Sport 500 calorie deficit

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Proteinboy

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what is the least somebody can eat without losing lean mass? i think i remember reading in NROL that eating a deficit can lead to muscle loss even while lifting. so is it really safe to have a 500 calorie deficit in terms of keeping muscle?

i had a very bad cutting cyle last time becuase i think i cut more than 500 cals and i lost a lot of muscle.
 
You're always going to loose muscle while cutting, the trick however is keeping that number to a minimum.

This is done by eating a high protein diet combined with heavy lifting.
 
Xenth said:
You're always going to loose muscle while cutting, the trick however is keeping that number to a minimum.
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No, I completely disagree. You will not ALWAYS lose muscle when cutting. The point in "cutting" is to cut the fat and maintain the muscle. I recently lost 19 pounds in a month and actually gained muscle, maintained/gained a little lbm, and gained strength. It can be done. Your diet has to be dead on. Protein high, fats high, carbs low. pwo nutrition is still important though.

to answer pb's question though, there isn't one set amount, it would vary by person depending on what your diet is/was going into the cut phase. I think it is safe to have a 500 caloric deficit in a cut phase, but again, and of course, your diet has to be dead on.
 
AJP said:
No, I completely disagree. You will not ALWAYS lose muscle when cutting. The point in "cutting" is to cut the fat and maintain the muscle. I recently lost 19 pounds in a month and actually gained muscle, maintained/gained a little lbm, and gained strength. It can be done. Your diet has to be dead on. Protein high, fats high, carbs low. pwo nutrition is still important though.

to answer pb's question though, there isn't one set amount, it would vary by person depending on what your diet is/was going into the cut phase. I think it is safe to have a 500 caloric deficit in a cut phase, but again, and of course, your diet has to be dead on.
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Beat me to it. I've been cutting for 10 weeks now, have lost 25 pounds, and have gone up on a couple lifts, and dips and pullups have gotten very pleasantly easier with all that blubber gone. Every time I leave that gym I can easily tell myself I have not lost a shred of muscle! Just gotta be disciplined...
 
:confused: can someone provide a valid source (review article) that suggests having a calorie deficit causes muscle dystrophy :confused:

I havnt really heard of this before and dont tend to believe it.

If the person is cutting and at the sometime undergoing weight/strength training this will stimulate the muscle beyond homestasis. The energy use to counterbalance the deficit will use the energy derived from the stored fat to undergo the same metabolic route as the carbohydrates would normally follow.
 
People who loose alot of muscle while cutting are usually not training well or are on a too large deflict.
Generally, the better your diet and training, the more deflict you can handle before starting to loose muscle.

If you go on a deflict without training or training too light, your body will think there are bad times (not alot of food avalable) the body will look for other places to get energy, fat and protein (muscle). Now, your body is made in such a way that it really wants to keep fat on, since its the emergency storage of energy, so if you dont lift heavy you will start loosing muscle. However if you lift heavy while on a deflict, your body will react with starting to burn fat and keep muscle, why? because our bodies adapt, it will always get rid of whats of no use and keep what is usable. Thus, if you lift heavy, while on a deflict, the body will find it the perfect time to start using from the stored fat, since if it takes muscle, your chanses of survival will decrease. (Keep in mind that in the bodies way of "thinking" we dont live in this society, we still live in caves where we have to fight lions and stuff every day to survive ;) )

there, thats the basic non scientific reason for it.. i dont really have any studies on hand, but i dont think you should find it too hard to find anything.

Matt:
you dont belive your body will start feeding off muscle when going into a calorie deflict?
Ever seen victims of hunger in africa and the likes.. no muscles. Seen pictures of the jews after WW2? only bone.. no muscle.
 
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ok well, are there any percentages that would probably work well for a cutting diet? 40-30-30 might be too much carbs so....a little help?

btw im just doing a bit of research for cutting so i can get cut up for the summer. WHOS WITH ME!?
 
Proteinboy said:
ok well, are there any percentages that would probably work well for a cutting diet? 40-30-30 might be too much carbs so....a little help?

btw im just doing a bit of research for cutting so i can get cut up for the summer. WHOS WITH ME!?
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I'm cutting right now too. I'm 172 and I'm going to get down to 160 by June 10th for LVs transformation contest. But my trainer has me lifting high reps..so there might be a problem.
 
