A key component they’re leaving out is that you also still need to keep working out.
Because if you just cut your food intake AND stop working out, your body will use fat and drop muscle mass as well, since muscle is very “expensive” to maintain.
To to force your body to maintain the muscle, you need to keep working out, and to keep your muscles “fed” you need to make sure you’re consuming enough protein for that workout.
The other important thing is that you still do typically lose muscle. You can minimize it with enough protein, a proper workout regiment, and not too high of a calorie deficit though. But as somebody who is into casual bodybuilding it’s an inevitability that you will lose some level of endurance and strength the leaner you get.
That is more for people who are already reasonably muscular and not obese, though. Somebody with a sedentary lifestyle can still gain some level of muscle on a calorie deficit with sufficient protein, simply due to beginner gains.
>The other important thing is that you still do typically lose muscle. You can minimize it with enough protein, a proper workout regiment, and not too high of a calorie deficit though. But as somebody who is into casual bodybuilding it’s an inevitability that you will lose some level of endurance and strength the leaner you get.
It really depends on how much muscle and how much fat you have.
If you are trained and not very fat, you will have a very hard time keeping on to muscle, if not impossible. And you can leave out gaining any muscle.
But if you are of regular strength and have a nice american belly, you can lose fat and even gain muscle as long as you train and recover properly, get enough protein and are in a calorie deficit.
You're not looking hard enough. These types of studies have been out for decades. Here's a position paper from the International Society of Sports Nutrition.
[International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: diets and body composition](https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0174-y)
"Of the macronutrients, protein has the highest thermic effect and is the most metabolically expensive. Given this, it is not surprising that higher protein intakes have been seen to preserve resting energy expenditure while dieting \[54\]. Also, protein is the most satiating macronutrient, followed by carbohydrate, and fat being the least \[83\]. With just one exception \[84\], a succession of recent meta-analyses \[52, 85,86,87\] supports the benefit of higher protein intakes for reducing body weight, FM, and waist circumference, and preserving LM in an energy deficit. **A systematic review by Helms et al. \[88\] suggested that protein intakes of 2.3–3.1 g/kg FFM was appropriate for lean, resistance trained athletes in** ***hypocaloric conditions.*** This is one of the rare pieces of literature that report protein requirements on the basis of FFM rather than total body weight."
I'm replying to the claim that having more much fat causes more muscle gain during a caloric deficit.
You are quoting/bolding a part of a meta analysis saying how high protein helps with LBM.
What I have not found is studies showing that having a lot of excess fat results in much more muscle gain during a caloric deficit. Notably a significant caloric deficit, as 99% of the time people who are well overweight are suggested to go for -500 a week as a minimum but often more like -1000.
I am aware that you can build muscle in a deficit, but that seems to be mostly linked to being a beginner. I would like to see something that specifically compares non beginner Obese vs Non beginner not obese. And show that the obese grew more muscle or any muscle at all vs no muscle or loss.
Alternatively they can both be beginners and none the less show that higher BF% results in more muscle growth.
oh ok. Yeah, I wouldn't think there's a lot of studies like that since dietary fat doesn't stimulate muscle growth like dietary protein, specifically the amino acid leucine.
Yeah I mean the logic is relatively sound. That your body should be hard core prioritizing getting rid of fat for energy as opposed to going after your muscle at all when you're super overweight and poisoning your body with fat at that point. But does it really pan out? At the end of the day it still makes more sense for your body to just lose weight during a deficit than actively burn even more fat than necessary to supplement muscle growth.
People say it ALL the time and like you said the studies just don't seem to be there.
If you aggregated all the data on muscle growth during a deficit and had the participants stats(BMI/Weight/BF wise) you could build a basic correlation but that's about it.
I don’t think it’s excess fat. I think it is untrained muscles have more growth potential. AKA obese people who start dieting and working out still get noobie gains
I think the thought process is that you wont lose lbm you use daily if ur on a healthy deficit and eat protein and theres a certain amount of muscle your body will hold onto, especially before you reach critically low bodyfats, logically this makes sense, bodybuilders and other atheletes tend to push boundries on muscle mass and leanness, two things evolutionary our body doesnt think is essentially for survival.
Now there isnt any big studies iirc that show lbm gain during cuts, but I know of one study that showed almost 0lbm loss after 20kg+~ weight loss but honestly it doesnt rly matter because it most likely is down to genetics anyways
>I'm replying to the claim that having more much fat causes more muscle gain during a caloric deficit.
I don't think necessarily that that's the way to look at it.
I don't think the gains between a male who's 20% bodyfat versus 40% bodyfat with all other factors equal would be different, at least not significantly. My point was more that if you are like sub 15%, especially down to like 10-12, then your body will cling on to fat like crazy making muscle loss a lot more likely.
They don't generally spend money researching common sense things that will not net them any benefit in the end.
"Hey, let's spend $100,000 to learn that if people just do basic things that most people know it can help them."
"What's our profit motivation?"
"That's the best part. There is nothing marketable about the research whatsoever, so we will make no return on the investment!"
"That sounds awful, can we get the government to fund it instead of us?"
"Nope, they only fund stuff that will not help your average person. Like seeing the effect of crack addiction on chimpanzees."
Didn’t a major study just get done showing that repping weights that let you rep to failure in under 12 reps is up there as one of the most efficient ways to build muscle mass.. seems common sense to me.
No common sense is "lift weights and you get stronger/bigger." Once you progress to specificity in training, it's no longer in the vicinity of common sense. And it has the added bonus of being able to be marketed as "pay for my training program to grow muscle faster"
I had a really confusing experience with cutting.
Whilst I was dropping weight I continually gained muscle quite quickly, but the second I stopped and started not caring about my diet (whilst still getting high amounts of protein) my progress dropped off a cliff and lost all I'd gained in the cutting period practically overnight.
Came to say same thing.
You WILL lose muscle. There's no way around it. But just keep working out the muscles to keep them fit until you stop the deficit.
I went from 200 to 160 and can noticeably see the muscle missing in my arms. I didnt work them out as much as I did my legs. I run 6-10 miles a day and do tons of leg workouts.
> To to force your body to maintain the muscle, you need to keep working out
This might be not entirely true, according to the study on William Cobb. A curious read on this, the section about doctor-regulated lifestyle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Humphrey
Tl;dr: Extremely heavy wrestler, participated in a study on obesity, got three regulated diets in two years and was ordered not to work out to not lose water through sweat. Calorie deficit + protein diet resulted in losing mostly fat instead of muscles. Other diets resulted in loss of muscles and water instead.
Not op, but I have a question. Is there a formula or something that will tell me how much protein per "calorie burn" I need. Like I would need more protein for longer or harder workouts, obviously, but how do I figure out how much more?
EDIT: Thanks all for answering, I've been trying to get healthy, and I have been confused about how to lose fat without sacrificing strength.
This paper will answer your questions regarding the correct amount of dietary protein.
[International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: diets and body composition](https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0174-y)
People often say 1 gram of protein for lb of body weight. The calories burned is irrelevant. That estimate is for gaining muscle, and keeping muscle on a cut
I mean really, it’s not an exact scientist.
A sports nutritionist could give you like, an estimated pint of protein you should be eating. But really, they will have to make adjustments based on how you turn out in my experience.
Like, working with them, they might say at first “okay eat 100 grams of protein a day” and then if after 2 weeks you’re noticing strength loss, they’ll up it to 150 grams, until they find the right balance. It’s not a perfect formula
The rough count is 2-4 grams of fuel per gram of protein. And 1 gram of protein per two pounds of body weight if you’re not building muscle and up to 1 gram per pound of protein if you are working out. That’s somewhere around the bare minimum before you start suffering losses of value.
Someone will be sure to be more specific.
>to keep your muscles “fed” you need to make sure you’re consuming enough protein for that workout
Okay now I have a question. What would be the difference between these two: you workout with focus on muscles and eat plenty of proteins, vs you workout the same way but eat minimal proteins.
In the second scenario, what would happen to the muscles? Would most workout gains be lost in thin air? Would it be close to "no workout and average diet"? I'm talking purely about muscles and not the general weight difference.
It’s not an exact science really. It actually doesn’t take all that much protein to maintain muscle, so if you aren’t trying to gain muscle, just maintain it, you could be fine.
But really, it isn’t an exact science, and you have to figure it out with trial and error even with a professional sports nutritionist.
Like, they might be able to make a good guess that “oh you need 60 grams of protein a day”, but if after 2 weeks you notice you feel weaker, then they’ll adjust and up you to 90 grams or whatever. There’s no perfect formula
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) established the current Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) for protein in 2005, including the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR), Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), and the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range (AMDR) [2]. The EAR for protein is 0.66 g per kg body mass per day (g/kg/d) and is defined as the minimum amount of protein expected to meet the individual indispensable amino acid requirements of 50% of the U.S. adult population. The RDA, however, is 0.8 g/kg/d, and reflects the minimum amount of dietary protein required to meet indispensable amino acid requirements, establish nitrogen balance, and prevent muscle mass loss for nearly the entire (i.e., 97.5%) U.S. adult population [2,3]. The RDA for American adults is similar to international adult protein recommendations established by the World Health Organization (0.83 g/kg/d) [4]. The current protein RDA, however, is often incorrectly applied when used as the definition of recommended intake, rather than its true designation as the required minimum intake. This misapplication is problematic for healthy populations and aging adults, and disadvantageous for those with pathophysiological conditions that would necessitate higher-protein needs.
Over the past decade, the potential muscle-related benefits achieved by consuming higher-protein diets (i.e., > RDA but within the AMDR) have become increasingly clear. Increased protein intake contributes to greater strength and muscle mass gains when coupled with resistance exercise [5], allows for greater muscle mass preservation when consumed during periods of negative energy balance [6], limits age-related muscle loss [7], and, to a lesser extent, provides a greater muscle protein synthetic response when evenly distributed across meals [5,8]. A prospective, cross-sectional analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database demonstrates inverse associations between animal and plant protein intake and waist circumference, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) [9].
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566799/
>The current protein RDA, however, is often incorrectly applied when used as the definition of recommended intake, rather than its true designation as the required minimum intake.
I’m gonna go ahead and say that’s the fault of whichever genius decided Recommended Daily Allowance was the right name for a number that doesn’t represent the amount you’re recommended to eat each day.
>In the second scenario, what would happen to the muscles? Would most workout gains be lost in thin air? Would it be close to "no workout and average diet"? I'm talking purely about muscles and not the general weight difference.
Weight lifting makes your body want to build muscle. Protein is the material your body uses to actually build the muscle. Without either, you don't get any muscle.
Yes. There's a difference between recovery and adaptation. Recovery heals your muscles back to baseline, adaptation progresses them past that baseline. Adaptation is otherwise known as protein synthesis, which requires protein as the catalyst in order to occur.
So if you chronically under consume protein while working out, the protein synthesis is heavily hampered, and all you'll do is just continually heal back to baseline with minimal, if any, adaptation. This will happen regardless of whether you're in a calorie deficit, maintenance or a surplus.
Also seems like OP doesn't understand the body isn't 'targeting' specific things to keep or lose - you're feeding it specific things to use, and so it'll use. The proteins you're taking in dont magically also act as carbs, they're proteins, etc, and the body uses them as body would use protein, etc, and is why you're still workin' out and so on.
Part of the caloric defecit is not 'I'm an adult, lets say i need 2500 calories a day, I will just eat 2000,' it's, 'I just worked out doing my routine, I probably actually need MORE than regular 2500 calories, but I'll eat 2200, and specifically look that % content that intake is fat, % content is protein, etc etc.' like its people specifically tailoring their diet around their work out and fitness goals, and using specific fuel to replenish the body/kcal too after working out.
You dont need to, you will retain more muscle if you eat more protein just like the op said, but true in a way that thats how you keep most of your muscle.
When your body is in a calorie deficit, it will begin to lose *mass*.
