If you have body fat, you are in a calorie surplus.

ValiantThor08

ValiantThor08

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The premise is this, you can build lean mass on a smart calorie deficit. Smart, as in you do not ridiculously drastically cut calories to the point where your body is shocked, and metabolism slows down.

If you have excess body fat, most people, you have the surplus calories at your disposal that you do not have to shovel down to to gain muscle.

Basics: you need broken muscle fibers, MPS, and a positive nitrogen balance to build muscle. You can achieve MPS by working out, and by each time you get 2.5 to 3g of leucine included in each of your protein meals. If you get about 1g of protein per pound of body weight, you have a sufficient daily total to maximize muscle gain potential. How you spread out the total amount of protein will determine how great the MPS/mTOR response is.

The issue you face now is, for the extra energy your body needs to run throughout the day, you don't want it to get from protein (gluconeogenesis; converting protein to glucose). You want energy to come from your body fat, your excess calorie reserves. This is why I advocate keeping liver glycogen levels depleted, and allowing your body to adapt, or get used to the liver converting fat in ketones (an alternate fuel source).

Anyone can chime in. Don't be rude, or mean if you do not agree. Explain why you agree, why you disagree, or a mix of the two.
 
BarryScott

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Obviously you can't gain weight in a calorie deficit as per very basic principles of thermodynamics. But yes, you are correct in that you theoretically can gain muscle in a deficit by using your bodyfat to make up the necessary energy.

In reality this only happens in the completely untrained, the obese and those on lots of gear - or a combination of two or more of those. But everyone already knows this.
 
ValiantThor08

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Obviously you can't gain weight in a calorie deficit as per very basic principles of thermodynamics. But yes, you are correct in that you theoretically can gain muscle in a deficit by using your bodyfat to make up the necessary energy.

In reality this only happens in the completely untrained, the obese and those on lots of gear - or a combination of two or more of those. But everyone already knows this.
I'm not on gear, I'm not a beginner trainer, I am fat adapted, and I will gain muscle, lose fat, and get stronger, in a minor dietary caloric deficit.
 
ValiantThor08

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The issue with most people who do caloric deficit diets to cut fat is.

1. Too many meals. Too much insulin release. Too many insulin releases results in the body not burning fat for fuel.

2. Never allowing the body to be completely depleted of glycogen, including the liver. Without doing this, the body will not efficiently use your own fat as a fuel source , and for beginners of using fat for fuel, it won't be real efficient for the first couple weeks of fat burning anyways.
 

Resolve10

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The issue with most people who do caloric deficit diets to cut fat is.

1. Too many meals. Too much insulin release. Too many insulin releases results in the body not burning fat for fuel.

2. Never allowing the body to be completely depleted of glycogen, including the liver. Without doing this, the body will not efficiently use your own fat as a fuel source , and for beginners of using fat for fuel, it won't be real efficient for the first couple weeks of fat burning anyways.
Insulin isn't some evil thing ruining your fat loss.

I feel like you constantly go around saying this low carb stuff in literally every thread I see you in like it is some magical thing. It works for some people but it isn't magic. Eating carbs doesn't stop you from losing fat. Spiking insulin isn't ruining people's fat loss.

I also feel like those two points are no where near close to what most people struggle with when they are trying to lose weight.
 
ValiantThor08

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Insulin isn't some evil thing ruining your fat loss.

I feel like you constantly go around saying this low carb stuff in literally every thread I see you in like it is some magical thing. It works for some people but it isn't magic. Eating carbs doesn't stop you from losing fat. Spiking insulin isn't ruining people's fat loss.

I also feel like those two points are no where near close to what most people struggle with when they are trying to lose weight.
I don't think insulin is the bad guy. But insulin does shut off fat burning. I specifically spike insulin at certain times, and use it as a tool. Also, ketosis is not magic, but in my opinion, it is optimal. Being fat adapted makes one more metabolically more flexible, and improves insulin sensitivity. One can eat high carb, low fat, or low carb and high fat, but when people mix moderate fat and moderate carb, they endanger their body. I think science is slowly catching up that eating high fat is more healthy.
 
ValiantThor08

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Thanks for critique! What do you think people are doing/or not doing, for the reasoning they don't lose fat, or at the same time lose fat, and gain muscle.
 
ValiantThor08

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See, dont hate carbs or insulin. Here is my glycogen refeed :).
20190402_183509.jpeg
 
Chados

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I like your approach as I see how you're thinking. You want to become anabolic by having carbs during say a workout. Eating many meals isn't bad as long as you keep bloodsugar stable.

During workout i have creatine, eaa, cluster dextrin and some veggie and fruit replacement all mixed.

I like the low carb approach as I stay lean year round but the optimal thing to become huge is to eat carbs.
 

seanmitchell12

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So i think burning calories will be sufficient for losing fats. I studied that these extra calories are converted to fats, so for losing fats you must burn the calories. While a good diet plan is necessary for achieving results.
 
