Lose Fat While Building Muscle? Dream or Reality?

lose fat while building muscle

If you’re like most people, you want to grow thicker slabs of hard muscle that attracts the opposite sex while simultaneously torching away squishy bodyfat like a fiery furnace.

This is called body recomposition or recomping for short. It’s a pretty controversial topic in the fitness industry. Some people think recomping is not possible cause it’s just too good to be true. Can you really build muscle and lose fat at the same time?

Let’s find out.

Why People Think Recomping is Not Possible

Some people think recomping is a fairytale. According to these haters, you need to be in a caloric deficit to lose fat and be in a caloric surplus to build muscle.

The first statement is usually true, but the second actually isn’t. You technically don’t need to be in a caloric surplus to build muscle. Muscle is built when muscle protein synthesis exceeds muscle protein breakdown which is just a fancy way of saying you need to construct more muscle than your body breaks down.

This can be done without eating in a caloric surplus. For muscle to grow, you simply need a muscle building signal, adequate protein intake, and energy from glycogen/triglycerides to sufficiently fuel the muscle building process (1).

You can get a muscle building signal by strength training progressively. You can get adequate protein intake by eating animal carcasses or swallowing a ton of beans if you’re into that whole vegan movement. And lastly, you can get plenty of glycogen/triglycerides from stored tissue in your body.

So as long as your body constructs more muscle proteins than you breakdown, you’ll have a net amount of muscle growth even as fat loss is occurring.

Furthermore, fat and muscle are completely separate tissues. Caloric balance can affect the size of stored tissue separately. Energy can be building up in one tissue while being broken down in another tissue over time almost like 2 separate bank accounts.

So anyone who tells you recomping is impossible doesn’t understand basic physics and should probably go back to a High School science class.

But Is Recomping Practical?

Recomping is most definitely possible, but is it practical? Can you see substantial results as opposed to merely losing fat or building muscle one phase at a time?

From a majority of the scientific studies and personal anecdote, it seems there are 4 categories of people where recomping can be viable.

1 – Beginner and intermediate Lifters

When you’re newer to lifting, you have a lot of muscle building potential. You haven’t experienced years of muscular tension where hypertrophy becomes more difficult and less pronounced.

Because of the giant ceiling of potential growth in new lifters, it’s pretty common to see beginners recomp when everything’s done properly (2,3,4,5).

2 – Overweight or Obese

Recomping is also viable in anyone that carries excessive bodyfat (6,7). The more you have, the more practical recomping becomes because you’ll have plenty of additional stored energy that can fuel the muscle building process (8).

This is less likely to happen in lean individuals as lean people have less available body fat and are more likely to breakdown protein for fuel which totally goes against the goal of recomping (8).

3 – Detrained individuals

Let’s say, you get jumped by a gang of kettlebell wielding midgets. You get severely injured and stop lifting for a few months until your injuries heal. When you start lifting again, assuming everything else is optimal, you’re now in a position to recomp thanks to those violent midgets.

The muscle you lost while laying in a hospital bed is easily rebuilt thanks to muscle memory (9). Some muscle size might’ve been lost, but the myonuclei which is the muscle control headquarters still remains and aid in rebuilding lost muscle quickly even if fat loss is simultaneously occurring.

This is still recomping, but to be fair, you’ll be losing fat and building the muscle you previously lost, not necessarily building new size that hasn’t been acquired yet. However, this is still good to know in case you’re forced to stop lifting extensively for whatever wild reason.

4 – People on the Sauce

Steroid users can also recomp. Various black-market substances can easily suppress muscle protein breakdown while ramping up muscle protein synthesis beyond natural levels. This is why enhanced lifters can create such epic physiques in a shorter time frame.

What About the Rest of Us?

So what if I’m not a gym noob, overweight, detrained, or on steroids? Is recomping practical?

Maybe? Studies that show recomping effects in advanced people are typically only found in elite athletes playing traditional sports (10). This doesn’t apply well to the average advanced lifter who’s had years of strength training experience because elite athletes typically have amazing genetics as well as being novices to strength training.

