Gaining muscle/losing fat
If there’s a single question that comes up more often than any other it’s along the lines of “How can I gain muscle and lose fat?” And the general answer is “Unless you’e a beginner or coming back off of a layoff, you can’t.” I know, I’ve given it myself enough times. Actually, I’ve previously said it was impossible but that’s not entirely true and I wish to retract every time in the past that I’ve said it. It is possible in a few specific circumstances but let’s look at them individually before adressing the question itself.
Beginners have a notorious propensity for gaining reasonable amounts of muscle while losing fat at the same time; I’ve seen it enough times first hand. Actually, it turns out not to be beginners per se but rather fat beginners. A lean individual who is starting out in training isn’t going to lose fat while they gain muscle. In someone with relatively average bodyfat levels, a loss of 5-10 lbs of fat and gains of 3-4 lbs of muscle over the first 8 weeks is quite common with even the most basic routine. And, as it turns out, the bodyfat issue isn’t a trivial one. As you’ll learn in upcoming chapters, a higher bodyfat percentage makes fat mobilization easier. As well, a beginner doesn’t have a lot of muscle mass to begin with, so they find it easier to make gains. So gains of muscle along with fat loss is not uncommon. Once you get to a certain level of leanness and/or muscle mass, the odds of this occurring go down at a staggering rate.
Folks returning from a layoff can get amazing results like this as well. Muscle memory is a very real phenomenon and, empirically, it seems like folks who were once lean (especially genetically) can get lean again with less effort. This is actually how most of the magical before/after photo comparisons in the magazines are done. Someone will start in amazing shape, deliberately get into bad shape by eating like crap and not training, and then let muscle memory get them BACK into shape rapidly. That is, they aren’t getting into shape but rather getting BACK into shape in those photo spreads. I shouldn’t have to tell you that every before/after photo shoot involving a pro-bodybuilder means that an absolute crapload of drugs were involved: any supplement they are claiming to have used played no role in it.
I should mention that drugs can cause simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain as well. In non-users, low-dose testosterone can cause a repartitioning effect (gains in muscle with a loss of fat). Clenbuterol has the reputation for almost magical makeovers, at least until it stops working in 2 weeks. Growth hormone injections tends to cause profound fat loss and a gain in lean body mass but studies show that the LBM gained is mostly connective tissue and water, not actual muscle. Since this book is primarily about non-drug solutions to body recomposition, I mention this only for completeness.
So what about everybody else, can you gain muscle while losing fat at the same time. A lot of it depends on what may seem like rather semantic/pedantic issue.
Fundamentally, the question of “Can I gain fat and lose muscle at the same time?” comes down to an issue of how much; that is, how much of each are you trying to gain or lose respectively? You can also make an issue out of the phrase ‘same time’ in coming to your answer.
For example, if you looked at someone alternating phases of muscle gain and fat loss over a year, they’d have obviously gained muscle and lost fat at the ‘same time’: one year. Even someone who is alternating 2-3 week periods of fat loss with 2-3 week periods of weight gain will be, technically speaking, gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time (i.e. over a 6 week span). But they’re doing it by alternating individual phases (fat loss OR muscle gain). As well, it’s usually possible to gain small amounts of muscle while losing small amounts of fat at the same time. You can do this with cyclical diets for example. I’ll talk more about those later.
I also know of folks who accomplish this by using tiny caloric deficit (i.e. 200 cal/day below maintenance) and severe micromanaging of nutrient intake. Reports of a few pounds of muscle gained while losing a few pounds of fat over 12-16 weeks are what you typically hear. Even they admit that it tends to drive them completely insane and I just can’t see the point of going to that much trouble for such a minimal overall gain. In those same 12-16 weeks, coupling an actual diet where maximal fat loss was the goal, with an actual weight gain phase where maximal muscle gain was the goal, would result in better results without the psychotic need for micromanaging the diet.
But these aren’t really what people are asking. When someone asks “Can I lose muscle and gain fat at the same time?” what they generally mean is “Can I lose 20 lbs of fat and gain 10-20 lbs of muscle in a few month span?” Seriously, I’ve gotten questions where people were hoping for those kinds of results. They usually hide it in body composition numbers (or don’t realize what they are trying to achieve), wanting to go from 200 lbs at 20% bodyfat to 200 lbs at 10% bodyfat in 12 weeks, which represents a loss of 20 lbs of fat and a gain of 20 lbs of muscle over that time span. To that, the answer is ‘Absolutely not, unless you take a ****load of drugs.’
A related comment comes when folks state “I want to lose fat without losing any weight.” Well, see, here’s the problem: fat has mass (and hence weight). The only way to lose fat without losing bodyweight is to replace every pound of fat lost with a pound of muscle in a 1:1 ratio. Alternately, someone might want to gain muscle without increasing weight. Again, we’re faced with the basic problem that muscle has weight, to maintain a stable weight while gaining muscle would require fat to be lost in a 1:1 ratio. It’s a lovely idea, but it’s quite unlikely to happen. Impossible? No, I’m sure someone will manage to do it. Improbable? Yes.
To put it bluntly, if you want to lose a considerable amount of fat, your odds of gaining even small amounts of muscle are fairly small. Depending on your starting bodyfat percentage, the best you might achieve is not losing any muscle (or only losing a pound or two). If you’re trying to reach super leanness, you may sacrifice considerable muscle getting there. Someone trying to diet to 7% bodyfat is not going to gain muscle while doing it, not without drugs. By a similar token, if you want to gain a lot of muscle (or gain it at a reasonable rate), the odds of losing a lot of fat are pretty minimal. The odds of losing any fat at all are, quite honestly, fairly slim. At best you would gain only a small amount of fat. Odds are, unless you’re genetically blessed or very lucky, you’ll gain quite a bit of fat.
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