I gained more muscle mass while in a calorie deficit than when I tried a 4 week bulk — here’s what I did different.
Bodybuilding is such an interesting sport, all this science that you can follow along if you want or you can do like me and make up your own theory, try out out and see what happens, I heard everyone say it’s not possible to gain a significant amount of muscle mass while in a calorie deficit, yet I managed to gain 3 kilos in 2 months while losing 4,5 kilo of fat. Got me thinking I could gain an even greater amount while being in a calorie surplus.
Original plan was a clean bulk, about 200-500 calorie surplus with carbs spent around workout & sleep for extra training energy and recovery. I did that, but I ended up also eating a lot of snacks and extra carbs that wasn’t necessary. I just felt that I needed a break from restrictions for a while and since it was only for a month it was better making sure to eat too much rather than not enough in order to maximise muscle growth. Whatever fat I would gain I would lose in the prep anyway.
I gained back almost all fat I lost prior and only 0,5 kilo muscle mass — but when I think about it, there’s a lot I did different more than just calorie surplus.
First thing that comes to mind is creatine, I was taking creatine every day before my workout sessions during the deficit phase. Creatine helps with workout performance and recovery. Together with creatine I also took citrulline which helps with blood flow. You can read more about the supplements in this blog post.
Other supplements I took during the deficit: Vitamin D, B complex, ZMA, Ashwaghanda and BCAA.
I took BCAA sometimes while I was at work to avoid muscle breakdown in between meals, but I could also take before the workout + at the end or in between lifting and cardio. It was different from day to day depending on of I worked early or late or what workout I was doing on that day.
I just stopped taking all these supplements after my trip to Spain because I thought they weren’t as important if I was in a calorie surplus. Like I said, I just needed a break, it’s a bit of extra work having to remember all of these, it’s enough mental work as it just to remember bringing my lunch boxes every day.
Another thing that changed was the Maltodextrine was swapped out for candy a lot of times. I had a lot of cravings and in my mind I though sugar is sugar, but I have a sensitive gut and even if I don’t get gassy from sugar as such doesn’t mean it’s a reliable source of energy.
You want insulin spikes before and after workout, but sugar spikes in particular are highly inflammatory and disrupting the immune system (I can tell, because I get cold sore breakouts from just eating too much candy and sweets). Probably not very good for the digestive system as I have IBS with intolerance to fructose and sucralose that causes fermentation in the digestive tract. I don’t get gassy from small amounts. but it doesn’t mean it’s ok.
IBS & gut issues are disrupting the balance in your gut which is required for breakdown of the molecules to become energy and building blocks for you muscles — also bloating and gas can cause stress signals to release cortisol which is known to slow down muscle growth.
Talking about breakdown, I took digestive enzymes with meals that was slightly harder to digest while I was in deficit. I try to eat mostly rice and such which is easy to digest and pineapple with meat as it contains the enzyme bromelein that breaks down protein chains. I know that we don’t actually make use of all calories that we ingest, a lot goes to waste because we simply cant break it down well enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream. IBS is known to be problematic with just breakdown and absorbtion, so I thought I’d give it some help along the way.
I was still eating 5-6 times per day while bulking and making sure to eat at least 30 gram of protein per meal (10g per hour) to make sure protein synthesis was kept active. I made sure to eat a protein rich meal with slow releasing protein before going to bed to ensure muscles recover properly when we sleep as most muscle is build at rest. Since I work 8 hours per day at a very physically active job I believe my body doesn’t have a chance to properly recover other than when I sleep and the 3 hours of free time I have weekdays.
I may also have changed the training some after my trip to Spain. I tried some new exercised to see which one’s I’d like to program into my routine. So training wasn’t always on point, I was still training hard but the volume and progressive overload might not always have been there as much as needed.
This is why having a program is helpful for muscle growth.
So what actually made the difference?
It’s hard to tell if it was just one of these changes, but most realistically it was probably all of them together. Supplements are not meant to correct a bad diet, they’re an addition to make a good diet even better to gain that little percentage of advantage. You can train and eat normal and still see results, but time is a part of the equation and some of us want to limit the amount of time to get from A to B, to do that you need to make the most of the time you have.