3511: [Part 1] Can You Build Muscle in a Calorie Deficit? by Christian Finn of Muscle Evo on Body Composition

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[00:02:39] So with that, let's hear part one as we optimize your life. Can you build muscle in a calorie deficit? Part one by Christian Finn of MuscleEvo.net Yes, it is possible to gain muscle in a calorie deficit. Not everyone can do it and not everyone can do it to the same extent. But it can be done.

[00:03:04] Some say that it's impossible to gain muscle in a caloric deficit, mainly on the basis that building muscle is an energy intensive process requiring a calorie surplus. In truth, a calorie surplus isn't necessary in order to gain muscle tissue. That's because your body can use the energy supplied by body fat to power muscle growth. Think of body fat as a reservoir of chemical energy, which your body can use to synthesize new muscle protein.

[00:03:33] Put differently, while you can't turn fat into muscle, stored fat can be used to supply the energy required to make your muscles bigger. What is a calorie deficit? You're set to be in a calorie deficit when you're burning off more energy than you get from your diet. When you're in a caloric deficit, there's less energy coming from the food you eat than your body needs to move, pump blood around your body, and all the other stuff involved in keeping you alive.

[00:04:01] The total number of calories you burn in a day, also known as your total daily energy expenditure, or TDEE for short, is a combination of several factors. These are your basal metabolic rate, the amount of energy you burn during exercise, any daily activity you do outside the gym, and the energy cost of digesting and processing the food you eat.

[00:04:26] For example, if your total daily energy expenditure is 3000 calories per day, but you're only getting 2500 calories from your diet, your total calorie deficit is 500 calories. Because there's now a mismatch between the amount of fuel your body needs and the amount it gets from food, it starts looking for something to plug the gap. In most cases, that alternative will be the large depot of chemical energy stored in your body, known as fat.

[00:04:56] How your calorie intake affects the amount of muscle you build Research shows that muscle hypertrophy tends to happen a lot more slowly when you're in a deficit compared to a surplus. That is, eating fewer calories to the extent that you're in a deficit makes the process of building muscle a lot slower compared to being in a calorie surplus.

[00:05:16] That's because one of the things that slows muscle protein synthesis, or the key driving force behind muscle growth, is a restriction in the availability of energy. Were you satisfied with your rate of muscle growth when you were in a caloric surplus? Probably not. You'll be even less satisfied when you're in a caloric deficit because the gains will come a lot more slowly.

[00:05:40] In an ideal world, you'd like your body weight to stay the same with every pound of fat mass lost replaced with a pound of lean muscle mass, also known as body recomposition. Most likely, this is not going to happen. With very few exceptions, you won't build muscle tissue at anything like the same speed at which you lose fat. Which means that for most people, fat loss is going to mean weight loss. How to tell if you're gaining muscle while losing fat

[00:06:09] How can you tell if you're losing fat while gaining muscle at the same time? Stepping on the bathroom scales, the way that most people measure progress, gives you a limited picture about how your body composition is changing. If you lose 10 pounds of fat while gaining 5 pounds of muscle, your weight will change by just 5 pounds. But your body composition has changed by 15 pounds.

[00:06:33] Many common tools available for tracking changes in body composition, such as body fat scales, have a large margin of error. None can be relied upon to give you an accurate assessment of your progress. Instead, I suggest keeping track of your waist size, your weight on the scales, and your performance in the gym. And by performance in the gym, I'm talking about the amount of weight you can lift for a given number of reps, or the number of reps you're able to perform with a given amount of weight.

[00:07:03] If your weight on the scale is going down, your waist size is shrinking, but your numbers in the gym are going up, those are all positive signs that you're on the right track, and what you're doing is working. How to build muscle in a calorie deficit If you want to gain muscle in a caloric deficit, what's the best way to go about it? First, make sure that you do some form of resistance training at least twice a week. Three times a week will be better.

[00:07:31] And if you've got the time, four workouts a week is better than three. That's not to say you can't do more. In fact, there's no good reason why you can't lift weights five to six times a week, just as long as your workout program is set up properly. However, for most people wanting to gain muscle while losing fat, four days of weight training a week is plenty. Although there are many effective training programs out there,

[00:07:56] a four-day upper-lower split where you work the upper and lower body muscle groups on separate days is one of my favorites. As for cardio, it's useful in certain circumstances, but not essential. As long as your diet is set up properly, losing fat doesn't have to involve any cardio at all. To be continued. You just listened to part one of the post titled, Can you build muscle in a calorie deficit?

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[00:09:50] At Blinds.com we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you're DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Save up to 40% when you buy two or more. Rules and restrictions apply. Dr. Neal Malik here with my commentary. I'm going to digress for a second and then I promise I'll bring the message home in the end

[00:10:20] and relate it back to Christian's post. As I was working out today in fact, I was thinking about how something as simple as exercise can quickly become really complicated. I was doing some chest exercises and I was following a prescribed workout. That meant there were lots of numbers and exercise terminology. Like 3x8 of bench press. Then 4x15 of parallel bar dips. Then 4x10 of incline press and so on.

[00:10:48] I kept having to look back at this prescribed workout to remind myself, wait, how many repetitions of this movement do I have to do? Wait, what set number am I on? On top of that, I've got one eye on a stopwatch so I know how long I've rested in between each set of exercises. It's a lot to keep track of. Now, I'm not trying to discourage you in any way from getting involved in resistance training. In fact, I'm admitting that this can seem intimidating.

[00:11:15] I had this moment where I was working out where I laughed at myself and actually thought, no wonder exercise seems so intimidating. It feels like you're not only having to learn a new language, but you have to learn how to move your body in ways that you're not used to. Then as some form of cruel punishment, you end up feeling sore the next day as a reminder of all your hard work. So this brought back for me a lot of the memories I had when I first started trying to lift weights. Every movement felt strange.

[00:11:45] I didn't understand the gym lingo, and I could barely bench press an empty barbell. I remember thinking, why would anyone want to put themselves through this? But then I quickly remembered all of the great things that have happened to me since I started. I feel better. I'm more confident. I have more stamina. Moving around doing everyday things like chores now feels much easier. I don't get sick as often.

[00:12:10] I've gone from having to take four medications each day to manage my pre-existing condition, down to one, and I could go on and on. I had to start somewhere. I too had to learn what seems like complicated gym language. It's really not that complicated. I went through feeling sore, and I still do. I felt forever like I'll never get the results I want. Basically, we all had to start somewhere.

[00:12:37] And I hope I can speak for today's author, Christian, and say, Christian was no different. So if, as you're listening to this, you hear terminology that sounds complicated, I get it. Maybe you hear things like four-day upper-lower split and think to yourself, I have no idea what they're talking about. I totally understand that. But just like when you learned anything new, like when you learned how to read or ride a bicycle or drive a car,

[00:13:06] you'll eventually get the hang of it, and it'll feel like second nature. Just start and stick with it. You will get the hang of it. I mean, if I can do it, you can too. All right. That'll do it for today. Thank you so much for being a follower or subscriber to the show. I hope you have a great rest of your day. And I'll see you back here tomorrow where we'll finish up this post and where your optimal life awaits. He's an eye to the next one so that I can always look forward and tell me about who's going on the next one. We're going to play one another. You can go ahead and see what we're going on here. Once we have, we're going to find 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, and a half feet. You're going to be at the same time. We'll be working on the next one.