Can I gain muscle while in deficit
rockykim92
Posts: 1 Member
205lb 5ft 11inch been eating at a 300 to 500 deficit. Hit my macros, is it possible to gain muscle while in a deficit or am i simply maintaining. Id like to lose weight but not at the cost of losing muscle mass.
I weight train an hour daily. Thank you for your responses!
I weight train an hour daily. Thank you for your responses!
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Replies
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I Believe this was the article i read regarding weight loss while in your deficit. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/fat_loss_muscle_gain_trick.htm
They generally recommend HIT training because its generally something your body isn't use to.1 -
I lost fat and gained muscle at the same time, more fat lost than muscle gained, so I was definitely in a deficit. It was a very small deficit though, probably less than 200 calories, and that was only because my maintenance calories were underestimated, not because I was intentionally eating at a deficit.2
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In simple words no. You require a caloric surplus to build muscle. If you are a woman (sorry can't tell from your name), then it is even less likely as even with optimum conditions you could hope to earn 0.5lbs of muscle a month.3
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It's very difficult if at all possible. If you are a new lifter and have a very small deficit it could be possible since you'll be in a surplus for a bit during the day but it's really hard especially if you are in a larger deficit and 500 is fairly large. In order to build muscle you must have muscle stimulation, adequate protein and enough food to overcome the down regulators in your muscles. Our bodies are designed to favour protein in other cells before skeletal muscle during times of famine so it will fight against any gain while it feels you are starving but a small deficit might be enough for you to overcome and gain a bit.4
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Yes it's entirely possible to gain muscle in a very small deficit and not at all uncommon.
Especially so as you are young and male.
Assuming effective training and adequate protein intake other factors are your training, your training history, your current state, your genetics.....
http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/
It's far easier not to though!7 -
cgreen120288 wrote: »Yes it's entirely possible to gain muscle in a very small deficit and not at all uncommon.
Especially so as you are young and male.
Assuming effective training and adequate protein intake other factors are your training, your training history, your current state, your genetics.....
http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/
It's far easier not to though!
Newbie gains
Read the article and referenced studies. No, it is not all newbie gains.2 -
@cgreen120288cgreen120288 wrote: »Yes it's entirely possible to gain muscle in a very small deficit and not at all uncommon.
Especially so as you are young and male.
Assuming effective training and adequate protein intake other factors are your training, your training history, your current state, your genetics.....
http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/
It's far easier not to though!
Newbie gains
Far, far wider than just newbies!
It was dead easy for me in my teens and 20's. Just trained and dieted, It's what the majority did in the 70's & 80's.
It was dead easy recovering from injury in my 30's.
It was initially relatively easy in my 50's coming back from a low point. Getting back to previous state ("newbie gains" aren't just once in a lifetime thing).
It was really hard later on when I got back to what I would regard as normal strength/muscle levels. That's after 4 decades of training. Had to come down to a tiny deficit (1lb/month) though.
Can still do it now with exceptionally heavy training and care over my diet, event preparation. (Novel training stimulus.)2 -
cgreen120288 wrote: »cgreen120288 wrote: »Yes it's entirely possible to gain muscle in a very small deficit and not at all uncommon.
Especially so as you are young and male.
Assuming effective training and adequate protein intake other factors are your training, your training history, your current state, your genetics.....
http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/
It's far easier not to though!
Newbie gains
Read the article and referenced studies. No, it is not all newbie gains.
Not all, but most. "much more in untrained, new lifters"
That is fine but your post seemed to insinuate that it is only possible with newbs, which is not the case. It is an oft-repeated fallacy that only newbs can gain muscle in a deficit.3 -
I've definitely gotten stronger, much stronger, while eating at a deficit (500 calories). I've progressively upped my weights and can now do pull ups. Is this not evidence of gaining muscle? Im not trying to challenge the science here, just trying to understand.3
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cgreen120288 wrote: »Yes it's entirely possible to gain muscle in a very small deficit and not at all uncommon.
