How To Gain Muscle & Lose Fat At The Same Time

Can you gain muscle while you're in a calorie deficit? Aka. Can you achieve body recomposition?

For many people this is the Holy Grail. Everyone wants to tone up and get stronger while they're losing weight, but it's easier said than done. 

It's a contentious point, as you get people arguing that you can't be in a calorie deficit if you're trying to gain muscle and you get people saying the opposite. It's no secret that maximising muscle gain is easiest when you're in a calorie surplus, but muscle gain isn't the sole goal for most women.

The goal is usually to lose weight and build muscle at the same time.

To get to the point- yes, you CAN do this!

There are considerations when trying to achieve this delicate balance of body recomposition, and I’m going to outline three here to guide you on your transformation journey.

1. Your calorie deficit cannot be too low. This meta-analysis* (mega- study that combines heaps of studies), from 2022 showed that if the calorie deficit was greater than 500kcal per day, then muscle growth was inhibited. This means, don’t go overboard on the restriction.

2. You must be doing the right exercise. You have to send signals to your body that muscle growth is what you’re trying to achieve. You do this by weight training, and progressively overloading throughout your weights program. You can achieve this by: doing harder exercises, increasing the weight, increasing the reps, sets, or time under tension. AKA. You should keep incrementally increasing your overall volume and continually challenging your muscles throughout the process.

3.You should be consuming enough protein to build muscle tissue. Protein is the building blocks for muscle cells (we cannot use carbohydrate and fat to create muscle). If we eat too much protein, our bodies just break down the protein and use it as energy (like we do with carbs and fats). So, to put it simply- there is no harm in having a little bit too much protein but it will be detrimental not to eat enough. General recommendations for retaining muscle while dieting may be >2g/kg goal weight (Aragon. et al. 2017)**.

So there you have it:

It is achievable to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time - just take these three things into consideration.

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References:

*Murphy C, Koehler K. Energy deficiency impairs resistance training gains in lean mass but not strength: A meta-analysis and meta-regression. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2022 Jan;32(1):125-137. doi: 10.1111/sms.14075. Epub 2021 Oct 13. PMID: 34623696.

** Aragon AA, Schoenfeld BJ, Wildman R, Kleiner S, VanDusseldorp T, Taylor L, Earnest CP, Arciero PJ, Wilborn C, Kalman DS, Stout JR, Willoughby DS, Campbell B, Arent SM, Bannock L, Smith-Ryan AE, Antonio J. International society of sports nutrition position stand: diets and body composition. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017 Jun 14;14:16. doi: 10.1186/s12970-017-0174-y. PMID: 28630601; PMCID: PMC5470183.