You’ve probably heard of a concept called body recomposition.

If you’ve never spent any time reading up on that, it refers to the process of simultaneously building muscle and losing fat.

At first glance, body recomposition seems like the holy grail of fitness because you get to work toward two meaningful goals at the same time and achieve your desired results much quicker.

But is it even possible? And, if it is, how might we go about doing that?

Today, we’ll go over everything you need to know about body recomposition.

Can We Build Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time?

In short, yes. Building muscle and losing fat is entirely possible, and studies have shown that even more advanced trainees can pull it off.

To build muscle, you need to create a positive nitrogen balance – taking in more protein than your body loses. This will help our muscles recover from intense training and grow in response to that stressor.

But, to build muscle optimally, we also need an adequate supply of energy. This is because the body needs calories to recover, develop, and carry out its numerous processes that keep us alive. So, by consuming a surplus of calories, we supply the body with enough energy to carry out its essential tasks, and we also have some energy left for less important things like building new muscle tissue.

But, while it’s theoretically possible, is it feasible for most people?

Who Can Build Muscle and Lose Fat at a Meaningful Rate?

Almost everyone can achieve a degree of body recomposition. But, there are three primary categories of people who can do it at a noticeable rate:

1. Steroid users

It’s no surprise to anyone that steroid use can speed up muscle growth and help us lose fat more easily. So, using drugs can lead to significant body recomposition for most people.

For one, steroid use allows us to more easily accumulate myonuclei cells within our muscles, which speeds up muscle gain. Even in a caloric deficit (that is required for fat loss), this process occurs at a meaningful enough rate.

2. Detrained people

If you’re an experienced trainee but haven’t trained for months or years, you also qualify for body recomposition. This is primarily thanks to muscle memory, but also because it’s easier to re-establish positive habits like training and eating healthily if you’ve had them before.

Now, back to muscle memory. As we train and our muscles grow, our muscle cells accumulate myonuclei. When we stop training, our muscles shrink in size, but we don’t seem to lose our myonuclei. So, when we get back to training, we can more easily gain the muscle mass we’ve once had.

During the initial few weeks, it’s not uncommon to build muscle and lose fat at the same time.

3. Overweight and obese beginners

Overweight and obese beginners are at a prime spot for body recomposition because of two reasons:

First, their muscles are incredibly sensitive to training stress because they haven’t experienced it before, so muscle growth happens easily and at a quick rate. Second, being overweight or obese means that you have a lot of stored energy, which your body can use to sustain itself and support muscle growth.

Lifting weights also seems to improve calorie partitioning. Meaning, more of the calories we consume go for muscle growth and repair and less get stored as fat.

Before moving on, it’s worth noting that beginners who appear thin in clothes but carry quite a bit of body fat (also known as ‘skinny-fat’) can also do a body recomposition. But, because they have less fat on their frames, the process happens more slowly. In most cases, it’s better to focus on muscle growth first and then do a dedicated fat loss phase.

How To Go About Building Muscle and Losing Fat Simultaneously?

Say that you qualify for a body recomposition, or you just want to try it and see how it goes. Here is what you need to focus on:

1. Maintain a small calorie deficit.

To lose fat, you need to be in a caloric deficit – there is no way around that one. But, instead of doing it the traditional way, you should maintain a rather small deficit of about 200-300 calories.

This will help you shed fat gradually, but it will keep you from losing muscle during that time.

So, for example, if you calculate your TDEE to be somewhere around 3,000 calories per day, you should begin your recomposition phase at no less than 2,700-2,750 calories/day. This should be the sweet spot that will help you lose fat, but still maintain a rather high-volume training program for muscle gain.

If you’re quite overweight, you can be on a more aggressive deficit of about 500-700 calories and still expect to build quite a bit of muscle in the early stages.

2. Get plenty of protein.

Protein is of utmost importance for muscle gain, even more so while dieting to lose fat. So, it’s a good idea to get at least 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. You can go even higher than that (for greater satiety and such) – up to 1-1.2 grams per pound. This will ensure that you maintain a positive nitrogen balance (more protein coming in than your body breaks down) despite the calorie deficit.

So, for example, if you weigh 165 pounds, you should aim for at least 132 grams of protein per day.

3. Do resistance training.

Granted, you won’t have to do a ton of weight training to spark muscle growth, especially if you’re a beginner. But, to pull off a successful recomposition, you need to provide your muscles with an adequate stimulus. So:• Lift weights three to four days per week;• Do 10 to 16 weekly sets for your larger muscle groups – chest, back, and quads;• Do 6 to 10 weekly sets for your smaller muscles –shoulders, biceps, triceps, and calves;• Aim for progressive overload. Over time, you should see your performance improve – more weight on the bar, more reps, more work in the same amount of time, and similar.

4. Get plenty of quality sleep.

While often overlooked, sleep plays a massive role in our overall fitness results and health outcomes. In some studies, sleep has been shown to be as important as our training and nutrition.

In one prominent study, sleep deprivation appeared to increase muscle loss while dieting by as much as 30 percent.

So, get at least seven hours of sleep per night – ideally, up to eight.

What Are Some Drawbacks to Body Recomposition?

Building muscle and losing fat at the same time sounds fantastic in theory, but there are a few drawbacks when it comes to applying the principles in the real world:

1. It’s slow

Unlike the traditional routes most people take (‘bulking’ for muscle gain and ‘cutting’ for fat loss), body recomposition is inherently slow. It takes a long time to notice improvements, and it can be frustrating and confusing at times.

Plus, given the fact that your weight stays relatively the same (because you’re gaining in the form of muscle and losing in the way of fat), it can feel like you’re not making any progress at times.

2. It’s challenging to track your progress

While we are on the subject of your weight staying the same, this also means that tracking your progress can be quite tricky.

Because of that, you should understand that your scale weight won’t progress in either direction, and you should instead focus on other metrics. For example:

• Take progress photos every three to four weeks, and compare your visual changes from month to month.
• Take circumference measures o your arms, chest, quads, waist, and hips. If your weight is staying the same, but your arms are getting bigger while your waist is getting smaller, then you’re on the right track.
• Track your gym performance. If you’re slowly improving your athletic abilities while also seeing visual improvements, that’s a clear sign that your recomp protocol is working well.

3. It’s only applicable for a small subset of people

As we discussed above, to achieve a meaningful rate of muscle gain and fat loss simultaneously, you need to be detrained, a beginner, or on steroids. For most other people with average genetics, doing a body recomposition is simply not feasible. 

What Is A Better Way of Going About Muscle Growth and Fat Loss?

We covered a lot of ground today, and hopefully, now you have a much better idea of what a body recomposition is, how doing it is possible, and who might benefit from it best.

The question is, what about everyone else?

Well, if you’re past the early stages of training and you’re not on steroids, then a much better way to go about building a great physique is to have dedicated periods for fat loss and muscle gain. Meaning, you should spend a good majority of your time in a caloric surplus for muscle growth. Then, have periods of dieting for fat loss. Hopefully, with each fat loss phase, you should be a bit bigger, stronger, and leaner.

As far as the precise ratio of gaining to losing goes, there isn’t one. But, Eric Helms has an excellent recommendation that should work incredibly well for most people:

For every four weeks of gaining, you’ve earned yourself one week of dieting for fat loss. So, for example, if you spend a good four months on a bulk, you can take a month off for fat loss.

But why is that?

Because muscle growth is inherently much slower and more difficult than fat loss is. So, we should spend more time on the former, and less on the latter.