Quote:
Originally Posted by trew
If you think you can gain muscle without eating a caloric surplus, you are wasting your time.
(Edit... or is this another meme reference? Fitness is worse than religion for not knowing when people are serious).
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I would love to know why the internet took this idea and latched onto it.
Muscle hypertrophy is limited by protein, not by calories. Sure, if you're at a huge caloric deficit you may have some limitations in muscle hypertrophy, but the idea that you need to eat a bunch of #### to have muscle is absurd. Definitely one of the top misconceptions in fitness, and while I understand ignorance, I can't stand the fact that people spread this stupid, baseless idea to everyone and their Grandmother.
Right now protein recommendations are based on a deficit model of nitrogen loss. There's some argument within the Dietician community, but generally 1.4 - 1.8 g / kg of body weight per day is more than enough protein for anyone building muscle.
For example, to gain 1lb of muscle in 1 week (an overestimate for most.. unless you're just starting and hitting the weights hard and have a basic adaptation to weight training).
Muscle is 22% protein. 454g (1lb) of muscle x 22% = 100g protein in 1lb muscle. Divide that by the week (7 days) = 14g protein extra per day. This would be on top of the protein recommendation for sedentary individuals which is 0.8g / kg / day, and on top of protein loss due to exercise (ie you must damage muscle to adapt it and hypertrophy).
Result: If you weight 200lbs = 73g (recommended daily intake for sedentary) + 14g (1lb muscle) + ~20g (loss; overestimate) = 106g protein / day. Azure gets that in one expensive shake.
Sure, if you're going from doing nothing to doing a ton of weight training you have to eat more to compensate for the extra calories you're burning.
I would love to prove that you don't need extra calories to build muscle, but that idea that you do is completely baseless. It's just not true.