Caloric Surplus ALWAYS Needed ?

When you already are overweight do you still need to have a caloric surplus in order to put lean mass ?

Usually, yes. Your body doesn’t “know” its own weight so you will still need to ingest “extra” calories for it to build lean tissue.

However, if you’re overweight, it may very likely be due to the fact that the person’s eating is horrible. Fixing his/her diet may shock the body into building some new lean body mass (of course with exercise) sorta like beginner gains.

I would say lose the fat first.Gaining Lean mass will be easier

[quote]jasmincar wrote:
I would say lose the fat first.Gaining Lean mass will be easier[/quote]

Not easier than losing fat! But, you’ll definitely appreciate gaining lean mass more when you can actually see the results.

I used to be pretty chubby and then started doing martial arts. I didn’t change my diet too much but after a while I realized I had dropped 10 or 15 pounds. Then I realized i could actually look better if I wanted to, so I cleaned up my diet a bit, and dropped 15 more pounds.

I ended up pretty skinny, some lean mass and 2-4 visible abs, just some fat over the bottom to. Now I have started bulking and I am up 20lbs and look much better, probably only slightly more bodyfat then when I was at my lightest but with a hell of a lot more muscle.

I liked getting lean before bulking, it makes you feel more confident and better about yourself, it also allows you to see your gains much better.

To cap it all off, a lean person has a much easier time gaining lean mass with little fat than a chubby person does.