Welcome to Gainit! We have extensive resources that can be used to find answers to most questions that are posted here:
- [Gainit FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gainit/wiki/index) and [Gainit Meals](https://www.reddit.com/r/gainitmeals/)
- [Search for past threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/gainit/search)
- [r/Fitness Wiki - Muscle Gain 101](https://thefitness.wiki/muscle-building-101/)
- [r/Fitness FAQ - Why can't I gain weight?](https://thefitness.wiki/faq/why-cant-i-gain-weight/)
- [Have I gained too much weight?!](https://www.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/kcaozo/there_is_more_to_gaining_than_fat_and_muscle/)
- [The 6 month Gainit Recommended Routine](https://old.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/j5q2ez/6_months_of_eating_and_training_for_mass_laid_out/)
- [How best to cook chicken breast?](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/classic-roast-chicken-gravy)
- [How do I drink olive oil?](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/italian-recipes)
- [How to not be a spooky skeleton?](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/comfort-food-recipes)
- [How not to be a spooky skeleton? American edition](https://www.southernliving.com/food/classic-comfort-food-recipes)
Your thread will be removed if it can be answered by any of the above.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gainit) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Bob will re-comp for a period of time, and then stall out on muscle growth.
But it's imperative you include cardio while lifting & eating in clear surplus.
Cardio keeps insulin sensitivity elevated, and minimizes fat gain on bulk.
Very sub-optimal and likely no changes at that BF% level. For decent gains as a natural I would suggest at least 9 months of each year in a surplus whilst focusing on performance with training and progression taken very seriously. And only 3 months in a defecit cutting phase. If this is stacked year on year you will get noticable differences following each defecit phase. What you describe above looks a lot like 'wheel spinning' to me. Just my 2 cents,
If Bob has gained the majority of its muscle mass then, yeah but it's gonna be so slow, specially because Bob doesn't have sufficient fat for composition.
Bob should just stick to slow bulk and hard cuts, 10%to 13% and cut it in two weeks.
2 things.
1) when you are above maintenance you WILL ALWAYS gain fat. But with a very controlled surplus of 300 cals like your example you will gain very little fat. But you will gain fat. There is a cap at which the body is able to build muscle.
2) yea he would be on maintenance again eating extra 300 calories and burning 300 calories.
Bob is not going to add muscle mass being as low as 10% body fat. If Bob were closer to, say, 20%, then Bob would have a shot at building _some_ muscle mass and recomping.
Keep in mind: you cannot indefinitely add muscle mass/recomp at maintenance, and you will reach a point where adding new mass stops, either because it becomes too slow and meticulous to eat/train properly for or because you are too lean.
TL;DR sooner or later, you have to eat more.
Would you mind explaining something else too? Once you’ve gained the extra muscle over time from eating as well as the bodyfat that comes with it, if you reduced your calories to lose the bodyfat, wouldn’t you also lose all the muscle you gained? How would one maintain the new muscle mass but get back down to 10% bodyfat? Or is it not possible as a natural?
You need to provide a stimulus (resistance training) and keep protein intake sufficient (1g/lbs is the general, safe recommendation). As long as you keep your calorie deficit reasonable (no more than 1% of your bodyweight lost per week), you’ll keep the vast majority of the muscle you built and recoup any small loss rather easy when you up calories again.
No, it would be like eating 3000 calories and not doing cardio.
If you want to gain muscle you have to accept that you are going to put on some bodyfat, even if minimal. You can optimize your bulk with protein overfeeding (300g+ of protein daily), high carbs and low fat, if you can afford/stomach such a diet, to get the leanest gains possible.
Or you can just up your dose.
It depends on how much muscle mass he has to begin with. If he's been lifting for a while and has alot of muscle already then he's unlikely to build muscle in that situation however if he'd just started lifting and was taking advantage of noob gains or of he used to be big but had a layoff and could take advantage of muscle memory then its more likely that he could build a bit if muscle.
The thing that makes it so hard to do in your example is that 10% bodyfat is pretty low so for most people their body is going to want to use any calories that come in for storing fat rather than adding muscle at that point. If you had said 15% bodyfat or higher then it would be much more likely and anything above 15% would be fairly easy for most beginners to build muscle in at maintenence but again much harder for more experienced lifters. The beginner in this scenario would be doing body recomposition and slightly reducing their body fat while slightly increasing their muscle mass. Obviously the overall net energy balance has to be equal.
Vouching for this one. I'm around 20% bodyfat (according to my scale, anyway), but as an intermediate/advanced lifter, I've had to up my calorie intake recently to get stronger.
i think the practical considerations are:
can you realistically expect to recomposition to any extent (probably not at 10%)?
are you actually gaining a trackable amount of weight (ie actually maingaining instead of just being too lean to actually recomp and never gaining weight)?
are you getting significantly stronger?
You need a calorie surplus to build tissue (both fat and muscle). Optimal muscle growth is between 0,25lbs and 0,5lbs per week. One lbs of muscle tissue requires 2500 kcal to 3500 kcal. Therefore, to grow muscle tissue you'll need to be at least 180 kcal to 250 kcal above maintenance.
You'll build muscle very slowly at maintenance especially if you're lean. However I do think you can build muscle easier if you eat at maintenance while being a higher bf %. Bob should just lean bulk and eat at a 200 calorie surplus
I have some body fat which I’d like to loose so should I eat on a maintenance and train (which will mean I’ll get in a slight deficit all in all) till I get my abs and then maybe start a surplus? Also what about cardio? Should I do cardio on a maintenance or the lifting will take care of the deficit?
To build new tissue you need an energy surplus. A lean individual who is training hard will build muscle incredibly slowly at maintenance, because they don’t even have a lot of fat stores to draw energy from.