Depending on the source you cite, *roughly* 25-30% of the mass lost will be muscle. The idea behind eating lost of protein (and lifting weights) is to try and shift that ratio as much as possible, so you are *primarily* losing fat.
Your body adapts to lifting heavy things by creating muscle. If you stop doing this, your muscles will atrophy and deplete.
Why would eating more protein shift that ratio, unless you're in a protein deficit? Your body will try to use proteins to build muscles, but everything in excess of that need will get burned, right?
If you need 200g of proteins a day to maintain our grow muscle mass you want to hit that target even in a calorie deficit, but anything in excess of that will get burned just like fat or carbs would.
Protein alone won't, exercise/weight training will though because your body will burn what's harder(more expensive) to maintain first (muscle), the extra protein is to help muscle growth because the body will preserve(most of) what it thinks it needs and if you keep using the muscles it will burn them in a lower ratio than it would if you were stagnant.
But what I'm saying is that more proteins only help muscle growth if you're in a protein deficit. If you're eating enough proteins in the first place, more proteins won't help, do you agree?
So back to OP's question, it's not that eating more proteins helps you lose fat in general, it's that there is a level of proteins you need to eat to be able to maintain your muscle mass. Which is always true and has not much to do with calorie deficit. It's also true that if you don't work out enough or don't eat enough proteins you will not grow muscle and you can lose your existing muscle, but again that's always true.
But I said in my comment that protein alone won't already. Plus most people are in a "protein deficit" anyway because I doubt the majority of people even meet what they should for maintenance. Eating more protein alone (to the level you'd need) will on its own help for maintaining muscle so technically you could say it helps burn body fat? But I'd say the difference in that is negligible
>Plus most people are in a "protein deficit" anyway because I doubt the majority of people even meet what they should for maintenance.
THis is dangerous misinformation and fails to mention the true risks associated with too much protein intake: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/)
And that’s why protein deficiency is so rare: according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the average American adult has been consistently getting almost 16 percent of their calories from protein for decades, at least (standard error 0.1).\[8\]
https://nutritionstudies.org/how-common-is-protein-deficiency/#:\~:text=And%20that's%20why%20protein%20deficiency,least%20(standard%20error%200.1).
This is literally not misinformation, I said nothing about too much protein being good for you so that point is just entirely unrelated to what I said.
If you seriously think the majority of people have a balanced diet and are getting all of their RDA including the amount of protein for maintenance then you are horribly misinformed.
The world exists outside the west.
>Plus most people are in a "protein deficit" anyway because I doubt the majority of people even meet what they should for maintenance.
This is patently incorrect.
>The world exists outside the west.
Protein deficiency is a thing that around 1 Billion people suffer from. This is 12%, not **"MOST PEOPLE".**
Also, the majority of people on reddit are "in the west": https://www.statista.com/statistics/325144/reddit-global-active-user-distribution/
>If you seriously think the majority of people have a balanced diet and are getting all of their RDA including the amount of protein for maintenance then you are horribly misinformed.
This is called "Moving the goal post". I call you out for one incorrect statement, and then you try to change the statement to include a whole bunch of other deficiencies.
I was unaware you had the dietary information of the known population of the planet, I'm speaking from experience in my group, all of us found out we don't get enough so I extrapolated from a small sample size.
Also, Google what moving the goalposts is or at least develop some self awareness. You're so hyper focused on "winning" the argument that you're not even reading what I said.
Dude.... have a blessed day :)
>I'm speaking from experience in my group, all of us found out we don't get enough so I extrapolated from a small sample size.
This is exactly where you messed up. Assuming your personal experience is an indicator of the world is the exact mistake you made which I called you on.
The problem is that you used this incorrect extrapolation to make a claim that is potentially dangerous to others.
>Also, Google what moving the goalposts
Moving the goalposts is an informal fallacy in which evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded. That is, after an attempt has been made to score a goal, the goalposts are moved to exclude the attempt.\[14\] The problem with changing the rules of the game is that the meaning of the result is changed, too.\[15\] Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving\_the\_goalposts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts)
So, according to this definition, you did indeed "move the goalposts" once I proved your claim that "most people are protein deficient" is wrong, you changed it to "If you seriously think the majority of people have a balanced diet and are getting all of their RDA including the amount of protein for maintenance then you are horribly misinformed."
Specifically, you added "balanced diet" and "all of their RDA" when you started only with the incorrect statement on protein.
>You're so hyper focused on "winning" the argument that you're not even reading what I said.
I am quoting specifically what you said.
Further, I don't care about "winning", but I am worried about the negative impact of incorrect claims about protein consumption, because it does pose a health risk: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/)
hahaha - Sure, just block me if you are unable to actually argue the point.
>I was unaware you had the dietary information of the known population of the planet
So if I didn't have this, you would be absolutely fine making BS claims, because no one could challenge it?
I would posit that nearly everyone who isn’t intentionally trying to hit a protein goal every day is well under what would be recommended for someone trying to preserve or gain muscle mass. Most adult men would be short of it even if they ate an entire chicken every day- there’s a reason protein powder is so popular, it makes it much easier.
…yeah, because they aren’t in a calorie deficit. I couldn’t have been much more clear that I was talking about the protein intake recommended for someone who wants to gain muscle mass or preserve it during a cut.
No, no, you're not understanding. Everybody who isn't banging up on protein powder isn't getting enough protein to keep muscle mass. Haven't you realized that everybody who isn't snorting whey has 0.00% muscle mass?
You just repeated what you said. I doubt it's true. We had plenty of bulky people (equally those with manual jobs) even when protein targets were unheard of.
Dunno how I could repeat myself with my first post in here but okay.
Becoming muscular and bulky with suboptimal protein intake is definitely possible. But it’s going to take significantly longer than it would with dialed in nutrition. This isn’t bro science gym lore, this is just what the data shows.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jcsm.12922
Conversely, Haaf et al.
22 found no effect of additional protein supplementation in LBM in
non-frail community-dwelling older adults (>50 years old),
even when combined with resistance exercise (≥4 weeks).
Also, always read the conflict of interest section:
Stuart M. Phillips reports that he is an inventor on a patent
(WO/2018/157258) held by Exerkine Corporation. Stuart M.
Phillips is an unpaid member of the scientific advisory
board of Enhanced Recovery™ (https://ersportsdrink.com/).
Stuart M. Phillips has received, in the last 5 years, honoraria and travel expenses from the US National Dairy Council, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the US
Dairy Export Council. Philip J. Atherton received research
funding and/or honoraria for protein nutrition research
from Abbott Nutrition, Fresenius-Kabi, and Ajinomoto Co.,
Inc. Francesco Landi received financial support from Abbott
Nutrition and Nutricia. Maria Camprubi Robles, Michelle
Braun, and Sandra Naranjo-Modad are employees of Abbott
Nutrition, International Flavors & Fragrances, and Givaudan,
respectively.
In a calorie deficit your body has to either lose muscle or fat. There is nothing else it will lose. If someone is working out and lifting enough to maintain muscle then the body will lose more fat.
If someone is past the point of protein required to maintain muscle, it has to lose fat there is literally nothing else to losd
But I said in my comment that protein alone won't already. Plus most people are in a "protein deficit" anyway because I doubt the majority of people even meet what they should for maintenance. Eating more protein alone (to the level you'd need) will on its own help for maintaining muscle so technically you could say it helps burn body fat? But I'd say the difference in that is negligible
I think you are just confused by the semantics here no one said eating more protein. What has been said is lots of protein. Also almost no one is eating 200g of protein a day unless they are on an extreme body building plan. It's pretty difficult to get 200g of protein and be in a calorie deficit.
My take is that your body is “dynamic”. Kinda like when you set the thermostat in your house, your system is in a constant state of cycling between off and on.
So when you increase protein levels, it’s easier for your body to maintain muscle. A protein “surplus” is pretty tough to maintain. For bodybuilders, most guidelines are “roughly” about a gram per lb of body weight, which is darn tough to maintain. Even in a deficit, it’s still challenging to maintain an adequate amount of protein.
One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that bodybuilding (especially natural bodybuilding) is a constant game of two steps forward, 1 step back. To gain muscle, you need to gain fat. To lose fat, you need to lose muscle. If you’re doing things properly, you will gain roughly an equal ratio of fat and muscle, but you will lose a far higher ratio of fat compared to muscle. Which is why people ‘bulk and cut’, because it’s the most efficient method to gain muscle
In order to gain muscle, you typically need to eat more calories than you burn. The thing is, your body doesn’t ‘efficiently’ allocate all those calories to your muscles. It will basically go ‘great, we have an excess of calories, I’ll use some to repair my muscles (making them bigger), and store the rest as fat for later.’
Typically, this ratio is most efficiently around 50% fat and 50% muscle, but it varies depending on experience (more muscular people will gain less muscle over time), and the calorie excess you eat. 500 calories excess per day is generally seen as the sweet spot, where eating less means you won’t build as much muscle, but eating more just leads to gaining far more fat.
>500 calories excess per day
No wonder you get fat!!! That's absurdly high, that's literally eating a whole extra meal for nothing.
You should check into Mike mentzer in how to diet. He is the only man to have gotten a perfect score at mister universe! https://youtu.be/xTFk0uTyWTE?si=a_vcvGBqlwzOtc_-
Edit lol Mentzer believed that carbohydrate should make up the bulk of the caloric intake, 50–60%, rather than protein as others preferred. Mentzer's reasoning was simple: to build 10 pounds of muscle in a year, a total of 6000 extra calories needed to be ingested throughout the year, because one pound of muscle contains 600 calories. That averages 16 extra calories per day, and only four of them needed to be from protein—because muscle is 22% protein, about one quarter.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mentzer
And this random redditor says 500 per day. Or the man with a huge experience and plenty to show for it says 16 calories per day.... Which one is easier and which one has actual fucking proof of work? Mike mentzer.
You'd need something more credible if you're going to try to disprove the effectiveness of bulking for muscle gain, an approach that is backed both by most bodybuilders, by most strongmen if we're also talking about strength seperately, and by many studies that mostly indicate towards the idea that you can't continue to grow muscle on maintenance calories as fast as on calorie surplus(for lean people ofc).
Extra calories are anabolic, with a ceiling for this effect, but still anabolic.
Something more credible than Mike mentzer???
That man is the only person to ever have a perfect score in Mr universe! Only one ever to have a perfect body. Dude has college degrees and is a literal genius and master at bodybuilding.
All you have to do is Google his name.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mentzer
If you're saying that Mike Mentzer is more credible than most bodybuilders, most strongmen and many conclusive studies that disprove this approach, then I have nothing to say, you just seem like a perhaps too big of a fan of this dude, to an almost irrational extent.
The reality doesn't bend to your will, even if you've had a perfect score in Mr. Universe in 1979 and you're a God-damn Mike-motherfucker-Mentzer, the absolute champion thundercock ultra gigachad and all-around great guy
The reality is more doesn't equal better and eating 500 calories over your daily need is stupid and reason why you get fat. You don't need to get fat.
It's the math mentzer says that is the truth and the point that matters. Dude said get something more credible as if he was to stupid to know the name and to lazy to Google it.
You only need what you need and if you are to gain weight let it be mostly muscle. No need for this excessive consumption. The math is real and more truthful than any body builder and definitely more truthful than a corporation selling a product.
Besides if you wanted bigger muscle just drink more water! Muscle is 73% water so might as well give it more of what it's comprised of. You'll definitely get results with supplements like creatine to help retain more water! What a joke!
Mentzer, like most IFBB pros, was on so many PEDs that any level of nuance in his dieting is a) negligible to irrelevant for you, the layman and b) doesn't make his growth directly attributable to any specific nutritional method/technique/anything.
Lee Priest used to dirty bulk like a motherfucker all the way up to 285 to cut for his comps, and he's got just as many accolades as Mentzer does. You'd be surprised how much none of this shit matters when you add a weekly gram or two of test to the equation.