Yes, you read that right. I just called elite athletes noobs to strength training. Here’s why.

Many elite athletes, although deeply advanced in their sport don’t experience high levels of mechanical tension especially in body parts that are less vital for their sport. So while they are exceptionally trained in their sports, much of their muscle tissue when compared to advanced lifters, should be considered intermediate at best. This is what explains their ability to recomp in the studies.

Furthermore, there are also other flaws in thinking elite lifters can recomp because we see elite athletes in traditional sports recomp.

For example, elite gymnasts have been shown to recomp, but their training program involves training for nearly 5 hours a day which is massively unrealistic (11).

Football and Rugby players have also been shown to recomp slightly, but in both sports, steroid use is highly relevant along with players typically carry extra body fat, both factors making body recomposition more doable (12,13,14).

In non-traditional sports athletes, advanced lifters rarely see significant recomp changes and even then, the studies have many limitations like design flaws and unrealistic protein intake (15,16).

There also seems to be a trend that women are more likely to recomp because they typically have higher absolute body fat percentages (17).

As an advanced lifter, you have to do many things right and if you’re too lean, there’s little fat draw from to fuel the recomping process (22). All this to say, it’s not a guarantee and your only chances are with more body fat.

I like to describe recomping as a possible symptom as opposed to a goal. You don’t chase recomping. If you’re on a cut, you optimize as many variables as you can and recomping can potentially happen even in advanced lifters (22). However, during a bulk, recomping is likely not possible as a surplus of energy generally prevents net fat loss from occuring.

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So if you’re a veteran in the gym, already built a good amount of muscle, and don’t have much fat, recomping is not practical to further improve your physique.

For more robust body composition changes, it’s time to bulk and enter specific bulking/cutting phases.

In fact, purely bulking will build much more muscle than trying to build muscle in a deficit (18,19,20).

If You Do Recomp, Here’s How to Do It

If you fit one of the 4 categories above where recomping is practical or you want to try it anyways, here’s how to do it:

  • Eat in a small deficit: You need a deficit to lose fat, but the deficit can’t be too big or else your body becomes too catabolic to build muscle (10).
  • Eat at least 1.6 g – 2.2 g per kg of bodyweight of protein daily (16,21).
  • Strength train consistently: Lift heavy to get jacked. Pretty obvious.
  • Limit or restrict cardio: Cardio has been shown to interfere with muscle growth, so limiting it will increase your chances of seeing muscle hypertrophy during your recomp.
  • Manage lifestyle factors. Getting plenty of sleep and managing stress will maximize your body composition (22).
  • Accept that it’ll be slow: Losing fat and building muscle on it’s own is already a slow process, but when attempting both, expect to compromise progress on both ends. This is why recomping is best served for patient personalities which is rare nowadays.

The Epic Recomping Recap

Alright boys and girls, here’s what we learned today about trying to combine fat loss with muscle hypertrophy in the same phase:

