'Recomp' for Newbies: How Realistic is It?

[Miranda]

One of the most recurring questions on this forum is newbies asking whether you can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. That is, whether it is possible to 'recomp'. The answer is no and yes, depending on who's asking (or answering).

The term 'recomp' is a bit of a conundrum. Anyone who begins to exercise will change their body composition to some degree at some point. You will gain some lean mass in the least when you start resistance training. Often that is not enough to achieve a desired result. Fat has to be lost, too. So how do you go about it?

Whether you decide to build muscle or lose fat, the main thing to remember is that it is a LOT easier to lose/gain fat than to build muscle. Fat is relatively passive stuff. Either it goes to storage or is pulled out of storage. Muscle, on the other hand, is metabolically active, and costly to synthesise. You need to invest in it considerably, both training and energy wise.

When people 'recomp' a few scenarios are likely to occur:

You lose [a lot of] fat and gain [some] muscle.
You gain [a lot of] muscle and [some] fat.

What is not likely to happen is that you simultaneously gain a lot of muscle AND lose a lot of fat. But it is the essence of what is often meant by 'recomp': Can I lose 20lbs of fat and gain 20lbs of muscle please?

So what's the deal with 'recomp'?

Rank beginners with no prior training background commonly see 'noob magic' happen for the first six months or so. Muscle needs a stimulus to grow. Any stimulus is massive relative to nothing, and will exert a larger effect. Newbies also gain strength quick, and will progress to heavier weights more rapidly - a bigger stimulus gained a lot faster - than seasoned lifters. Hence they have more 'room to grow', and may gain more muscle than fat, should they gain much fat at all. Female newbies can expect to gain ~10-12lbs muscle in their first year of proper training and eating. This is as good as it will ever get.

While this is commonly referred to as 'recomp', strictly speaking it's not. But it's good enough to guide you through the early stages of your training career.

But why can't you gain muscle at the same rate as you lose fat, or 'at the same time'? To better understand what's going on, a quick recap on building muscle is needed.

First off: you can't build something out of nothing. You need a stimulus to grow. Then you need building material. Most importantly, you need energy to build with that material. The stimulus is achieved through resistance training where you place an unfamiliar mechanical tension on the muscle (aka tension overload). This causes damage that leads, acutely, to elevated protein synthesis in the muscle.

Protein synthesis can stay elevated for up to 48 hours (although it tends to decrease with training age). That's when it tends to overlap the next training session that, again, leads to elevated protein synthesis. Constant training leads to constant elevated protein synthesis leads to constant muscle gains. Right? Not quite.

While chronically elevated protein synthesis is fine and dandy, it isn't enough. If you want to grow, you need both protein to go in the muscle, and you need energy to put it in there. Muscle is metabolically active tissue and building it is a costly process. It takes in the realm of ~2,400 calories (including protein calories) to synthesise one pound of muscle tissue.

But why would that calorie surplus have to come from your diet when you have ample calories stored in your fat cells? Why can't you shuttle calories from body fat into muscle?

Under most circumstances, fat will only be released for energy when there's not enough energy available for the body to sustain itself. And when there's not enough energy available to sustain bodily functions, the body will downregulate or shut down any unnecessary, energy costly activities such as protein synthesis.

The body is a big internal feedback loop. It senses overall energy availability and adjusts accordingly. Low energy levels in cells lead to upregulation of enzymes that decrease overall protein synthesis and increase tissue breakdown for energy. The body also up- or downregulates a host of hormones that work synergistically to generate an overall 'anabolic' or 'catabolic' drive. Some of these are affected acutely, others take days and weeks to fully exert their effect.

That doesn't mean you won't elevate protein synthesis and 'build muscle' on a diet with your constant training sessions. You will. It's only this leads to recycling the body's existing protein stores, because you have no calories (= building material and energy to build) available for actual growth.

Much like bodyfat gains/losses are the net outcome of storing fat versus burning stored fat, 'building muscle' is the net outcome between synthesising new muscle tissue versus breaking down previously synthesised new tissue. When you feed, there's more protein synthesis than breakdown. When you fast, there's more protein breakdown than synthesis. The net balance between feeding and fasting (or 'bulking' and 'cutting') is what determines the net outcome.

Strength training on a diet allows you, briefly, to regain some of the muscle that you lose during dieting. The net outcome is muscle retention (or minimal muscle loss).

When you constantly hip-hop between acute calorie surpluses and deficits, you're not giving yourself enough time to grow. This compromises the body's ability to build muscle. You risk shooting yourself in the foot given the low rate at which an average woman can expect to gain muscle even under the best of circumstances.

