How to put on muscle mass without getting fat?

[ajccoming]

I've heard lifting heavy, mixing hiit training and clean eating can help you gain muscle and lose fat. Anyone wanna comment on this?

 

[gspieler]

just eat 300 cals or so above maintenance

Boom. Combined with a strength/hypertrophy oriented program, this is about how complicated it is(assuming reasonable macro-ratios). Of course not every ounce of mass you put on will be 100% lean mass, but you certainly won't get fat.

 

[JRT6]

Eating at a small surplus five or six days a week with one or two days of a moderate deficit work well for me.

I don't obsess over it either and intermittent fasting seems to make it easier.

 

[bad seed]

Man if there was a true Super Soldier Serum like that, fuck I'm all in!

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Honestly the nutrition part is the least important. As long as you're not consistently over-eating and gaining/losing weight too consistently or too fast, things will probably sort out just fine in the long run. Especially if you're a young male. People mistakingly put too much emphasis on nutrition.

The most important part is training and consistency. Workouts should be daily, intense, hard, and mostly hypertrophy-oriented if you're concerned with body recomposition. Some low semi-regular intensity cardio can help with the fat loss aspect as well.

Mmmm, not sure about that. At least not for me.

I'm 34 and I lifted for years and was only in ok shape. Once I consciously started focusing on my nutrition did I bust through my ceiling. My training also improved a little bit but my nutrition is what changed most dramatically so I chalk up the changes to that a bit more.

 

[magick]

Mmmm, not sure about that. At least not for me.

I'm 34 and I lifted for years and was only in ok shape. Once I consciously started focusing on my nutrition did I bust through my ceiling. My training also improved a little bit but my nutrition is what changed most dramatically so I chalk up the changes to that a bit more.

You're not a young male =P

 

[Dinamita95]

Mmmm, not sure about that. At least not for me.

I'm 34 and I lifted for years and was only in ok shape. Once I consciously started focusing on my nutrition did I bust through my ceiling. My training also improved a little bit but my nutrition is what changed most dramatically so I chalk up the changes to that a bit more.

I don't think eating chocolate chips and doing Bicep curls was what he meant. Think he assumed decent nutrition and training but just meant that obsessing over nutrition wasn't necesarry.

 

[trikso]

Honestly the nutrition part is the least important.

you can't out-train a bad diet

 

[Seriously-Dead]

Mmmm, not sure about that. At least not for me.

I'm 34 and I lifted for years and was only in ok shape. Once I consciously started focusing on my nutrition did I bust through my ceiling. My training also improved a little bit but my nutrition is what changed most dramatically so I chalk up the changes to that a bit more.

I don't think eating chocolate chips and doing Bicep curls was what he meant. Think he assumed decent nutrition and training but just meant that obsessing over nutrition wasn't necesarry.

Yeah, this is what I meant. As long as your nutrition isn't complete crap, putting more time and energy into training is a better use of your time and energy.

Think of it this way - fixing your diet (beyond the basics) will often make little to no difference in your training, and if you make mistakes in your diet it can make your training more difficult and less effective (diet can be iatrogenic for training). But fixing your training will never have a negative impact on your nutrition, it will only ever make your diet more flexible and easier (training is never iatrogenic for diet). Increasing the volume and frequency of your training is the only way to kill two birds with one stone since it increases both hypertrophy and the flexibility of your diet. The choice is simple.

Micro-managing diet is a last resort for those that can't train more due to physiological constraints or time/lifestyle issues.

you can't out-train a bad diet

Oh god, can you ever. Happens all the time. You can especially out-train a mediocre to good diet.

 

[JRT6]

I watched "Fat Head" this morning and it's a counter to that documentary Supersize Me. Basically Spurlock's claim that he ate 5,000 calories a day at McD''s in three meals and without supersizing was at minimum an 1,000 calorie exaggeration. Becoming fat takes a lot of work.

 

[Seriously-Dead]

just eat 300 cals or so above maintenance

I also want to point out how absurb this is. There is no way any human alive can reasonably eat "300kcal above maintenance" on a consistent basis.

The error range around estimating your own caloric needs + the error range of estimating the caloric content of your diet is well over +/- 300kcal. Not to mention, one day of overeating or undereating even slightly more than normal (you know, like how normal people live) would throw fuck up a weeks worth of work.

Training > diet.

 

[Parzival]

I also want to point out how absurb this is. There is no way any human alive can reasonably eat "300kcal above maintenance" on a consistent basis.

The error range around estimating your own caloric needs + the error range of estimating the caloric content of your diet is well over +/- 300kcal. Not to mention, one day of overeating or undereating even slightly more than normal (you know, like how normal people live) would throw fuck up a weeks worth of work.

Training > diet.

Curious as to what your background is with all of these statements regarding the uselessness of a good diet.

Having to train more to compensate for a bad diet in order to achieve a desired body composition does not seem like very good management when the same effect could be achieved with less time/energy by utilizing a good diet and consistent workouts.

 

[Flash_Monsta]

These threads make my eyes and brain ache.

 

[Seriously-Dead]

Curious as to what your background is with all of these statements regarding the uselessness of a good diet.

Having to train more to compensate for a bad diet in order to achieve a desired body composition does not seem like very good management when the same effect could be achieved with less time/energy by utilizing a good diet and consistent workouts.

I never said a good diet was useless. When your training and nutrition are both "decent" you'll get more return increasing the volume and frequency of your training than your nutrition. And in the context of a decent diet, decent training, and wanting body recomposition? Yeah, better training is definitely more important.

I never said everyone should compensate their bad diet with more training. Just that you can.

It's like you people just read whatever you want.

 

[Sinister]

Or they interpret "training > diet" exactly as it is said.

 

[Seriously-Dead]

Or they interpret "training > diet" exactly as it is said.

All that other stuff I said be damned, eh

 

[gspieler]

I also want to point out how absurb this is. There is no way any human alive can reasonably eat "300kcal above maintenance" on a consistent basis.

The error range around estimating your own caloric needs + the error range of estimating the caloric content of your diet is well over +/- 300kcal. Not to mention, one day of overeating or undereating even slightly more than normal (you know, like how normal people live) would throw fuck up a weeks worth of work.

Training > diet.

Kcal estimates are exactly that...estimates. You can reassess and make adjustments as needed. And if you're going to put almost all your eggs in the training basket, by what metric are you going to use to predict what effect the training will have on body composition? Because if you answer "kcal expenditure", then it would be impossible to not factor in kcal consumption to get any kind of reasonable answer.

 

[IceWolf]

I also want to point out how absurb this is. There is no way any human alive can reasonably eat "300kcal above maintenance" on a consistent basis.

The error range around estimating your own caloric needs + the error range of estimating the caloric content of your diet is well over +/- 300kcal. Not to mention, one day of overeating or undereating even slightly more than normal (you know, like how normal people live) would throw fuck up a weeks worth of work.

Training > diet.

Wait what? How on Earth can you not easily eat 300 cals above maintenance? Scale+MyFitnessPal and your GOLDEN Ponyboy, golden.

Also, I thought the adage was "You can't out train bad nutrition" ???

 

[fbmmofo]

To be fair to SD I think his words are being taken out of context.

I think he's saying as long as your diet isn't horrible then training will have the greater.

And also with the 300 calories thing, it's always going to be an estimation. You could be aiming to eat 2000 calories but actually be eating 1700 or 2300. That's prob an extreme example but you'll never eat exactly the number.

 

[Vulcan]

Man if there was a true Super Soldier Serum like that, fuck I'm all in!

They are called steroids.