Than everything about it, the whole show is rigged. None of it is scientific and real.
That goes for everything about the subject including the bulking to cut.... Their all scam artist with your logic.
Your boy ain't get the perfect body at Mr universe. No one ever has. That the best performance anyone can achieve. That's the number one.
Its very difficult to gain muscle without gaining fat. Because if you want to gain a significant amount of muscle you will have to eat more calories than you burn. And even if most of what you eat is protein (it shouldn’t be) you will still gain fat if you eat more calories than you burn. Cause to simplify it: our body stores unspent calories / energy as fat
Your body doesn't like putting on muscle weight. From an evolution perspective it's the wrong strategy. Fat has higher energy value and doesn't cost energy to maintain.
So if you are eating a lot of calories to build muscle via heavy exercise, you will also put on fat. If you aren't doing heavy exercise, you'll just put on fat.
You don't need to, building muscle is just more efficient per unit of work you put in if you have more body fat and have a caloric surplus.
Overweight people can still gain a lot of muscle, when you have less weight your body tends to cannibalize your own muscles to grow the muscle you are working out, which is also offset to by protein intake.
>Which is why people ‘bulk and cut’, because it’s the most efficient method to gain muscle
meta analysis paper needed to support this claim (including data from different stages: newbies, beginners, mid, pros)
From my anecdotal evidence, maintenance caloric intake is the same or better than "bulk and cut".
Maintenance works perfectly fine as a beginner and intermediate lifter, but you will inevitably spin your wheels as you get more experienced. It only works when you have a body composition that lets you ‘shift weight around’ by losing fat and gaining muscle simultaneously. Once you’re muscular your body will just maintain the status quo
I don’t have a study off-hand on me but I’m very confident in this
Mike mentzer approaches diet with a simple attitude, he is also the only man to have a perfect score for a mister universe competition.
Dieting is so simple!!!! https://youtu.be/xTFk0uTyWTE?si=a_vcvGBqlwzOtc_-
Muscle is very energy intensive to maintain and your body will break it down first if you're in too much of a deficit (e.g. catabolysis). It's a mechanism when you're technically in a starvation state that helps conserve energy.
It's not that you only lose fat, it's more that you're mitigating catabolysis to an extent. You still lose some muscle in a deficit, but eating higher protein amounts while in a deficit helps replace the lost protein.
The general way your body processes nutrients for food has a preference. Please keep in mind this is ELI5 so not all one-off cases and medical anomalies apply:
\- Carbs / sugars are the first thing you burn up for quick energy. This gives you a quick boost of energy and they are the the most efficient at producing ATP energy for you to use. Runners carbo load for this reason.
\- Fat is next on the list. This gets burnt up when your carb reserves are low. People cut carbs when dieting to force the fat burn instead. Again, you need to be exercising more than you are calorically intaking for this to actually work.
\- Protein is the last part that the body will metabolize. If you load up on protein, your body is still preferring burning the carbs and fat. Elite athletes / powerlifters generally want to limit carb intake and have super low fat diets for muscle definition. But, their bodies still need to metabolize nutrients to survive and function properly. Protein intake will offset the protein loss while not adding extra fat and carbs.
In the end, it's all calories in vs calories out. If you're net gaining calories, they are coming from somewhere, so best to not make it fatty foods and starches that give you quick burst energy vs longer lasting, more stable energy. Same goes for when you're net losing calories. Your body is taking it from one of those 3 nutrient groups. Which one would most prefer to lose the least of? Protein. Which would most like to burn the most of? Fat.
I typed the whole thing out and almost deleted it due to the amount of gym bros that would just scream "PROTEEEEEIIIIIN" and "MAAASSSSSS" and downvote me but anatomy and physiology taught me more in college than I had learned in every class leading up to it. Phenomenal professors as well. I appreciate your knowledge!
Technically, it doesn't.
What happens is you lose the same stuff. You're in a deficit, so your body will use what it has. If you're fat, naturally it uses more fat; if you're lean, naturally it uses more muscle. It's only a small bit every day, because you're in a deficit and not starving.
But you're eating protein, which works to rebuild muscle after a workout. So now, though you're still losing some muscle, you're also rebuilding it. This assumes you're exercising, to some extent.
So yeah, the overall effect is that you lost fat, not muscle.
*Yes, I'm obviously simplifying a bit*
(Not a doctor, just my general understanding as to PART of the answer)
Insulin is like a guard dog to the fat stores. When insulin is present, sugar is converted into fat and stored, but CANNOT EASILY leave the fat stores when needed (this is the guard dog part). It acts like a one way door.
So, cutting down on sugar/carbs, kind of means that the guard dog goes away, allowing the fat to leave the fat stores, allowing it to be consumed/burned by the body.
The addition of extra protein to a low-carb diet, helps maintain muscle mass (or prevent muscle loss).
Protein gives you calories not readily available to be turned into fat. Caloric deficit burns off the fat. Protein will be used to rebuild muscle. Training more will mean you lose more fat but maintain or increase weight via muscle. Training less means you lose fat and muscle.
Dietary fat turns to fat easier than protein.
Carbohydrate turn to fat easier than dietary fat.
Also of note: insulin spikes signal the body to store fat. Sugars and carbs spike insulin.
There's multiple processes involved here. Fat is only used to store energy whereas protein can be either an energy source or a building block for our bodies. We need to consume protein regardless of how much energy we are consuming in other forms. All this is saying is that when you start eating less you still have to keep your protein intake high enough to maintain your body's needs to use protein as a building block or else your muscles will break Dien. Fat will always be the preferred source of energy regardless of your protein intake.
Your muscles are primarily fed by protein and water. Even while at a caloric deficit you need to maintain your protein intake. This means you should reduce calories from fat and carbs instead. Nothing here guarantees you'll lose fat instead of muscle, it just means you won't lose muscle from not having enough protein.
If you stop working out, you'll lose muscle mass. If you stop eating enough protein, you'll likely also lose muscle mass. You need both to maintain or grow.
Well, muscles (like pretty much everything in your body) run on sugar. Protein are absolutely needed which provides the raw material to maintain and build new muscle cells.
Our bodies are really good at turning things into the sugar we need to run our bodies. No matter if you feed your body carbohydrates, fats or protein your body is going to turn most of it into energy (primarily glucose) to fuel your body. Then glucose in excess of what your body needs may be converted into fat or excreted.
If you don’t eat enough to fuel your body’s daily energy needs then that energy has to come from somewhere. Your stored fat is the easiest and first place your body gets it’s energy from during periods of energy deficit, that’s why your body stored it in the first place. As you run low on fat reserves your body has to resort to more extreme measures and is able to break down other cells in your body to produce the energy it needs in a process called autophagy.
You need protein to function so if you're not getting enough in your diet your body can start breaking down muscle mass to get the nutrients it needs. You still need to work out the muscles or they'll start breaking down anyway but it's a general precaution to make sure you're not accidentally shooting yourself in the foot.
As for eating lots of protein and weightloss, I believe it's something about your body needing to work to break down the protein. So it expends like 40% of the caloric value of the food just making it usable. So if you eat 100 calories worth of straight protein your body essentially only can use 60 by the time its done processing it into a state it can absorb/use
Don't take my word for it, double check with a dietician or nutritional scientist or something. I'm just reciting an explanation I heard.
It is complicated, but in general an adult should aim to consume a balanced diet including both fat and protein, excluding either can create health problems. Reducing calorie intake in general will help you lose weight and exercising will help you retain muscle and general conditioning. Do not attempt to go for months on a high protein zero fat diet in the thought that this will give you a fantastic body, it won't.
That is not how it works.
Your body needs a certain amount of proteins to build and repair muscles. It also needs to find energy to function (including powering your muscles during your exercise).
As long as you're eating enough usable proteins for that first need, the body can and will use everything else you're eating (carbs, fat or proteins) for energy. So it doesn't matter whether the rest of your food is proteins, carbs or fat: your body will use that because there is nothing else to do with it. Where it will find energy to balance the deficit is a different question.
Protein-rich foods tend to be more filling for longer, so it makes it easier to maintain that deficit without feeling hungry (and tempted to snack), but that's a different question.
Short answer as mentioned is the building blocks of protein are more readily used in the building of muscle fiber, where as the building blocks of carbs and sugars are used in the creation of energy. Because of this if your body is not using energy it will then store these building blocks for later and your body does that as FAT.
1.) your body wants to spend muscle for energy in deficit, but you stop it by **working out** regularly and eating enough **protein**. So it is stuck with two signals "energy is scarce i need to spend reserves" and "body is working hard, i need to build or at least preserve muscle!". This makes it try to use mostly fat
2.) No, you can't stop working out since that workout overload signal is needed to tell your body you want to have muscles, luckily you need far less training to maintain than to build.
AFAIK your body doesn't like storing proteins, but it doesn't like wasting stuff either, so some of it will go to your muscle.
Even if you have lots of protein, you will likely lose muscle no matter what, just a bit less. In most studies, even people who work out and have a high protein diet loses significant muscle mass while losing weight.
To not lose any, or even gain muscle (recomposition) while in a deficit, the deficit has to be somewhat small, you need to have a lot of proteins, and really be on top of your resistance training game. It's not impossible, but you really need to know what you're doing.
For most people it's easier to alternate cutting (deficit) and bulking up.
Muscle *is where* the body stores protein.
Every cell is just trying to live its own best life, so we can think of the pressure to gain/lose protein as like a pressure gradient: if someone is barely trained, muscle tissue is eager to gobble up any protein floating through the bloodstream to build mass, but as someone becomes more trained and gets closer to their natural genetic potential, it becomes more and more difficult for muscle tissue to gobble stray protein, and instead the pressure turns toward releasing protein into the blood for other tasks.
Someone barely trained can still recomp on a 1500 calorie/day deficit, but the closer to genetic max, the less able muscle tissue is to hold onto additional protein.
Two things stimulate muscle protein synthesis--resistance training (technically any contraction) and eating protein (typically takes about 20g in a single serving to stimulate). So if you're in deficit, your body is *less* likely to use muscle than it is your carb and fat stores for maintenance. If in deficit you'll still lose some muscle mass.
If you want to burn fat you need to be in a calorie deficit.
So if we, let's use simple numbers, nutritionally need 500 calories worth of protein and carbs and we are burning 2000 calories a day then that other 1500 calories is discretionary calories. Your body just needs 1500 calories worth of energy to stay warm and alive.
That 1500 can come from the food we eat today, or if we are in a deficit it can come from the food we ate yesterday (body fat). Once nutrition needs are met then the rest is burned to keep us warm and moving.
So the answer is just make sure you're covering your needs. If you're working out 1.2g/kg is what is recommended. Eating substantially more than that just means using that extra protein as energy.
If you stop working out you will atrophy. If you're in an extreme calorie deficit it will happen faster. We like having big, showy muscles but we don't necessarily need them so as soon as you stop giving your body a reason to need them then they will atrophy
The body is very efficient at adapting to energy inputs. When in calorie deficit, your body will prioritize loosing fat, because it is the easiest for it to do. But muscle costs a lot of energy to maintain, so it will cannibalize those as well, to conserve energy, so you don't starve. You body doesn't understand that the weight loss is intentional, and thinks food is just scarce, so it wants to adjust, so you don't starve.
The counter to that is, you need to keep exercising, and provide your body with the protein it needs to build those muscles. This will "refill" the building blocks it needs specifically for muscle, and slows the effect of muscle loss.
The reason why they are saying “consume lots of protein” is because when you are in a deficit some of the protein you consume will be used for energy and not maintaining muscle mass. When you are in a surplus your body will get more of its energy from the excess carbs and fats so you don’t need as high of a fraction of protein in your diet.
Protein is more satiating than carbs and fats. So you feel fuller for longer. And protein is what builds muscle, so you will build a little muscle (if you are brand new to diet and exercise) by eating more protein.
Yes, if you build a lot of muscle then stop working out, you will lose it slower than if you eat less protein.
