Originally Posted by
Spld cyclist
I've seen studies where subjects who start out untrained and significantly overweight can burn fat and build muscle simultaneously. I think that's true only for the first few pounds of muscle gain. Then it becomes a lot more difficult, and at some point very unlikely, to build more muscle without a calorie surplus.
Would love to see those links...
If you don't have them can you think of key words that would aid to find it?
Did they test body comp? If so how?
To show above, it would have to be imaging...
Else too many co-variables would register as muscle growth. Just reducing glycogen stores can seemingly show body comp improvements in all but imaging...
Initial strength gains in newbs is neurological adaptation... Learning to fire the existing muscles more effectively and in concert...
3 assertions.
Calorie deficit
not lose weight
builds muscle
Doing the work to build muscle, muscle growth itself takes calories...
Think likelihood.
No workout logs
No food diary
Didn't weigh food
no body comp measures let alone reliable and accurate ones.
NOT augmented...
So it must be the most comforting thought.
Must have depressed metabolism so much that they offset calorie deficit and both work required to build muscle and the calorie composition of muscle itself, yet expended enough energy to both do the work, and calorie required by the tissue itself. But depressed metabolism works by impairing hormones such as Test increases cortisol...
-------------------OR-------------------------
He ate more than he intended...
Like what 270 million other modern Americans....
----------------OR----------------------------
Long shot but does happen.
If all above are actually true a more likely explanation
One explanation is edema...
Working out far more than prepared for...
Causing significant swelling and water retention...
But unless you were bed ridden for quite a while you'd have to hit it really hard, damn hard... that is a symptom of rhabdomyolsis...
Large sodium intakes could offset a couple pounds...
Yeah, I'll take the comforting excuse for 10 lbs...