Can I gain muscle while in deficit
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Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Short answer is no. Long answer is you might make a tiny initial gain but that won't continue and it won't be a significant amount.
Personal experience (its an anecdote of course but may as well share). I trained hard including lifting for 6 months. I tracked both my weight and my lean mass through bodyfat percentage measuring (calipers). I lost 28 pounds (about a pound a week so 500 deficit like you) and my muscles looked considerably more defined and I was significantly stronger. See my profile pictures for the progress shots between February and July of 2014.
That said during that time my lean mass did not change at all. I dropped fat, I maintained my muscle mass. No gains.
Please excuse me if I'm going a little off topic, but if you can maintain the muscle you had when you were overfat, isn't it like an unintentional bulk? You have more muscle than you might have if you'd never gained weight, no?
I like to think of my weight gain in those terms!
<stretch> yeah, just coming off a 2 year bulk...mmmm <flexing> thinking about cutting a bit. I'm sure there is lots of muscle under there somewhere.4 -
In my experience it is very difficult. In the past 6 months I have lost about 15lbs, fat and fluid, and gained just under 1lb of muscle. This was done through training, a low deficit with the goal of 0.5lb loss a week, and one day a week at maintenance ( weights that day instead of Insanity).
Recently I've switched focus back to losing those last stubborn pounds of fat while maintaining current muscle0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Short answer is no. Long answer is you might make a tiny initial gain but that won't continue and it won't be a significant amount.
Personal experience (its an anecdote of course but may as well share). I trained hard including lifting for 6 months. I tracked both my weight and my lean mass through bodyfat percentage measuring (calipers). I lost 28 pounds (about a pound a week so 500 deficit like you) and my muscles looked considerably more defined and I was significantly stronger. See my profile pictures for the progress shots between February and July of 2014.
That said during that time my lean mass did not change at all. I dropped fat, I maintained my muscle mass. No gains.
Please excuse me if I'm going a little off topic, but if you can maintain the muscle you had when you were overfat, isn't it like an unintentional bulk? You have more muscle than you might have if you'd never gained weight, no?
Yeah technically I think thats true. I mean presumably if you become obese then day to day moving your mass around you are probably building muscle underneath and then if you manage to shed that extra fat without losing the muscle you basically bulked up. If I became 260 pounds I probably would have a higher lean mass than I do now and if I then managed to get back down to 160 without losing muscle I'd probably look better than I do currently. But its a lot more efficient and a lot better for your health if you do a cleaner bulk intentionally than if you just get obese and cut later. Can't imagine accidently becoming obese and then losing weight is a good approach to health.
Also I've never been obese, only been overweight. I imagine if you are truly obese and have like 100 pounds plus to lose its a lot harder to actually maintain your muscle during that loss.
There are bodybuilders who have done that; it's the old fashioned see food dirty bulk but most people these days don't follow that. A lot of the reason they do that is because they use both PEDs and extremely strong fat loss drugs like insulin and DNP. Not recommended if you like being above ground for long.
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Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Short answer is no. Long answer is you might make a tiny initial gain but that won't continue and it won't be a significant amount.
Personal experience (its an anecdote of course but may as well share). I trained hard including lifting for 6 months. I tracked both my weight and my lean mass through bodyfat percentage measuring (calipers). I lost 28 pounds (about a pound a week so 500 deficit like you) and my muscles looked considerably more defined and I was significantly stronger. See my profile pictures for the progress shots between February and July of 2014.
That said during that time my lean mass did not change at all. I dropped fat, I maintained my muscle mass. No gains.
Please excuse me if I'm going a little off topic, but if you can maintain the muscle you had when you were overfat, isn't it like an unintentional bulk? You have more muscle than you might have if you'd never gained weight, no?
Yeah technically I think thats true. I mean presumably if you become obese then day to day moving your mass around you are probably building muscle underneath and then if you manage to shed that extra fat without losing the muscle you basically bulked up. If I became 260 pounds I probably would have a higher lean mass than I do now and if I then managed to get back down to 160 without losing muscle I'd probably look better than I do currently. But its a lot more efficient and a lot better for your health if you do a cleaner bulk intentionally than if you just get obese and cut later. Can't imagine accidently becoming obese and then losing weight is a good approach to health.
