and I have yet to see an increase in my LBM period...I have gained a tonne of strength but lost LBM...oh well guess I am not as lucky as others...

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What if the body is metabolizing fat stores for energy and therefore using all or most of the 1600 calories and 200 grams of protein to build muscle? Just a thought.

Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion sill. My grandmother used to say this. I guess I am the anti-snowflake because as hard as I have tried over the last 19 months to lose weight and gain muscle.....I have failed. Lost lots of fat......gained no appreciable muscle. What I wouldn't give to be a genetic anomaly snowflake.

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What if the body is metabolizing fat stores for energy and therefore using all or most of the 1600 calories and 200 grams of protein to build muscle? Just a thought.

After all the usual silliness, name calling and equating deficit with "nothing" the role of fat is surely the central issue at debate?

Think most people agree that to build muscle you need muscle stress (in the form of overlioad), adequate protein and energy. Uneven eating methods may help (debatable).

So it boils down to can people with sufficient fat reserves partition some of that store of energy? A survival response to preserve fat at a low calorie deficit seems unlikely to me, otherwise fat loss would be harder than it is..
People seem to forget that using fat for energy isn't something you have to do anything special to trigger - it's a normal part of everyone's day.

Always interesting that those with plenty of training years under their belt and low body fat are in the vanguard of the "impossible" argument.

someone posted a bunch of links about body recomposition.

i'm sure you can gain muscle and lose fat over a certain peroid of time, but i got to think whats really happening there is that your sometimes at a moderate surplus, sometimes at a moderate defecit

I was recently part of a debate over on a different site where this idea was thrown around in regards to running a 1 week bulk/1 weeks cut cycle in order to get hypertrophy one week and oxidize fat the next week. The general theory is that in order to cause hypertrophy to occur we need more consistency in our surplus to have it occur. I haven't seen any documentation on anyone actually being successful with such an experiment but if there has been I'd be more than curious to read about it.

I'm not sure a novice would be able to accomplish this even by trying and even less by mistake.

i agree with what your saying, but its my best explination as to how it could possibly work for someone who's not brand spanking new, on steroids or very overweight.

now i'm off to find out what the hell a DEXA scan is lol

Let me know your results.
I haven't been able to find an answer one way or another. Some places say it is the most accurate, other sources say it isn't at all.
I do know one lady here posted her pics for people to guess her results and looked closer to 25%. Her results were 15% BF. She had also fasted and done an intense workout before hand so I don't know how much that factors in.

I just did a little bit of searching on the subject, I've found this scientific research on the subject:

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51113664_Effect_of_two_different_weight-loss_rates_on_body_composition_and_strength_and_power-related_performance_in_elite_athletes?ev=pub_srch_pub

It basically suggests that if you are at a modest deficit, losing 0.7% of your body weight, it is possible to slowly gain muscle at the same time.

Ah, very interesting. I asked about this earlier in the thread but it kind of got lost in all the arguing. Thanks!

I've had two hydros done by the same technician -- comes around my workplace gym once per quarter in a mobile testing van. I just found out I can get a DEXA done at Stanford (though it is a little spendy). If I can make the timing work, when the mobile van comes sometime in May presumably, I am hoping to arrange for a DEXA early AM and then the hydro later AM. Very curious about a direct comparison!

OP, there are lots of sources out there that verify that you CAN gain muscle while eating at a deficit ... under 2 conditions. One is if you are very new to fitness, no real muscle tone at all to begin with and the other is if you USED to be athletic but then a period of lethargy atrophied all your muscle away. Then you can regain it fairly quickly EVEN IF eating at a deficit.

I am one person who can tell you for sure that I have traded 12 lbs of fat for 12 lbs of lean muscle in my journey thus far. How did I arrive at this number?

I started at 380 and began losing with cardio only. But then very quickly learned to add some strength training to the mix, but NOT heavy lifting because I have a hernia. However, my research shows that at my high weight, my BODY WEIGHT was the added weight being flung around in my cardio that added to my strength gains and muscle gains. I also added dumbbell training, kettlebell, ankle and wrist weights throughout my cardio and various other small techniques that added up: carrying all my equipment at work rather than wheeling it on a cart, carrying heavier loads from grocery trips, doing dumbbell training, going hands-free on elliptical (this is a great core strength training strategy), resistance training on the mini-stepper in my office, and various other ways that I let my body lift my own weight to develop muscle.

I lost weight rapidly at first (mostly water) and then it slowed down. My fat loss is scheduled at 2 lb a week (the calorie formula I use) but then slowed to about 1/2-1 lb a week just as I was feeling a lot more strength, balance and endurance, really feeling my benefits of my workouts (about 5-6 months in). That's when my scale loss slowed.

I got a body composition scale that shows that during a 10 week period, I should have lost 20 lbs but only lost 7 on the scale. All sorts of accusations of my overeating, underrecording, etc. but I knew that wasn't it. At around 300 lbs at this point, I checked my body composition scale again and saw that I had only lost 7 lbs but my fat loss had dropped 4% and my muscle gain had risen the same 4%. Well, 4% of 300 lbs is about 12 lbs. That confirmed what I had been feeling and others had been seeing ... lots of NEW muscle!! Even at 293 currently, I have VISIBLE new muscle in arms and legs and can feel a tremendously strengthened core --- after 9 months of daily heavy workouts (both cardio and strength), I'm feeling amazing and I can promise you with 100% certainty that you CAN and WILL gain new muscle (sometimes significantly—my 4%/12 lb exchange happened over about 3 months, give or take). So that 7 lb loss + 12 lb exchange + 1-2 lbs of water puts me right on track with my calorie intake/output and 20 lb difference that was made by my efforts. Only 7 visible on the scale, but I can feel the 12 lb difference a LOT! Muscle *FEELS* a lot lighter than fat even though it's heavier by volume.

Human bodies are always proving science wrong (esp bro-science!). Go by what WORKS for you! Don't let anyone convince you that you can't build muscle while eating at a deficit ... too many examples of that myth simply not being true! Maybe for some people (who already have a degree of muscle fitness when they start) but certainly not for all.