Overweight/obese sedentary newbies with poor insulin sensitivity are one subset of noobs that can expect to lose fat and gain muscle literally 'at the same time'. What insulin does, among a host of other things, is enhance nutrient uptake in cells. The very short course of it is that exercise increases insulin sensitivity in the muscle long before it increases insulin sensitivity in fat cells. Fat cells become insulin resistant because they are full and start to resist the effects of insulin so the nutrients go to muscle instead. This effect tends to be short-term. As the person loses fat and becomes fitter, fat cells regain their sensitivity and the effect disappears.

Another subset are people who return to training/dieting after a long layoff, and/or who have been engaged in contact sports. They benefit from 'muscle memory' and they tend to have [retained] more muscle than someone who is completely new to training.

When you constantly eat above maintenance and train, you have optimised an overall anabolic environment. You keep on accumulating the body's protein stores with minimal protein breakdown. The net outcome is more muscle with [some] fat gains.

How much fat you will gain depends on how much over maintenance you eat. Due to the magnified training effect in newbies, you can initially expect a larger return for a smaller level of investment. But you do need to invest in it. You need a calorie surplus for building material and for energy to go into building muscle. You can't make something out of nothing.

...

Noob gains can lead to optical illusions. Adding muscle to a non-muscular frame may seem like the person has gained 'tons' of muscle (as commonly professed on the forum) in a few months. The only person you compare yourself to, of course, is the previous version of yourself. Again, anything relative to nothing tends to look like 'a lot'.

Constant training leads to muscle 'pump' (increased blood volume/water in the muscle), too. That can be deceiving. Muscle is like a sponge that fills with water (and glycogen) that makes it look bigger and prettier. This may look like you 'lost fat and gained muscle' at the same time, because you suddenly look bigger/defined. Any small fat gains are very hard to detect among your existing fat layers.

'Building muscle' here refers to increasing the protein content of the muscle. Not the smoke and mirrors bit. In absolute terms, you are not going to gain massive amounts of muscle in a few months, or even years. Next time you feel you should make outlandish claims, go buy 20lbs of chicken breast for reference. And remember that chicken breast is 70% water on average

[megdaig]

Holy wow! Great article Miranda....

Let's keep this one bumped until it becomes a sticky!



I'm on spread

[schnauzers]

Great post, thanks for the write-up

[CathyVee]

I'm also on spread...

Great article. I vote sticky

[LinearChaos]

Definitely good stuff!

Thanks for taking the time to type this up Miranda.

[xxentric]

Very informative! Thanks!

[melvimbe]

Execellent post Miranda. Very interesting.

May I ask a few follow questions? Actually, probably more statements that I am curious about.

So given what you provided above, If someone ate at maintenance without lifting at all, creating no protein synthesis, what would happen? Just guessing, but if the indiviudal was more muscled then their natural status quo, there would be a slight catabolic effecting reducing the muscle size. At the same time, this would lower the actual maintenance level, and thus would be then be eating over maintenance, thus creating fat (since there is no protein synthesis). Is this correct?

Next question...since the goal on a bulking period is to gain muscle with as little fat as possible, then you shold only consume the additional calories/protein that you need for the additional protein synthesis. Anything else would just be converted to additional fat that you would likely later wish to cut. I would guess that determining the calories need would be dependent on the level of stimulus, hormones, genetics, etc....and therefore cannot be easily calculated.

Last question, is there some sort of status quo BF%, muscularity, that the body naturally strives for? I understand that diet, exercise, and other stresses are going to have an effect, but is there genetic predisposition that a body initially strives for? It seems there would be, that people are predispositioned to have a certain amount of muscle to fit their bone structure. However, muscles atrophy when they are not used. I would guess that people are going to have different levels of muscularity given the same diet and exercise based on genetic disposition, but genetic disposition cannot compensate for bad diet and exercise, and genetic disposition is rarely so poor that it renders good diet and exercise to be practically useless.

[Miranda]

If someone ate at maintenance without lifting at all, creating no protein synthesis, what would happen? Just guessing, but if the indiviudal was more muscled then their natural status quo, there would be a slight catabolic effecting reducing the muscle size. At the same time, this would lower the actual maintenance level, and thus would be then be eating over maintenance, thus creating fat (since there is no protein synthesis). Is this correct?

lifting weights is not the only thing that elevates protein synthesis. eating protein does, too. plus whenever you eat, you elevate insulin, which decreases protein breakdown. so you are in a net 'anabolic' state after a meal. the body produces 'labile' proteins for future use. this reverses itself during fasting (such as when you sleep) when the body breaks down the accrued proteins. so you end up maintaining the status quo.

when you train, you divert more of those proteins toward muscle.

protein synthesis exceeds protein breakdown = net accrual of protein stores
protein breakdown exceeds protein synthesis = net loss of protein stores
protein synthesis is equal to protein breakdown = net maintenance of protein stores

the goal on a bulking period is to gain muscle with as little fat as possible, then you shold only consume the additional calories/protein that you need for the additional protein synthesis. Anything else would just be converted to additional fat that you would likely later wish to cut. I would guess that determining the calories need would be dependent on the level of stimulus, hormones, genetics, etc....and therefore cannot be easily calculated.

