Caloric Partitioning: Muscle gain and fat loss???

[SkyTurtle]

I've been told that you can't build muscle on a caloric deficit but I do not understand why:

a weekly deficit of 3500kcal, working out 4 times with a surplus of 300-500 and 3 rest day deficit of 1500 isn't still be better than a weekly deficit of 3500kcal with only deficit days of 500!? In theory I'd loose 5 kg and should build some kind of muscle mass from heavy weight lifting 4 days a week on a +300 surplus.

or

how fastening one day and resetting the weekly caloric average to balance hurts muscle development?

If protein and bcaa is taken as well.

[DavidUnderhand]

I sense some of the views you have presented aren't backed by scientific evidence. You can build muscle in a deficit, Plenty of people have had great success with a program called leangains, look it up. However, it is a slow process, and conventional bulking is more pleasing for most.

For the specific numbers you gave, I'm not sure a 1500 deficit is conducive to muscle gain, but that's complete broscience I have absolutely no evidence why it wouldn't work. Try it out, see what happens. When I cut I typically eat 200-300 calories above maintenance on days I work out, 500-700 under on rest days.

[Sagegemini]

You might want to research the following
Leangains
Eat Stop Eat
Anything Goes Diet

They all have a similar approach in that your body can use fat as fuel and you can add skeletal muscle mass at the same(not precisely) time.
Theres alot of studies out there that are done by supplement companies however that will fuel the fire behind some of the traditional methods such as bulking and cutting.However for the vast majority of natural regular gymgoers, the bulk routine usually results in size gains (mostly fat,metabolic byproducts and a little skeletal muscle) that will often leave you with a belly.

[Gxp23]

I've been told that you can't build muscle on a caloric deficit but I do not understand why:

a weekly deficit of 3500kcal, working out 4 times with a surplus of 300-500 and 3 rest day deficit of 1500 isn't still be better than a weekly deficit of 3500kcal with only deficit days of 500!? In theory I'd loose 5 kg and should build some kind of muscle mass from heavy weight lifting 4 days a week on a +300 surplus.

or

how fastening one day and resetting the weekly caloric average to balance hurts muscle development?

If protein and bcaa is taken as well.

You are still in a deficit, you wont build, even with a day or two with a surplus, at the end of the week, you are still in a deficit, you wont build, even if you are a beginner and are lucky to gain some noob gains, its wont be anything ground breaking.

[saw7988]

OP, I think the main flaw in the type of thinking in your post is that the body does not run on a 24 hour cycle. The processes involved in eating/digesting meals, working out, breaking down, and building muscle all take long periods of time which overlap across days. Yes, you will have 24 hour periods with extra calories, but the timing doesn't necessarily fit nice and perfectly into these "boxes" of days.

[germaine07]

I've been told that you can't build muscle on a caloric deficit but I do not understand why:

a weekly deficit of 3500kcal, working out 4 times with a surplus of 300-500 and 3 rest day deficit of 1500 isn't still be better than a weekly deficit of 3500kcal with only deficit days of 500!? In theory I'd loose 5 kg and should build some kind of muscle mass from heavy weight lifting 4 days a week on a +300 surplus.

or

how fastening one day and resetting the weekly caloric average to balance hurts muscle development?

If protein and bcaa is taken as well.

Too bad it doesn't work like that....

[Barnzy123]

The human body works on a moment to moment basic, not in day, or even weeks. When you eat, put very simply, the nutrients will either go to your muscle cells, your fat cells or your liver cells. This is the basis of nutrient partitioning. Now for as to where the nutrients go, depends largely on the insulin sensitivity of those cells. For example if you have just had a hard training session, the cells of the muscles which you have just trained are extremely sensitive, much more so than your fat cells, so nearly all of what you eat post workout will go to building new muscle, within reason of course. The exception here is fructose and trans fats, or more specifically partially hydrogenated oils and mono and di-glycerides of fatty acids. Fructose will go straight to the liver to be metablized into either glucose or fat depending on several factors, and trans fats, well, I needn't go into the negative effects of those. However if you consume a meal when you haven't trained for a while, more of what you ingest will go to fat cells. Now there are several other factors involved here such as your current body fat levels, your genetics etc, but so long as you eat when your body is in a favorable nutrient partitioning state, and don't when its not, or at least limit your carbohydrate when its not, its perfectly possible to build muscle while losing fat on a weekly basis. I know I've only brushed over the topic and I've oversimplified things tremendously, so if you have further questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Hope this helped.