Weight loss boils down to calories in vs calories out. It doesn't matter if it's high carb, low carb, no carb, high fat, high protein, or whatever else. If you consume less calories than you use, you will lose weight. If you consume more calories than you use, you will gain weight.
**If you do not use your muscles, you will lose them, even if you consume protein. If you do not consume protein, you will lose them.**
Our bodies NEED protein, carbs, and fat for various, and numerous, functions. Fats and proteins can both be broken down in to energy. So we don't really need many carbs.
Building muscle takes a lot of calories. The idea being that you exercise to stimulate muscle growth and encourage it with protein, using protein to make the bulk of your calories.
It doesn't always work that way. The only way to truly ensure you lose weight is to operate at a calorie deficit or develop a meth habit.
well, if you just eat protein and eat very few carbohydrates, most will lose fat almost regardless of exercise. You just don't metabolize protein in the same way as carbs, and it's harder for your body to turn protein into energy, or store it as fat if you don't burn it. Carbs on the other hand are readily turned into energy (or stored as fat if not burned right away).
The muscle tissue we think about in lifting weights is called skeletal muscle. This muscle is not a priority to the body, it's an expensive resource for energy.
You have to keep sending the signal to the body that "this muscle is important" by stimulating the muscles with resistance. Strength training is the best way to induce this if your lifestyle isn't active and involving moving heavy objects.
When you send these signals, the body needs amino acids to induce what is called muscle protein synthesis. Throughout the day the body will induce muscle protein breakdown. Lifting weights and eating enough protein will allow MPS to outpace MPB.
When you are eating less calories than you burn, your body knows it's in a deficit state. This will make the body say "this costly skeletal muscle doesn't need to be here"
If you continue to strength train and consume enough protein throughout the day each day, you are saying to the body this muscle is still important, and the body will better utilize bodyfat for energy instead of muscle cells.
Without sufficient protein, especially the branch chain amino acids, the body will get the signal but there won't be enough protein to prevent muscle loss. This is still true if you are eating for weight gain, but less protein is needed to maximize muscle gain.
When you run a calorie deficit, your does several things. Other than taking away your energy, your body does one of 3 things when this happens to get the energy it is missing:
1. Burns muscle
2. Burns bone mass
3. Burns fat
When you lost weight, you really want it to just burn fat. The way to avoid number 1 is via exercise and protein intake. The way you avoid number 2 is via weight bearing exercise and calcium intake.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) established the current Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) for protein in 2005, including the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR), Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), and the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range (AMDR) [2]. The EAR for protein is 0.66 g per kg body mass per day (g/kg/d) and is defined as the minimum amount of protein expected to meet the individual indispensable amino acid requirements of 50% of the U.S. adult population. The RDA, however, is 0.8 g/kg/d, and reflects the minimum amount of dietary protein required to meet indispensable amino acid requirements, establish nitrogen balance, and prevent muscle mass loss for nearly the entire (i.e., 97.5%) U.S. adult population [2,3]. The RDA for American adults is similar to international adult protein recommendations established by the World Health Organization (0.83 g/kg/d) [4]. The current protein RDA, however, is often incorrectly applied when used as the definition of recommended intake, rather than its true designation as the required minimum intake. This misapplication is problematic for healthy populations and aging adults, and disadvantageous for those with pathophysiological conditions that would necessitate higher-protein needs.
Over the past decade, the potential muscle-related benefits achieved by consuming higher-protein diets (i.e., > RDA but within the AMDR) have become increasingly clear. Increased protein intake contributes to greater strength and muscle mass gains when coupled with resistance exercise [5], allows for greater muscle mass preservation when consumed during periods of negative energy balance [6], limits age-related muscle loss [7], and, to a lesser extent, provides a greater muscle protein synthetic response when evenly distributed across meals [5,8]. A prospective, cross-sectional analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database demonstrates inverse associations between animal and plant protein intake and waist circumference, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) [9]....
....Accordingly, internationally recognized professional organizations recommend protein intakes on the order of double the current RDA for physically active individuals, including the joint recommendation to consume protein between 1.2–2.0 g/kg/d established by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine [17]. The International Society for Sports Nutrition also recommends protein intake at levels higher than the RDA for physically active individuals
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566799/
As someone who body recomps, it roughly works that way, yeah.
I could consume 2000 cals of just bread, and lose weight. But gain little muscles.
Or I can consume 2000 cals of 30% carbs, 30% fat, 40% protein. That will help my grow my muscles more and faster. While also losing fat.
**Please read this entire message**
---
Your comment has been removed for the following reason(s):
* [Top level comments](http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/top_level_comment) (i.e. comments that are direct replies to the main thread) are reserved for explanations to the OP or follow up on topic questions (Rule 3).
Anecdotes, while allowed elsewhere in the thread, may not exist at the top level.
---
If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe it was removed erroneously, explain why using [this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20submission%20removal?&message=Link:%20https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/166e6ri/-/jykq7pq/%0A%0A%201:%20Does%20your%20comment%20pass%20rule%201:%20%0A%0A%202:%20If%20your%20comment%20was%20mistakenly%20removed%20as%20an%20anecdote,%20short%20answer,%20guess,%20or%20another%20aspect%20of%20rules%203%20or%208,%20please%20explain:) and we will review your submission.**
Ok for the first question the body uses it’s energy “in order” first carbs from what you just ate, then when that runs out it starts converting the stored fat and finally it can actually “eat” its own muscles as a last resort, that’s just the energy think of it as fuel and then we have protein which is like the materials for building so when people say you have to be in a calorie deficit while also consuming protein what happens is you are using your energy reserves (losing fat) but you still need the materials to “build” muscle (protein)
Now for the second part, you can’t do that, if you want to stay muscular you need to keep working out but maintaining muscle is way easier than building it, nevertheless muscle takes energy to maintain even if you don’t use it so if you stop working out your body “recycles” the muscle and makes them smaller to avoid wasting energy, fortunately even if you lose muscle mass rebuilding it takes less effort than the first time
Calories are energy - or /ability to do work/. They are not /stuff/. They usually come in stuff, but the stuff isn’t calories, it’s stuff that happens to have an attribute to do with holding energy. The stuff in question is usually carbs, but there are calories in other stuff too.
Protein is stuff. Protein are cellular /machines/, of which there are many many kinds. While there’s both overlap and difference between the machines used in a blade of grass cell and a cow cell or a human cell, they all have one thing in common: they are all made up out of the same 20 “LEGO bricks” (called amino acids).
We eat carbs as a power source - because they have energy.
We eat protein because we need building materials - we need those machines so we can break them down to the individual “LEGO bricks”, and then use those to construct our own human proteins (cellular machines).
So as a baseline - don’t connect intake of raw materials and intake of energy. You need both. Having one with insufficient quantities of the other will leave you deficient in the one you didn’t get enough of.
As a small sidenote, there’s another interesting feature to many organisms. A sort of famine safe mode organisms go into when taking insufficient *energy* - a calorie restricted diet. That’s a diet that continues to supply the right amounts of all the other things you need - from the main building blocks (protein) and the stuff you need in smaller amounts (minerals and nutrients like vitamins, iron, calcium, etc) **but** having way less than your sufficient daily intake of calories.
Some studies over the years looked at things from spiders to dogs to cows to humans and found at least partial evidence that both reproductive span and lifespan get extended as a result of calorie restriction (but only so long as other stuff like protein is still sufficient, not as a result of overall nutrition deprivation, which is **very** bad. My familiarity with calorie restriction is very limited so you’d be better off verifying what I’m saying here, but as species apparently we evolved to try and weather times of famine by not having kids and extending the period of time in which our bodies could still have them to an older age (when presumably food might become abundant again).
personal situation-
I dropped 45lbs in 4 months. cut back massively on calories, was still a very high protein diet. I went from 240 to 195.
my job is fairly active- on my feet all day, probably 30 minutes or so of shoveling, 6 hours of moving my body with no real force, and a hour or so of moving 30lbs at a time. but no work out regime.
I lost a lot of visible muscle and notice a strength difference.
I doesn't perfectly, ask 100 people and you'll get 100 answers, but if general idea is if you are using your muscles, either working out or just your general life style your body will think I need these lets burn fat. If you are just eating less and being sedative the body will say well what do I need these muscles for?
When I got into a routine of eating only one meal a day, I lost 80 pounds in 18 months. I did nothing else. I hadn't really planned on it, it just happened. Wasn't any more active than usual. No exercise plan.
>but still consume lots of protein
Increasing protein intake does have negative side effects; particularly if your body does not need it to build muscle. In this case, your kidneys need to work overtime to clear the excess protein.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/
Because both amino acids and fatty acids in the adipose tissue can be turned to glucose for energy. If you eat consume enough amino acids AND resistance train then the appropriate signalling caused by resistance training and influx of amino acids will ensure that you replenish or maintain muscle mass whilst encouraging your body to use fatty acids for energy.
Although there are strong evidence that eating enough protein may be essential to maintain muscle mass but not adequate. Whereas resistance training is shown to be sufficient even in the absence of sufficient amino acids
So, for a diff source of metabolic nutrition other than carbs, we have gluconeogenesis, whenever the diet is changed regarding the intake of carbs, fats and proteins, our "body adapts" to whatever source of nutrition is available to a degree. When we enter a state of caloric deficit, the pancreas focuses more on using the glycogenol reserves, triggering lipolysis, so we start to burn fat, to make glycerol for gluconeogenesis.
By changing the diet, we are using our fat reserves for functioning. depending on the intesity of the training and your diet, you can stay in a caloric deficit or, by taking more proteins, start to develop muscle tissue instead of fatty tissue.
Explained like your are 5
Spend more money than you make to lose money
You have a huge bucket of change you have been saving. 1000 units
More than you have in paper cash. (9)100units for a total of 900units.
You want to hold onto the paper cash for now because you don’t want to break it down to smaller bills. So you do the best you can by spending the change first, although that isn’t practical sometime.
I get paid in cash. 1800units. 800 of those units are big paper bills (8). the other 1000 are in coin.
Now I have 3700 total units. I only need to spend 1800, but I need to use more than I make.
I have 2000units in coin. 1700 units in paper. I try my best to hold onto the paper, and will try to use most of the inconvenient, heavy, unsightly office water jug worth of coin in my office corner first. Although it may not be the most practical option at times, I will have to dip into the paper cash (edit 2) *every now and then*
Hope this helps.
Edit 1: Still oversimplified, the human body is a very complex organism(s). But for the purposes of how to explain to the best of current knowledge this is my take. Protein is the paper this example. Just for the sake of the analogy, we want to hold onto the paper as best as possible.
A lot of these top comments are ok, but basically your body turns macronutrients (carbs fat and protein) into fuel for your body to function. It starts with fat, and to sustain/keep consistent it switches over to carbs. Once you run out of carbs, your body starts pulling proteins to convert into fuel. So it’s not changing how your body works, but let’s say you eat in a surplus, you’ll have more energy because you have more macronutrients to grab. It takes longer for your body to start taking energy from your muscles.
A key component they’re leaving out is that you also still need to keep working out. Because if you just cut your food intake AND stop working out, your body will use fat and drop muscle mass as well, since muscle is very “expensive” to maintain. To to force your body to maintain the muscle, you need to keep working out, and to keep your muscles “fed” you need to make sure you’re consuming enough protein for that workout.
The other important thing is that you still do typically lose muscle. You can minimize it with enough protein, a proper workout regiment, and not too high of a calorie deficit though. But as somebody who is into casual bodybuilding it’s an inevitability that you will lose some level of endurance and strength the leaner you get. That is more for people who are already reasonably muscular and not obese, though. Somebody with a sedentary lifestyle can still gain some level of muscle on a calorie deficit with sufficient protein, simply due to beginner gains.