Also I've never been obese, only been overweight. I imagine if you are truly obese and have like 100 pounds plus to lose its a lot harder to actually maintain your muscle during that loss.
There are bodybuilders who have done that; it's the old fashioned see food dirty bulk but most people these days don't follow that. A lot of the reason they do that is because they use both PEDs and extremely strong fat loss drugs like insulin and DNP. Not recommended if you like being above ground for long.
Yeah but I think they like lift weights and stuff while they are eating a lot of food. Most people who get obese are just eating a lot of food.1 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »CorneliusPhoton wrote: »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?
Unless you have an understanding of the underlying biology and biochemistry it might seem illogical but when you study some of that you can see where the limits come in. Our bodies don't want to maintain, let alone grow, energy/protein expensive skeletal muscle tissue in times of low food availability so we have substances that really throttle back on our ability to maintain and grow new skeletal muscle when we aren't eating enough. To easily allow us to maintain this tissue when there are more important systems in the body that require energy and protein would be the illogical proposition in terms of survival.
Another logic in biology is that we have to be able to structurally support our strength and getting to strong isn't conducive of this and the severe injuries that we see from steroid users is proof of this, thus we have a thing called myostatin that really throttles back on synthesis as we gain more and more muscle. Now, will you ever run out of gains? In natural practice no, maximum strength is an asymptote so you'll slow down and never really reach it unless you start using PEDs. However, we all come to a point where we slow down tremendously and as you age you will start going in reverse -- honestly, getting older was a bad choice!
Gotcha. It makes sense to not spend energy growing hungrier muscles at the same time as dipping into fat reserves. Thanks1 -
I can only speak from my personal experience.
I came on MFP with the the goal of losing about 15 lbs and just getting back in shape after a 2 year hiatus from exercise.
I started with HIIT body weight routines several times a week and saw dramatic results. Whether it was "newbie gains" or if I was uncovering muscle that was already there, I don't know, but people around me started commenting on my muscles, so???
I later added in progressive lifting because my upper body showed results much faster than my lower body.
I'm 14 months into the HIIT body weight training and 7 months into progressive lifting and people around me are commenting and I can see in the mirror that I have muscle.
I have 2 female MFP friends who I grilled about gaining muscle while in a deficit, which they both were in a deficit and show great results.
They both told me smaller deficit and lots of protein. So that's what I'm doing.
My deficit is small. About 200-300 per day average. Some weeks no deficit to speak of, so training at maintenance those weeks.
I see results, whatever name or explanation you want to give it.0 -
frankiesgirlie wrote: »I can only speak from my personal experience.
I came on MFP with the the goal of losing about 15 lbs and just getting back in shape after a 2 year hiatus from exercise.
I started with HIIT body weight routines several times a week and saw dramatic results. Whether it was "newbie gains" or if I was uncovering muscle that was already there, I don't know, but people around me started commenting on my muscles, so???
I later added in progressive lifting because my upper body showed results much faster than my lower body.
I'm 14 months into the HIIT body weight training and 7 months into progressive lifting and people around me are commenting and I can see in the mirror that I have muscle.
I have 2 female MFP friends who I grilled about gaining muscle while in a deficit, which they both were in a deficit and show great results.
They both told me smaller deficit and lots of protein. So that's what I'm doing.
My deficit is small. About 200-300 per day average. Some weeks no deficit to speak of, so training at maintenance those weeks.
I see results, whatever name or explanation you want to give it.
and thats the thing OP. If you want to look more muscular and feel stronger then a great way to do that is lose weight while strength training. Are you actually gaining muscle mass? Chances are no, not at all... but if you want is a better appearance, looking more muscular, looking stronger, feeling stronger...really weight loss with strength training is the best way to get there.
If what you want is literally additional muscle mass in terms of muscle tissue then you are better off eating at a caloric surplus and bulking with heavy lifting.1 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »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.
Was just pointing out my experience. Didn't say LBM=muscle.
No known way to differentiate muscle from LBM w/o very sophisticated equipment. However, if you do gain LBM and increase strength "some" of the LBM is probably muscle too. Just no way to know how much from normal testing methods.0 -
Was just pointing out my experience. Didn't say LBM=muscle.
No known way to differentiate muscle from LBM w/o very sophisticated equipment. However, if you do gain LBM and increase strength "some" of the LBM is probably muscle too. Just no way to know how much from normal testing methods.