  • Recomping is entirely possible.
  • Recomping is a viable option for those who are beginners, overweight, detrained, or on steroids.
  • If you’re an advanced lifter who’s lean, recomping is difficult and cutting/bulking cycles will be necessary to significantly improve your physique.
  • Cutting/bulking cycles will always produce more pronounced changes than recomping.
  • Recomping is slow and requires patience.
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  1. Atherton, P J, and K Smith. “Muscle Protein Synthesis in Response to Nutrition and Exercise.” The Journal of Physiology, Blackwell Science Inc, 1 Mar. 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3381813/.
  2. H, Arazi. “Effects of 8 Weeks Equal-Volume Resistance Training with Different Workout Frequency on Maximal Strength, Endurance and Body Composition.” ResearchGate.
  3. “Regional Body Composition Changes in Women after 6 Months of Periodized Physical Training.” Journal of Applied Physiology, www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.2000.88.6.2251.
  4. Treuth, M S, et al. “Effects of Strength Training on Total and Regional Body Composition in Older Men.” Journal of Applied Physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985), U.S. National Library of Medicine, Aug. 1994, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8002507.
  5. Iglay, Heidi B, et al. “Resistance Training and Dietary Protein: Effects on Glucose Tolerance and Contents of Skeletal Muscle Insulin Signaling Proteins in Older Persons.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413099.
  6. Donnelly, J E, et al. “Muscle Hypertrophy with Large-Scale Weight Loss and Resistance Training.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Oct. 1993, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8379514.
  7. Demling, R H, and L DeSanti. “Effect of a Hypocaloric Diet, Increased Protein Intake and Resistance Training on Lean Mass Gains and Fat Mass Loss in Overweight Police Officers.” Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2000, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10838463.
  8. Elia, M, et al. “Differences in Fat, Carbohydrate, and Protein Metabolism between Lean and Obese Subjects Undergoing Total Starvation.” Obesity Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 1999, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10574520.
  9. Schwartz, Lawrence M. “Skeletal Muscles Do Not Undergo Apoptosis During Either Atrophy or Programmed Cell Death-Revisiting the Myonuclear Domain Hypothesis.” Frontiers in Physiology, Frontiers Media S.A., 25 Jan. 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356110/.
  10. Garthe, Ina, et al. “Effect of Two Different Weight-Loss Rates on Body Composition and Strength and Power-Related Performance in Elite Athletes.” International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21558571.
  11. Paoli, Antonio, et al. “Ketogenic Diet Does Not Affect Strength Performance in Elite Artistic Gymnasts.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, BioMed Central, 26 July 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411406/.
  12. “The Effects of Self-Selection for Frequency of Training in… : The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research.” LWW, journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/abstract/1990/08000/the_effects_of_self_selection_for_frequency_of.3.aspx#pdf-link.
  13. MacKenzie-Shalders, Kristen L, et al. “Increasing Protein Distribution Has No Effect on Changes in Lean Mass During a Rugby Preseason.” International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Feb. 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26132746.
  14. Crewther, B T, et al. “The Effects of Two Equal-Volume Training Protocols upon Strength, Body Composition and Salivary Hormones in Male Rugby Union Players.” Biology of Sport, Institute of Sport in Warsaw, June 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4885621/.
  15. Heke, and Taati Owen. “The Effect of Two-Equal Volume Training Protocols upon Strength, Body Composition and Salivary Hormones in Strength Trained Males.” Home, Auckland University of Technology, 20 Mar. 2011, openrepository.aut.ac.nz/handle/10292/1173.
  16. Antonio, Jose, et al. “A High Protein Diet (3.4 g/Kg/d) Combined with a Heavy Resistance Training Program Improves Body Composition in Healthy Trained Men and Women–a Follow-up Investigation.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, BioMed Central, 20 Oct. 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4617900/.
  17. Hulmi, et al. “The Effects of Intensive Weight Reduction on Body Composition and Serum Hormones in Female Fitness Competitors.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 23 Dec. 2016, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2016.00689/full.
  18. “Pronounced Energy Restriction with Elevated Protein Intake Results in No Change in Proteolysis and Reductions in Skeletal Muscle Protein Synthesis That Are Mitigated by Resistance Exercise.” The FASEB Journal, www.fasebj.org/doi/full/10.1096/fj.201700158RR?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed&.
  19. Pasiakos, Stefan M, et al. “Acute Energy Deprivation Affects Skeletal Muscle Protein Synthesis and Associated Intracellular Signaling Proteins in Physically Active Adults.” The Journal of Nutrition, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2010, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20164371.
  20. Carbone, John W, et al. “Skeletal Muscle Responses to Negative Energy Balance: Effects of Dietary Protein.” Advances in Nutrition (Bethesda, Md.), American Society for Nutrition, 1 Mar. 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3648712/.
  21. Ribeiro, Alex S, et al. “Should Competitive Bodybuilders Ingest More Protein than Current Evidence-Based Recommendations?” Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), U.S. National Library of Medicine, 26 Apr. 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31028659.
  22. 1Department of Health Sciences and Human Performance. “Body Recomposition: Can Trained Individuals Build Muscle… : Strength & Conditioning Journal.” LWW

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