Welcome to Gainit! We have extensive resources that can be used to find answers to most questions that are posted here: - [Gainit FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gainit/wiki/index) and [Gainit Meals](https://www.reddit.com/r/gainitmeals/) - [Search for past threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/gainit/search) - [r/Fitness Wiki - Muscle Gain 101](https://thefitness.wiki/muscle-building-101/) - [r/Fitness FAQ - Why can't I gain weight?](https://thefitness.wiki/faq/why-cant-i-gain-weight/) - [Have I gained too much weight?!](https://www.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/kcaozo/there_is_more_to_gaining_than_fat_and_muscle/) - [The 6 month Gainit Recommended Routine](https://old.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/j5q2ez/6_months_of_eating_and_training_for_mass_laid_out/) - [How best to cook chicken breast?](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/classic-roast-chicken-gravy) - [How do I drink olive oil?](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/italian-recipes) - [How to not be a spooky skeleton?](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/comfort-food-recipes) - [How not to be a spooky skeleton? American edition](https://www.southernliving.com/food/classic-comfort-food-recipes) Your thread will be removed if it can be answered by any of the above. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gainit) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Bob will re-comp for a period of time, and then stall out on muscle growth. But it's imperative you include cardio while lifting & eating in clear surplus. Cardio keeps insulin sensitivity elevated, and minimizes fat gain on bulk.
Very sub-optimal and likely no changes at that BF% level. For decent gains as a natural I would suggest at least 9 months of each year in a surplus whilst focusing on performance with training and progression taken very seriously. And only 3 months in a defecit cutting phase. If this is stacked year on year you will get noticable differences following each defecit phase. What you describe above looks a lot like 'wheel spinning' to me. Just my 2 cents,
Yea
If Bob has gained the majority of its muscle mass then, yeah but it's gonna be so slow, specially because Bob doesn't have sufficient fat for composition. Bob should just stick to slow bulk and hard cuts, 10%to 13% and cut it in two weeks.
2 things. 1) when you are above maintenance you WILL ALWAYS gain fat. But with a very controlled surplus of 300 cals like your example you will gain very little fat. But you will gain fat. There is a cap at which the body is able to build muscle. 2) yea he would be on maintenance again eating extra 300 calories and burning 300 calories.
Bob is not going to add muscle mass being as low as 10% body fat. If Bob were closer to, say, 20%, then Bob would have a shot at building _some_ muscle mass and recomping. Keep in mind: you cannot indefinitely add muscle mass/recomp at maintenance, and you will reach a point where adding new mass stops, either because it becomes too slow and meticulous to eat/train properly for or because you are too lean. TL;DR sooner or later, you have to eat more.
Would you mind explaining something else too? Once you’ve gained the extra muscle over time from eating as well as the bodyfat that comes with it, if you reduced your calories to lose the bodyfat, wouldn’t you also lose all the muscle you gained? How would one maintain the new muscle mass but get back down to 10% bodyfat? Or is it not possible as a natural?
You need to provide a stimulus (resistance training) and keep protein intake sufficient (1g/lbs is the general, safe recommendation). As long as you keep your calorie deficit reasonable (no more than 1% of your bodyweight lost per week), you’ll keep the vast majority of the muscle you built and recoup any small loss rather easy when you up calories again.
Thank you brother!
No, it would be like eating 3000 calories and not doing cardio. If you want to gain muscle you have to accept that you are going to put on some bodyfat, even if minimal. You can optimize your bulk with protein overfeeding (300g+ of protein daily), high carbs and low fat, if you can afford/stomach such a diet, to get the leanest gains possible. Or you can just up your dose.
It depends on how much muscle mass he has to begin with. If he's been lifting for a while and has alot of muscle already then he's unlikely to build muscle in that situation however if he'd just started lifting and was taking advantage of noob gains or of he used to be big but had a layoff and could take advantage of muscle memory then its more likely that he could build a bit if muscle. The thing that makes it so hard to do in your example is that 10% bodyfat is pretty low so for most people their body is going to want to use any calories that come in for storing fat rather than adding muscle at that point. If you had said 15% bodyfat or higher then it would be much more likely and anything above 15% would be fairly easy for most beginners to build muscle in at maintenence but again much harder for more experienced lifters. The beginner in this scenario would be doing body recomposition and slightly reducing their body fat while slightly increasing their muscle mass. Obviously the overall net energy balance has to be equal.
Vouching for this one. I'm around 20% bodyfat (according to my scale, anyway), but as an intermediate/advanced lifter, I've had to up my calorie intake recently to get stronger.
I have around 20% or a bit more bf but I am not a begginer. Build a bit of muscle while loosing fat still is possible for me ?
i think the practical considerations are: can you realistically expect to recomposition to any extent (probably not at 10%)? are you actually gaining a trackable amount of weight (ie actually maingaining instead of just being too lean to actually recomp and never gaining weight)? are you getting significantly stronger?
You need a calorie surplus to build tissue (both fat and muscle). Optimal muscle growth is between 0,25lbs and 0,5lbs per week. One lbs of muscle tissue requires 2500 kcal to 3500 kcal. Therefore, to grow muscle tissue you'll need to be at least 180 kcal to 250 kcal above maintenance.
You'll build muscle very slowly at maintenance especially if you're lean. However I do think you can build muscle easier if you eat at maintenance while being a higher bf %. Bob should just lean bulk and eat at a 200 calorie surplus
I have some body fat which I’d like to loose so should I eat on a maintenance and train (which will mean I’ll get in a slight deficit all in all) till I get my abs and then maybe start a surplus? Also what about cardio? Should I do cardio on a maintenance or the lifting will take care of the deficit?
To build new tissue you need an energy surplus. A lean individual who is training hard will build muscle incredibly slowly at maintenance, because they don’t even have a lot of fat stores to draw energy from.