muscle increase while dieting

[Rudee34]

I believe that the best statement is made by Dan Duchaine in BodyOpus:
"You eat, you train, you loose, you gain, but you never do all these things at once."
Simply put, it's hard for anyone but the beginners to gain muscle-mass while loosing body-fat.

Mr.X

Grr!! It's "losing" not "loosing". I can't believe how many people spell this wrong. It's now driving me nuts. Sorry for the rant.

 

[Mr.X]

Hey, Joker, you are so funny, my god, how about you post some info. that has value behind it? oh wait, spelling is a type of knowledge.....

Mr.X

 

[dngu047]

I have no problem doing both at once

Ok so a few people claim they can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time...but even if this is the case it's going to happen a lot slower than concentrating on one at a time

e.g you might gain a pound of muscle and lose a pound of fat over the course of 2 months, but in that time you may have gained say two pounds of muscle and lost two pounds of fat if you'd gone on a bulking/cutting routine

 

[Burning_Inside]

Sorry i didn't mention in the first place about how beginners can do it, I knew aboutt hat already, learned that years ago, but I didn't put it in there, cause i remember being pretty tired writing that, as you can tell by the way i was rambling on and no paragraphs.

Now to these people who say they are losing and gaining all at once, how long you been working out for? You beginners or what?

Also, are you absolutely positive that the case isn't exactly how I stated, about how you're either dropping fat and it's looking like you're adding muscle too because you're getting more cut (it's the illusuion that you're getting more musclulaar when you're just shedding your fat) or are you just adding muscle and displacing your fat? I mean are you getting bodyfat % tests done? What are the results?

I mean you can be training and dieting for mass gains, and put on x amount of mass, and also put on some fat too, but not as much fatas the amount of muscle you put on. In that case, if you took a before and after bf% test, you'd have gained more fat than you even had to begin with, yet still be at a lower bf% in the end due to all the muscle added. However people might fail to recognize this intentionally, because they don't want to acknowledge fat gain of any sorts.

Also about this "same time" thing..Think about how impossible it sounds...To lose weight, you need to eat minus your daily maintenance..To gain mass, you need to eat in excess..Now how can someone do both at the same time?
Are you sure you don't mean one week you are dropping fat and the next week you are gaining muscle?

Exactly what time period are you using as a measurement to declare "same time"?

 

[cozmokramer]

I believe that you can do it but diet plays an important role... for example I DO NOT think its possible to do stricly on the atkins diet...

sure you have high protein intake but without carbs...
that protein is never really getting absorbed by the muscle like it should be....

I think on CKD it is very possible!

 

[Burning_Inside]

Cosmo, i deon't see personally how you can build muscle on a CKD. I never heard of that before, if you do it right, you're not even eating enough protein in the diet to maintain your muscle, never mind gain any.

I still say that this increase in muscle and loss in fat that people swear they experience (non beginners) is an illusion caused by exactly what i stated in my first post.

The laws of physiology, as much of it as I've learned portaining to bodybuilding over the years, just simply don't allow for the gain of muscle mass AND actual loss, not displacement of fat, at the same exact time.

 

[blood_drinker]

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I believe cozmo was a beginner before he got ripped. So he probably experienced an increase in muscle mass as this was the body's natural response to the sudden shock and radical change of lifestyle.

WTF, if someone goes from eating burgers and chips all day, to training on a sound diet, you bet your ass you're gonna gain muscle AND lose fat.
I don't care about the laws. That's how it works; for begginers.

And Burning, I understand that VISION you get when you gain more muscle and your bf % entage dropping, but before I started training, I had a gut, and couldn't bench for shit. My chest ballooned up to 45 inches (which is still pretty small, but heck im still somewhat a beginner) and my bench doubled, while I lost my gut.

it is very possible...

 

[Vageta]

Ok guys there seems to be some confusion so here are a few things:

1. Beginners can and do break the laws of weight lifting. They can build muscle and lose fat, however this phenomenon doesn't last forever. After a year or so your body is over the initial shock and will start to obide by the laws of physics.

2. Getting stronger while dieting does not mean in an increase in muscle mass. Strength is affected by the CNS which doesn't necessarily mean an increase in muscle mass. It is absolutely possible to get stronger without gaining muscle mass, in fact wrestlers and other athletes strive for this phenomenon to stay in their weight class. So just because you are stronger while dieting doesn't mean you have more muscle mass.

3. Drugs break all the rules as well. If you're on the juice then arguing that you can do it isn't valid. The thread should be focused on "natural" athletes.

4. It "IS" physically impossible to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously. Your body can only be anabolic or catabolic, not both at the same time. Building muscle is anabolic and burning fat is catabolic so they can't exist together. However that doesn't mean that you can't switch between both states fairly rapidly to give the illusion of both. If your body was in an anabolic state after your workout for 6 hours then goes back to catabolic for the next 12 hours, over time this could make a dramatic change to your body composition. Realize however that you aren't truly burning muscle and gaining fat at the same time.

That being said I think most of us think of only 2 phases; bulking and cutting. In reality you can bulk and cut during the same phase by timing your eating and workouts and thus achieving both goals simultaneously. If you "bulked" cleanly on workout days and dieted "cleanly" on off days you would slowly gain muscle and burn fat. However you aren't truly doing both simultaneously however it may seem.

If you had 12 weeks to get in shape would you prefer to bulk 6 then diet 6? That'd be the worst way to do it. I'd prefer to alternate bulk and cutting cycles during those 12 weeks to minimize muscle loss and fat gain during each mini cycle. I truly believe you'd come out better in the end.

 

[dngu047]

4. It "IS" physically impossible to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously. Your body can only be anabolic or catabolic, not both at the same time. Building muscle is anabolic and burning fat is catabolic so they can't exist together. However that doesn't mean that you can't switch between both states fairly rapidly to give the illusion of both. If your body was in an anabolic state after your workout for 6 hours then goes back to catabolic for the next 12 hours, over time this could make a dramatic change to your body composition. Realize however that you aren't truly burning muscle and gaining fat at the same time.

Hang on there the body actually burns fat 24 hours a day (resting muscles use fat primarily for energy) also tthe body is constantly building muscle (even something as gentle as walking cause muscle damage from the eccentric portion which must be rebuilt) so they do happen at pretty much the same time

now i'd agree so far as to say that appreciable accumulation of muscle protein does not usually occur with simultaneous significant depletion of body fat stores i.e yes "only 2 phases: bulking and cutting"...but don't get the physiology confused

 

[Vageta]

Yes the body does burn fat all day long, however burning fat that we ingest is different from burning fat that we have already stored. If we supply enough energy from our caloric intake then there is no reason for the body to tap into it's stored energy. If we don't supply enough energy then it will be forced to tap into stored energy in the form of fat and muscle. We obviously want it to focus on fat as much as possible.

If our body truly burned stored energy even in a hypercaloric state then the old fashioned ultra low-fat diets would work. You say resting muscle burns primarily fat, well if we offered our body no intake of fats it would have no choice but to burn stored body fat at all times. Unfortunately we all know this doesn't work and fat intake is crucial to healthy, sustained fat loss. The only way to tap into our fat stores is to be in a hypocaloric state, which induces catabolism, which is an environment in which muscle growth cannot occur unless a few extreme circumstances are met in which I've explained in my previous post.