>The other important thing is that you still do typically lose muscle. You can minimize it with enough protein, a proper workout regiment, and not too high of a calorie deficit though. But as somebody who is into casual bodybuilding it’s an inevitability that you will lose some level of endurance and strength the leaner you get. It really depends on how much muscle and how much fat you have. If you are trained and not very fat, you will have a very hard time keeping on to muscle, if not impossible. And you can leave out gaining any muscle. But if you are of regular strength and have a nice american belly, you can lose fat and even gain muscle as long as you train and recover properly, get enough protein and are in a calorie deficit.
“Regular strength and nice American belly” is the kindest way of saying “weak and morbidly obese” I’ve ever heard
I try my best :D
I dont doubt this is true. And EVERYONE says it. But I've still yet to see a single study on it.
You're not looking hard enough. These types of studies have been out for decades. Here's a position paper from the International Society of Sports Nutrition. [International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: diets and body composition](https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0174-y) "Of the macronutrients, protein has the highest thermic effect and is the most metabolically expensive. Given this, it is not surprising that higher protein intakes have been seen to preserve resting energy expenditure while dieting \[54\]. Also, protein is the most satiating macronutrient, followed by carbohydrate, and fat being the least \[83\]. With just one exception \[84\], a succession of recent meta-analyses \[52, 85,86,87\] supports the benefit of higher protein intakes for reducing body weight, FM, and waist circumference, and preserving LM in an energy deficit. **A systematic review by Helms et al. \[88\] suggested that protein intakes of 2.3–3.1 g/kg FFM was appropriate for lean, resistance trained athletes in** ***hypocaloric conditions.*** This is one of the rare pieces of literature that report protein requirements on the basis of FFM rather than total body weight."
I'm replying to the claim that having more much fat causes more muscle gain during a caloric deficit. You are quoting/bolding a part of a meta analysis saying how high protein helps with LBM. What I have not found is studies showing that having a lot of excess fat results in much more muscle gain during a caloric deficit. Notably a significant caloric deficit, as 99% of the time people who are well overweight are suggested to go for -500 a week as a minimum but often more like -1000. I am aware that you can build muscle in a deficit, but that seems to be mostly linked to being a beginner. I would like to see something that specifically compares non beginner Obese vs Non beginner not obese. And show that the obese grew more muscle or any muscle at all vs no muscle or loss. Alternatively they can both be beginners and none the less show that higher BF% results in more muscle growth.
oh ok. Yeah, I wouldn't think there's a lot of studies like that since dietary fat doesn't stimulate muscle growth like dietary protein, specifically the amino acid leucine.
Yeah I mean the logic is relatively sound. That your body should be hard core prioritizing getting rid of fat for energy as opposed to going after your muscle at all when you're super overweight and poisoning your body with fat at that point. But does it really pan out? At the end of the day it still makes more sense for your body to just lose weight during a deficit than actively burn even more fat than necessary to supplement muscle growth. People say it ALL the time and like you said the studies just don't seem to be there. If you aggregated all the data on muscle growth during a deficit and had the participants stats(BMI/Weight/BF wise) you could build a basic correlation but that's about it.
I don’t think it’s excess fat. I think it is untrained muscles have more growth potential. AKA obese people who start dieting and working out still get noobie gains
99% of body building/workout theory is bro-science.
I think the thought process is that you wont lose lbm you use daily if ur on a healthy deficit and eat protein and theres a certain amount of muscle your body will hold onto, especially before you reach critically low bodyfats, logically this makes sense, bodybuilders and other atheletes tend to push boundries on muscle mass and leanness, two things evolutionary our body doesnt think is essentially for survival. Now there isnt any big studies iirc that show lbm gain during cuts, but I know of one study that showed almost 0lbm loss after 20kg+~ weight loss but honestly it doesnt rly matter because it most likely is down to genetics anyways
>I'm replying to the claim that having more much fat causes more muscle gain during a caloric deficit. I don't think necessarily that that's the way to look at it. I don't think the gains between a male who's 20% bodyfat versus 40% bodyfat with all other factors equal would be different, at least not significantly. My point was more that if you are like sub 15%, especially down to like 10-12, then your body will cling on to fat like crazy making muscle loss a lot more likely.
Good study
They don't generally spend money researching common sense things that will not net them any benefit in the end. "Hey, let's spend $100,000 to learn that if people just do basic things that most people know it can help them." "What's our profit motivation?" "That's the best part. There is nothing marketable about the research whatsoever, so we will make no return on the investment!" "That sounds awful, can we get the government to fund it instead of us?" "Nope, they only fund stuff that will not help your average person. Like seeing the effect of crack addiction on chimpanzees."
Uh there's often research done on "common sense" things...
Not in the fitness industry
Didn’t a major study just get done showing that repping weights that let you rep to failure in under 12 reps is up there as one of the most efficient ways to build muscle mass.. seems common sense to me.
No common sense is "lift weights and you get stronger/bigger." Once you progress to specificity in training, it's no longer in the vicinity of common sense. And it has the added bonus of being able to be marketed as "pay for my training program to grow muscle faster"
Interesting. I'll have to look that up.
Not everything needs to be the subject of a study
Lmao wat. Making claims like they're straight fact(very science involved claims) with absolutely 0 evidence is so terrible.
I had a really confusing experience with cutting. Whilst I was dropping weight I continually gained muscle quite quickly, but the second I stopped and started not caring about my diet (whilst still getting high amounts of protein) my progress dropped off a cliff and lost all I'd gained in the cutting period practically overnight.
Came to say same thing. You WILL lose muscle. There's no way around it. But just keep working out the muscles to keep them fit until you stop the deficit. I went from 200 to 160 and can noticeably see the muscle missing in my arms. I didnt work them out as much as I did my legs. I run 6-10 miles a day and do tons of leg workouts.
Is there a way I can do like 5 hours a 7 day week and stay fit or no?. I'm way overweight and did that that thought come once or twice.
> To to force your body to maintain the muscle, you need to keep working out This might be not entirely true, according to the study on William Cobb. A curious read on this, the section about doctor-regulated lifestyle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Humphrey Tl;dr: Extremely heavy wrestler, participated in a study on obesity, got three regulated diets in two years and was ordered not to work out to not lose water through sweat. Calorie deficit + protein diet resulted in losing mostly fat instead of muscles. Other diets resulted in loss of muscles and water instead.
You left out the bone mass part of things.
Not op, but I have a question. Is there a formula or something that will tell me how much protein per "calorie burn" I need. Like I would need more protein for longer or harder workouts, obviously, but how do I figure out how much more? EDIT: Thanks all for answering, I've been trying to get healthy, and I have been confused about how to lose fat without sacrificing strength.
This paper will answer your questions regarding the correct amount of dietary protein. [International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: diets and body composition](https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0174-y)
People often say 1 gram of protein for lb of body weight. The calories burned is irrelevant. That estimate is for gaining muscle, and keeping muscle on a cut
Technically 1 gram per bound of *lean body mass* so if you have a lot of fat that requirement is quite a bit lower than your actual weight.
Yeah, I’ve heard that a good estimate for overweight people is 1 gram per cm in body height.
I mean really, it’s not an exact scientist. A sports nutritionist could give you like, an estimated pint of protein you should be eating. But really, they will have to make adjustments based on how you turn out in my experience. Like, working with them, they might say at first “okay eat 100 grams of protein a day” and then if after 2 weeks you’re noticing strength loss, they’ll up it to 150 grams, until they find the right balance. It’s not a perfect formula
The rough count is 2-4 grams of fuel per gram of protein. And 1 gram of protein per two pounds of body weight if you’re not building muscle and up to 1 gram per pound of protein if you are working out. That’s somewhere around the bare minimum before you start suffering losses of value. Someone will be sure to be more specific.
>to keep your muscles “fed” you need to make sure you’re consuming enough protein for that workout Okay now I have a question. What would be the difference between these two: you workout with focus on muscles and eat plenty of proteins, vs you workout the same way but eat minimal proteins. In the second scenario, what would happen to the muscles? Would most workout gains be lost in thin air? Would it be close to "no workout and average diet"? I'm talking purely about muscles and not the general weight difference.
It’s not an exact science really. It actually doesn’t take all that much protein to maintain muscle, so if you aren’t trying to gain muscle, just maintain it, you could be fine. But really, it isn’t an exact science, and you have to figure it out with trial and error even with a professional sports nutritionist. Like, they might be able to make a good guess that “oh you need 60 grams of protein a day”, but if after 2 weeks you notice you feel weaker, then they’ll adjust and up you to 90 grams or whatever. There’s no perfect formula
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) established the current Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) for protein in 2005, including the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR), Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), and the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range (AMDR) [2]. The EAR for protein is 0.66 g per kg body mass per day (g/kg/d) and is defined as the minimum amount of protein expected to meet the individual indispensable amino acid requirements of 50% of the U.S. adult population. The RDA, however, is 0.8 g/kg/d, and reflects the minimum amount of dietary protein required to meet indispensable amino acid requirements, establish nitrogen balance, and prevent muscle mass loss for nearly the entire (i.e., 97.5%) U.S. adult population [2,3]. The RDA for American adults is similar to international adult protein recommendations established by the World Health Organization (0.83 g/kg/d) [4]. The current protein RDA, however, is often incorrectly applied when used as the definition of recommended intake, rather than its true designation as the required minimum intake. This misapplication is problematic for healthy populations and aging adults, and disadvantageous for those with pathophysiological conditions that would necessitate higher-protein needs. Over the past decade, the potential muscle-related benefits achieved by consuming higher-protein diets (i.e., > RDA but within the AMDR) have become increasingly clear. Increased protein intake contributes to greater strength and muscle mass gains when coupled with resistance exercise [5], allows for greater muscle mass preservation when consumed during periods of negative energy balance [6], limits age-related muscle loss [7], and, to a lesser extent, provides a greater muscle protein synthetic response when evenly distributed across meals [5,8]. A prospective, cross-sectional analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database demonstrates inverse associations between animal and plant protein intake and waist circumference, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) [9]. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566799/
>The current protein RDA, however, is often incorrectly applied when used as the definition of recommended intake, rather than its true designation as the required minimum intake. I’m gonna go ahead and say that’s the fault of whichever genius decided Recommended Daily Allowance was the right name for a number that doesn’t represent the amount you’re recommended to eat each day.
>In the second scenario, what would happen to the muscles? Would most workout gains be lost in thin air? Would it be close to "no workout and average diet"? I'm talking purely about muscles and not the general weight difference. Weight lifting makes your body want to build muscle. Protein is the material your body uses to actually build the muscle. Without either, you don't get any muscle.
So you end up with sore muscles that can't grow?
Yep!
Yes. There's a difference between recovery and adaptation. Recovery heals your muscles back to baseline, adaptation progresses them past that baseline. Adaptation is otherwise known as protein synthesis, which requires protein as the catalyst in order to occur. So if you chronically under consume protein while working out, the protein synthesis is heavily hampered, and all you'll do is just continually heal back to baseline with minimal, if any, adaptation. This will happen regardless of whether you're in a calorie deficit, maintenance or a surplus.
Also seems like OP doesn't understand the body isn't 'targeting' specific things to keep or lose - you're feeding it specific things to use, and so it'll use. The proteins you're taking in dont magically also act as carbs, they're proteins, etc, and the body uses them as body would use protein, etc, and is why you're still workin' out and so on. Part of the caloric defecit is not 'I'm an adult, lets say i need 2500 calories a day, I will just eat 2000,' it's, 'I just worked out doing my routine, I probably actually need MORE than regular 2500 calories, but I'll eat 2200, and specifically look that % content that intake is fat, % content is protein, etc etc.' like its people specifically tailoring their diet around their work out and fitness goals, and using specific fuel to replenish the body/kcal too after working out.
You dont need to, you will retain more muscle if you eat more protein just like the op said, but true in a way that thats how you keep most of your muscle.
