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Transitioning from fat loss to muscle building phases


man in thirties doing biceps curls in the gym

Ok, so you've completed your fat loss phase, shedding some extra K.Gs, and achieving your desired level of leanness. Now you want to put a bit more muscle on your frame.


To ensure that the muscle gained is as lean as possible, we don't want to just go from cutting one day, to bulking the next. Like it or not, this phase requires some planning and execution to avoid unwanted body fat gain. In this article, we'll discuss the importance of transitioning from fat loss to muscle building phases, and how to do it.


The Post-Diet Plan

Before diving into the transition, it's crucial to have a concrete post-diet plan in place. After being in a calorie deficit for an extended period, your body will be primed for overeating if you rely solely on natural hunger cues. Outside of our consciousness, or bodies are incredible at maintaining homeostasis - returning to equilibrium.


After having dropped a few kilos of body fat, your body will be in fat re-storing mode, with it's pulling power being stronger the leaner you get. At the core, your body doesn't want to give up body fat and wants to return to where you came from. Particularly if you were at that body fat level for some time.


Appetite hormones, leptin and ghrelin, shift to promote higher caloric intake, and energy expenditure can be suppressed. The main component contributing to suppressed energy output is Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). This is all movements that aren't structured exercise, including fidgeting. Again, outside of our consciousness, NEAT goes down, shifting the energy balance equation toward fat gain.


Avoid Overindulgence

For the above reasons, transitioning from cutting to bulking commonly leads to overeating. This, as well as enthusiasm to enjoy more food again and to get on with the bulking phase. It only takes a slight surplus to maximise muscle growth, so overindulgence could quickly undo the hard work and sacrifice made over the fat loss phase.


Your new maintenance

Before rushing to implement a caloric surplus, spend a bit of time at maintenance calories to allow the body to stabilise after the physiological stress of dieting. As a rule of thumb, spend half of the time that you were dieting at maintenance. If you had a 10 week fat loss phase, spend five weeks at maintenance, before implementing a small caloric surplus. Throughout this period you may be tweaking your intake to establish your new maintenance calories target.


An important consideration is that, after having dieted, your metabolic rate would have been reduced. Some of this is suppression from dieting, but the main reason is that you simply weigh less, and it takes less energy to move your body around in the world. After losing 5kg of body weight, for example, you could be expending about 150 calories less than you usually would. This means, where it took 2700 calories to maintain your body weight, after a dieting phase, your new maintenance may be 2550.


Estimating Your Maintenance Calories

To estimate your new calorie maintenance level you could use a calorie calculator, which will calculate an estimate based on your current weight. Alternatively, you if you've been tracking your calories consistently, and you know the average deficit, you can add back in based on this. Factoring in a lower metabolic rate, you want to add back in 50% of the deficit you maintained for fat loss. If the average deficit was 500 calories, start by adding back in 250 calories.

Monitoring your weight

As discussed in a previous post on maintenance calories, you should monitor your body weight on a (semi) daily basis. If weight stabilises, you've reached your current calorie maintenance level. If you continue to lose weight, increase your calorie intake by about 200 calories and monitor weight further for another week or two. Everyone's result here will be different.


Importantly, you should expect a slight immediate weight gain as you first increase calories. You could expect to have about 2% increase within the first week. Don't freak out! You're eating more food, which weighs something, and you'll be replenishing glycogen stores (muscle and liver glucose storage), which takes water along for the ride. For every gram of glycogen we store, it's accompanied by three grams of water.

Should you do Reverse Dieting?

Reverse dieting is a popular method of gradually increasing calorie intake by about 50 to 100 calories, from week to week. The idea is that it will mitigate the potential negative effects of dieting, and weight re-gain associated. While it may work for some, it's not really necessary.


Moving quickly from your deficit to your calorie maintenance level is a better approach, as it stops the physiological stress of dieting immediately, and allows for sooner stabilisation post fat loss. Not to mention the psychological dieting fatigue of staying in a caloric deficit, albeit progressively smaller.


As long as we are aware that our maintenance calories will be lower than it was pre-fat loss phase, and we're not too enthusiastic to get back to eating whatever the hell we want, a reverse diet is not necessary, and may just be more hassle than needed.


Ready to build muscle

After eating at maintenance for up to 6 weeks (a fat loss phase, ideally shouldn't last longer than 12 weeks at a time), and you're happy with the level of leanness you've achieved, it's time to start lean bulking.


Aim for a calorie surplus of 200 to 350 calories above maintenance per day. Beginners can shoot for the higher end, while more intermediate and advanced trainees should aim for the lower end. Muscle growth will be slower for advanced trainees, so a smaller surplus is best to avoid unwanted fat gain.


Remember that weight training is the main stimulus for muscle growth, and protein and calorie targets are what support the optimal realisation of your results. Follow a progressive and consistent training program, targeting each muscle group two times per week. Train with effort within 3 reps of failure (safely), and prioritise recovery between sessions. Check out this post for more on optimising your training for muscle building.

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