Especially so as you are young and male.
Assuming effective training and adequate protein intake other factors are your training, your training history, your current state, your genetics.....
http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/
It's far easier not to though!
Newbie gains
Read the article and referenced studies. No, it is not all newbie gains.
I've seen that study referenced before but that's a recomp with a slight deficit, not a weight loss study and the idea is that you go above and below maintenance so you gain muscle while going above. Another issue is that most consumed fat weight leaves the body in the forum of carbon dioxide but that's not addressed in their model of how energy leaves the body.
The problem I have with the studies is that they don't differentiate between LBM and muscle gain. Fact is, much of the gain is likely water rather than muscle from a build up of cortisol during the diet. Now, you can certainly gain strength in the absence of muscle gain as well, so gaining strength isn't proof of gain of muscle either.
You can certainly recomp over time but these studies are far to short and don't offer enough resolution on what's going on. I'd like to know which actually used biopsy and which used double labeled water or metabolic wards to better control since the caloric deficits were so slight.
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emilysusana wrote: »I've definitely gotten stronger, much stronger, while eating at a deficit (500 calories). I've progressively upped my weights and can now do pull ups. Is this not evidence of gaining muscle? Im not trying to challenge the science here, just trying to understand.
No, strength gains, particularly new exercise gains, are do to both muscle fibre and neurological coordination so you can increase strength a lot just by improving neurological efficiencies. Most newbies can gain tremendously on their lifts in the first few months but they won't have much muscle fibre synthesis.
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cgreen120288 wrote: »
@cgreen120288cgreen120288 wrote: »Yes it's entirely possible to gain muscle in a very small deficit and not at all uncommon.
Especially so as you are young and male.
Assuming effective training and adequate protein intake other factors are your training, your training history, your current state, your genetics.....
http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/calorie-deficit-gain-weight/
It's far easier not to though!
Newbie gains
Far, far wider than just newbies!
It was dead easy for me in my teens and 20's. Just trained and dieted, It's what the majority did in the 70's & 80's.
It was dead easy recovering from injury in my 30's.
It was initially relatively easy in my 50's coming back from a low point. Getting back to previous state ("newbie gains" aren't just once in a lifetime thing).
It was really hard later on when I got back to what I would regard as normal strength/muscle levels. That's after 4 decades of training. Had to come down to a tiny deficit (1lb/month) though.
Can still do it now with exceptionally heavy training and care over my diet, event preparation. (Novel training stimulus.)
The second half of the post is based on muscle memory am i correct? If so, then it's not what the OP is asking. He's asking can he gain muscle in a deficit. Im an advocate of cut and bulk rather than recomp, but hey ho.
No - only partly returning to previous levels (I dislike using term muscle memory!).
As a 24 year old male the OP can gain muscle relatively easily - tail end of the golden years.
I started in an era when bulk/cut cycles were the sole preserve of body builders - I never met anyone in my youth doing them. Gaining muscle while losing weight was totally normal and expected.
There's a very general skewed perception on this site that people can't use their fat stores to make up for a (small) calorie deficit.
Maybe because there's more advanced lifters on here? The ones that would struggle the most and have to optimise everything to make progress.
"In the real world" people are generally undertrained and have plenty of easy potential muscle building as long as they train properly. Diet, calories in particular, is over-emphasized IMHO, important for advanced goals, not so much for the general population.4 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »emilysusana wrote: »I've definitely gotten stronger, much stronger, while eating at a deficit (500 calories). I've progressively upped my weights and can now do pull ups. Is this not evidence of gaining muscle? Im not trying to challenge the science here, just trying to understand.
No, strength gains, particularly new exercise gains, are do to both muscle fibre and neurological coordination so you can increase strength a lot just by improving neurological efficiencies. Most newbies can gain tremendously on their lifts in the first few months but they won't have much muscle fibre synthesis.