Yeh but its in sequence of carbo - fat - then protein. Those jews for example, would have lost all their fat then after that source had gone the muscles would have diminished, to collect the protein.

quote - "Now, your body is made in such a way that it really wants to keep fat on, since its the emergency storage of energy, so if you dont lift heavy you will start loosing muscle"

i dont believe that either:) the body will use fat instead of protein whenever it can, it is only until there is not fat (which is in extreme cases) that muscle is used. The reason for this is pretty simple, thats the whole reason of having fat stored i.e big tummies :D , far latter use. The body wouldnt want to use muscle as this would be detrimental, as in the old days - to their survival.
 
not true. From an evolutionary standpoint, our ancestors wanted to store as much fat as possible. Because food was so scarce, any fat that they could store was precious, because it was unknown when the next time they would eat would be. So the people who were able to store this fat survived, while those who could not died off, and the ability to store and save fat was passed on to us. Fat has much more of an advantage than muscle if you are trying to survive.
 
matt182 said:
Yeh but its in sequence of carbo - fat - then protein. Those jews for example, would have lost all their fat then after that source had gone the muscles would have diminished, to collect the protein.

quote - "Now, your body is made in such a way that it really wants to keep fat on, since its the emergency storage of energy, so if you dont lift heavy you will start loosing muscle"

i dont believe that either:) the body will use fat instead of protein whenever it can, it is only until there is not fat (which is in extreme cases) that muscle is used. The reason for this is pretty simple, thats the whole reason of having fat stored i.e big tummies :D , far latter use. The body wouldnt want to use muscle as this would be detrimental, as in the old days - to their survival.
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Where are you coming up with this? That's so not true it's not even funny.
 
Matt - What are you talking about? That makes no sense on so many levels I don't even know where to begin. Karky already stated the logic behind the reason your body wants to use muscle before fat so I'm not going to repeat what he said. If you don't believe that just cut your calories super low and don't lift so much as one dumbbell. Let's see how you look in a few months.

"The energy use to counterbalance the deficit will use the energy derived from the stored fat to undergo the same metabolic route as the carbohydrates would normally follow."

I've read over this sentence five times and still can't make sense of it.

~Nicole
 
amp89 said:
not true. From an evolutionary standpoint, our ancestors wanted to store as much fat as possible. Because food was so scarce, any fat that they could store was precious, because it was unknown when the next time they would eat would be. So the people who were able to store this fat survived, while those who could not died off, and the ability to store and save fat was passed on to us. Fat has much more of an advantage than muscle if you are trying to survive.
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Blame our ancestors? :D Just kidding..there is scientific proof on this.



I also read a study somewhere that people who weight lifted 3 times a week while eating only 800 calories a day; lost all fat and lost no lean body mass. Its on t-nation.com. Let me put it up in a minute.

edit: "Dieting Disasters" on T-nation.com Testosterone Nation - Dieting Disasters

Furthermore, lets assume the typical dieter is going to be using a very low calorie diet (VLCD) regardless of how many times he or she is told that it's counterproductive (in the long run). Which of the following scenarios do you think they will be following?

1. Restricting calories plus performing 45-60 minutes of cardiovascular activity four to six times per week.

2. Restricting calories plus performing resistance training three to five times per week.

If you guessed "1" then you'd be correct. VLCD's typically result in loss of LBM and a decrease in Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). To offset this, many people think performing copious amounts of cardiovascular work will help prevent this cascade of events or at least cause a synergistic response to help speed fat loss.

In short... it makes things worse. In a study done by Bryner et al (1), their objective was to examine the effects that high volume resistance training in conjunction with a VLCD had on such parameters.

Two groups were made: C+D (cardio plus diet) and R+D (resistance training plus diet). Both groups consumed 800 kcal/day liquid formula diets for twelve weeks. The C+D group exercised one hour per day (4 times per week) by walking, biking, or stair-climbing. The R+D group performed resistance training three times per week at ten stations increasing from two sets of 8-15 reps to four sets of 8-15 reps.

RESULTS:

Maximum oxygen consumption (Max VO2) increased significantly, but equally in both groups. So much for the argument that anaerobic work (lifting weights) doesn't improve aerobic (cardiovascular) health. In addition, body weight decreased significantly more in C+D than R+D. However, the C+D group lost a significant amount of LBM (5.1 to 4.7 kg). No decrease in LBM was observed in R+D. In addition, R+D had an increase in RMR O2 ml/kg/min (2.6 to 3.1). The 24-hour RMR decreased in the C+D group.

That's an eye opener! Essentially what this study shows is the addition of resistance training resulted in the preservation of LBM and RMR even while drastically hypo-caloric (800 calories per day). The take home message? Go lift some heavy **** off the floor and stay away from the stairmaster.
 
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going over it i think there was a bit of confusion by everyone:)

What i meant was that an overweight person undergoing some sort of exercise wouldnt lose muscle !!!

I wasnt disagreeing that protein cant be used for energy, but it is the last resort (after fat).

i hope that clears things up. :eek:
 
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