Performance-enhancing drugs can alter this somewhat, especially if you have good genetics to begin with.
That’s why it’s not true that you can eat at exact maintenance and continue to gain more and more muscle over time once you’re already lean. Your body is just trying to survive based on the external stressors, the calories and nutrients coming in, and how much fat there is stored. It doesn’t care that you want to look like your favorite Instagram fitness influencer. Remember: the body is ultimately a survival and replication machine. Therefore, we have to make a tradeoff and leave things as they are.” “Even if I do add more muscle, it’ll cost more calories to maintain it. You’ll hit a point where your body says, “okay, there’s this stressor that is a potential threat (your workouts), but I can’t sacrifice more body fat because I don’t have enough left. You can’t cut down to 10% body fat, “gaintain” for the next five years, and continue to lose fat while gaining muscle. And you can’t get endlessly leaner and leaner while gaining more and more muscle. Now, if you’re truly eating at maintenance, meaning your calorie intake matches your calorie expenditure exactly, the only place your body can get calories from for new muscle is fat tissue. And that amount is important for health and survival. The reason is that you only have a finite amount of stored fat left. That said, as you get leaner, your body becomes less willing to break down stored fat and use it for muscle growth. In fact, this even works if you are skinny fat, meaning you have low amounts of muscle and a body fat percentage of around 15 to 20%. So, if you’re overweight, you can gain muscle in a calorie deficit. Then, as long as there’s a decent training stimulus and you get enough protein, your body can burn off the stored calories and use other resources for muscle growth. The latter is because you’ll have plenty of stored energy. That’s why you can build muscle and lose fat simultaneously, especially if you have a high body fat percentage.
Your body also stores calories in the form of body fat, which it can use whenever necessary.Īs a result, your body can burn body fat and use the calories consumed through diet for muscle growth.
Regarding calories, those can come from your diet, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Second, you need calories to carry out that construction process. First, you need protein to give your body the raw materials for making new muscle tissues. There are two main nutritional requirements to build muscle. Why You CAN Lose Fat And Build Muscle At The Same Time Various factors influence whether you can build muscle while eating at caloric maintenance. In other words, there is no set-in-stone answer. Whether you consume enough protein, train smart and hard enough, and get enough high-quality sleep.If you can take advantage of “muscle memory.” In case you lost muscle (e.g., due to an injury), it’s easier to regain that muscle, even at caloric maintenance, than if you would start from scratch.In this article, we’ll focus on natural lifters. Whether you are a natural or enhanced lifter.What you mean by “building muscle.” Are we talking about building some muscle but not necessarily to your maximum potential? Or are we talking about 100% optimized muscle growth?.As a beginner trainee, it’s much easier to gain muscle while eating at caloric maintenance (or being in a deficit) than if you’re already close to your genetic potential. The answer, however, is that it depends on factors like: They either state that you must be in a calorie surplus to grow or that it doesn’t matter. But first, let’s answer the question: Do You Need A Calorie Surplus To Build Muscle?Ī lot of people give a black and white answer to this question. We’ll look at whether maingaining is beneficial, and if so, how you should set up your caloric intake. Others consider a small energy surplus of 100 or 200 calories still “maingaining.” Some people say you should eat at exact caloric maintenance with no surplus at all.
You eat around your caloric maintenance level year-round and focus on slowly adding muscle without gaining fat. The bulking phase helps them gain weight and muscle while the cutting phase causes them to lose weight and fat. Many people switch between bulking phases where they are in a calorie surplus and cutting phases where they are in a calorie deficit. The idea behind “maintaining” goes against the traditional bodybuilding wisdom where you alter between bulking and cutting. In this article, we’ll cover what maingaining is, whether it can be beneficial, and if so, how you can implement it for optimal results. That causes them to slow down their muscle building results or even prevent them from making any gains at all.