There is a biological fact that when in a caloric deficite one cannot gain muscle. I refuse to belive it. If a newbie can gain and gain and lose simultaneously due to the shock of training to the body it is obviously not impossible. How can an intermediate-advanced lifter recreate this biological phenominon? Can one reintroduce that “shock” to an training experienced body? Is science just not there yet? Thoughts?
Watts
When you’re in a calorie deficiant state, you’re body will make up for the loss by using fat and glycogen stores. This may give you more calories than you’re base metabolic rate. Therefore you can gain weigth or muscle mass when dieting. More often than not this only occurs in the newbie. Why is this so? Because the body does not like getting rid of body fat easily. So when you start lifting/dieting you’re body is shocked. The more you diet and lift, the more you’re body becomes efficient at retaining fat. When you diet down, you’re body will want to keep as much fat as possible, making it so the advanced lifter/dieter cannot easily loose and gain at the same time.
Surely if it were that easy it’d have been found and exploited by now. If it is possible then it is not a simple matter that can be explained by any means, at least at this time.
If it were possible my guess is that it would be diet influenced. We’d need to know how long your body takes to switch from a catabolic state to an anabolic state. Dieting is catabolic and muscle building is anabolic and it is theoretically impossible to do both at the same time. However what if we could alternate between both, not in time as long as weeks, but in macrocycles like 2-3 hours? What if half the meals of the day were hypocaloric and the other half were hypercaloric with the end of the day meeting our maintenance level? If we could burn fat and build muscle simultaneously it would be more on the lines that we keep our weight the same but we slowly alter our bodyfat ratios.
What if we could burn off 500 calories of fat for 6 hours of the day, then switch to a hypercaloric state for another 6 hours, after training of course, to promote anabolism. The other 6 hours we strive to ingest 500 extra calories so that those calories are converted to muscle. At the end of the day we've broke even as far as energy in vs energy out goes, however we've managed to burn 500 calories of fat and gain 500 calories of muscle. We theoretically weigh the same though we've altered our muscle to fat ratios. Over a long period of time it seems that a large change could be made.
Of course that’s all just a guess. If it were possible it’d have to do with how long it takes to convert from a catabolic to an anabolic state, we’d have to ensure that the hypocaloric state favored fat burning and that the hypercaloric state favored muscle building. Can it be possible? Perhaps, and perhaps not. Maybe there is some chemical reaction during a beginners training state that simply can’t be duplicated. Maybe the extra fat that is stored is converted to energy and is in essence protein sparing. So the body is actually in an anabolic state and uses stored fat for energy while remaining anabolic.
Who knows if that could ever be emulated, though obviously if it was imagine the books you could sell explaining how to do it.
I never said it was going to be easy/nor simple. Yet, if or when the solutoin is found, it will be simple. Most problems are after the solution is found.
I have also been playing around with the idea of how long does it take to shift from catabolism to anabolism? And I’ve also been thinking about these microcycles within a day. Is there a guru out there who could actually answer this? Doesn’t this shift actually happen pretty goddamn fast if you do aerobics in the morning on an empty stomach with ECA and then right after that you start eating carbs and protein every few hours?
Tuukka
One can kind’ve recreate this process by taking in lots of total calories, but breaking those calories down into levels that make it hard for the body to store fat…something like 50% protein, 35% fat, 15% carbs…maintenance or a little bit above maintenance calories
very interesting thought so far. keep them coming-Watts-
This “schock” comes in vials and pill forms. It probably is illegal where you live
your thoughts are truly awe inspiring.
lol, ok it probably is possible to an extent, but depends on training age… i doubt it is possible with elite lifters, but i am sure juice could do it for most. Then theres shit like PGFA2 or whatever that i think causes muscular hyperplasia, which means you have new “materials” to hypertrophy.
perhaps the solution is in making the period of time around your weight workout as anabolic as possible…(this may be stating the obvious). i mean, starting your day off with a bunch of clean carbs and protein, hitting the gym and consuming a diluted carb drink during your workout, then hitting the Surge or some other well-designed postworkout MRP. the presence of higher calories and lots of carbs would obviously tend to make the body less susceptible to catabolism (cortisol) and more anabolic in the period of time surrounding the workout. the rest of the day could consist of meals with ratios like the ones that kelly suggested to make the body as lipolytic as possible. total cal’s could be at maintenance or just above/below…this would take some experimenting. i’m not ready to believe that it’s impossible!