'correct' calories are only part of the problem. no-one partitions excess calories 100% toward muscle. you're always going to store some of it as fat. hence gaining fat is a sign that you're gaining at least some muscle.

is there some sort of status quo BF%, muscularity, that the body naturally strives for? I understand that diet, exercise, and other stresses are going to have an effect, but is there genetic predisposition that a body initially strives for? It seems there would be, that people are predispositioned to have a certain amount of muscle to fit their bone structure. However, muscles atrophy when they are not used. I would guess that people are going to have different levels of muscularity given the same diet and exercise based on genetic disposition, but genetic disposition cannot compensate for bad diet and exercise, and genetic disposition is rarely so poor that it renders good diet and exercise to be practically useless.

pretty much. people are different, and are distributed across a bell curve. you have freaks on either side, with the majority scattered across the middle. when in doubt, deem yourself 'average'

increased muscle mass due to resistance training is an adaptation. when you remove the stimulus, the adaptation goes away.

[Ak47cross]

didnt read all of it But i gained 25 pounds this year while gaining a couple% bf.

[megdaig]

didnt read all of it But i gained 25 pounds this year while gaining a couple% bf.

Which means that you completely do not understand the point of this thread....especially judging by your response. Give it a read as it is quite pertinent information to all, not just those wanting to recomp.

[illiniStrive]

Sticky sticky sticky!

[melvimbe]

Thanks Miranda,

Getting a better understanding of this stuff is rather motivational to me. Gives me a lot more faith in the process.

[fihe]

Yeah protein synthesis! It took me a long time to make the decision to bulk because I'm skinny fat, but I realized that I needed the calories to help my muscles grow as I keep lifting heavy weights. It wasn't until I started eating in a caloric surplus that I noticed my muscles actually started to look bigger, not just the temporary post-workout swell. I'm still benefitting a little from newbie recomp, but I won't be able to take advantage of that for long

At this point I don't even care if I get a little fat temporarily. After all, I weighed 170-180 lbs. for years, and for so long it didn't bother me enough for me to really do something about it. Last year I weighed 10 lbs. more than my current weight and didn't look much different than I do now, so I think I'll try to bulk back to that, then start cutting.

I'm on my 5th week and I'm still getting used to eating more. Sometimes I need to eat a lot of food at the end of the day, because I've eaten much less than expected throughout the day due to not being that hungry.

[Rooster09]

I've been reading these forums for a month or 2 now and I'll be pretty honest, this was my first night in the ladies forum and I was hoping to find some pics of pretty ladies . But you go and have one of the best put together posts on muscle growth I've ever read.

Not what I was looking for, but I am very satisfied! Good write up, definitely a sticky. Please, please, please post this in some of the more general forums. This is definitely gender neutral stuff so you need to stop hiding it in here

[Run4Kiddos]

Thank you Miranda!!!! All your posts are so informative...I wish I could pick your brain!

[Botika]

Such a fantastic post!! Thank you!

[MadCatLady]

Excellent post. Has really helped my understanding of the process. I think I experienced some recomp on my first year, more by accident than anything else though!

[NutMeigh]

Thank you for posting this! Its a great read and will be hitting my bookmarks Sticky please!!!

[Dnkibble]

All of it was good! Clear and to the point....really cleared things up!

But if you can not gain A ton of muscle in a few months or a few yrs.....when can you gain a ton of muscle? Haven't some of you gained a ton of muscle within 2-3 yrs time?

[schnauzers]

.when can you gain a ton of muscle? Haven't some of you gained a ton of muscle within 2-3 yrs time?

Not sure what you mean by 'a ton', but where does it say in the OP that you can't make significant muscle gains over several years? By significant I mean the maximum that a mix of your genetic potential plus the effectiveness of your diet/training program would allow.

[Dnkibble]

Very last statement at the bottom, it starts off 'building muscle here'. I don't know how to highlight yet. I'm sure genetics play a part, but I also know of individuals who have been able to build massive muscle within 1-2 yrs who didn't think their genes would allow them to do so but their diets and training had overcome that factor. I was just confused because I can't imagine training hard and going through the process/keeping a good diet/bulking and not gaining massive amounts over a yrs

[Dnkibble]

Maybe she means you wouldn't be able to gain massive amounts of muscle without bulking...? This thread is about recomp for newbies she didn't mention long term results from bulking so maybe she's referring to maximum recomp gains only.

