Gain Muscle While Losing Fat Possible?

[ChadAV]

I’m 32% bodyfat with an FFMI of around 19, so I’m a beginner. Recomping is really working for me. The trick is recovery. You have to optimize recovery since you don’t have the excess food to help you. I sleep 8-9 hours a night and only train to 2-3RIR and it’s like I’m on roids.

[mr.tbennington]

Can confirm. Dropped fat from 227 to 208 in 12-15 weeks recomp from 208-205 swapping about 10 pounds of fat for 7 pounds of muscle too a full year. Now cutting fat again from 205 to 181 and shooting for low 170s

[mikearonson]

I am on a caloric deficit in a cutting phase.
I eat more than enough protein to gain lean muscle while losing fat, but have not gained any new muscle at all. I am merely maintaining my muscle mass while burning fat. I have lost 1/2 inch on my arms from water retention loss. But, I'm looking amazing.
Actually looking forward to my next bulk in 3 months. I will eat 100% clean on this next bulk phase to try and maintain my definition.

[timothychristie]

Going into my second month of lifting. I’m planning on starting to aim for a deficit in a month or so when I’m able to balance gym/work/life with a few items I need. I haven’t lost any weight in two months but already feel so much stronger and thanks to your videos confident that I am still going in the right direction. That and my wife saying she sees “something” lol. Appreciate what you do and thank you. Over weight trucker gonna get fit!

[MagnusStormfist]

I wasted 1 year of training on recomping. Barely gained anything and I just lost weight slowly when I could of just cut for 2 months and bulked again to gain mass. Do not fall for that maingaining/recomping trap people!

[myfirstrodeo]

Great advice because I’m 4 months in to my weight loss journey and I can’t build muscle yet without losing this fat first. Makes sense. Thanks.

[WiredTenshi]

Between noob gains + starting a solid 100 pounds overweight I’m able to gain noticeable amounts of strength and muscle despite being at a 600 cal daily deficit. I acknowledge this will slow down as I even out

[flaffa]

I only like recomping/maingaining at the end of a bulk to peak in strenght for a good 3-6 months. Doing it purely to build muscle seems like a huge waste of time

[mykal]

So, im staying between 190 and 196. I can set a new p.r everytime i workout. Everytime. So this doesnt really concern me yet right? I just keep doing what im doing.

[swalkernutritioncoach]

Yes I'm a living witness as a beginner as Mike specified

[dootmcsploot]

Muscle burns more calories than fat. More muscle means more calories burned. Eventually you put yourself in a caloric deficit and start to lose weight.


This is not rocket science

[pupper]

This was my thought process when I wanted to increase my strength PRs. Just don't care at all what you look like, just eat like a monster and maximize the strength gains. After I reached my PRs I focused on looking sexy and losing weight. This way I reach my goals fast and I can go back to looking sexy and healthy fast - and I can spend more time focusing on looking sexy.

Edit: as a guy talking about looking sexy sounds gay af. I need to rethink this lol.

[TheGreektrojan]

The problem with recomping isn't just that its slower than bulk/cut, its that its slower by like an order of magnitude as you go beyond the beginner stages for what is already a slow, multiyear process. Even as a beginner, you can probably gain on a cut, or you are natural skinny and are resistant to fat gain/need the boost on a bulk to add weight. Recomping is only a good strategy for rank novices who are resistant to bulk/cuts psychologically or for long term maintenance.

[alec]

To be fair, I’d imagine someone beyond an intermediate level of fitness is probably already too fit to have this predicament

[TehIdiotOne]

Recomposition works if you're already fat or otherwise just starting out, but otherwise agree that once you're past that, not really useful anymore.

[simulationescape]

It certainly can be done. To me recompositioning is just waking up your body to bring to back to where your strength was before taking the time off. When working toward these strength goals I'm not intentionally trying to get leaner while I do my work. To me the answer is intensity and playing with it's level to achieve a certain strength goal or muscular endurance ( probably some numbers you used to do before getting out of the gym). It can be done maybe not being sliced and diced to the socks, but certainly more muscular, more dense, and less of a gut. For me this process takes about 6-9 months.

[speedyduranr]

So I just gotta deal with the fact that I'll get weaker during a cut? 😢

[BulkBrogan.]

What about if you're obese and losing weight?
I've already lost 70lbs and have another 70 to lose but am entering a muscle gain phase to them move into a strength phase for a meet me and a friend are entering next year
Do I eat what would be a bulking diet for my goal weight?
But that's still a deficit currently

[Bevzthejcs]

I'm obese (280lbs), but been training for 12 months, in that time i've not really lost any weight but i have definitely built up a fair bit of muscle so for me recomp has worked even though it wasn't really the plan. I guess it's worked because i'm a beginner. Not sure what to do now as i need to lose weight; For now, i'm carrying on as i am because it's nice to be building muscle but i've introduced a lot more cardio and put myself in a slight defecit. i'll do that for a few months and see how i progress, if that doesn't work i'll do a proper cut for a few months. I need to lose weight but I don't want to be skinny if you know what i mean.

[thehubrisoftheunivris]

I've been running into fat loss walls. So I'm kind of doing a 10 lb loss while weight training and being really hungry but not enough to lose strength. I'm pretty sure I'm intermediate and have good genetics though. Recomp is a new term to me. But it works pretty well most of the time. Just sometimes i don't lose any fat for like a week. Still getting gains though.