Thanks- I've never heard this explained before. Follow-up question: I've been working hard at building strength partly so I don't lose lean muscle mass while losing fat. Is this at least possible at a deficit? I eat plenty of protein.1 -
Got to dash but a couple of interesting studies if people are interested.....
Overweight (26% body fat) police officers starting a weight training program lost 9.3 pounds of fat and gained 8.8 pounds of lean body mass in 12 weeks.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10838463
(I know gains were LBM not muscle - but remember they were in a deficit so unlikely to gain glycogen / water you would have thought over 12 weeks of dieting.)
Elite non-strength athletes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21558571
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I did it for a few months, but became busy again and unable to devote time to regular strength training. My schedule has just recently opened up and I'm working on a new plan to do the same. I did it with a high rep. (in some cases, as much as 1 set of 50) plan as endurance was as much or more important than strength.
The one thing that made the biggest difference, in my experience during that time, was protein intake. Eating at a deficit made it really hard to get enough protein within calorie goals. I aimed for 1g / lb. of total body weight. I almost always reached 0.7g / lb., and got to 1g / lb. more than 1/2 the time. I also used BCAA's to supplement protein intake.
So in short, your macros will be really tough because to get to calorie goals with sufficient protein in a deficit, you will need to cut carbs and fat. Timing of your carbs might help too (right before workouts if possible).
That is just sharing what worked for me. Others might have different answers. For me, nutrition played a huge role in making muscle gains during a deficit.1 -
emilysusana wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »emilysusana wrote: »I've definitely gotten stronger, much stronger, while eating at a deficit (500 calories). I've progressively upped my weights and can now do pull ups. Is this not evidence of gaining muscle? Im not trying to challenge the science here, just trying to understand.
No, strength gains, particularly new exercise gains, are do to both muscle fibre and neurological coordination so you can increase strength a lot just by improving neurological efficiencies. Most newbies can gain tremendously on their lifts in the first few months but they won't have much muscle fibre synthesis.
Thanks- I've never heard this explained before. Follow-up question: I've been working hard at building strength partly so I don't lose lean muscle mass while losing fat. Is this at least possible at a deficit? I eat plenty of protein.
You will likely still lose a bit of muscle, but lifting and proper protein intake will certainly minimize the effects. If you hit a small surplus once a week that should also help a bit.0 -
My understanding:
- Can you: Yes.
- Will you: Maybe, it depends on a lot of factors of which current condition is probably the greatest influence.
- Will it be a significant amount: No.
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StealthHealth wrote: »My understanding:
- Can you: Yes.
- Will you: Maybe, it depends on a lot of factors of which current condition is probably the greatest influence.
- Will it be a significant amount: No.
Summarised perfectly.2 -
Despite what gets repeated on here, yes. You can build muscle in a calorie deficit. I have done it and I have seen plenty of others do it. The real question is how much you can build which is influenced by a variety of factors. Now, it is more difficult but it is entirely possible.4
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I think people always confuse strength with building muscle, they think because they are going to the gym, and getting a lot stronger even though they are in a deficit that they are building muscle. Add to that, once you lose the fat on it, your muscles just look bigger, and they are usually filled with more fluid since you are working them out so much. This is usually why people think they are building muscle in a deficit.6
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StealthHealth wrote: »My understanding:
- Can you: Yes.
- Will you: Maybe, it depends on a lot of factors of which current condition is probably the greatest influence.
- Will it be a significant amount: No.
Certainly insignificant if we are talking about a 12-week timespan. What about an 8-month timespan with slight deficit, progressive weight lifting?0 -
CorneliusPhoton wrote: »StealthHealth wrote: »My understanding:
- Can you: Yes.
- Will you: Maybe, it depends on a lot of factors of which current condition is probably the greatest influence.
- Will it be a significant amount: No.
Certainly insignificant if we are talking about a 12-week timespan. What about an 8-month timespan with slight deficit, progressive weight lifting?