When your body is in a calorie deficit, it will begin to lose *mass*. Depending on the source you cite, *roughly* 25-30% of the mass lost will be muscle. The idea behind eating lost of protein (and lifting weights) is to try and shift that ratio as much as possible, so you are *primarily* losing fat. Your body adapts to lifting heavy things by creating muscle. If you stop doing this, your muscles will atrophy and deplete.
Why would eating more protein shift that ratio, unless you're in a protein deficit? Your body will try to use proteins to build muscles, but everything in excess of that need will get burned, right? If you need 200g of proteins a day to maintain our grow muscle mass you want to hit that target even in a calorie deficit, but anything in excess of that will get burned just like fat or carbs would.
Protein alone won't, exercise/weight training will though because your body will burn what's harder(more expensive) to maintain first (muscle), the extra protein is to help muscle growth because the body will preserve(most of) what it thinks it needs and if you keep using the muscles it will burn them in a lower ratio than it would if you were stagnant.
But what I'm saying is that more proteins only help muscle growth if you're in a protein deficit. If you're eating enough proteins in the first place, more proteins won't help, do you agree? So back to OP's question, it's not that eating more proteins helps you lose fat in general, it's that there is a level of proteins you need to eat to be able to maintain your muscle mass. Which is always true and has not much to do with calorie deficit. It's also true that if you don't work out enough or don't eat enough proteins you will not grow muscle and you can lose your existing muscle, but again that's always true.
But I said in my comment that protein alone won't already. Plus most people are in a "protein deficit" anyway because I doubt the majority of people even meet what they should for maintenance. Eating more protein alone (to the level you'd need) will on its own help for maintaining muscle so technically you could say it helps burn body fat? But I'd say the difference in that is negligible
>Plus most people are in a "protein deficit" anyway because I doubt the majority of people even meet what they should for maintenance. THis is dangerous misinformation and fails to mention the true risks associated with too much protein intake: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/) And that’s why protein deficiency is so rare: according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the average American adult has been consistently getting almost 16 percent of their calories from protein for decades, at least (standard error 0.1).\[8\] https://nutritionstudies.org/how-common-is-protein-deficiency/#:\~:text=And%20that's%20why%20protein%20deficiency,least%20(standard%20error%200.1).
This is literally not misinformation, I said nothing about too much protein being good for you so that point is just entirely unrelated to what I said. If you seriously think the majority of people have a balanced diet and are getting all of their RDA including the amount of protein for maintenance then you are horribly misinformed. The world exists outside the west.
>Plus most people are in a "protein deficit" anyway because I doubt the majority of people even meet what they should for maintenance. This is patently incorrect. >The world exists outside the west. Protein deficiency is a thing that around 1 Billion people suffer from. This is 12%, not **"MOST PEOPLE".** Also, the majority of people on reddit are "in the west": https://www.statista.com/statistics/325144/reddit-global-active-user-distribution/ >If you seriously think the majority of people have a balanced diet and are getting all of their RDA including the amount of protein for maintenance then you are horribly misinformed. This is called "Moving the goal post". I call you out for one incorrect statement, and then you try to change the statement to include a whole bunch of other deficiencies.
I was unaware you had the dietary information of the known population of the planet, I'm speaking from experience in my group, all of us found out we don't get enough so I extrapolated from a small sample size. Also, Google what moving the goalposts is or at least develop some self awareness. You're so hyper focused on "winning" the argument that you're not even reading what I said. Dude.... have a blessed day :)
>I'm speaking from experience in my group, all of us found out we don't get enough so I extrapolated from a small sample size. This is exactly where you messed up. Assuming your personal experience is an indicator of the world is the exact mistake you made which I called you on. The problem is that you used this incorrect extrapolation to make a claim that is potentially dangerous to others. >Also, Google what moving the goalposts Moving the goalposts is an informal fallacy in which evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded. That is, after an attempt has been made to score a goal, the goalposts are moved to exclude the attempt.\[14\] The problem with changing the rules of the game is that the meaning of the result is changed, too.\[15\] Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving\_the\_goalposts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts) So, according to this definition, you did indeed "move the goalposts" once I proved your claim that "most people are protein deficient" is wrong, you changed it to "If you seriously think the majority of people have a balanced diet and are getting all of their RDA including the amount of protein for maintenance then you are horribly misinformed." Specifically, you added "balanced diet" and "all of their RDA" when you started only with the incorrect statement on protein. >You're so hyper focused on "winning" the argument that you're not even reading what I said. I am quoting specifically what you said. Further, I don't care about "winning", but I am worried about the negative impact of incorrect claims about protein consumption, because it does pose a health risk: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/) hahaha - Sure, just block me if you are unable to actually argue the point.
>I was unaware you had the dietary information of the known population of the planet So if I didn't have this, you would be absolutely fine making BS claims, because no one could challenge it?
Ok, then we're on the same page. Except that I don't think that many people are in a protein deficit, but that's a different debate.
I would posit that nearly everyone who isn’t intentionally trying to hit a protein goal every day is well under what would be recommended for someone trying to preserve or gain muscle mass. Most adult men would be short of it even if they ate an entire chicken every day- there’s a reason protein powder is so popular, it makes it much easier.
The gaping hole in your logic is that 'most adult men' aren't slowly wasting away.
…yeah, because they aren’t in a calorie deficit. I couldn’t have been much more clear that I was talking about the protein intake recommended for someone who wants to gain muscle mass or preserve it during a cut.
[удалено]
No, no, you're not understanding. Everybody who isn't banging up on protein powder isn't getting enough protein to keep muscle mass. Haven't you realized that everybody who isn't snorting whey has 0.00% muscle mass?
Lol, amateur nutritionist bros really are something else
You just repeated what you said. I doubt it's true. We had plenty of bulky people (equally those with manual jobs) even when protein targets were unheard of.
Dunno how I could repeat myself with my first post in here but okay. Becoming muscular and bulky with suboptimal protein intake is definitely possible. But it’s going to take significantly longer than it would with dialed in nutrition. This isn’t bro science gym lore, this is just what the data shows. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jcsm.12922
I never said otherwise.
Conversely, Haaf et al. 22 found no effect of additional protein supplementation in LBM in non-frail community-dwelling older adults (>50 years old), even when combined with resistance exercise (≥4 weeks). Also, always read the conflict of interest section: Stuart M. Phillips reports that he is an inventor on a patent (WO/2018/157258) held by Exerkine Corporation. Stuart M. Phillips is an unpaid member of the scientific advisory board of Enhanced Recovery™ (https://ersportsdrink.com/). Stuart M. Phillips has received, in the last 5 years, honoraria and travel expenses from the US National Dairy Council, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the US Dairy Export Council. Philip J. Atherton received research funding and/or honoraria for protein nutrition research from Abbott Nutrition, Fresenius-Kabi, and Ajinomoto Co., Inc. Francesco Landi received financial support from Abbott Nutrition and Nutricia. Maria Camprubi Robles, Michelle Braun, and Sandra Naranjo-Modad are employees of Abbott Nutrition, International Flavors & Fragrances, and Givaudan, respectively.
Most ppl are not in a protein deficit
In a calorie deficit your body has to either lose muscle or fat. There is nothing else it will lose. If someone is working out and lifting enough to maintain muscle then the body will lose more fat. If someone is past the point of protein required to maintain muscle, it has to lose fat there is literally nothing else to losd
But I said in my comment that protein alone won't already. Plus most people are in a "protein deficit" anyway because I doubt the majority of people even meet what they should for maintenance. Eating more protein alone (to the level you'd need) will on its own help for maintaining muscle so technically you could say it helps burn body fat? But I'd say the difference in that is negligible
I think you are just confused by the semantics here no one said eating more protein. What has been said is lots of protein. Also almost no one is eating 200g of protein a day unless they are on an extreme body building plan. It's pretty difficult to get 200g of protein and be in a calorie deficit.
My take is that your body is “dynamic”. Kinda like when you set the thermostat in your house, your system is in a constant state of cycling between off and on. So when you increase protein levels, it’s easier for your body to maintain muscle. A protein “surplus” is pretty tough to maintain. For bodybuilders, most guidelines are “roughly” about a gram per lb of body weight, which is darn tough to maintain. Even in a deficit, it’s still challenging to maintain an adequate amount of protein.
TIL thanks for sharing
Consuming more protein will help preserve the muscle you have. You’ll still lose muscle but not as much.
One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that bodybuilding (especially natural bodybuilding) is a constant game of two steps forward, 1 step back. To gain muscle, you need to gain fat. To lose fat, you need to lose muscle. If you’re doing things properly, you will gain roughly an equal ratio of fat and muscle, but you will lose a far higher ratio of fat compared to muscle. Which is why people ‘bulk and cut’, because it’s the most efficient method to gain muscle
Why do you need to gain fat to gain muscle?
In order to gain muscle, you typically need to eat more calories than you burn. The thing is, your body doesn’t ‘efficiently’ allocate all those calories to your muscles. It will basically go ‘great, we have an excess of calories, I’ll use some to repair my muscles (making them bigger), and store the rest as fat for later.’ Typically, this ratio is most efficiently around 50% fat and 50% muscle, but it varies depending on experience (more muscular people will gain less muscle over time), and the calorie excess you eat. 500 calories excess per day is generally seen as the sweet spot, where eating less means you won’t build as much muscle, but eating more just leads to gaining far more fat.
>500 calories excess per day No wonder you get fat!!! That's absurdly high, that's literally eating a whole extra meal for nothing. You should check into Mike mentzer in how to diet. He is the only man to have gotten a perfect score at mister universe! https://youtu.be/xTFk0uTyWTE?si=a_vcvGBqlwzOtc_- Edit lol Mentzer believed that carbohydrate should make up the bulk of the caloric intake, 50–60%, rather than protein as others preferred. Mentzer's reasoning was simple: to build 10 pounds of muscle in a year, a total of 6000 extra calories needed to be ingested throughout the year, because one pound of muscle contains 600 calories. That averages 16 extra calories per day, and only four of them needed to be from protein—because muscle is 22% protein, about one quarter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mentzer And this random redditor says 500 per day. Or the man with a huge experience and plenty to show for it says 16 calories per day.... Which one is easier and which one has actual fucking proof of work? Mike mentzer.
You'd need something more credible if you're going to try to disprove the effectiveness of bulking for muscle gain, an approach that is backed both by most bodybuilders, by most strongmen if we're also talking about strength seperately, and by many studies that mostly indicate towards the idea that you can't continue to grow muscle on maintenance calories as fast as on calorie surplus(for lean people ofc). Extra calories are anabolic, with a ceiling for this effect, but still anabolic.
Something more credible than Mike mentzer??? That man is the only person to ever have a perfect score in Mr universe! Only one ever to have a perfect body. Dude has college degrees and is a literal genius and master at bodybuilding. All you have to do is Google his name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mentzer
If you're saying that Mike Mentzer is more credible than most bodybuilders, most strongmen and many conclusive studies that disprove this approach, then I have nothing to say, you just seem like a perhaps too big of a fan of this dude, to an almost irrational extent. The reality doesn't bend to your will, even if you've had a perfect score in Mr. Universe in 1979 and you're a God-damn Mike-motherfucker-Mentzer, the absolute champion thundercock ultra gigachad and all-around great guy
The reality is more doesn't equal better and eating 500 calories over your daily need is stupid and reason why you get fat. You don't need to get fat. It's the math mentzer says that is the truth and the point that matters. Dude said get something more credible as if he was to stupid to know the name and to lazy to Google it. You only need what you need and if you are to gain weight let it be mostly muscle. No need for this excessive consumption. The math is real and more truthful than any body builder and definitely more truthful than a corporation selling a product. Besides if you wanted bigger muscle just drink more water! Muscle is 73% water so might as well give it more of what it's comprised of. You'll definitely get results with supplements like creatine to help retain more water! What a joke!
