Phases of body recomposition: The basics

Fundamentally, there are three different stages of body recomposition and I want to take about them in general here. Those stages are maintenance, where the goal is simply to maintain your current body composition; weight/fat loss, where the explicit goal is to lose weight/fat; and weight/muscle gain where the explicit goal is to gain weight/muscle. I imagine that some readers are wondering where the lose fat/gain muscle phase is but I'll talk about that below. First, I want to treat each segment individually.

Maintenance

If you want my honest opinion (and even if you don't), maintenance of current body composition may be the most difficult of all three phases. I think the reason is really psychological more than anything (although physiology can play a role too). One friend of mine has even gone so far as to argue that there's no such thing as maintenance, you're either moving forwards or you're moving backwards. He may be on to something.

Even the most slack folks usually find that being 'on a diet' means going through a psychological shift of some sort: if nothing else they are at least attentive to their overall food intake (and hopefully activity levels). Whether or not they are actively counting calories or just doing basic portion control, they are at least paying attention to things like food intake and all the rest. The same goes for folks actively trying to gain weight: there is a certain psychological shift where a great deal of attention goes into making sure that certain nutrient requirements are met.

When you move to maintenance, there can be a sublte but important psychological shift. Without an explicit, specific goal to be met, it's easy to just get lazy about everything, and that includes food intake. Suddenly, your attentiveness to getting sufficient protein, essential fatty acids, the right kinds of carbs, meal frequency, fiber and all that crap goes out the window. Supplements that you took with religous fervor get missed or forgotten entirely.

The usual hope by diet book authors is that some of the discipline that is built during the other phases will carry over into the maintenance phase. Whether or not this happens seems to depend as much on the individual's psychology as how long they spent in the previous phases. The Type-A person who is either on a diet or not tends to have the biggest slips; the folks who made the smallest, least-intrusive changes typically have an easier time maintaining things. Refer back to chapter XXX for more details. Obviously, if you dieted for a year, and established extremely good food habits and all the rest, odds are you'll do better in the maintenance phase. If you dieted for a few weeks and then decided to move to 'maintenance', odds are you'll fall back into old (bad) habits more readily.

I'm not sure I have a solution to the problem, as I've always had the same problems I describe above. My training, attention to food intake, etc. is always better when I have a specific goal to work towards. Whether it's fat loss or muscle gain, specific goals put me in a psychological state to be more attentive. My training is more intense and productive, etc, etc, etc. I find it very difficult to take anything that seriously without a specific goal. I know I'm not alone in that.

I suppose the 'simplest' solution would be to always make sure you're working towards some explicit goal but that's not terribly realistic in the real world. Mentally, folks simply need a break, a time to relax without having to fixate on every aspect of their food and exercise. Not only is this beneficial psychologically, but also physiologically: the body can simply use the break.

I suppose, in the absence of anything more specific, the best suggestion I can give is to push the limits of slackness without letting all those long hours in the gym and weeks of proper eating go to hell. Spending months to achieve a certain physique, only to throw it away with 2 weeks of what can only be described as laziness seems pointless.

In any event, the explicit goal of the maintenance phase is to maintain, within some limits of course, your current condition. Obviously if you've just finished an extreme diet to reach a peak condition (think a contest bodybuilder, competition athlete or even a photo-shoot or otherwise obsessed non-athlete), maintaining that condition probably isn't realistic or necessary. That generally describes a minority of folks.

For the majority, who are just looking to recompose themselves to something they are happier with, maintenance of that condition within some realm is the goal. Obviously setting insanely specific goals isn't terribly realistic either. Better, perhaps, to allow some slop, perhaps a few pounds of fat and muscle either way and try to stay in that range. Studies of sucessful dieters (i.e. those who lose the weight and then maintain it for extended periods) note regular self-monitoring as a key aspect of maintenance. That is, keeping track of their weight, to see if they are falling off the bandwagon lets them make adjustments if they start to slip.

This is as good a piece of advice as I can give: regular monitoring (using whatever body composition measurement method you prefer) lets you push the limits of slackness without sliding back to wherever you started. Yes, you should push the limits of slackness during the maintenance phase (while maintaining overall good eating/exercise habits) to give yourself a much needed psychological/physiological break but if you see yourself slipping too far, it's time to tighten back up.

So, you might decide that you want to maintain your current weight within a 3-5 lb range or so. Or you could use some particular piece of clothing as a measurement device. Or the tape measure. If you find that your weight is moving outside of that range, or that the piece of clothing doesn't fit anymore, or your waist measurement (for men) or thigh measurement (for women) is starting to creep up, it's time to get more serious about your eating and activity patterns. One person I knew decided that he would never let his waist measurement exceed 34 inches. If he ever hit that point, he would go on a diet. Keeping himself from getting fat was as simple as that for him.

Beyond that, the maintenance phase of a program is characterized by, well, maintenance. You're no longer trying to push/increase the amount and/or intensity of your workouts (aerobics or weights). Rather, you're simply trying to stay about where you are. Typically this would mean a combination of weight training and aerobics, depending as much on preference as anything else. Tangentially, there is a good bit of research showing that regular activity has a larger impact on weight maintenance than weight/fat loss per se; but it takes quite a bit. Again, studies of successful dieters show that maintanance of activity levels (and especially fairly high intensity activity) is a commonality. Ideally your food intake and choices should remain somewhat good and controlled, although you probably don't have to be as anal retentive as when you were explicitly dieting or trying to gain weight.

