A meta-question on the purpose of a surplus

[j410s]

It's well known that for an individual to put on any substantial amount of muscle mass they must be in a caloric surplus. Everyone from dieticians to doctors seems to agree on this fact. I do too. However, I am curious why a proper caloric deficit would not produce a necessary change. Really I am asking for the biological reason for such a thing.

Our energy is derived from ATP, which loses a phosphate group and converts to ADP or AMP depending on which cycle it is in. This releases a tremendous amount of energy (similar to how a car engine would work or something). Anabolism is, from my understanding, reversing the process with ATPase and it's friends - creating ATP from free AMP and ADP. This also consumes energy. So in this case, it makes sense that for purposes of powering the lift (or whatever task) you need to be an anabolic (surplus) state for the body to be able to perform this process without "eating" itself. You'll need carbohydrate for your body to efficiently continue to create ATP to power your work.

So let's assume our would-be lifter eats a diet of excessive protein, minimal carbs, and fills the rest in with fats. We will say this puts them in a mild caloric deficit and for fun let's suppose protein is really excessive - 2g/lb bodyweight. For the sake of argument we will say that, for the most part, this person can add very small weight increments to the bar very slowly (from the above).

Ignoring the potential health concerns of such a strange diet - why would the body not be able to increase the size and capacity of muscle fibers using this excess protein? Clearly it must be the case that it can't. This diet is borderline ketogenic and there aren't any keto-giants walking the earth that I know of. But the process itself doesn't make sense to me. Is the carbohydrate (either produced through decomposing the carbohydrate or decomposing the triglyceride) being used to shunt protein into the muscle? Or is the process of repair effectively "stopped" when the body enters a catabolic state? Which begs the question, is the process of converting a trigylceride into glycerol as a precursor to produce energy so expensive that the body just doesn't do it efficiently enough for repair?

Sorry for all the questions and theoreticals. I was mulling over this today and I just simply need to know. If there is a good paper or book I could read on the subject I would greatly appreciate it.

[Robert Santana]

The short answer to your question is obvious: You cannot simultaneously be in an anabolic and catabolic state.

Yes protein can be converted into glucose if carbohydrate intake is insufficient. However, that mechanism is inefficient as is converting glycerol into glucose, which is why fat stores aren't a sustainable long-term substitute. This may be happening in the obese novice who restricts calories though but there are also other adaptations happening as well (e.g. increase in glycogen storage capacity, water retention, neuromuscular efficiency). In my experience with very obese novices, they tend to hit a wall while still carrying high amounts of body fat (i.e. taking a 320 lb obese novice male down to 270 lb. and still obese). Part of this is changes in leverage and part of this is prematurely becoming intermediate due to caloric insufficiency. In short, there are many reasons an obese novice lifts more and changes his body composition while in a deficit, not all of which are fully understood. An intermediate or advanced lifter is going to need to be in a surplus to build muscle and get stronger as a general rule.

Why an outlier can pull it off is beyond me. I added 25 lb. to my 10 RM squat and 5 lb. to my 10RM deadlift after losing close to 30 lb with 24 years of weight room experience, of which the last 10 years were spent training seriously. I lost 9 lb. off my 10RM press though. No idea why that happened but it did.

[aweight]

It is possible to gain muscle mass in a modest caloric deficit through recomposition, and that doesn’t violate any thermodynamics laws, but whether it is “substantial” depends on how much fat your body is willing to lose, so it’s much harder at lower body fat percentages or at high absolute muscle mass values.

As an example, if you lost 1 lb of fat and gained 1.2 lbs of muscle, thermodynamics says that your body necessarily did that at roughly a 300 C net deficit. (Yes, you gained 0.2 lbs weight under a deficit.)

[aweight]

Part of this is changes in leverage and part of this is prematurely becoming intermediate due to caloric insufficiency.

Can you elaborate or point me to an article for what “prematurely becoming intermediate due to caloric insufficiency” means technically?

[Robert Santana]

Are you trying to get bigger and stronger or are you trying to write an academic paper? There is no article to link. Those are my thoughts on the matter. Your ability to recover slows down when calorie needs are below maintenance. Therefore your ability to add weight slows. You can no longer progress like a novice. You are now progressing at the rate of an intermediate.

[aweight]

Ah ok, I thought you meant something more complicated. Thanks for clarifying.

[Robert Santana]

Quite the opposite.