I'm assuming progressive lifting (or progressive strength work at least) to be a given. Without it, pretty much any muscle synthesis is going to be small to non-existent.
I suppose significant is a word that leads to interpretation and so is a poor choice. When I said significant I meant significant in comparison to the muscle gain when in calorific maintenance or surplus. In that respect the time span is irrelevant - for any given time period you could have gained more muscle (up to your genetic max) with appropriate stimulus, by eating at maintenance, and more still when eating to excess (subject to a law of diminishing returns - You don't gain 10x more muscle by being 10x more "in surplus").
So yep, you may gain some muscle in deficit over an 8 month period but I would expect that you would have gained more at maintenance and more again in surplus. Of course, there are pay offs. In deficit you may expect to see the reduction in fat being greater (over the same time period) than maintenance and in surplus there is going to be zero fat loss and probably fat gain.
I guess that there may be outliers to my simplistic assumption (it's not a theory or a scientific fact) but I would expect that even the touted "newbie gains" and the "18 Year old male" effect would be positively influenced (w.r.t. muscle gain) by more cals.2 -
CorneliusPhoton wrote: »StealthHealth wrote: »My understanding:
- Can you: Yes.
- Will you: Maybe, it depends on a lot of factors of which current condition is probably the greatest influence.
- Will it be a significant amount: No.
Certainly insignificant if we are talking about a 12-week timespan. What about an 8-month timespan with slight deficit, progressive weight lifting?
Would be worse most likely. The main issue is that their is a key down regulator called AMPK in your muscles and this actually accumulates in the muscle as your deficit is prolonged. A lot of people who think they are gaining muscle while in a deficit likely aren't even though they are convinced of it. Only a DEXA and/or biopsy can really show that for certain. Also, people who gain muscle in a deficit, if they are gaining are likely eating more than they think just like people who stall on weight loss are often eating more than they think.
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People will tell you no, but you can in fact gain some muscle. It won't be a lot, and it'll be your body trading fat stores for muscle as long as you keep your protein levels high enough. I gained quite a bit of definition while in a deficit (although not much strength), but trying too hard to progress in strength training while in a deficit will probably lead to injury. It did for me. Once I backed off and went to mostly body weight training I progressed a bit faster. I originally started a 5x5 weight training program, and every time I went up 5 lbs I thought I was going to die, and six weeks into it managed to injure myself. I was at a 500 calorie a day deficit at the time. Once your fat stores get low enough, it'll be much harder to gain in a deficit, if not impossible.
People will also tell you that you cannot gain muscle while in maintenance (not in surplus) which is also not true. If you carefully log your calories, eat more when you burn more, you can stay even on your calories and build muscle. I do it every day. Again, it's slow, probably 25% of the gains seen from someone in surplus. But it can be done. I simply refuse to gain any more fat, so if that means I bottom out in the muscle gains then so be it. In the last five months I've gained an inch or more on my biceps, can now do double the push ups, double the chin ups, etc. than I could when I started maintenance, and have not gained one single pound. As a matter of fact, I've lost weight but still gained muscle so I'm probably still in a slight deficit. Just don't expect it to be fast.1 -
Sure you can, but it depends. Not everyone can in every circumstance. If you are highly muscled now, but just have a high body fat and have been lifting over time you probably won't gain muscle. If you have not been lifting much you can gain muscle and be in a deficit. The thing you have to know is the body in a deficit wants to burn fat and muscle. There are some studies that show it can be done. Keeping yourself in a high protein diet while in a deficit is needed. I was at 1.2 grams per pound in the largest part of my cutting. Lifting heavy and getting your self into hypertrophy with your workouts. I lost 50 pounds of fat and added about 10 pounds of muscle. I stayed at about a 20% deficit overall calorie wise. This was over a year and a half or so. I didn't stay strict on the cutting path the entire time. Took a couple of vacations, got married, had a honeymoon where I added some pounds back on before cutting again. I would focus on getting the body fat down mostly, continue to lift heavy in a high protein diet and then if you want to bulk you can do that later. My two cents.2
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"Not being able to gain muscle in deficit" seems to be the new "Lifting weights makes women bulky" - everybody is claiming that everyone else is saying it, but there are hardly any people saying it (and none without clarification of the subtleties).