HIT4ME

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I don't think insulin is the bad guy. But insulin does shut off fat burning. I specifically spike insulin at certain times, and use it as a tool. Also, ketosis is not magic, but in my opinion, it is optimal. Being fat adapted makes one more metabolically more flexible, and improves insulin sensitivity. One can eat high carb, low fat, or low carb and high fat, but when people mix moderate fat and moderate carb, they endanger their body. I think science is slowly catching up that eating high fat is more healthy.
No offense because I agree with some of what you are saying, but you obviously don't understand metabolic flexibility. Metabolic flexibility hinges around being able to quickly switch between burning fats or carbs for fuel. Fat people lose their ability to burn carbs for fuel because they start burning more fat for fuel. Ketosis makes this worse, not better. This is pretty basic biology and something the low carb crowd seems to totally want to ignore.

Not saying low carb is evil or doesn't work. It is a tool in the toolbox. But people have totally misrepresented it and how it actually works.
 

Resolve10

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No offense because I agree with some of what you are saying, but you obviously don't understand metabolic flexibility. Metabolic flexibility hinges around being able to quickly switch between burning fats or carbs for fuel. Fat people lose their ability to burn carbs for fuel because they start burning more fat for fuel. Ketosis makes this worse, not better. This is pretty basic biology and something the low carb crowd seems to totally want to ignore.

Not saying low carb is evil or doesn't work. It is a tool in the toolbox. But people have totally misrepresented it and how it actually works.
Strong bump. :ROFLMAO:
 
ValiantThor08

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No offense because I agree with some of what you are saying, but you obviously don't understand metabolic flexibility. Metabolic flexibility hinges around being able to quickly switch between burning fats or carbs for fuel. Fat people lose their ability to burn carbs for fuel because they start burning more fat for fuel. Ketosis makes this worse, not better. This is pretty basic biology and something the low carb crowd seems to totally want to ignore.

Not saying low carb is evil or doesn't work. It is a tool in the toolbox. But people have totally misrepresented it and how it actually works.
Thanks for the knowledge!
 
HIT4ME

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Strong bump. :ROFLMAO:
Haha, yeah, I couldn't sleep and was up at 3 AM so at the time it seemed like a good idea to bump this. I think it is all interesting discussion...so I figured what the heck. But maybe my judgment was impaired from no sleep.


Thanks for the knowledge!
I do agree that people forget that they have built in calories that they don't need to get from their mouth when they are overweight. I think it is probably difficult to break down fat and build muscle at the same time for a number of reasons, but it may be possible in a very slight deficit.

It may also be possible to get leaner and build muscle in a very slight surplus.

But both processes are excruciatingly slow, and having them compete can make it very difficult to guage progress. It would take a lot of dedication, faith and patience.
 

SweetLou321

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Mathematically you would assume that one could use stored energy from adipose tissue to make up the energy needs one has to build muscle tissue when in a deficit. This clearly happens in many research studies (many of these are not ketogenic diets). The reason this process is more difficult to achieve for an experienced lifter has to do with what signals are being sent to the body and the need of the strength of certain signals to achieve an end result. A beginner, those coming back from an injury, and those on AAS do not need as high of an mTOR signal from a workout to sufficiently signal muscle growth. More experienced natural athletes do need a more pronounced mTOR signal to grow and this is why they also usually respond better to more frequency and volume ect. When in a deficit AMPK will increase as a means to mobilize substrates to produce energy. This is because weight/fat loss is a catabolic process. AMPK and mTOR oppose one another. In beginner, those coming back from an injury, and those on AAS it is easier to produce enough of an mTOR signal despite the elevated AMPK activity. In more experienced athletes it becomes harder to produce a mTOR signal of a high enough magnitude to as the increased AMPK levels as a result of dieting are blunting the mTOR response to some degree. More experienced athletes have been shown in some trials to recomp, or lose fat and build muscle at the same time. It seems some keys to making this happen are:

Training hard, 0-3 RIR per set and taking advantage of progressive overload when available
Doing 5-30 reps per hard set
Doing an amount of hard sets per body part that you can recover from and respond too positively
Training each body part at least twice per week on average
Not being on an excessive deficit, somewhere between 0.5-1% weight loss per week seems fine
Sleeping 7+ hrs per night, 9-10 might be ideal
Managing stress
1.6+ g protein per kg bw, as high as 3.4 g may be ideal in this case
Keeping carb intake as high as possible to keep leptin higher and keep insulin high to help with the production of IGF-binding proteins that can deliver IGF-1 to target tissues, carbs also fuel training in the 10+ rep range fairly well
Keep fat intake to a minimum for health and hormonal output
Not doing excessive cardio
Use creatine
 
TheVenom

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Good misleading bait title.
 

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