Gaining muscle without gaining fat

[vidsisthe1]

Hi all im sorry if i sound a bit thick but im still trying to get my head around all this so can you try and help me ,i wish to increase my muscle so i am now eating every tree hours my total calories for my weight is 3456 per day to stay the same so what should i increase it to without puting on fat

[bobu]

I wouldn't worry about your calories at this point unless you need to gain weight. After you've been on the program awhile you can adjust your calorie intake as needed. A better place for nutrition questions would be under nutrition in the training discussions. Also at 63 I've put on very little muscle mass over the last year and a half although I've maintained my body fat. I've decided to have my testosterone checked to see if that's an explanation.

[mjh]

I edited the title of this thread to be more descriptive.

[Vlad]

Within the accuracy of my measurements, I was unable to gain muscles without gaining fat as well. I would not say that this is not possible, but this is very hard for sure, and very slow two.

At my level of training and eating (5000+ kcal), I am gaining muscle and fat at a ratio of 1 to 1, which totals 3 kg (muscle + fat) per month. I am not concerned about fat gain because it's easy to get rid of it at a rate of 3 kg per month with a minimal loss of muscles.

[RexRomano]

I am not concerned about fat gain because it's easy to get rid of it at a rate of 3 kg per month with a minimal loss of muscles.

I'd be interested to know how you get rid of the fat with minimal loss of muscles. I am also putting on a mix of muscle and fat.

Is it simply calorie restriction? Have you posted this elsewhere?

[Bman1]

The main issues for maintaining muscle mass while losing fat are to be lifting weights (e.g., SL 5x5) and fairly heavy and getting adequate protein (and essential fatty acids) while having a reasonable calorie defecit of between about 250 and 750 calories per day. A 500 calorie per day defecit should allow you to lose about 2 Kg of body fat per month. A defecit of 750 calories per day will get you about 3Kg per month. It is the weight training and "good" diet that helps you maintain lean body mass and the calorie defecit that gets rid of the body fat.

[dylanamus]

I'd be interested to know how you get rid of the fat with minimal loss of muscles. I am also putting on a mix of muscle and fat.

Is it simply calorie restriction? Have you posted this elsewhere?

By my calculations I've lost around 200g muscle to 7-8kg of fat in 3 months. At first I continued eating slightly over maintenance with reduced simple carbs and no complex carbs. I then moved onto maintenance calories continuing this low-carb eating method. Then I switched to the Anabolic Diet and moved into caloric deficit and periodically reduced the number of calories to suit each new body weight level.

My personal experience is that it is a very efficient method for shedding off the fat you've accumulated while building muscle, without losing much of the mass you gained. Others on the forum have experimented with this diet for the purpose of purely gaining muscle with minimised fat gain, but from what I could tell, they were less pleased with their results than I have been for fat loss.

I think the bottom line is, you CAN gain mass at a desirable and efficient ratio of muscle to fat, but it requires tighter control on total calories and particular attention to when carbohydrates are consumed. It will also be a much, much slower process, as Vlad mentioned.

If you are a beginner, in terms of the complexity of training you can respond to, and you aren't overweight to obese, I would personally recommend taking advantage of the situation using the Cunningham equation +500kcal, remembering to consume protein rich foods with each meal. This will be almost gauranteed to be enough calories to all but maximise muscle development. Like Vlad said, there are ways, (and not just the Anabolic Diet), to shed the fat without losing much muscle. Metabolic weight lifting instead of steady state cardio and eating slightly under maintenance calories on a healthy, balanced diet will see minimal lean mass loss.

Bottom line is it is possible with the right diet and training, but it will be very slow and require dedication and consistency to see any results. Up to you!

[Vlad]

Great write up, Dylan!

I was not so methodical with my weight loss program as Dylan. This requires a lot of efforts, and I simply did not have enough time for this.

