Hi all. I was reading John's update today and had a question about this part:


That means that this past week I lost approximately 1.4 pounds of fat, and gained 1 pound of lean mass.


Now, I was always told that you can either gain lean mass (while also accruing some measure of fat) or you can lose fat (while also sacrificing some measure of lean mass). This made sense to me, because you can't build muscle without a caloric surplus (which also adds fat) and you can't lose fat without a caloric deficit (which also eats into your lean mass). But according to John's update, he is somehow managing to lose fat and gain muscle at nearly the same rate. How is he doing it? Has he figured out a loophole in the laws of thermodynamics, or am I missing something?

Cheers.

Hi all. I was reading John's update today and had a question about this part:



Now, I was always told that you can either gain lean mass (while also accruing some measure of fat) or you can lose fat (while also sacrificing some measure of lean mass). This made sense to me, because you can't build muscle without a caloric surplus (which also adds fat) and you can't lose fat without a caloric deficit (which also eats into your lean mass). But according to John's update, he is somehow managing to lose fat and gain muscle at nearly the same rate. How is he doing it? Has he figured out a loophole in the laws of thermodynamics, or am I missing something?

Cheers.

I often see people saying such things as well. These days I tend to just put it down to inaccuracy of measuring BF% and weight as those are the only way you are going to workout how much lean mass and body fat you have. I may be completely wrong. Who knows?

Either way, I just read this quality line about this very topic that I was about to sig:

I'll grudgingly admit that it's possible to gain some muscle while losing some fat, for a short period of time, if you do everything perfectly. I imagine it's also possible to masturbate while riding a bicycle. In either case, though, trying to do both at the same time only ensures that you'll do neither one very effectively.

You can definitely lose fat and gain lean mass at the same time. It's harder to do once you are of a more advanced training age, but not impossible with proper nutrition. It's not always fast, but it can happen.

Newbies do it all the time because they often have a lot of fat to lose and very little muscle, so with proper resistance work will make pretty good gains both directions.

It's even backed up by scientific studies.

You can definitely lose fat and gain lean mass at the same time. It's harder to do once you are of a more advanced training age, but not impossible with proper nutrition. It's not always fast, but it can happen.

Newbies do it all the time because they often have a lot of fat to lose and very little muscle, so with proper resistance work will make pretty good gains both directions.

It's even backed up by scientific studies.

Right on! You won't build a ton of muscle but you don't have to have calories surplus to build muscle, it just makes it a bit harder. :bb:

Look at the numbers; you're talking about losing a whole 1.4 lbs of fat, and gaining a whole 1 lb of LBM.

Also consider John's situation, he's potentially regaining an amount of muscle tissue that has been present on his body before. During this process, his body isn't hitting new levels of strength that it's never been capable of, it's relearning for the most part (at least I think, I'm certainly not a historian on John's training career).

A blanket statement like "you can't gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, period" isn't going to go into near the amount of scenarios that are possible within the human body. For starters, how the heck do you define "the same time"?

But according to John's update, he is somehow managing to lose fat and gain muscle at nearly the same rate.
Most of the lean mass gain was probably additional water uptake in my muscles from the creatine.

Also, keep in mind that I lost some muscle while taking time off. Muscle memory may be playing a part here, too, and I may continue to see some small lean mass/muscle size gains as the cut progresses. Time will tell.

Variations/inaccuracies with my caliper readings are another possible consideration.

Of course we are only talking about one week's worth of data here. Give it some more time for a far more accurate picture.

The body is a system and tracking measurements and intake using a twenty four hour period is a trade-off for a reasonable approximation. If you could track (or even identify :lol:) all the various factors that go into muscle gain and fat loss in real time, you'd see that, even on an overall caloric deficit, at some times during the day (after meal times, for example) you are anabolic, while at other times you are catabolic. So, your body constantly oscillates between these states, building/losing muscle/fat, and whether you're overall gaining or losing weight depends on the net amount of energy stored, broken down, or just plain used.

For this reason, because there is this trade-off, it's true that you can't maximize either your fat loss or your muscle gain without minimizing the other. However, if you hit the right rhythm, you can do both at a proportional level -- the problem is that this rhythm easily changes because so many factors are involved. It's like trying to playing in tune with someone playing a song that not only do you not know but is being made up on the spot. It's not random, but it certainly isn't easy to follow and, truthfully, many of us can barely play the instrument in the first place.

If you're fat, losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time is a doddle.

The leaner you are the harder it becomes.

I wrote about this subject in greater detail for today's update (http://www.johnstonefitness.com/news/apr_2008_news_archive.php#04072008). :)

I've got you beat, John. In the last 12 hours I lost 0.5 lbs of fat and gained 3 lbs of "lean mass". It was a chemically enhanced quick gain. All those supplement dealers would be jealous. I was consuming the chemical H2O during my workout like it was water, then I weighed myself, and BAM massive gains! :)

Too bad I'm trying to cut...

I've got you beat, John. In the last 12 hours I lost 0.5 lbs of fat and gained 3 lbs of "lean mass". It was a chemically enhanced quick gain. All those supplement dealers would be jealous. I was consuming the chemical H2O during my workout like it was water, then I weighed myself, and BAM massive gains! :)

Too bad I'm trying to cut...
Haha ... are your sure you should be drinking H20 like it's water? I heard it can have negative side effects, such as frequent urination.

As has already been fairly established on this thread ... I wouldn't trust one week's worth of data, but rather trends over time. My measurements show I lost 0.8 lbs of fat and gained 0.4 lbs lean over the last week, based upon my bf% change and my weight change. However, I can look back over the last 3 months to Jan. 1 and see that while I've lost a net 4.5 lbs, 4.2 of that has been fat and 0.3 has been lean. Week-to-week the numbers don't "seem quite right" under the idea that you can't gain lean and lose fat at the same time, but over a longer baseline, they make more sense.

Hey all, just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to answer. The question's a whole lot clearer to me now.