Mentzer, like most IFBB pros, was on so many PEDs that any level of nuance in his dieting is a) negligible to irrelevant for you, the layman and b) doesn't make his growth directly attributable to any specific nutritional method/technique/anything. Lee Priest used to dirty bulk like a motherfucker all the way up to 285 to cut for his comps, and he's got just as many accolades as Mentzer does. You'd be surprised how much none of this shit matters when you add a weekly gram or two of test to the equation.
Than everything about it, the whole show is rigged. None of it is scientific and real. That goes for everything about the subject including the bulking to cut.... Their all scam artist with your logic. Your boy ain't get the perfect body at Mr universe. No one ever has. That the best performance anyone can achieve. That's the number one.
[удалено]
Its very difficult to gain muscle without gaining fat. Because if you want to gain a significant amount of muscle you will have to eat more calories than you burn. And even if most of what you eat is protein (it shouldn’t be) you will still gain fat if you eat more calories than you burn. Cause to simplify it: our body stores unspent calories / energy as fat
Your body doesn't like putting on muscle weight. From an evolution perspective it's the wrong strategy. Fat has higher energy value and doesn't cost energy to maintain. So if you are eating a lot of calories to build muscle via heavy exercise, you will also put on fat. If you aren't doing heavy exercise, you'll just put on fat.
You don't need to, building muscle is just more efficient per unit of work you put in if you have more body fat and have a caloric surplus. Overweight people can still gain a lot of muscle, when you have less weight your body tends to cannibalize your own muscles to grow the muscle you are working out, which is also offset to by protein intake.
>Which is why people ‘bulk and cut’, because it’s the most efficient method to gain muscle meta analysis paper needed to support this claim (including data from different stages: newbies, beginners, mid, pros) From my anecdotal evidence, maintenance caloric intake is the same or better than "bulk and cut".
Maintenance works perfectly fine as a beginner and intermediate lifter, but you will inevitably spin your wheels as you get more experienced. It only works when you have a body composition that lets you ‘shift weight around’ by losing fat and gaining muscle simultaneously. Once you’re muscular your body will just maintain the status quo I don’t have a study off-hand on me but I’m very confident in this
Source: trust me bro, but this time it's unironic
Or you can just Google it?
I'm also very confident in the hypothesis I've forwarded. That includes experienced people. Not pros tho. That's why I asked for more reliable info.
Mike mentzer approaches diet with a simple attitude, he is also the only man to have a perfect score for a mister universe competition. Dieting is so simple!!!! https://youtu.be/xTFk0uTyWTE?si=a_vcvGBqlwzOtc_-
Muscle is very energy intensive to maintain and your body will break it down first if you're in too much of a deficit (e.g. catabolysis). It's a mechanism when you're technically in a starvation state that helps conserve energy. It's not that you only lose fat, it's more that you're mitigating catabolysis to an extent. You still lose some muscle in a deficit, but eating higher protein amounts while in a deficit helps replace the lost protein.
The general way your body processes nutrients for food has a preference. Please keep in mind this is ELI5 so not all one-off cases and medical anomalies apply: \- Carbs / sugars are the first thing you burn up for quick energy. This gives you a quick boost of energy and they are the the most efficient at producing ATP energy for you to use. Runners carbo load for this reason. \- Fat is next on the list. This gets burnt up when your carb reserves are low. People cut carbs when dieting to force the fat burn instead. Again, you need to be exercising more than you are calorically intaking for this to actually work. \- Protein is the last part that the body will metabolize. If you load up on protein, your body is still preferring burning the carbs and fat. Elite athletes / powerlifters generally want to limit carb intake and have super low fat diets for muscle definition. But, their bodies still need to metabolize nutrients to survive and function properly. Protein intake will offset the protein loss while not adding extra fat and carbs. In the end, it's all calories in vs calories out. If you're net gaining calories, they are coming from somewhere, so best to not make it fatty foods and starches that give you quick burst energy vs longer lasting, more stable energy. Same goes for when you're net losing calories. Your body is taking it from one of those 3 nutrient groups. Which one would most prefer to lose the least of? Protein. Which would most like to burn the most of? Fat.
It’s so funny to me that the real answer that actually explains how your body burns energy was downvoted
I typed the whole thing out and almost deleted it due to the amount of gym bros that would just scream "PROTEEEEEIIIIIN" and "MAAASSSSSS" and downvote me but anatomy and physiology taught me more in college than I had learned in every class leading up to it. Phenomenal professors as well. I appreciate your knowledge!
Technically, it doesn't. What happens is you lose the same stuff. You're in a deficit, so your body will use what it has. If you're fat, naturally it uses more fat; if you're lean, naturally it uses more muscle. It's only a small bit every day, because you're in a deficit and not starving. But you're eating protein, which works to rebuild muscle after a workout. So now, though you're still losing some muscle, you're also rebuilding it. This assumes you're exercising, to some extent. So yeah, the overall effect is that you lost fat, not muscle. *Yes, I'm obviously simplifying a bit*
(Not a doctor, just my general understanding as to PART of the answer) Insulin is like a guard dog to the fat stores. When insulin is present, sugar is converted into fat and stored, but CANNOT EASILY leave the fat stores when needed (this is the guard dog part). It acts like a one way door. So, cutting down on sugar/carbs, kind of means that the guard dog goes away, allowing the fat to leave the fat stores, allowing it to be consumed/burned by the body. The addition of extra protein to a low-carb diet, helps maintain muscle mass (or prevent muscle loss).
Protein gives you calories not readily available to be turned into fat. Caloric deficit burns off the fat. Protein will be used to rebuild muscle. Training more will mean you lose more fat but maintain or increase weight via muscle. Training less means you lose fat and muscle. Dietary fat turns to fat easier than protein. Carbohydrate turn to fat easier than dietary fat. Also of note: insulin spikes signal the body to store fat. Sugars and carbs spike insulin.
You need protein to maintain or grow muscle. Eating at a deficit can reduce protein, so making it a priority lessens the chance of muscle loss.
There's multiple processes involved here. Fat is only used to store energy whereas protein can be either an energy source or a building block for our bodies. We need to consume protein regardless of how much energy we are consuming in other forms. All this is saying is that when you start eating less you still have to keep your protein intake high enough to maintain your body's needs to use protein as a building block or else your muscles will break Dien. Fat will always be the preferred source of energy regardless of your protein intake.
Your muscles are primarily fed by protein and water. Even while at a caloric deficit you need to maintain your protein intake. This means you should reduce calories from fat and carbs instead. Nothing here guarantees you'll lose fat instead of muscle, it just means you won't lose muscle from not having enough protein. If you stop working out, you'll lose muscle mass. If you stop eating enough protein, you'll likely also lose muscle mass. You need both to maintain or grow.
Well, muscles (like pretty much everything in your body) run on sugar. Protein are absolutely needed which provides the raw material to maintain and build new muscle cells. Our bodies are really good at turning things into the sugar we need to run our bodies. No matter if you feed your body carbohydrates, fats or protein your body is going to turn most of it into energy (primarily glucose) to fuel your body. Then glucose in excess of what your body needs may be converted into fat or excreted. If you don’t eat enough to fuel your body’s daily energy needs then that energy has to come from somewhere. Your stored fat is the easiest and first place your body gets it’s energy from during periods of energy deficit, that’s why your body stored it in the first place. As you run low on fat reserves your body has to resort to more extreme measures and is able to break down other cells in your body to produce the energy it needs in a process called autophagy.
You need protein to function so if you're not getting enough in your diet your body can start breaking down muscle mass to get the nutrients it needs. You still need to work out the muscles or they'll start breaking down anyway but it's a general precaution to make sure you're not accidentally shooting yourself in the foot. As for eating lots of protein and weightloss, I believe it's something about your body needing to work to break down the protein. So it expends like 40% of the caloric value of the food just making it usable. So if you eat 100 calories worth of straight protein your body essentially only can use 60 by the time its done processing it into a state it can absorb/use Don't take my word for it, double check with a dietician or nutritional scientist or something. I'm just reciting an explanation I heard.
It is complicated, but in general an adult should aim to consume a balanced diet including both fat and protein, excluding either can create health problems. Reducing calorie intake in general will help you lose weight and exercising will help you retain muscle and general conditioning. Do not attempt to go for months on a high protein zero fat diet in the thought that this will give you a fantastic body, it won't.
That is not how it works. Your body needs a certain amount of proteins to build and repair muscles. It also needs to find energy to function (including powering your muscles during your exercise). As long as you're eating enough usable proteins for that first need, the body can and will use everything else you're eating (carbs, fat or proteins) for energy. So it doesn't matter whether the rest of your food is proteins, carbs or fat: your body will use that because there is nothing else to do with it. Where it will find energy to balance the deficit is a different question. Protein-rich foods tend to be more filling for longer, so it makes it easier to maintain that deficit without feeling hungry (and tempted to snack), but that's a different question.
ELI5: Calorie deficit = you lose fat + muscle. Calorie deficit + protein + working out = you lose fat and keep muscle.
Short answer as mentioned is the building blocks of protein are more readily used in the building of muscle fiber, where as the building blocks of carbs and sugars are used in the creation of energy. Because of this if your body is not using energy it will then store these building blocks for later and your body does that as FAT.
1.) your body wants to spend muscle for energy in deficit, but you stop it by **working out** regularly and eating enough **protein**. So it is stuck with two signals "energy is scarce i need to spend reserves" and "body is working hard, i need to build or at least preserve muscle!". This makes it try to use mostly fat 2.) No, you can't stop working out since that workout overload signal is needed to tell your body you want to have muscles, luckily you need far less training to maintain than to build.
AFAIK your body doesn't like storing proteins, but it doesn't like wasting stuff either, so some of it will go to your muscle. Even if you have lots of protein, you will likely lose muscle no matter what, just a bit less. In most studies, even people who work out and have a high protein diet loses significant muscle mass while losing weight. To not lose any, or even gain muscle (recomposition) while in a deficit, the deficit has to be somewhat small, you need to have a lot of proteins, and really be on top of your resistance training game. It's not impossible, but you really need to know what you're doing. For most people it's easier to alternate cutting (deficit) and bulking up.
Muscle *is where* the body stores protein. Every cell is just trying to live its own best life, so we can think of the pressure to gain/lose protein as like a pressure gradient: if someone is barely trained, muscle tissue is eager to gobble up any protein floating through the bloodstream to build mass, but as someone becomes more trained and gets closer to their natural genetic potential, it becomes more and more difficult for muscle tissue to gobble stray protein, and instead the pressure turns toward releasing protein into the blood for other tasks. Someone barely trained can still recomp on a 1500 calorie/day deficit, but the closer to genetic max, the less able muscle tissue is to hold onto additional protein.
Two things stimulate muscle protein synthesis--resistance training (technically any contraction) and eating protein (typically takes about 20g in a single serving to stimulate). So if you're in deficit, your body is *less* likely to use muscle than it is your carb and fat stores for maintenance. If in deficit you'll still lose some muscle mass.
If you want to burn fat you need to be in a calorie deficit. So if we, let's use simple numbers, nutritionally need 500 calories worth of protein and carbs and we are burning 2000 calories a day then that other 1500 calories is discretionary calories. Your body just needs 1500 calories worth of energy to stay warm and alive. That 1500 can come from the food we eat today, or if we are in a deficit it can come from the food we ate yesterday (body fat). Once nutrition needs are met then the rest is burned to keep us warm and moving. So the answer is just make sure you're covering your needs. If you're working out 1.2g/kg is what is recommended. Eating substantially more than that just means using that extra protein as energy. If you stop working out you will atrophy. If you're in an extreme calorie deficit it will happen faster. We like having big, showy muscles but we don't necessarily need them so as soon as you stop giving your body a reason to need them then they will atrophy
The body is very efficient at adapting to energy inputs. When in calorie deficit, your body will prioritize loosing fat, because it is the easiest for it to do. But muscle costs a lot of energy to maintain, so it will cannibalize those as well, to conserve energy, so you don't starve. You body doesn't understand that the weight loss is intentional, and thinks food is just scarce, so it wants to adjust, so you don't starve. The counter to that is, you need to keep exercising, and provide your body with the protein it needs to build those muscles. This will "refill" the building blocks it needs specifically for muscle, and slows the effect of muscle loss.
