You Can Gain Muscle On A Calorie Deficit!!

I see the debate is still going strong. Just to let everyone know, I am starting to lift heavy and eating at a deficit, hoping to provide first-hand evidence soon that the topic of this thread is TRUE! :happy:

Glad to hear that your gonna lift heavy!! Just remember to eat ATLEAST one gram of protein for every lb. of body weight and try not to lose more than 1-2 lbs per week. Post your results in a few months! This thread will probably still be going strong!!:bigsmile:

Thanks, I will! I try to get at least 90g of protein on rest days, and 150g on lifting days, and my weight scale progress is pretty slow going, so hopefully that means good things in terms of my body composition changing!

Good Luck!! But you should eat as much protein on non lifting days as on lifting days. you tear your muscles down in the gym and they grow outside the gym.

You know, I got that same advice from Steve Turano. I'm begining to question the whole eating back exercise calories thing. I'm setting mine to just a flat rate and just find the right average number for modest weight loss from now on.

I suppose you could eat more carbs on gym day, if you wanted, but you still have to replenish energy during recovery too.

The eating back calorie thing just seems ridiculous to me and I've never heard a real expert in the field recommend doing it. I work with a very well educated and experienced nutritionist (John Meadows) that is also a bodybuilder, I've chatted with various PhD's in the field like Lonnie Lowery, John Berardi, and Chris Shugart (not a PhD) and specifically asked them about eating back exercise calories and they all disagreed and John does not have me eating back exercise calories. Furthermore Chris said that those HRM's aren't even all that accurate anyway that your body may fluctuate during the exercise and the HRM's don't account for the increased calorie "burn" that comes for a couple hours after exercise. It's silly, set a safe calorie deficit and adjust as needed to continue losing weight.

I see the debate is still going strong. Just to let everyone know, I am starting to lift heavy and eating at a deficit, hoping to provide first-hand evidence soon that the topic of this thread is TRUE! :happy:

Glad to hear that your gonna lift heavy!! Just remember to eat ATLEAST one gram of protein for every lb. of body weight and try not to lose more than 1-2 lbs per week. Post your results in a few months! This thread will probably still be going strong!!:bigsmile:

Thanks, I will! I try to get at least 90g of protein on rest days, and 150g on lifting days, and my weight scale progress is pretty slow going, so hopefully that means good things in terms of my body composition changing!

Good Luck!! But you should eat as much protein on non lifting days as on lifting days. you tear your muscles down in the gym and they grow outside the gym.

You know, I got that same advice from Steve Turano. I'm begining to question the whole eating back exercise calories thing. I'm setting mine to just a flat rate and just find the right average number for modest weight loss from now on.

I suppose you could eat more carbs on gym day, if you wanted, but you still have to replenish energy during recovery too.

The eating back calorie thing just seems ridiculous to me and I've never heard a real expert in the field recommend doing it. I work with a very well educated and experienced nutritionist (John Meadows) that is also a bodybuilder, I've chatted with various PhD's in the field like Lonnie Lowery, John Berardi, and Chris Shugart (not a PhD) and specifically asked them about eating back exercise calories and they all disagreed and John does not have me eating back exercise calories. Furthermore Chris said that those HRM's aren't even all that accurate anyway that your body may fluctuate during the exercise and the HRM's don't account for the increased calorie "burn" that comes for a couple hours after exercise. It's silly, set a safe calorie deficit and adjust as needed to continue losing weight.

Yeah, Steve said the same thing about HRM's and especially (even more so) on the exercise bikes that tell you calories burned. People are more likely to buy the one that burns more calories.

I see the debate is still going strong. Just to let everyone know, I am starting to lift heavy and eating at a deficit, hoping to provide first-hand evidence soon that the topic of this thread is TRUE! :happy:

Glad to hear that your gonna lift heavy!! Just remember to eat ATLEAST one gram of protein for every lb. of body weight and try not to lose more than 1-2 lbs per week. Post your results in a few months! This thread will probably still be going strong!!:bigsmile:

Thanks, I will! I try to get at least 90g of protein on rest days, and 150g on lifting days, and my weight scale progress is pretty slow going, so hopefully that means good things in terms of my body composition changing!

Good Luck!! But you should eat as much protein on non lifting days as on lifting days. you tear your muscles down in the gym and they grow outside the gym.

You know, I got that same advice from Steve Turano. I'm begining to question the whole eating back exercise calories thing. I'm setting mine to just a flat rate and just find the right average number for modest weight loss from now on.

I suppose you could eat more carbs on gym day, if you wanted, but you still have to replenish energy during recovery too.