What I did was just the first phase of the Dylan's diet. At first, I reduced the carbs slightly, and I enjoyed a month of fat loss. Then the fat loss stalled, and I had to reduce the carbs even more. Another period of fat loss happened, and then it stalled again. In the end I had to reduce the carbs consumption drastically: only post workout and a few fruits during the day. I also used a cheat rule: 90% of the time you eat strictly, and 10% of the time - everything you want. Since I was eating 5 meals per day. This means that once in two days I could allow myself to eat (during one meal only) everything I wanted.

BTW, I did not count any calories, but I made sure that I was getting protein with every meal.

My fat loss was not as efficient as that of Dylan: I lost 5 kg fat and 1 kg muscle. Still I think this is a good result, condidering that I did not have to put a lot of efforts into it. I reached a BF of 13%. This is of course not a perfect result. But this is a HUGE difference from the 18% I had before.

[RexRomano]

I've done a fair amount of research and I don't think "science" fully understands when or how the body uses nutrients. Most of what I found was speculation and anecdote.

Everyone here seems to be saying that a calorie deficient, yet protein rich diet will allow fat loss with minimal, but some muscle and strength loss, provided that one continues to lift as if he were on an optimal mass/strength building diet.

But if you have a calorie deficit, won't your body use most of that protein up for energy needs rather than muscle building, repair, recovery? Won't your body choose to keep your heart pumping before it donates that protein to rebuilding your bench press ripped pects? Will you have the energy to do Stronglifts 5x5? Will you see failures and "deloads" for the entire time you are eating reduced calories?

I'm not saying you folks are wrong, I'm only saying I don't see how it works and I haven't seen a good explanation.

Another confusing topic is lipidosis vs. catabolism (fat burning vs muscle burning). I can't find any answer to the question of which occurs first during caloric deficit. There are several conflicting answers to that question.

[dylanamus]

Cheers, Vlad.

Rex, I welcome your line of thinking and you have a good point. What you describe is what will typically happen on a low fat calorie restriction diet.

When you starve your body of carbohydrates, it adapts to utilizing fat as the primary source of energy. While you are in a ketatonic state, it would seem that stored fat is still preferred over consumed protein as a direct energy source. This may be because it is easier to metabolise, especially when the body is already in ketosis, or because of the energy per gram efficiency of fat vs protein (around 1/3 more efficient).

I am honestly not perfectly clear on the science, which I will endeavour to change, but my general appreciation of what occurs as described above seems to be consistent with what myself and many others have experienced.

As for lipidosis vs catabolism, I think the question can only really be answered accurately when presented in a specific scenario. You would see a big difference in results between two subjects where one is on a low fat (and/or liquid meal replacement) diet doing a lot of lengthy steady state cardio and the other is on a ketatonic diet doing HIIT and weight training.

Also, like Vlad pointed out, I think I can attribute the efficient ratio of muscle/fat loss I experienced to being very methodical. I aimed at never consuming less than 250kcal below what I had currently figured to be maintenance and I paid close attention to my protein consumption - not just quantity but frequency and the timing around workouts. A lot of people seeking fat loss jump straight to -1000kcal or more - and in this case, I would not be surprised if protein would be given priority as an energy source for mortal function, especially if meals were consumed less frequently and the body were responding to starvation.

[Vlad]

But if you have a calorie deficit, won't your body use most of that protein up for energy needs rather than muscle building, repair, recovery? Won't your body choose to keep your heart pumping before it donates that protein to rebuilding your bench press ripped pects? Will you have the energy to do Stronglifts 5x5? Will you see failures and "deloads" for the entire time you are eating reduced calories?

Yes, the body will use most of that protein for energy. That's right, but the point is that the protein in the muscles will not be used for energy. That's the whole point of providing a lot of protein during the weight loss: to minimise the use of the protein in your muscles for energy, NOT in order to build more muscles.

You might ask what about muscle rebuilding? During rebuilding of muscles after a workout, muscles are catabolised (to some extent). This means that some protein in muscles is degraded, amino acids are released as a result and after that these amino acids are reused for rebuilding the muscles to the original state. This rebuilding process requires some energy, which is provided from multiple sorces - fat, carbs, proteins (I mean that part of the protein pool that is used for energy).