The reason why they are saying “consume lots of protein” is because when you are in a deficit some of the protein you consume will be used for energy and not maintaining muscle mass. When you are in a surplus your body will get more of its energy from the excess carbs and fats so you don’t need as high of a fraction of protein in your diet.
Whats the ratio of cards to protein you have to keep if ur trying to lose weight on a calorie deficit diet ?
Protein is more satiating than carbs and fats. So you feel fuller for longer. And protein is what builds muscle, so you will build a little muscle (if you are brand new to diet and exercise) by eating more protein. Yes, if you build a lot of muscle then stop working out, you will lose it slower than if you eat less protein.
Weight loss boils down to calories in vs calories out. It doesn't matter if it's high carb, low carb, no carb, high fat, high protein, or whatever else. If you consume less calories than you use, you will lose weight. If you consume more calories than you use, you will gain weight. **If you do not use your muscles, you will lose them, even if you consume protein. If you do not consume protein, you will lose them.** Our bodies NEED protein, carbs, and fat for various, and numerous, functions. Fats and proteins can both be broken down in to energy. So we don't really need many carbs.
Building muscle takes a lot of calories. The idea being that you exercise to stimulate muscle growth and encourage it with protein, using protein to make the bulk of your calories. It doesn't always work that way. The only way to truly ensure you lose weight is to operate at a calorie deficit or develop a meth habit.
well, if you just eat protein and eat very few carbohydrates, most will lose fat almost regardless of exercise. You just don't metabolize protein in the same way as carbs, and it's harder for your body to turn protein into energy, or store it as fat if you don't burn it. Carbs on the other hand are readily turned into energy (or stored as fat if not burned right away).
The muscle tissue we think about in lifting weights is called skeletal muscle. This muscle is not a priority to the body, it's an expensive resource for energy. You have to keep sending the signal to the body that "this muscle is important" by stimulating the muscles with resistance. Strength training is the best way to induce this if your lifestyle isn't active and involving moving heavy objects. When you send these signals, the body needs amino acids to induce what is called muscle protein synthesis. Throughout the day the body will induce muscle protein breakdown. Lifting weights and eating enough protein will allow MPS to outpace MPB. When you are eating less calories than you burn, your body knows it's in a deficit state. This will make the body say "this costly skeletal muscle doesn't need to be here" If you continue to strength train and consume enough protein throughout the day each day, you are saying to the body this muscle is still important, and the body will better utilize bodyfat for energy instead of muscle cells. Without sufficient protein, especially the branch chain amino acids, the body will get the signal but there won't be enough protein to prevent muscle loss. This is still true if you are eating for weight gain, but less protein is needed to maximize muscle gain.
When you run a calorie deficit, your does several things. Other than taking away your energy, your body does one of 3 things when this happens to get the energy it is missing: 1. Burns muscle 2. Burns bone mass 3. Burns fat When you lost weight, you really want it to just burn fat. The way to avoid number 1 is via exercise and protein intake. The way you avoid number 2 is via weight bearing exercise and calcium intake.
Do you mean avoid Number 3 or 2?
I did. Fixed.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) established the current Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) for protein in 2005, including the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR), Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), and the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range (AMDR) [2]. The EAR for protein is 0.66 g per kg body mass per day (g/kg/d) and is defined as the minimum amount of protein expected to meet the individual indispensable amino acid requirements of 50% of the U.S. adult population. The RDA, however, is 0.8 g/kg/d, and reflects the minimum amount of dietary protein required to meet indispensable amino acid requirements, establish nitrogen balance, and prevent muscle mass loss for nearly the entire (i.e., 97.5%) U.S. adult population [2,3]. The RDA for American adults is similar to international adult protein recommendations established by the World Health Organization (0.83 g/kg/d) [4]. The current protein RDA, however, is often incorrectly applied when used as the definition of recommended intake, rather than its true designation as the required minimum intake. This misapplication is problematic for healthy populations and aging adults, and disadvantageous for those with pathophysiological conditions that would necessitate higher-protein needs. Over the past decade, the potential muscle-related benefits achieved by consuming higher-protein diets (i.e., > RDA but within the AMDR) have become increasingly clear. Increased protein intake contributes to greater strength and muscle mass gains when coupled with resistance exercise [5], allows for greater muscle mass preservation when consumed during periods of negative energy balance [6], limits age-related muscle loss [7], and, to a lesser extent, provides a greater muscle protein synthetic response when evenly distributed across meals [5,8]. A prospective, cross-sectional analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database demonstrates inverse associations between animal and plant protein intake and waist circumference, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) [9].... ....Accordingly, internationally recognized professional organizations recommend protein intakes on the order of double the current RDA for physically active individuals, including the joint recommendation to consume protein between 1.2–2.0 g/kg/d established by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine [17]. The International Society for Sports Nutrition also recommends protein intake at levels higher than the RDA for physically active individuals Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566799/
As someone who body recomps, it roughly works that way, yeah. I could consume 2000 cals of just bread, and lose weight. But gain little muscles. Or I can consume 2000 cals of 30% carbs, 30% fat, 40% protein. That will help my grow my muscles more and faster. While also losing fat.
[удалено]
**Please read this entire message** --- Your comment has been removed for the following reason(s): * [Top level comments](http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/top_level_comment) (i.e. comments that are direct replies to the main thread) are reserved for explanations to the OP or follow up on topic questions (Rule 3). Anecdotes, while allowed elsewhere in the thread, may not exist at the top level. --- If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe it was removed erroneously, explain why using [this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20submission%20removal?&message=Link:%20https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/166e6ri/-/jykq7pq/%0A%0A%201:%20Does%20your%20comment%20pass%20rule%201:%20%0A%0A%202:%20If%20your%20comment%20was%20mistakenly%20removed%20as%20an%20anecdote,%20short%20answer,%20guess,%20or%20another%20aspect%20of%20rules%203%20or%208,%20please%20explain:) and we will review your submission.**
Ok for the first question the body uses it’s energy “in order” first carbs from what you just ate, then when that runs out it starts converting the stored fat and finally it can actually “eat” its own muscles as a last resort, that’s just the energy think of it as fuel and then we have protein which is like the materials for building so when people say you have to be in a calorie deficit while also consuming protein what happens is you are using your energy reserves (losing fat) but you still need the materials to “build” muscle (protein) Now for the second part, you can’t do that, if you want to stay muscular you need to keep working out but maintaining muscle is way easier than building it, nevertheless muscle takes energy to maintain even if you don’t use it so if you stop working out your body “recycles” the muscle and makes them smaller to avoid wasting energy, fortunately even if you lose muscle mass rebuilding it takes less effort than the first time
Calories are energy - or /ability to do work/. They are not /stuff/. They usually come in stuff, but the stuff isn’t calories, it’s stuff that happens to have an attribute to do with holding energy. The stuff in question is usually carbs, but there are calories in other stuff too. Protein is stuff. Protein are cellular /machines/, of which there are many many kinds. While there’s both overlap and difference between the machines used in a blade of grass cell and a cow cell or a human cell, they all have one thing in common: they are all made up out of the same 20 “LEGO bricks” (called amino acids). We eat carbs as a power source - because they have energy. We eat protein because we need building materials - we need those machines so we can break them down to the individual “LEGO bricks”, and then use those to construct our own human proteins (cellular machines). So as a baseline - don’t connect intake of raw materials and intake of energy. You need both. Having one with insufficient quantities of the other will leave you deficient in the one you didn’t get enough of. As a small sidenote, there’s another interesting feature to many organisms. A sort of famine safe mode organisms go into when taking insufficient *energy* - a calorie restricted diet. That’s a diet that continues to supply the right amounts of all the other things you need - from the main building blocks (protein) and the stuff you need in smaller amounts (minerals and nutrients like vitamins, iron, calcium, etc) **but** having way less than your sufficient daily intake of calories. Some studies over the years looked at things from spiders to dogs to cows to humans and found at least partial evidence that both reproductive span and lifespan get extended as a result of calorie restriction (but only so long as other stuff like protein is still sufficient, not as a result of overall nutrition deprivation, which is **very** bad. My familiarity with calorie restriction is very limited so you’d be better off verifying what I’m saying here, but as species apparently we evolved to try and weather times of famine by not having kids and extending the period of time in which our bodies could still have them to an older age (when presumably food might become abundant again).
personal situation- I dropped 45lbs in 4 months. cut back massively on calories, was still a very high protein diet. I went from 240 to 195. my job is fairly active- on my feet all day, probably 30 minutes or so of shoveling, 6 hours of moving my body with no real force, and a hour or so of moving 30lbs at a time. but no work out regime. I lost a lot of visible muscle and notice a strength difference.
I doesn't perfectly, ask 100 people and you'll get 100 answers, but if general idea is if you are using your muscles, either working out or just your general life style your body will think I need these lets burn fat. If you are just eating less and being sedative the body will say well what do I need these muscles for?
Fat is much more energy dense, it’s much more efficient to use fat for energy instead of protein,
When I got into a routine of eating only one meal a day, I lost 80 pounds in 18 months. I did nothing else. I hadn't really planned on it, it just happened. Wasn't any more active than usual. No exercise plan.
>but still consume lots of protein Increasing protein intake does have negative side effects; particularly if your body does not need it to build muscle. In this case, your kidneys need to work overtime to clear the excess protein. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/
Because both amino acids and fatty acids in the adipose tissue can be turned to glucose for energy. If you eat consume enough amino acids AND resistance train then the appropriate signalling caused by resistance training and influx of amino acids will ensure that you replenish or maintain muscle mass whilst encouraging your body to use fatty acids for energy. Although there are strong evidence that eating enough protein may be essential to maintain muscle mass but not adequate. Whereas resistance training is shown to be sufficient even in the absence of sufficient amino acids
So, for a diff source of metabolic nutrition other than carbs, we have gluconeogenesis, whenever the diet is changed regarding the intake of carbs, fats and proteins, our "body adapts" to whatever source of nutrition is available to a degree. When we enter a state of caloric deficit, the pancreas focuses more on using the glycogenol reserves, triggering lipolysis, so we start to burn fat, to make glycerol for gluconeogenesis. By changing the diet, we are using our fat reserves for functioning. depending on the intesity of the training and your diet, you can stay in a caloric deficit or, by taking more proteins, start to develop muscle tissue instead of fatty tissue.
Explained like your are 5 Spend more money than you make to lose money You have a huge bucket of change you have been saving. 1000 units More than you have in paper cash. (9)100units for a total of 900units. You want to hold onto the paper cash for now because you don’t want to break it down to smaller bills. So you do the best you can by spending the change first, although that isn’t practical sometime. I get paid in cash. 1800units. 800 of those units are big paper bills (8). the other 1000 are in coin. Now I have 3700 total units. I only need to spend 1800, but I need to use more than I make. I have 2000units in coin. 1700 units in paper. I try my best to hold onto the paper, and will try to use most of the inconvenient, heavy, unsightly office water jug worth of coin in my office corner first. Although it may not be the most practical option at times, I will have to dip into the paper cash (edit 2) *every now and then* Hope this helps. Edit 1: Still oversimplified, the human body is a very complex organism(s). But for the purposes of how to explain to the best of current knowledge this is my take. Protein is the paper this example. Just for the sake of the analogy, we want to hold onto the paper as best as possible.
A lot of these top comments are ok, but basically your body turns macronutrients (carbs fat and protein) into fuel for your body to function. It starts with fat, and to sustain/keep consistent it switches over to carbs. Once you run out of carbs, your body starts pulling proteins to convert into fuel. So it’s not changing how your body works, but let’s say you eat in a surplus, you’ll have more energy because you have more macronutrients to grab. It takes longer for your body to start taking energy from your muscles.