I guess only a biopsy would really tell here. I didn't think you were confusing the two btw, just throwing that out there because of how even the authors of the blog with the study were linked to have implied that LBM was the same as muscle, even though I know who Helms is and he certainly knows his stuff and knows that it's not the case.0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »
Was just pointing out my experience. Didn't say LBM=muscle.
No known way to differentiate muscle from LBM w/o very sophisticated equipment. However, if you do gain LBM and increase strength "some" of the LBM is probably muscle too. Just no way to know how much from normal testing methods.
I guess only a biopsy would really tell here. I didn't think you were confusing the two btw, just throwing that out there because of how even the authors of the blog with the study were linked to have implied that LBM was the same as muscle, even though I know who Helms is and he certainly knows his stuff and knows that it's not the case.
Well LBM includes everything that isn't fat by definition. That includes your skeleton (which probably isn't changing weight unless you are having some serious problems), your organs (which again probably aren't changing weight), soft tissue (which shouldn't be changing), water weight (which IS changing but sort of randomly up and down fluctuations that will wash out in repeated measurments), and muscle mass (which could be going up or down).
So if you repeatedly measure your LBM and notice a trend over time either going up or down or staying the same chances are those changes are related to changes in muscle mass. Note I say the trend, not just the difference between two measurements which could definately be due to water weight.
Two LBM measurements aren't going to tell you much. But 28 LBM measurements over the course of six months certainly will.2 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »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.
Agreed. At my height and weight I probably should be getting 120 grams or more of protein.
5'9" , 149 lbs. But since i don't eat most meats, except fish, I struggle to get over 100 grams AND hit a deficit, but it's better than the 70 grams a day I was getting before making an effort.
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »
Was just pointing out my experience. Didn't say LBM=muscle.
No known way to differentiate muscle from LBM w/o very sophisticated equipment. However, if you do gain LBM and increase strength "some" of the LBM is probably muscle too. Just no way to know how much from normal testing methods.
I guess only a biopsy would really tell here. I didn't think you were confusing the two btw, just throwing that out there because of how even the authors of the blog with the study were linked to have implied that LBM was the same as muscle, even though I know who Helms is and he certainly knows his stuff and knows that it's not the case.
Well LBM includes everything that isn't fat by definition. That includes your skeleton (which probably isn't changing weight unless you are having some serious problems), your organs (which again probably aren't changing weight), soft tissue (which shouldn't be changing), water weight (which IS changing but sort of randomly up and down fluctuations that will wash out in repeated measurments), and muscle mass (which could be going up or down).
So if you repeatedly measure your LBM and notice a trend over time either going up or down or staying the same chances are those changes are related to changes in muscle mass. Note I say the trend, not just the difference between two measurements which could definately be due to water weight.
Two LBM measurements aren't going to tell you much. But 28 LBM measurements over the course of six months certainly will.
Yes, trending will allow us to parse out the water fluctuations but I don't know that the studies where measuring more than a few data points. Again, I really would like to see the data and methodology to see what they were looking at. Proper design should account for this but I don't know what the design was and how they accounted for water vs muscle. The 2 lbs differences noted over 8 weeks just aren't enough to know what is really happening.0 -
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I'm of the belief that if you stimulate your muscle and engage them in progressive overload, growth can happen.2
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My daily deficit is around the same 300 to 500 calorie/day. Fat is being consumed for sure as my clothes are becoming more baggy and I've been keeping track of my neck, chest, waist hip, quad and calf sizes which are shrinking. The tell tale is is that my weight loss is very slow. I workout 4-5 times a week. Kettlebell, hard road cycling and running. That's how I'm rolling at the moment. I've been on MFP for seventy days now.1
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CasperNaegle wrote: »
Actually, it's just a sales pitch and the only science they site are studies that don't even show you could do both at the same time. They also forgot to mention the role of protein synthesis down-regulation within skeletal muscle cells, something that doesn't exist in other cells and that's not a trivial oversite. It either means they are hiding some very important information from you or they are ignorant of the biochemistry.
Much of what I see seems to be bro science like meal timing, protein before bed, supplements etc.
