How to recomp??

Here"-s a scientific study. Is it really possible to build so much muscle while you’re in a calorie deficit?

The results I’m talking about come from a United States Sports Academy study looking at the effects of strength training and aerobic exercise on body composition in a group of overweight (27% body fat) men.

The men were assigned to one of two groups and trained three days per week for 14 weeks.

An endurance-only group performed both cycling and walking (30 minutes each at 60-70% heart rate reserve for a total of 60 minutes).
A cross-training group performed both cardiovascular and resistance exercise (8 exercises, 4 sets per exercise, 8-12 repetitions per set, 60 seconds of rest between sets) in a single session. Exercises included the bench press, lat pulldown, military press, barbell curl, triceps extension, leg press, leg curl, and calf raise.
The results are shown in the table below, which I scanned in from the research paper.
As you can see, the group that combined cardiovascular with resistance exercise were able to lose fat (7.4 kilograms or 16.3 pounds) while gaining muscle (4.3 kilograms or 9.5 pounds) at the same time.

You look good my man but I'll bet you were always thin and what they call a hard gainer. I am quite the opposite. Training builds muscle and diet shows it.

His body shape does look like he is naturally thin, doesn't it? I wonder if that's part of the reason why he was able to drop the weight so quickly and easily.

Yeah, I bet going from 300 lbs to what he is now was so easy for him. I bet he doesn't have any useful or helpful information for anyone. He should just stay off the boards and stop trying to help people.





These comments are SO ignorant I can't stand it.

The bottom line is this. If you are a beginner and overweight you can build muscle. If you are a muscular person who has already built muscle, cutting back on you calories will result in losing some fat and muscle. I gave my advice based on the person asking the question who says she has fat to lose and no muscle not a seasoned bodybuilder. I really don't think she's looking to pack on slabs of muscle, which seems to be the focal point of a lot of comments.

Actually bottom line is this...the OP said they understood building muscle requires a calorie surplus which is correct and just wanted to know if squats would help her butt...all you had to say was yes.

As well if you are a beginner and/or morbidly obese you can gain muscle but those gains are small and short lived.

So I've learned a lot since joining MFP. I know that you cannot build new muscle unless you are in a caloric surplus, so my question is, how do you 'reshape' your body without having to purposely gain weight? Is it possible? I've lost 50 pounds since having my son and I don't want to gain some back to get the body I want. My biggest complaint is my butt- I lost the weight pretty quickly and its kind of flat and saggy now. I'd like a round butt again...is that possible while eating at a caloric deficit? People have recommended squats, but is that pointless when I'm not eating a surplus to gain more muscle?

and you disagreed

You absolutely can build muscle.

If it is impossible to build muscle while eating fewer calories then a lot of people are wasting their money on P90 X , Insanity and gym memberships lol. In fact if you want to lose weight and look good you have to do those two things....

All I can say is I lost 30 pounds and built a lot of muscle from scratch at 46 absolutely on a calorie deficit and naturally.

and the above is just false...impossible to build lots of muscle while losing 30lbs

Then you spread this mis-information

So you lost all your weight before you started weight training?
That probably is the better way to go. Losing weight is way easier when you don't work out because you don't get so hungry all the time.

Then post opinions of others to back up your opinion.

Bottom line is this..weighted squats will give the OP the butt she wants while still losing weight along with helping her preserve the muscle mass she has left.

And the information in these posts you gave in this thread are just basically wrong...false and you are mis-informed.

Accept that you are wrong and move on, no one is attacking you. Facts might feel that way, suck it up :laugh:

You look good my man but I'll bet you were always thin and what they call a hard gainer. I am quite the opposite. Training builds muscle and diet shows it.

His body shape does look like he is naturally thin, doesn't it? I wonder if that's part of the reason why he was able to drop the weight so quickly and easily.

If by quick you mean over a full year and by easy you mean being 100 % compliant with my diet, no unplanned cheats or binges, never missing a single workout, giving 100 % in the gym despite feeling awful due to the prolonged deficit then yeah, you're correct. Also I was never thin, not as a child, not as a teenager, and not in my 20's until I committed to my new lifestyle.

Great response, I would not have been able to respond so politely to a post like this.

The thing I find hilarious about all of this is the number of people that think it is as easy to build muscle as it is to lose fat. Building muscle is one of the hardest things you will ever try to do with your body. If you are not doing everything absolutely right, a diet surplus, a training response focused on progressive overload, rest, etc. you are not going to build any appreciable muscle. So to think that one can just haphazardly do it while in a deficit and probably doing tons of cardio is just laughable!

If you think you built muscle while you were in a deficit, I hate to break it to you, all you did was uncover muscle that was already there. Yes if you were an untrained individual to begin with you might have gained a very minute amount of muscle to begin with but it wasn't as much as you think.

Now, to the OP. Yes, as some have already said, it IS possible to recomp. But it is so painfully slow, and everything MUST be in order at all times. You will be able to do traditional cut and bulk cycles far easier and quicker than any recomp.

The thing I find hilarious about all of this is the number of people that think it is as easy to build muscle as it is to lose fat. Building muscle is one of the hardest things you will ever try to do with your body. If you are not doing everything absolutely right, a diet surplus, a training response focused on progressive overload, rest, etc. you are not going to build any appreciable muscle. So to think that one can just haphazardly do it while in a deficit and probably doing tons of cardio is just laughable!

If you think you built muscle while you were in a deficit, I hate to break it to you, all you did was uncover muscle that was already there. Yes if you were an untrained individual to begin with you might have gained a very minute amount of muscle to begin with but it wasn't as much as you think.

Now, to the OP. Yes, as some have already said, it IS possible to recomp. But it is so painfully slow, and everything MUST be in order at all times. You will be able to do traditional cut and bulk cycles far easier and quicker than any recomp.

SO TRUE EVERY WORD OF IT!!!!

I think I may have done body recomp to some degree accidentally. I have been trying to lose weight for 10 years or since my adult years...but I have never reached my goal, not even close. But for the past 2 years, I started lifting more seriously and took up on running and other intense workout programs. Now I am still not satisfied with my look, not even close but I noticed that my used-to-be thin top no longer thin but more muscular and my big thighs...they are still big, but less jiggling...over all my weight is still the same but I look more balanced.

I assure you that you did not recomp by accident. No one does. It's not easy to do. As the above quote reflects, building muscle is extremely time consuming and difficult process. You can lose 10 lbs of fat in a month and hope to build about 1 lb of muscle in the same time frame. An old bodybuilder saying is the quickest way to look like you gained 5 lbs of muscle is to lose 10 lbs of fat. Losing fat makes you look more muscular because you can actually see the muscles. People never come up to me during my bulks and say "hey you've but on some muscle". They all seem to do it as start getting lean in my cutting phase because the muscle I've built begins to show.

How was I able to lift heavier weights, get faster, more agile and more endurance if I did not add muscle or "recomp" while lifting without the cut/bulk cycle?

Muscle coordination, neural adaptation. Lifting heavy things is a learned skill, like anything else.

Losing weight (especially as little as I did) doesn't make you stronger or faster. It only makes you look different.

No, that's basically completely 100% wrong. If you maintain strength X and lose weight, you *will* in fact get faster. It's basic physics - exerting Y amount of power on two weights will accelerate the lower weight faster. Depending on how "strength" is measured, it will also make you stronger.