Are you looking to build muscle but don’t think it’s possible to do so on a caloric deficit? You’ve come to the right place. This comprehensive guide will dive deep into the science behind building muscle on a caloric deficit and explore the practical strategies for achieving this goal. You’ll learn how to create an effective caloric deficit and ensure your body has enough protein, carbohydrates, and fats to build muscle. You’ll also learn how to adjust your training program to maximize muscle building and how to utilize supplements to bridge the gap. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of how to build muscle on a caloric deficit and how to apply the strategies to your unique situation. So, if you’re ready to gain muscle while cutting calories, let’s start!
Can You Gain Muscle In A Caloric Deficit?
Yes! Contrary to popular belief, you can build muscle in a caloric deficit. As long as you provide your body with the proper nutrients and maintain a consistent workout routine, you can gain muscle while losing weight. The key to accomplishing this is ensuring that your diet is high in protein and carbs. This will help to minimize muscle loss while you are in a deficit. And remember, it’s essential to focus on compound movements rather than isolation exercises if you want to maximize muscle growth.
How To Create An Effective Caloric Deficit
1. Define Your Target Caloric Intake
If you’re looking to build muscle on a caloric deficit, you must first determine your goal number. If you want to build muscle at a rate of 2 pounds per month, you’ll need to consume around 1,200 calories daily. If you want to build muscle at a rate of 3 pounds per month, you’ll need around 1,800 calories daily. It’s important that you don’t go too low or too high with your target number because if the number is too low, your body will slow down fat loss, and if the number is too high, your body will begin breaking down muscle for energy.
2. Track Your Daily Caloric Intake
The easiest way to track your daily caloric intake is by using a calorie-counting app like MyFitnessPal or LoseIt! These apps allow you to input the foods you eat and track your caloric intake. There are many other methods for tracking calories, like the “eat around” method, but these are our favorite options. We recommend using a calorie counting app because it allows you to accurately track and record your calories consumed.
3. Create A Spreadsheet Of What You’ve Eaten During The Day
The next step is to create a spreadsheet of what you’ve eaten during the day to accurately determine how many calories were consumed in each meal. To do this, go through your meal plan and add all the food consumed on that particular day. So, if you have breakfast at 7 a.m., you’ll add all the food and enter it into your spreadsheet. If you have lunch at 12 p.m., you’ll add up all the food and enter it into your spreadsheet.
4. Track Your Daily Caloric Intake For One Week
Once you’ve created a spreadsheet of what you ate during the day, it’s time to track your daily caloric intake for one week to create a baseline number. We recommend doing this because if you don’t track calories, it will be hard to know how close or far off your calorie target is because so many variables could affect how much food was consumed on any given day. So, tracking calories for one week will give us a good idea of how well we stick to our goal number each day.
5. Increase Your Daily Caloric Intake By 20%
Once we’ve tracked our calories for one week, it’s time to increase our daily caloric intake by 20%. We do this because we want to get enough calories each day to support our muscle growth goals. The reason is that if we aren’t consuming enough calories each day, our body will begin breaking down muscle tissue for energy, and fat loss will slow down. So, increasing your daily caloric intake by 20% will help ensure that your body has enough energy and nutrients to continue building muscle mass. Once this is complete, it’s time to check in with your diet plan again.
Protein Intake
1. The Importance Of Protein
Without a doubt, the most important nutrient for building muscle is protein. Without adequate protein, you’ll be unable to build muscle mass and recover from your workouts. Furthermore, you won’t be able to sustain your muscle-building efforts during a calorie deficit. If you’re not eating enough protein, your body will likely turn to your muscles for energy during caloric restriction. This can lead to muscle loss and possibly even lean body mass loss (LBM) if you don’t adjust your diet appropriately.
2. The Recommended Intake Of Protein
As we discussed above, the recommended daily intake (RDI) of protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day (g/kg/day). However, this recommendation is based on the average human weight and is not specific to the needs of an athlete looking to build muscle mass (1). As an athlete pursuing muscle hypertrophy, you’ll need to eat more protein than the average person. To achieve this goal, we recommend consuming 1.2 – 1.5 grams of protein per kg of body weight, depending on you.
3. How Much Protein Should I Eat?
The amount of protein you need each day depends on your body weight and goals. However, we suggest a range of 1.5 – 2.0 grams of protein per kg of body weight. If you weigh 200 pounds, you should consume between 150 – 300 grams of protein per day. To gain muscle mass, you’ll need to eat more than the recommended range if your goal is hypertrophy. If you want to lose fat and gain muscle or maintain lean mass during a caloric deficit, then it’s best to eat below the recommended range.
Carbohydrates And Fats
1. Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are the primary energy source of your body. They provide energy for all your daily activities, so it’s a vital part of your diet. Your body uses carbohydrates to produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is the main energy source for all body cells. It’s also used to activate muscle growth, so it’s essential that you get enough carbohydrates in your diet.
2. Fats
Fats are the second most important energy source for your body, providing you with several essential nutrients. One of the main ways that fat provides your body with energy is by producing ATP. Fat also provides trace amounts of essential fatty acids necessary for many cellular processes. Fats also play an important role in cell membrane structure and are an excellent substrate for testosterone production.
3. Protein
Protein is an essential nutrient that provides your body with amino acids that produce ATP. Protein also activates muscle growth. However, protein is not a source of energy because it doesn’t contain carbohydrates or fats. It’s a vital part of any diet because it helps repair muscles after workouts by building blocks for new muscle cells. You can build more muscle on a higher-protein diet than on a high-carbohydrate diet.
Training For Muscle Building
1. Build Muscle By Lifting Weights
The foundation of building muscle is lifting weights. You need to lift weights to build muscle, and you must do so progressively. This means you’ll want to increase the weight you’re lifting over time.
2. Perform Multiple Repetitions
Performing multiple repetitions with each set is one of the best ways to build muscle fast. When performing multiple repetitions, you’ll be able to get more volume into your workouts while avoiding plateaus or losing motivation. This will help ensure that your body continues to grow even when it’s not being pushed as hard by a particular exercise or workout routine.
3. Lift Heavy Weights For High Reps And Low Reps For Heavy Weights
To stimulate muscle growth, you must lift heavy weights for high reps and low weights for low reps (or vice versa). If you lift heavy weights for low reps, your body will adapt to this stimulus, and you’ll begin to see more muscle growth even when your volume is lower. If you lift heavy weights for high reps, your body won’t adapt as quickly, and you’ll still be able to stimulate muscle growth.
4. Perform A Compound Exercise For The Major Muscles
If you want to build muscle fast, you should focus on using compound exercises targeting several major muscles simultaneously. For example, if your goal is to build leg muscles, you should focus on using squats and lunges for the legs and deadlifts and leg presses for the hamstrings and glutes (in addition to other exercises, of course). By performing a variety of compound exercises, your body will continually have new stimuli that it needs to grow muscle.
Conclusion
Building muscle while cutting calories is possible, but it requires a lot of discipline and attention to detail. To build muscle while cutting calories, you should determine your maintenance level by tracking your food intake or using a calculator. Once you know your maintenance level, you can create a caloric deficit by eating 10% – 20% less than your maintenance level. You should also switch from a high-intensity training program to a moderate-intensity training program, increase the time you spend lifting each muscle group, and consume BCAAs and creatine as supplements. If you follow these steps, you can build muscle while cutting calories!
