Yes. BUT! Many factors play a role: current muscle mass, body weight, body fat levels, lifestyle, gender, genetics, type of training, experience of training and diet.
How do we build muscle?
Muscle is built when muscle fibres are put under sufficient stimuli to causes microscopic damage. In the response to the micro-damaged muscle cells, the fibres are repaired through a cellular process. This process creates a response that releases many components such as inflammatory molecules, macronutrients and hormones. These components rebuild, repair and strengthen the muscle cells, creating a sturdier, bigger and overall more enhanced muscle.
The body adapts to these stimuli created and it no longer causes sufficient damage to the muscle cells. For continuous muscle growth, a greater stimuli is needed (heavier weights or more reps), therefore more components are needed and the cycle repeats itself.
How do we lose weight?
To lose weight the body needs to be in a calorific deficit.
Due to a lack of energy (calories) coming from the diet, the energy stored in the body (usually fat) is then used for the calories being spent. The greater the calorific deficit the more weight will be lost over a set period of time.
However, the less an individual weighs, (typically) the less energy the individual uses on a day to day basis, so greater calorie deficits are needed for weight loss and the cycle repeats itself.
Both of these cycle-processes are heavily dependent on the intensity of the activity, sleep, hormones, a nutrition programme and the individual.
The difficulty between building muscle and weight loss.
To build muscle we need be in an environment that continuously creates a sufficient muscle stress stimulus and a surplus amount of nutrition (especially protein) to keep up with the demand of repairing and rebuilding the micro-tears of the muscle fibres. To lose weight we need to be in a continuous calorie deficit. See the conflict?
However, it is still possible to build muscle mass and lose weight. Muscle building is heavily dependent on hypertrophy training and protein consumption. So overall, if the muscles are getting the sufficient amount of stimulus and protein (1.4-2g of protein per kg of body weight) this will still be adequate to create muscle growth. Yet we can still be in an overall deficit. A target deficit should be roughly -500kcals per day in comparison to calorie maintenance.
Greater calorie deficits are possible, however large energy deficits come with an array of physiological, psychological and emotional compromises. Some examples include:
Muscle atrophy (the breakdown of muscles)
Stress
Anger
Fatigue
Anxiety
Hunger
These compromises make life difficult, the last thing an individual would want to do is workout when their body is screaming out for more food. This usually results in individuals binge eating and greatly exceeding their calorie maintenance, causing weight (fat) gain.
Therefore, it's essential to find the right balance of training and diet...
Example of how to build muscle and lose weight simultaneously.
Lets take a 75kg man.
His calorie maintenance is 2100kcals.
For him to receive sufficient protein he would need to consume about 120g of protein.
(1.6g of protein x 75kg = 120).
120g of protein is 480kcals.
(1g of protein =4kcals).
To lose weight healthily, the recommendation would be to consume around 1600kcals.
(2100-500kcals).
This gives him about 1100kcals to come from the two other macronutrients (fats and carbohydrates).
1100kcals isn't that much throughout an entire day, and this is why it is difficult to build muscle and to lose weight at the same time.
As previously mentioned, when working out the body learns to adapts to these stresses. The more resilient it becomes, it becomes even harder to continuously grow muscle mass. When the activity is increased for a greater stimulus, more calories are used, causing greater hunger and a demand surplus of calories for the body to adapt efficiently.
Conversely, at the same time losing weight, you will need to consume even less calories to hit the correct calorie deficit (this is because the individual's calories maintenance has dropped due to weight loss).
If you want to lose weight and build muscle, the plan has to be very strict, sufficient and timing has to well managed. This isn't even including all the other factors such as gender, sleep, hormones etc...
Conclusion
To answer the question, can muscle be built whilst losing weight. Absolutely.
Is this the most optimal way? Absolutely not.
My advice would be to "bulk up", and try and grow as much muscle you can whilst limiting body fat increase (usually 8-12 weeks).
Then do a "cut", whilst doing a cut, try to reserve as much muscle as you can while losing body fat (usually 6-8 weeks).
If you would like to expeditiously build muscle, lose fat or you have any other questions/ advice related to this blog feel free to drop me an email or message.
Regards,
Greg
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