Losing fat while gaining muscle via body recomposition│Dr. Brad Schoenfeld

Summary

The video discusses the effects of resistance training on body composition, highlighting how it improves lean mass, which includes muscle and water, and can help with fat loss when combined with caloric restriction. It emphasizes the importance of resistance training to avoid muscle loss during fat loss, and how recomposition (gaining muscle while losing fat) is more achievable for those with excess body fat or beginners. Sufficient protein intake is necessary, especially in a caloric deficit, to preserve muscle mass, but resistance training remains key to preventing muscle loss.

Takeaways

• 🏋️‍♂️ Resistance training increases lean mass, which is often referred to as fat-free mass, including muscle and water.
• 📉 Exercise alone is not the most effective method for fat loss; reducing calorie intake through nutrition is generally more efficient.
• ⚖️ Combining resistance training with a calorie deficit through proper nutrition is essential to minimize muscle loss during fat loss.
• 💪 Cardiovascular exercise burns more calories than resistance training but doesn't preserve muscle as effectively during fat loss.
• ⚖️ Without resistance training, 25-30% of weight loss can come from muscle, which can be avoided by lifting weights.
• 🔄 Recomposition, or gaining muscle while losing fat, is possible, especially in people with a lot of fat to lose or beginners to training.
• 🚫 Maximizing muscle gain while losing fat is difficult; to fully optimize muscle growth, a caloric surplus is generally required.
• 🍗 Adequate protein intake is crucial in a calorie deficit to help preserve muscle, especially for those who don't engage in resistance training.
• 📊 Protein requirements increase during a caloric deficit, more than for individuals at maintenance or in a surplus, to support muscle preservation.
• ⚖️ Even aerobic exercise paired with sufficient protein won't prevent muscle loss entirely if resistance training is not incorporated.

Q & A

What are the main benefits of resistance training on body composition?

Resistance training improves lean mass, largely muscle mass, and can positively affect fat-free mass, which includes muscle and water. It helps in building muscle while potentially reducing fat.

Can you gain muscle without gaining fat mass?

Yes, it is possible to gain muscle without gaining fat mass, especially for those with a lot of fat to lose or beginners in resistance training. However, maximizing muscle gain generally requires being in at least a maintenance or small caloric surplus.

How does resistance training affect fat-free mass?

Resistance training can increase fat-free mass by building muscle. Fat-free mass includes muscle and water, so gains in water retention can also show as increased fat-free mass in body composition measurements.

Is exercise alone an effective way to lose body fat?

Exercise, including both cardiovascular and resistance training, can help with fat loss, but it is not the most efficient way. Reducing caloric intake through diet is typically more effective for losing body fat, with exercise serving as an important adjunct.

Why is resistance training important during fat loss?

Resistance training is crucial during fat loss because it helps prevent muscle loss. Without resistance training, approximately 25-30% of the weight lost can come from muscle mass, especially if protein intake is insufficient.

Can you gain muscle while losing fat (recomping)?

Yes, body recomposition—gaining muscle while losing fat—is possible, especially for those who are overweight or new to training. However, this becomes more challenging for individuals with more training experience or those closer to their genetic ceiling for muscle gain.

Is it possible to lose fat without losing muscle if you're only doing cardio and eating sufficient protein?

Even with sufficient protein intake, if you are not doing resistance training, you are likely to lose muscle mass, though the protein will help to reduce the amount of muscle lost. This is especially true for individuals who aren't significantly overweight.

How does protein intake affect muscle retention during a caloric deficit?

Sufficient protein intake during a caloric deficit helps preserve muscle mass, but it is not enough on its own. Resistance training is still necessary to fully maintain muscle mass, and protein requirements may actually increase during a deficit.

Why is it harder to recomp for those who are closer to their genetic potential for muscle gain?

As individuals get closer to their genetic ceiling for muscle mass, it becomes more difficult to gain additional muscle, especially while losing fat. This is because their bodies are already operating near their natural limits for muscle growth.

What role does anabolic steroid use play in body recomposition?

Anabolic steroids can dramatically enhance body recomposition, allowing users to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously at a much greater rate than natural methods. However, this is not relevant for most people seeking to improve their body composition naturally.

Outlines

00:00

🏋️‍♂️ The Impact of Resistance Training on Body Composition

This paragraph discusses the benefits of resistance training, focusing on its effects on body composition, particularly improving lean mass (muscle) and fat-free mass. The speaker emphasizes that while resistance training helps increase muscle mass, it's important to note that certain body composition measures, such as underwater weighing and DEXA, can sometimes include water weight in the fat-free mass category. The discussion also touches on how resistance training, when combined with proper nutrition, can be an effective way to manage fat loss. However, the speaker notes that exercise alone isn't the most efficient way to lose body fat, as it's much easier to reduce calories through diet than to burn calories through exercise. Still, resistance training helps preserve muscle mass during fat loss, which is crucial to preventing muscle deterioration during a caloric deficit.

