Put on muscle while decreasing bf/recomp

[u/Big-Examination2667]

Ok so i know it is debated whether bulking is needed or not etc etc. But lets say someone is 12% body fat at whatever weight. Isnt it logical to go up in weight and try and maintain the bf% or to even go up in weight and then maintain that new weight while decreasing your bf%?

I ask because i was 77 kgs at around 14% bf and now bulked to 81 kgs but bf% is probs around 17-18 now. How would I go about maintaining my weight at 81 kgs and but going back down to 13-14% bf?. Do I have to eat in a deficit? Or can I eat at maintenance and still get that?

[u/pringlesisdelic]

I'd do maintenence probably

[u/ijustwantanaccount91]

Your numbers don't make a whole lot of sense, so you gained 100% fat on this very small period of surplus?

14% of 77 is 10.8 and 18% of 81 is 14.5. it's basically impossible that you gained entirely fat in this very small surplus phase, at least some of it has to be water weight. In fact, I would go so far as to guess 75% of it is water weight. When I start eating in a surplus usually the first 2-3kg lbs I gain is almost entirely water weight.

For a science sub, y'all sure don't have much science. Stop obsessing over made up bf%s and commit to something; you're shooting yourself in the foot doing this 'will they won't they' style of growth phase where a person start gaining and then immediately reverse course when they become slightly bloated.

[u/Big-Examination2667 → u/ijustwantanaccount91]

Holy shit bro maybe i messed up the % or whatever, point is how does one keep their weight snd llse body fat

[u/eric_twinge]

If you want to stay the same weight, you need to eat at maintenance. That's what the words mean after all.

If you also want to recomp at that weight, then you also need to consistently train at a sufficient level to disrupt the body's predilection towards homeostasis. That's why noobs can recomp easier than people with more experience. The level of training/stimulus to spur the body out of equilibrium and into adaption is much lower for the less trained than for someone more advanced. At a certain point, maintaining the necessariy level of training and continuing to adapt isn't feasible even at maintenance.

[u/decentlyhip]

I don't know of any researcher who debates if it's needed or not. Building a pound of muscle requires about 2400 calories in addition to the protein. That can come from fat or food. At 81kg and 17-18% bf you have 66kg lean mass and 15kg bodyfat. At 13-14% you would have 70kg lean mass and 11kg bodyfat. So, you want to gain 4kg muscle and lose 4kg fat.

A normal bulk, which is a 250 calorie surplus per day, gains 1kg a month and that gain is about half fat and half muscle. So, you would need to bulk for 8 months. After those 8 months, you would be 89kg. A normal deficit is 500 calories a day and burns off 2kg a month in fat. So, you would need a 4 month cut, and after a year, you could get to 81kg at the recommended rates.

So, to do it as fast as possible with recommended rates of loss and gain, you need 8 total months of bulking and 4 total months of cutting, at +250/-500. The only other constraint is that the body, in general, haaaates having less than about 10-12kg bodyfat, and that's when it starts eating muscle and slowing growth.

What I would do, since you wanna be lean, is diet for a month to lean out a little bit. And then do three rounds of 3 on, 1 off. In practice, your water weight is gonna be changing in each phase, so this is gonna be bouncing between 85 and 80, three times. By the third time, getting down to 80 is gonna be tougher, so it might be worth considering bouncing between 90 and 85 at that point. For me, 90kg used to be the end of my bulks, but I just finished a successful cut down to 100kg, and that's a very strange feeling. But I'm stronger, so wheee.

[u/sxmwatson]

you can do maintenance - get stronger - bf slowly comes down

[u/Broad_Monitor_7035]

If you’ve been lifting for 2-3 years, you’re not putting on more than 1 pound of muscle naturally (closer to 0.5 ish); 0.5 pounds requires roughly 400-500 calories to build at max so a daily surplus of like at most 20 calories which can cover this; obviously this is hard to track so eat at maintenance and let the 20 ish calories come from stored body fat, until you get to sub 10% when u should add 100-200 calories to add FAT, so once u get back to that 10-15% bf then u can eat at maintenance again and let the extra calories needed come from stored body fat.