When I gain muscle, I gain fat, and when I lose fat, I lose muscle. This is BS

[dawn16]

@silas0307 Partly genetic probably, but don't lean on that too much. You should be eating a lot of protein throughout the day, especially when you have your particular goal in mind.

You didn't mention your diet. Most people I know personally who say they do eat plenty of protein barely do. If I were you, I'd analyze your protein intake across all meals and see if you can improve on that. Keep lifting weights to support muscle mass, even (especially) if you're trying to lose weight.

 

[cristinerose]

@silas0307 When cutting. Keep your protein intake high and keep training. And the obviously a slight caloric deficit. Too big of a deficit and you will lose muscle.

When bulking, keep your protein intake high and lift heavy. And obviously a slight caloric surpluss.

If you lose muscle when cutting. Your protein intake is not enough and you might be cutting too hard.

If you get fat when bulking you're bulking way too hard. Eating way too much.

 

[didier]

@silas0307 To add to what other people are saying, just eat more protein IN COMPARISON to other macros. Or just eat less honestly. You are probably just eating too much for how much you are exercising and being active (NEAT).

Also, if you notice your title versus your post content, it seems like you could be equating visible muscle gains with strength. Those aren't exactly the same. You could get stronger without visibly putting on a ton of muscle, though you would certainly still gain some and look leaner. Unless you are going for a specific look, you could just focus your diet on replenishing your muscles and not growing in size.

 

[more]

@silas0307 When you put on muscle, you will gain fat as well. It's the nature of the beast. To lose fat and retain muscle you need to be in a slight deficit and still lift heavy, but you will also lose a small amount of strength.

IMO just be strong and thick at 15-20% looks better than a shredded rake

 

[neuestestament]

@silas0307 Gonna thread jack here because not only do I have the same problem, but if I add a modest amount of muscle over 4-6 months I lose all that shit in like a blink of an eye. Currently on vacation and looking like a twig

 

[wildebear]

@silas0307 You learn how to periodize and cycle through phases of lean gaining to build strength and muscle followed by cutting to emphasize fat burning and muscle tone

 

[rsm777]

@silas0307 ARE you fat and strong? or are you just fat?

 

[silas0307]

@rsm777 Not that fat, 18% body fat

 

[rsm777]

@silas0307 there were two parts to that question...

if your diet and training is anything like your posting, it's half assed. do you actually want help or just feels dumping? w/e just read all of thefitness.wiki and commit to something.

 

[jomarc]

@silas0307 If you bulk with cheeseburgers, you will have a cheeseburger body.

 

[yuqingeng2007]

@silas0307 I'd rather be fat and strong any day over being a skinny wimp. But for years now I eat clean nutritious veggies and so I'm quite lean and muscular.

 

[crazeehell]

@silas0307 Continue lifting hard and heavy with volume at every stage

LEAN bulk when bulking (like 200-300 excess calories a day max)

REALLY increase protein intake when cutting (like 1.5-2g/lb) and make sure you continue lifting hard

/thread

 

[econ201]

@silas0307 Aside from beginners, I’ve found surprisingly little research on the best strategies to build muscle mass and burn fat (whatever structure that ends up taking), seemingly because research funding either goes towards improving elite athletes’ performance, towards public health concerns, or towards specific medical conditions. That leaves a vacuum where people (who are doing their best) parrot something they heard that sounds plausible.

The thing that I know about science is that you can’t assume very much, and you have to pay careful attention to what the research isn’t saying. If short-term studies (which are relatively cheap to fund) show that beginners can build muscle mass and burn body fat simultaneously, that leaves us (or at least me) with a lot of questions. Is it only beginners who experience this, or are people who have been regularly active able to have the same phenomenon but to a lesser extent? Or does the phenomenon disappear? What nutrition is required? And more.

The problem is, and people may not like this, the studies I have seen don’t exactly support a lot of the claims I see repeated online, and often when people cite studies, they infer way more from them than the articles actually back up. However, I also don’t have the time, energy, or desire to argue with people online that I don’t know, so I don’t. The hard truth is that plausible sounding “conventional wisdom” is just as often proven wrong as it’s proven right, whenever it finally undergoes rigorous study. So if there’s a lack of scientific consensus on a topic, I just accept that the conventional wisdom is more of a best guess than anything else.

All of that to say, my current understanding is that there’s a lot of open questions in science about how to build muscle mass and lose body fat (because there’s not a lot of research funded towards studying that), and whether that can occur at the same time for non-beginners, or if it can only occur in sequential bulking and cutting cycles, and either way what are the requirements for such a thing to occur. I have my own pet hypotheses but they’re just best guesses like everyone else’s. Wish I could be more helpful.

 

[dekaewaii]

@silas0307 If you sleep 8+ hours a night, you gain about twice the muscle when you're bulking, and lose twice as much fat vs muscle when you're dieting. So I bet your sleep is fucked. Turn off any alarms on your phone and go to bed early enough that you wake up naturally. Huzzah! You're problem will be fixed.

-a random guy who hasn't used an alarm clock in 15 years.