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StealthHealth wrote: »"Not being able to gain muscle in deficit" seems to be the new "Lifting weights makes women bulky" - everybody is claiming that everyone else is saying it, but there are hardly any people saying it (and none without clarification of the subtleties).
There are a lot of clarifications and mostly how big the deficit is and how new to lifting you are -- and what stack you run in some cases. The best that can be said is that it's suboptimal but is possible under the right circumstances but what we know of the biochemistry tells us that it is very hard and rather limited even when it does happen. Anecdotal evidence is unreliable and the study linked above is recomp so we don't have much in the way of controlled research that shows it's possible.
Note: I imagine drugs could have been involved in at least a couple of the trained research groups since the where often highly trained yet gaining over 2lbs of muscle in 2 months, which in natural lifting would be impossible. There was a huge range of lifting experience (from first novice to decade long) and the average for 8 weeks was substantial so I would like to see the individual data and see why this should be (remember according to Lyle's research even a newbie should only be getting about 4 to 8 pounds in 2 months of muscle when running a bulk). We should expect the average gain to be much lower if the average person was in their 5th year of lifting. It's likely that the newbie lifters really skewed the data unless drugs were involved. Either way, I don't like the research design since we know that newbies are much different from 5 year veterans so grouping them into tighter strata would have helped. I'm also not a huge fan of meta studies since I can't scrutinize the data and methodology for each study.
ETA I used to be in the "you definitely can" camp but my research has started to show that it's not so easy to say this without a lot of caveats.
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The last time around, a month ago, Iost 6 net lbs in a month on a deficit diet from 172 to 166 - - neg 7 fat and plus 1 LBM - - and increased my strength as well, which reduced my BF% from 20.3 to 16.9.
I'm now at 164 and am going back for another DEXA in a few days, which based on my appearance and further strength gains, should show a further reduction in BF and a hopefuly some increase in LBM while still on a minor deficit diet.
165 was my goal weight, which I just hit based o the 7 day average. So, I'll be switching to maintentance after the next DEXA scan.2 -
The last time around, a month ago, Iost 6 net lbs in a month on a deficit diet from 172 to 166 - - neg 7 fat and plus 1 LBM - - and increased my strength as well, which reduced my BF% from 20.3 to 16.9.
I'm now at 164 and am going back for another DEXA in a few days, which based on my appearance and further strength gains, should show a further reduction in BF and a hopefuly some increase in LBM while still on a minor deficit diet.
165 was my goal weight, which I just hit based o the 7 day average. So, I'll be switching to maintentance after the next DEXA scan.
Does your DEXA give you enough detail to show muscle vs other LBM? You are likely gaining bone and water mass too so that would be helpful to know. A lot of people jump at LBM and say LBM= muscle but nothing could be further from the truth.
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Wheelhouse15 wrote: »StealthHealth wrote: »"Not being able to gain muscle in deficit" seems to be the new "Lifting weights makes women bulky" - everybody is claiming that everyone else is saying it, but there are hardly any people saying it (and none without clarification of the subtleties).
There are a lot of clarifications and mostly how big the deficit is and how new to lifting you are -- and what stack you run in some cases. The best that can be said is that it's suboptimal but is possible under the right circumstances but what we know of the biochemistry tells us that it is very hard and rather limited even when it does happen.
This is a much less discouraging answer to the question than a flat "no". I get that you need to eat at a surplus to see significant muscle growth in a relatively short period of time, but I don't find it logical that muscles can't or don't grow for people who are doing progressive lifting over a long period of time. Do those people just come full stop in their progress? ETA: ... while at a slight deficit
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