05:03

🥩 Protein, Caloric Deficit, and Muscle Preservation

This paragraph delves into the relationship between caloric deficits, protein intake, and muscle preservation. It explains that while maintaining sufficient protein intake during a caloric deficit can help reduce muscle loss, resistance training is crucial to fully preserving muscle mass. The speaker clarifies that without resistance training, muscle loss is inevitable, especially for individuals who aren't significantly overweight. Additionally, even when resistance training, if protein intake is inadequate, muscle mass may still be lost. The speaker emphasizes that protein needs increase during caloric deficits, compared to periods of maintenance, to support muscle maintenance and growth.

Keywords

💡Resistance Training

Resistance training involves exercises that improve muscle strength by working against an external force. It’s highlighted in the script as a crucial method for improving body composition, including increasing lean mass, which largely comprises muscle. It helps maintain muscle mass during fat loss and can even promote muscle gain under the right conditions.

💡Body Recomposition

Body recomposition refers to the process of simultaneously losing fat and gaining muscle. The speaker explains how resistance training plays a key role in achieving this, particularly in individuals with higher body fat or those new to training. However, it is noted that maximizing muscle gain may require being in a calorie surplus.

💡Lean Mass

Lean mass consists of everything in the body except fat, including muscles, bones, water, and organs. The script explains that resistance training increases lean mass, particularly muscle. Lean mass is important for overall body function, and its preservation is emphasized during weight loss to prevent muscle degradation.

💡Fat-Free Mass

Fat-free mass refers to all the components of the body except fat, similar to lean mass. However, the script notes that many measurement techniques, such as bioelectrical impedance analysis, can mistake water for muscle mass, indicating the complexity of accurately assessing fat-free mass.

💡Caloric Deficit

A caloric deficit occurs when the body burns more calories than it consumes, which is essential for fat loss. The speaker mentions that while exercise contributes to energy expenditure, reducing calorie intake through nutrition is the more efficient way to create a deficit and lose body fat.

💡Protein Intake

Protein intake is critical for maintaining muscle mass, especially when in a caloric deficit. The script explains that adequate dietary protein can help preserve lean mass during fat loss, though resistance training is still necessary to fully prevent muscle loss. Protein needs may also increase during weight loss.

💡Energy Expenditure

Energy expenditure refers to the total calories burned by the body through physical activity, metabolism, and other functions. The script discusses how exercise, particularly cardiovascular activities, can increase energy expenditure, but emphasizes that it’s often easier to manage fat loss through calorie reduction than relying solely on exercise.

💡Anabolic Steroids

Anabolic steroids are synthetic substances that mimic the effects of testosterone, promoting muscle growth. The speaker briefly mentions that steroid use can drastically enhance body recomposition, but this is an outlier and not relevant to most people seeking to improve their body composition naturally through diet and exercise.

💡Muscle Loss

Muscle loss can occur when the body breaks down muscle tissue for energy, particularly during fat loss without resistance training. The speaker highlights that without lifting weights or maintaining adequate protein intake, a significant portion of weight lost during dieting could come from muscle rather than fat.

💡Cardiovascular Exercise

Cardiovascular exercise includes activities like running or cycling, which primarily focus on improving heart and lung function. While it’s effective for increasing energy expenditure, the script explains that cardio alone won’t prevent muscle loss during fat loss. Therefore, resistance training should be combined with cardio to achieve optimal results.

Highlights

Resistance training improves lean mass, primarily muscle mass, and can positively affect body recomposition.

Measures like DEXA or underwater weighing often reflect fat-free mass, which includes muscle and water, not just muscle mass.

Fat-free mass includes everything except fat mass, making it important to distinguish between water gain and muscle gain.

Exercise alone is not the most efficient way to lose body fat; reducing calorie intake through diet is more effective.

Cardio is more effective at burning calories than resistance training, but both are necessary to support fat loss.

Resistance training is essential to preserve muscle mass during fat loss, preventing up to 30% of muscle loss without it.

Recomposition, or gaining muscle while losing fat, is possible, especially for those with higher body fat or beginners.

Maximizing muscle gain usually requires at least maintenance-level calories or a slight surplus, not a caloric deficit.

Anabolic steroids can significantly enhance recomposition, but this is not relevant for the general population.

Beginners or people with higher body fat can experience dramatic recomposition, as observed in both anecdotal and controlled studies.

Protein intake is crucial during a caloric deficit to prevent muscle loss, especially in those not doing resistance training.

Sufficient protein intake can help preserve muscle mass, but without resistance training, muscle loss is still likely.

Those who are very obese may not lose much muscle during fat loss due to having significant fat reserves.

Even with resistance training, inadequate protein intake can lead to muscle loss during a caloric deficit.

Protein requirements increase during a caloric deficit to maintain muscle mass or even gain some muscle, compared to when at maintenance.