Yes, i’ve never understood why you can’t gain muscle and lose fat at he same time. After all, if you’re losing fat, it’s being converted into energy isn’t it? It doesn’t just evaporate. So, although you may be taking in less
calories via food, the “burnt” body fat is
functioning as an energy source.
A letter in JMB’s column this week refers to meal combinations as “the magic bullet”. Maybe it is. I can definitely list three different times my body fat combination has altered favourably without a real change in lean mass.
Just some things to think about
-eXp
very cool thoughts so far…keep em coming
From everything I’ve read and learned in school, it seems the reason that we can’t get both goals going at the same time is a matter of survival. Trying to lose fat with food restriction while at the same time, gaining muscle is counter to our evolutionary history.
The last thing we needed in years gone-by was to increase production of metabolically active tissue (muscle/bone) when we were experiencing a shortage of food. The people with those genetics probably died from starvation and the ability was eventually selected out of the population.
I feel that the reason a new trainee can accomplish both is due to the starting level of lean tissue being below minimal levels. Once you get a certain amount of lean weight, any further increase has to be accomplished with enough food present to allow bodyfat deposits as well, otherwise, the body simply won’t allow it. You have to show ample supplies of food to allow metabolism to go up very high, in other words.
Just like everything else, there probably is a way around it but it requires the use of food and hormones in a drug-like manner, hardly “natural”, but then again neither is training- and that is an entirely different can of worms!
I’ll throw this in. It IS possible. Dr. Serrano has been doing it with his clients and Beverly International has been doing it with theirs. Recently, they wrote a joint article that is at the Beverly International website, but I know for a fact that Dr. Serrano’s recommendations for this double goal are more specific for each individual; he watered them down for here.
You’ll notice that this article alternates meals that contain carbs (and protein and fat) with meals that contain hardly any (mostly protein and fat). So it has a similiar structure to Berardi’s Massive Eating.
Long shot: given that heavy cream is part of the protein-fat meals and dairy has a high insulin response, perhaps it promotes some insulin effect so that a person is slightly anabolic all 6 meals.
Interesting point: both Serrano and Beverly International prescribe caloric excess for 8 weeks to get to the DOUBLE goal. They both think that a person needs around +500 calories a day to grow muscle. (Massive Eating also recommends more calories, but focuses on heavy gains).
If someone wants to explain this, they get a no-prize.
My question about this diet: Where is the calorie-deficit-like stimulus for fat-burning? In the article, Beverly and Serrano say no cardio, and I think Beverly would say weights 5 times per week. I suppose that could be -2000 calories, but you’re adding 500 per day. [note: Serrano has recommended weights 3 times per week and cardio, HIIT, twice a week. Maybe for more stressed-out trainees, I don’t know.]
Just things to think about. I don’t understand why the double-goal should work, but somehow, for some people it has. Brian
I think it is possible to gain strength while loseing fat as both I, my brother and out training partner have all done it. We have been lifitng for 6.5 years, and we train modified westside style. We do max squat mon, max bench tues, wens off, thurs speed sqt and friday speed bench. On saterday and sunday we eat anything we want, however mon-fri we eat low carbs, only directly before and after our workouts, and moderate fat/protein. This has enabled us to drop weight while gaining strength. However we still are probably around 10-11% (Im prob 12-13% bodyfat) so for someone getting into a contest shape 6% or less than this is probably unpredictable.
We feel very strong Mon/Tue due to all the carbs and food over the weekend, on wens I drop all carbs. Thurs/fri do 250 cal carbs and feel a little sluggish, but not so much that it affects the workout. We also do sled work 4x weekly, and 4 extra workouts(10-15min tops).
I believe it. It is technically possible to lose bodyfat and gain muscle. Let’s say I a have extra insulin sensitive muscle tissue and resistant fat tissue. The muscle is more likely to absorb nutrients than the fat. This can lead to lower bodyfat %, but not lower total fat. However, in a calorie deficit situation it is possible to draw all extra calories needed for muscle growth and recuperation from fat. This translates into a loss of fat and gain of muscle.
The Shock you are looking for is probably a cycle of steroids or totally revamping your diet and/or training.