[Miranda]

Very last statement at the bottom, it starts off 'building muscle here'. I don't know how to highlight yet. I'm sure genetics play a part, but I also know of individuals who have been able to build massive muscle within 1-2 yrs who didn't think their genes would allow them to do so but their diets and training had overcome that factor. I was just confused because I can't imagine training hard and going through the process/keeping a good diet/bulking and not gaining massive amounts over a yrs

Maybe she means you wouldn't be able to gain massive amounts of muscle without bulking...? This thread is about recomp for newbies she didn't mention long term results from bulking so maybe she's referring to maximum recomp gains only.

an average woman can expect to gain ~10-12lbs of muscle in her first year of proper training and eating. the number goes down each year after that. in the 2nd year, it's 5-6lbs, then 2-3lbs in the 3rd. after that, the gains approach negligible. so, if you did everything 'right' you could expect to gain ~20lbs of muscle mass in three years.

and you can't predict what a person's genetic potential is, until they start to tap into it.

[Ahri22]

Yeah, what is "massive muscle"?? Everyone can gain SOME muscle, but those with "Massive" muscle usually take steroids or something (at least by MY definition of "massive muscle").

Genetics play a part, of course, but everyone can gain a good quantity of muscle (as Miranda said, for women approximately 10 to 12 lbs in the first year).

I seem to have a good genetic predisposition to muscle growth (as I haven't actually done any body building until now, only CrossFit, and according to DEXA my lean body tissue is quite high...as in, it's above the "excellent" category on the graph).

But regardless of how much muscle you grow, EVERYONE can get a lot stronger by lifting heavy! (I have seen comparatively lean women lifting huge amounts of weight even though they don't have "massive" muscles).

I'd also add... whatever I've done so far would be "newbie recomp". My weight hardly changed at all over a period of almost 12 months of Crossfitting, but I definitely became stronger and grew some muscle. I'm now trying to cut while retain the muscle I've got, and then I'm going to aim to bulk (slooowly so as not to gain too much fat) while trying to increase muscle.

[oregonchick76]

All of it was good! Clear and to the point....really cleared things up!

But if you can not gain A ton of muscle in a few months or a few yrs.....when can you gain a ton of muscle? Haven't some of you gained a ton of muscle within 2-3 yrs time?

When can you gain a ton of muscle? When you're on steroids. Outside of that, it's slow slow slow. And a 'massive' amount of muscle in my opinion would be anything over 10lbs.

[MrsMaz]

wow this is a great read, especially for me as im a newbie and am just over 3 months in! imagine having 10lbs of muscle in the first 12 months - WOW!!!! EXCITING STUFF!!!

[oregonchick76]

wow this is a great read, especially for me as im a newbie and am just over 3 months in! imagine having 10lbs of muscle in the first 12 months - WOW!!!! EXCITING STUFF!!!

It takes quite a consistent effort in both the eating and lifting department. A lot of women tend to shoot themselves in the foot (me included) by being afraid to eat the amount to support that kind of gain.

[Cchavez1319]

Great thread!!! Exactly the info I was looking for! I couldn't understand why after 3 weeks of strength training and some cardio, I wasn't losing anything on the scale. I still to date have only lost a pound! Very discouraging... I have kept to 1900 calories per day and all my macros in check. I feel like I've lost 5 pounds but this could explain it! I have been decreasing fat percent but muscles have been retaining water/swelling/growing is what I'm gathering from this post. Good to know! When can I expect my number on the scale to reflect my work though?? Or should I not even go by the scale but just by body fat %??

[Dnkibble]

When can you gain a ton of muscle? When you're on steroids. Outside of that, it's slow slow slow. And a 'massive' amount of muscle in my opinion would be anything over 10lbs.

Of course not all at one time . But a yr or so of training (maybe 2) I could imagine that with training and eating the 'right' way you'd gain a nice amount of muscle 10-12 lbs or so as mentioned above and although to some that may not seem like much..... To someone who hardly has any visible muscle that's a big change and can seem like 'a ton' of muscle

[Dnkibble]

Great thread!!! Exactly the info I was looking for! I couldn't understand why after 3 weeks of strength training and some cardio, I wasn't losing anything on the scale. I still to date have only lost a pound! Very discouraging... I have kept to 1900 calories per day and all my macros in check. I feel like I've lost 5 pounds but this could explain it! I have been decreasing fat percent but muscles have been retaining water/swelling/growing is what I'm gathering from this post. Good to know! When can I expect my number on the scale to reflect my work though?? Or should I not even go by the scale but just by body fat %??

From what I've learned it's not all that helpful to go by body fat either. Maybe better to go by the way you look and/or clothes fit. If you're trying to lose I think it's best to figure out what exactly your maintenance cals are and create a deficit from there because if you're eating at maintenance and don't know it your not going to lose much. I'm new myself but this is just what I've learned so far... Hopefully someone else will give their input to help you out too!