Transcripts

with respect to body composition so you

know we were talking about the benefits

of resistance training on bone density

obviously muscle mass and people are now

thinking about those things but you know

back in the day you know body

composition and it still is important as

well but but that was kind of one of the

major

um things people would think about like

why they should do resistance training

how can you talk like a little bit about

body like how does resistance training

you know affect body recomposition can

you gain muscle without gaining fat Mass

sort of sort of things like that oh

great question so

um well let's start from the basics that

resistance training can improve

certainly it improves lean mass which is

largely muscle mass when I do think it's

important to understand like certain

measures underwater weighing like a lot

of the measures that you'll see dexa

um underwater weighing Bia bioelectrical

imputence analysis they are looking at

not necessarily muscle mass whether

there are ways to try to derive that but

when you're when they talk about

fat-free mass and lean mass generally

depending on the measure they're

combinations of in the very least muscle

and water so it's not necessarily just

if you're gaining water that'll show up

as fat-free Mass that's not anything

outside of fat Mass would be fat free

Mass

um and that I think is somewhat

important to understand there but with

that said uh resistance training

certainly can impact fat-free Mass

aspect and it can help with fat mess now

I I want to say in general and this goes

for cardiovascular exercise too

um exercise is not the best way to lose

body fat it can help it's certainly I

think a good adjunct to a fat loss

program which I'll get to in a second

but you have to do a lot of exercise to

meaningfully lose fat whereas it's just

much easier to do it through reducing

the calories and nutrition the energy

intake so for instance if you do an hour

of cardiovascular exercise and hard you

know where you're running for the most

part I mean you can burn five 600

calories in that hour

uh you know that's do you have a bag of

potato chips that could pretty much

offset everything you've done

um whereas if you focus on reducing the

energy intake through your food and

using exercises and adjunct it can

certainly help with the weight loss not

only in terms of increasing energy

expenditure to some extent uh Because by

the way doing an hour of exercise every

day

for most people it's just not a it

becomes very laborious

um and that's just cardio like I said

you want to do uh resistance training as

well and resistance training cardio

actually is somewhat more effective just

purely from creating more energy

expenditure than resistance training is

but here's the catch it is in my humble

opinion fundamental to uh combine

resistance training at the very least

with an energy deficit through uh

nutritional restriction to promote

weight loss and here's why if you do not

lift weights

even if you just do cardio you will lose

muscle as you're losing body fat and

there are

um

depending upon how you're going about it

um evidence shows 25 percent to 30

percent of the weight loss will come

from muscle so you might lose let's say

70 fat and it can even be more if you're

a somewhat leaner and 30 percent coming

from lean mass if you don't do

resistance training now you talked about

recumb

uh resistance training not only will

Stave off the loss of fat-free Mass

often

but you can actually Recon reconc means

you can gain muscle while losing fat

there are two primary factors and I'll

leave that so there's three the elephant

in the room is anabolic steroid use so

if you're doing and about taking

anabolic steroids yeah you can have

serious recount but putting that aside

that's probably not your audience or

most of the people listening here the

two primary factors are number one how

how much weight do you have to lose so

are you obese the more weight you have

to lose the easier it is to recomp

also how long have you been training so

someone who has a lot of years of

experience of training that's higher to

their closer to their genetic ceiling uh

we'll have a more difficult time

recomping

um now I will so by the way so if you

have a lot of body fat to lose and

you're just starting out you can do

serious Recon I see this all the time

not only anecdotally have I seen this in

clients but we have controlled

experiments run through our lab where I

see this all the time an individual

subjects that we have

um you cannot however maximize muscle

mass while you are losing fat so this is

important if your goal is to go into

let's say a mass gaining cycle where you

want to let's say bodybuilders do this

or strength athletes and your goal is to

maximize muscle development you're at

the very minimum going to need to be at

maintenance and generally you're going

to need to be in a small Surplus where

you're going to gain a little bit at

least some amount of fat

okay

um boy this was this fantastic

information I'm just it's sinking all in

um so

can if you are in a caloric deficit

and this kind of brings us into the

protein dietary protein requirements

World a little bit

if you are in a caloric deficit and but

you are and we should probably talk

about what the protein requirements are

but let's say you are getting sufficient

protein intake daily protein intake to

counter to prevent your your body from

pulling protein out of your muscle

basically

um

can you not lose the lean mass or muscle

mass let's say you're not doing

resistance training but you are just

getting the protein in

say you're doing aerobic but you're

still in the caloric deficit deficit but

you're getting the protein

and not lifting weights you're not

lifting weights

so the answer is it will help to

preserve some lean mess but you're still

no matter what you if you are not

lifting weights I mean this has been

shown again over and over in research

you will lose well I want to at least I

always hate to talk in absolutes because

if you're very obese uh where you just

have let's say you're 100 pounds

overweight you can lose fat without

losing muscle much more red because you

just have so much fat to lose that the

body is going to pull from the fast

storage but I'm talking when you're

starting to get down into you know

people who just court or quote unquote

overweight uh you're going to lose

muscle if you do not resist the strain

now even if I want to point out though

even if you're lifting weights if you

are getting insufficient protein it's

gonna you're gonna Leach some muscle so

you you need to still take in sufficient

protein and there's actually evidence

that you need more protein than what has

been shown for people at maintenance or

above to maintain muscle or even to gain

it slightly when you're in a caloric

deficit so that actually increases

protein needs to some extent