Bodybuilding Forums

Just reading this article here:
http://www.musclehack.com/how-to-build- ... same-time/

The gist being you can run at a calorie deficit on a low carb diet, and assuming your protein is coming in along with other essential nutrients, you can burn the fat calories stored as body fat in order to create the energy needed to build muscle (as long as you have sufficient body fat of course). Do people have experience of this happening? Bascially I could eat maintenance calories (on MANS), build muscle, and burn fat down to six pack stage? Or is there a percentage of body fat where your body would rather eat your muscle than anymore body fat?

Par2 wrote:Do people have experience of this happening? Bascially I could eat maintenance calories (on MANS), build muscle, and burn fat down to six pack stage? Or is there a percentage of body fat where your body would rather eat your muscle than anymore body fat?

If you're eating maintenance calories, by definition, you are not in calorie deficit.

It depends on where you're starting out, I think. I lost 9 pounds of fat and gained almost 7 pounds of muscle between October and March, and that put me at 22.6% body fat. But I am a woman, so that is not as high as it sounds. It's right where you want to be for a woman, but it's not six-pack territory either, even for a woman. If you're new to working out and dieting, but still starting off at a low body fat, you might be able to build muscle and burn fat down to a six-pack, but there is by no means a guarantee that it'll happen simultaneously.

Each individual is unique, I think, with where he or she wants to stop quickly shedding fat.

Sorry that's not much of a definitive answer.

marochka_raduga wrote:If you eat a low carb/high fat diet and you go over maintenance calories, is it actually possible to get fat? Because if you've got low/no insulin elevation, then fat storage doesn't happen right? So is all the extra fat excreted?

Protein will create an insulin response. It's much delayed compared to carbs, but it's there.

A number of otherwise healthy individuals have demonstrated repeatedly that consuming a diet as high as 5,000 calories per day -- as long as it's around 90% fat -- doesn't lead to fat gain. It's very difficult to sustain such a diet, but I've read accounts of people doing so for 30 days at a time with zero fat gain. Very floaty stools, though. And if you eat just a little too much protein, it's all getting converted to carbohydrate and being stored as fat.

--Matt B.

Par2 wrote:Something else I'm wondering. If insulin is the reason excess fat is stored on the body, and if you eat a low carb/high fat diet and you go over maintenance calories, is it actually possible to get fat? Because if you've got low/no insulin elevation, then fat storage doesn't happen right? So is all the extra fat excreted?

In theory, yes. However, your body, being clever and not one to be outwitted by the machinations you are throwing at it, may have other ideas. Exercise makes you more sensitive to insulin, for one, and for another, depending on how you metabolize carbohydrates (Matt earlier proposed the possibility that young people have a higher tolerance), you may get huge insulin surges in response to very little carbohydrate intake. I suspect I fall into this category. It's not exactly diabetes, because your body produces insulin just fine, and I haven't been able to find any research explaining why this happens. Suffice it to say that you may not be able to find a carbohydrate level at which you can eat unlimited calories and have your body simply excrete unusued fat calories. Your body certainly would not be burning any stored fat in those circumstances, but theoretically you might be able to maintain. I think if you get to that point, that may be when it is critical to eat no more protein than necessary, because you may be getting an insulin response from any excess you eat.

There is one thing I can say with a certainty. When you get down to this level of fiddling with your diet and exercise, the tolerances are very tight and it is really a P.I.T.A.!

Par2 wrote: Or is there a percentage of body fat where your body would rather eat your muscle than anymore body fat?

I don't have any research to back this up, but from personal experience, it appears that my body switches from burning body fat to burning a considerable amount of muscle with the fat around 13%. It also seems that if I boost the protein intake around here, more muscle is preserved (or burned, then reformed). But that's not at all a scientific study

triple wrote:But that's not at all a scientific study

But it jives with what most males report: somewhere between 11% and 15% body fat, their bodies become very resistant to further fat loss. I think enough consistent experiences make for a decent rule of thumb, don't you?

--Matt B.

Par2 wrote:Just reading this article here:
Do people have experience of this happening? Bascially I could eat maintenance calories (on MANS), build muscle, and burn fat down to six pack stage? Or is there a percentage of body fat where your body would rather eat your muscle than anymore body fat?

You will not gain any weight if you eat maintenance calories, but if you eat MANS style and weight train you basically "convert" some of your current weight of fat into muscle by burning the fat off and gaining just enough muscle to compensate.

I was already pretty well trained at a low body fat level but after lowering my carbs and upping my protein while continuing to train I lost about 7-8 lbs of fat and put on that same 7-8 lbs in muscle. So while I weigh the same as I did, I look quite a bit different and really don't have much room to go any further in terms of fat loss. So now I'm upping my calories just a bit to start putting a few more pounds of muscle.

Yes, it's very hard at that level, and by hard I mean it just takes a long time and you need to keep at it without giving up. A typical male will need to get under 10% fat or so to see decent 6-pack definition unless your muscles are just genetically bulky and you worked your abs right they may be able to pop out a bit at higher levels, especially during periods of low water retention or after a workout when body fluids move away from your belly and into other parts of your body and your abs look extra awesome for a few hours.

Keep in mind too that the more overall muscle you are carrying, the easier it will be to keep your body fat low. I think redgiki talked about that somewhere - the reason your body tends to hoard the fat as you get lower is because your organs are packed in visceral fat, and they need to be. But, if you have more muscle, the proportions between visceral fat and body fat decrease (if you put on 20 pounds of muscle, your organs aren't going to grow proportionately) and it'll be easier to cut.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I got some body fat calipers the other day and using a 7 point calc I'm about 10% BF and using the 3 point calc 13%. So I'm guessing somewhere in the middle at about 11/12%. I can just about get a 6 pack with a tense, almost 4 pack at rest. So does that sound accurate?

I suppose its now likely that I'm not going to burn any of my body fat whilst on MANS, and to gain muscle, I'm going to HAVE to eat a calorie surplus. So theoretically (that word again), any long term weight gain from here on in should be lean muscle right?

Par2 wrote:

marochka_raduga wrote:If you eat a low carb/high fat diet and you go over maintenance calories, is it actually possible to get fat? Because if you've got low/no insulin elevation, then fat storage doesn't happen right? So is all the extra fat excreted?

Protein will create an insulin response. It's much delayed compared to carbs, but it's there.

A number of otherwise healthy individuals have demonstrated repeatedly that consuming a diet as high as 5,000 calories per day -- as long as it's around 90% fat -- doesn't lead to fat gain. It's very difficult to sustain such a diet, but I've read accounts of people doing so for 30 days at a time with zero fat gain. Very floaty stools, though. And if you eat just a little too much protein, it's all getting converted to carbohydrate and being stored as fat.

--Matt B.

Thanks for the info. Is this anything to worry about on MANS? I'm guessing MANS has a lot less calories as fat than 90% so it isn't such an issue?