The eating back calorie thing just seems ridiculous to me and I've never heard a real expert in the field recommend doing it. I work with a very well educated and experienced nutritionist (John Meadows) that is also a bodybuilder, I've chatted with various PhD's in the field like Lonnie Lowery, John Berardi, and Chris Shugart (not a PhD) and specifically asked them about eating back exercise calories and they all disagreed and John does not have me eating back exercise calories. Furthermore Chris said that those HRM's aren't even all that accurate anyway that your body may fluctuate during the exercise and the HRM's don't account for the increased calorie "burn" that comes for a couple hours after exercise. It's silly, set a safe calorie deficit and adjust as needed to continue losing weight.

Yeah, Steve said the same thing about HRM's and especially (even more so) on the exercise bikes that tell you calories burned. People are more likely to buy the one that burns more calories.

Yeah, Dr. Lowery actually laughed at me when I asked that question. I said no it's a serious question because people are actually recommending you do this. I need to look, I may have that part of his live chat.

Here is the end of the chat:


"Hi Jay,
After being in Vegas without internet for a few days (bashing anti-protein lunatics), I just saw your question in Chris' Livespill.

This is what I always say to students: although important, calorie balance is the BEGINNING not the END of body comp change. 99% of the time one must keep some eye on how many kcal are consumed vs. burned. But counting calories too anally doesn't work well and is unhealthy for the psyche.

I actually start cutting phases by simply eliminating junk foods and most carbs from my dinners. Meanwhile I start 4-6 bouts of bike sprints or eliptical "sprints" after workouts. That handles the energy balance: less in, more out. I surely would NOT eat an extra 100-200 kcal to make up for the bike sprints!

Hope that helps; the threaded discussion closed on me, so I'm PM-ing.

Best,
Lonnie"

And we go again...........

I suppose it depends. Some muscle groups aren't as affected by his weight than others.

Jeff how often do we have to go around and around the circle? Until one of us runs out of gas or until you realize the facts?

Which is it?

Oh yeah, "until I realize the facts". Great logic there. I recommened you post into a threat of the other guys' success and you declined. I'm not going to debat this guy's gains as he obviously had alot of fat stores. But muscle groups like the bicept / tricep aren't going to be worked like the back/legs on a heavy person

I truely fail to see your point here.

Biceps and Triceps get worked by doing almost every other lifting exercise you do. Maybe I misunderstood what you're saying.

Lifting of weights? yes. But as it pertains to supporting a heavy person? Not so much. And I use these muscle groups as they are demonstrated in the after pics of that guy that just posted.

Ok so if he's obese and his body is using his fat stores as calories to put on some muscle tissue, by him just doing normal lifting, the muscle will go to bodyparts worked (including bi's and tri's). This along with the fact that he still had a good amount of LBM even in his arms can produce what he has shown in those pics.

Now I have no idea what your point is. BTW, how do you know how much muscle mass he had before/after in an area such as his biceps? There's no really good before pic to compare it to. Not sure what "good amount" really means. Does that mean more or less? Same?

And the answer is under certain circumstances someone can....(like i've said repeatedly). But if someone was lets say under 20% bodyfat and they continued to try to build muscle on a calorie deficit they won't be able to do it. In order to grow you need energy intake. You have to have something to build on.

I agree, but I think everyone is different, for me it was under 20% BF. But regardless for most people if they are at 20% of BF or less they should be doing bulking and cutting cycles not trying to gain while on a deficit. The only reason I did it was I wanted to reach my goal weight before I started a bulk.

I know I'm still over 20%. I started from 340 lbs, so I've had a lot of time to work on my squat technique.

10 lbs is NOT a big gain overall. But you thought he gained 10l s per arm. Cosidering the weight me lost and his comments on size after the weight loss, I think must have maintained a big amount of muscle as well gained in some areas. Look how much weight lost and how much muscle that accompanies that much loss. That tells me he has to gain a good amount just to stay the same size

10 lbs is a big gain overall.

10 lbs is NOT a big gain overall. But you thought he gained 10l s per arm. Cosidering the weight me lost and his comments on size after the weight loss, I think must have maintained a big amount of muscle as well gained in some areas. Look how much weight lost and how much muscle that accompanies that much loss. That tells me he has to gain a good amount just to stay the same size

10 lbs is a big gain overall.

You do know I did the math on the over % 10% would be right? So again, do you know how much he would have gained to even maintain or "didn't gain much" as you say? It would probably have to be 10lbs+

You've already admitted it. But when pressed to a number you deny

If you can't muscle muscle on a deficit should I be naive to think I am going to maintaine 180 and increase bench by 30-50 lbs?

They didn't want to attribute a 150lb gain to any muscle mass improvement so you're going to be out of luck