If you are interested I have a primer on the basics of muscle hypertrophy from a microbiology/biochemistry point of view that I can send you a link to if you are interested in it. It's not light reading but there are cliff notes at the end of each section. It's a rather fascinating read if you are a science geek like me.2 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »CasperNaegle wrote: »
Actually, it's just a sales pitch and the only science they site are studies that don't even show you could do both at the same time. They also forgot to mention the role of protein synthesis down-regulation within skeletal muscle cells, something that doesn't exist in other cells and that's not a trivial oversite. It either means they are hiding some very important information from you or they are ignorant of the biochemistry.
Much of what I see seems to be bro science like meal timing, protein before bed, supplements etc.
If you are interested I have a primer on the basics of muscle hypertrophy from a microbiology/biochemistry point of view that I can send you a link to if you are interested in it. It's not light reading but there are cliff notes at the end of each section. It's a rather fascinating read if you are a science geek like me.
Sure I'd love to see your study and data. I think if you really read Mike's stuff you will see that he debunks things like meal timing, supplements (even though he sells them) and other things. Sure he has a business to support, but his methods are mostly very sound scientifically.0 -
CasperNaegle wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »CasperNaegle wrote: »
Actually, it's just a sales pitch and the only science they site are studies that don't even show you could do both at the same time. They also forgot to mention the role of protein synthesis down-regulation within skeletal muscle cells, something that doesn't exist in other cells and that's not a trivial oversite. It either means they are hiding some very important information from you or they are ignorant of the biochemistry.
Much of what I see seems to be bro science like meal timing, protein before bed, supplements etc.
If you are interested I have a primer on the basics of muscle hypertrophy from a microbiology/biochemistry point of view that I can send you a link to if you are interested in it. It's not light reading but there are cliff notes at the end of each section. It's a rather fascinating read if you are a science geek like me.
Sure I'd love to see your study and data. I think if you really read Mike's stuff you will see that he debunks things like meal timing, supplements (even though he sells them) and other things. Sure he has a business to support, but his methods are mostly very sound scientifically.
I've seen some of his stuff around, and he seems fairly knowledgeable but I didn't realize who it was till after I wrote. I'll send you the link tomorrow, the paper is at work so I'll have to get the information again.
One thing you will note, the author says it's not impossible but indicates that it would be very difficult. One thing I think you'll find is that even if you can gain in a deficit that it becomes much harder after about 4 weeks or so when your works really start to suck from the glycogen depletion. Yeah, lifting + deficit = major suckage lol.0 -
this seems to be one of those things that comes up all the time...
Yes you can build muscle in a deficit IF....YES BIG IF the following is true...
new to lifting (small gains made in the first couple of weeks, measured in oz not lbs)
Young man full of testosterone
Obese
|Otherwise no you won't be building muscle in a deficit...esp as a woman.
Recomp however is when you eat at maintenance and lose fat and gain muscle at the same time which is the long road....2 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Short answer is no. Long answer is you might make a tiny initial gain but that won't continue and it won't be a significant amount.
Personal experience (its an anecdote of course but may as well share). I trained hard including lifting for 6 months. I tracked both my weight and my lean mass through bodyfat percentage measuring (calipers). I lost 28 pounds (about a pound a week so 500 deficit like you) and my muscles looked considerably more defined and I was significantly stronger. See my profile pictures for the progress shots between February and July of 2014.
That said during that time my lean mass did not change at all. I dropped fat, I maintained my muscle mass. No gains.
@Aaron_K123
You might be interested in my numbers as a comparison of the effects of size of deficit / rate of weight loss (for me at least).
I had lost the majority (25lbs) of my intended weight at roughly 1lb / week and lost as expected a mixture of fat and LBM (confirmed by scans and measurements). Despite the loss of LBM I had got back to a 'reasonable' level of strength by then (BW bench for example).
Switched to an ultra low deficit to lose a few more vanity pounds and in following six months:
Lost 7.7lbs of fat (40.1 to 32.4)
Gained 3.5lbs of LBM (132.5 to 136)
Net weight lost 4.2lbs (172.6 to 168.4)
Very noticeable change in body shape as arms and legs got bigger and my (fat) waist got smaller.
Continued to train hard both in the gym and outdoor cycling and made good progress. The difference in deficit doesn't seem to affect me significantly in terms of exercise performance but body composition results were markedly different.
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