Cal deficit n muscle gains?!

new_obsession wrote: »

just read it's not possible to gain muscle while being in a calorie deficit. Is this true?

I believe you can still tone your pre-existing muscle, you just can't create new tissue?

If I can't build muscle while in a calorie deficit, then why am I able to use heavier weights? I'm trying to understand this.

In general you will not gain muscle mass in a caloric deficit; but like many things in life, it depends!

First of all we are specifically talking about gaining muscle mass, not about gaining strength or improving your performance. Both happen regularly when you exercise more, regardless of whether you're in a caloric deficit, and that's because your central nervous system gets better at recruiting and activating the muscle fibers you already have.

Any muscle mass gains will depend on your age, sex, physical condition, deficit, previous training of the muscles in question, what you eat and the type of exercise stimulus!

If you are older, female, in great shape already, employ a huge caloric deficit, have been training for a few years, don't eat much protein, and hit the exercise circuit hard, you could even successfully accelerate lean mass loss!

But if you don't stack up everything against you, and if your deficit is low enough that your body still has some anabolic capacity, and if you have enough body-fat available to provide the energy, enough extra protein floating around to go into building and repairing your muscles, and an appropriate stimulus gets applied on muscles that have not been trained in recent memory, sure you will build some amount of muscle mass!

Though certainly not as much as if you were eating at a surplus.

However, and that's pretty important, regardless of whether you are building up additional muscle mass, stimulating and training your muscles while you are losing weight does have the effect of helping preserve your existing lean muscle mass.

And the little thing about muscles that have not been trained in recent memory (newbie gains) and having enough fat available (over-fat beginners) is something that is often ignored in this forum, thus discouraging people who have everything to gain by engaging in exercise!

So eat your protein, lift some weights, or apply a similar progressive stimulus, and avoid a huge deficits... and you just might build some muscle mass while losing weight

And even if you don't... you will still be in better shape than you would otherwise!

In terms of cardio vs lifting weight for weight loss? The answer is frankly neither: it is your food intake that primarily regulates your deficit.

In general you should maintain a weight loss that doesn't exceed 20% of TDEE. Maybe if you're in a real hurry, go up to 25%. Which means that for most people 2lb a week goals are not appropriate.

Lets consider two people: one at a TDEE of 2500 and one at a TDEE of 3750. 20% of TDEE is 500Cal for the first person and 750Cal for the second person.

If you are the first person... engaging in 1250 Cal of exercise to achieve an extra 250 Cal of daily deficit... seems excessive.

On the other hand if you burn 1750 at sedentary (safe deficit = 350; plus you only get to eat 1400Cal a day in order to achieve taht), then throwing in 750 Cal worth of cardio (safe deficit = 500; PLUS you get to eat 2000 Cal that day) can make for a much more enjoyable weight loss experience.

As should be obvious by this discussion, I don't believe that you should do 2000 Cals worth of cardio and not eat back your exercise calories... but I will leave that for another day!

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

Cardio burns those calories and aids the 'weight loss' side of things and blasts the fat (Yes, it's also good for your heart and fitness levels in general). I am a fan of cardio.

I am also a fan of weight lifting/strength training. Yes, I still have a layer of 'fat' - but as the cardio blasts that fat off, you will actually SEE my lean muscle because I have been training and 'toning'. I am not GAINING muscle mass.

I could just do cardio and lose the fat but I wouldn't have definition.

What do you mean by toning? You are changing the shape of the muscles? Making them harder? I'm not sure how this makes sense...

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

555_FILK wrote: »

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

Cardio burns those calories and aids the 'weight loss' side of things and blasts the fat (Yes, it's also good for your heart and fitness levels in general). I am a fan of cardio.

I am also a fan of weight lifting/strength training. Yes, I still have a layer of 'fat' - but as the cardio blasts that fat off, you will actually SEE my lean muscle because I have been training and 'toning'. I am not GAINING muscle mass.

I could just do cardio and lose the fat but I wouldn't have definition.

What do you mean by toning? You are changing the shape of the muscles? Making them harder? I'm not sure how this makes sense...

I'm trying to put it in a way that isn't going to confuse the OP (I don't mean that in a patronizing sense) - I use the word 'toning' (although not a fan of the particular word myself) to describe the visibility of my muscles. No I have not GAINED muscle because I have been in a deficit - but I do not have loose skin around the areas I have lost fat because of the weight training alongside the cardio. I am no scientist or fitness expert and don't pretend to be, I'm useless at technical explanations so I tend to call it how I see it and hope for the best!

OK gotcha

new_obsession wrote: »

N if it is is it just smarter then to do cardio lose the fat then switch focus n do weights to gain muscle? I'm confused as to what I should focus been trying 2 days weights n circuit training then a day of run n I alternate but main focus is fat loss. Should I just focus on cardio?

I would recommend that you stick with the weight training. Resistance training and adequate protein intake have been linked to retaining more lean body mass, which is what you want to do during weight loss. You will still lose a little muscle, that's inevitable, but the goal is to keep what you have. Especially as a woman, it is much easier to keep what you've got than lose it and try to build it back up.

If you enjoy cardio, there's no reason not to keep that in your routine as well. It has wonderful cardiovascular and endurance benefits, plus the extra calorie burn from the exercise increases the number of calories you can eat and still lose weight.

camilacreme wrote: »

hm. no expert here but I've been on a deficit (not a massive one mind you) for 8 months and I have gained muscle with weight training... lots of it from what I can tell. Either that or I was just really muscular under all my fat!

I only do 1 cardio session per week (boxing).

I'm voting on the latter.

Again, untrained or new people, have been known to get "newbie gains" but that typically tapers off. You are most likely noticing the good amount of muscle you already had.

new_obsession wrote: »

just read it's not possible to gain muscle while being in a calorie deficit. Is this true?

debatable - is the deficit measured over 24 hours, 4 hours, a week, etc ?

With the exception of newbie gains, it's extremely rare, (HARD WORK) for one to gain muscle in a deficit.