Fat/weight loss

I take it as most likely that the majority of readers of this book are interested in fat/weight loss. It's simple statistics and personal experience: at any given time, a majority of individuals (especially in the US, I can't speak to other countries) are trying to lose weight. Most aren't doing very well, but they're trying nonetheless. It's fairly accurate to say that some people are career or professional dieters. For most people, losing fat/weight isn't fundamentally that difficult, at least not initially. The bigger issue in terms of fat loss is really keeping it off long-term, but that ties into the maintenance issues discussed above. Seriously, eat less and exercise, you will lose weight. Just eating less will cause weight loss in most folks even without exercise. Depending on a host of factors, you'll lose some percentage of fat and muscle and the total weight will come off at some rate or another and it's really not fundamentally that complicated when you get down to brass tacks.

A bigger issue, especially for semi-lean or athletic individuals has more to do with maintaining muscle mass and/or athletic performance while losing fat. For the genetically average, it can be quite a chore. It's still not fundamentally that complicated, the body is just fighting back harder. Honestly, getting your average male to 15% bodyfat (female: low 20%) isn't really that difficult; almost any semi-intelligent approach will work. Getting somone from 10% to 5% without great genetics or drugs is doable, having them stay at 5% year round will mean meticulous attention to food and activity.

It should be fairly obvious that the explicit goal of this phase is fat and/or weight loss. As I've mentioned in previous chapters, maintenance of muscle mass (or at least limiting the loss) is generally a good idea for most people, but there are exceptions. The extremely obese can stand to lose some lean body mass without much of a problem. Most obesity researchers accept that as much as 25% of the total weight loss in very obese folks can come from lean body mass; it mainly represents connective tissue and such that was gained when the fat came on.

From a basic standpoint, losing fat that means the creation of a caloric deficit (i.e. a skew between energy intake from food and energy output from metabolic rate) for some extended period so that the body is forced to rely on stored calories. Bingo, weight is lost.

Outside of the myriad other issues, the main ones that folks have to deal with during the fat/weight loss phase are hunger and anxiety. To a degree, both the hunger and anxiety are just psychological manifestations. Simply knowing that you can't eat what you want when you want, even if you're eating plenty, tends to make people both hungry and anxious. As a friend would put it, it's simply human nature: we want what we can't have.

And if someone tells you that you can't eat what you want when you want, you're going to want it. Even if it's yourself telling you you can't do it, by making the conscious decision to diet; it still causes psychological anxiety. Take something away from a 5 year old if you need proof. Dieters aren't far from this: big food-obsessed cry-babies who bitch about not being to eat whatever they want whenever they want. Well, tough; eating whatever you wanted whenever you want is what made you fat in the first place. Losing fat means changing something and that usually includes food intake. That causes anxiety to one degree or another. So what's the solution? Well, there isn't one except to change your mental outlook. Basically, you can either deal with it, or stay fat; those are the only options. There's actually an easy fix coming up in a few chapters anyhow.

Of course, not all hunger and and anxiety is psychological, some of it is most assuredly physiological. This becomes especially true when you get to leaner and leaner levels. When you diet, your body undergoes a staggering set of adaptations that will eventually ramp up hunger, make you depressed and lethargic, slow metabolic rate and a whole host of other things. At very low bodyfat levels, you will be mentally consumed with the idea of eating, foregoing just about anything (including sex) else to eat. There's actually a good physiological and biological cause (and reason) for it.

Up to a point, by making proper food choices, and using the right supplements or drugs, you can deal with the biological hunger to one degree or another. After a while, though, especially as you get to the extremes of leanness, dealing with hunger becomes an issue of just sucking it up. Seriously, if you're a male and you're trying to crack 10% bodyfat or so, expect to be hungry all the time. No matter what you do, no matter what you eat, you'll be hungry. Can't deal with that? Fine, stay fat. Or take some good appetite supressing drugs. In any event, the fat/weight loss phase of a program will entail some form of restriction: whether it's simply calories per se or some specific food group. Alternately, food can be kept at maintenance levels, and activity can be increased. Whatever happens, a deficit between what your body needs calorie wise and what you're eating has to be created: maintain that deficit and fat/weight should be lost. Activity levels tends to be highest during this phase, in terms of both weights and aerobics. The amount and style of weight training tends to be highly variable, ranging from heavy weight/low reps to lighter weights/higher reps. I'll discuss those issues later. I should mention now tha some people can lose fat just fine without aerobic activity (just weights plus caloric restriction) but others can't. Women, on average, tend to need more aerobics than men for a variety of reasons. Again, I'll discuss that when the time comes.

Weight/muscle gain

Although statistically a far smaller population, there are folks actively trying to gain muscle (or sometimes just weight). Typically they are bodybuilders or strength/power athletes. More rare is simply the excessively skinny individual who doesn't feel healthy. There are also pathological conditions (think cancer, AIDS wasting or anorexia/bulimia) where gaining weight may be a matter of life and death. That final group should be under a doctor's control anyhow, not using this book. With a few exceptions, gaining weight isn't fundamentally any more difficult than losing it. In the same way that fat loss requires a caloric deficit, weight gain requires a caloric surplus. It's probably safe to say that most people have no problem overeating. Couple that with intensive and semi-intelligent weight training and at least some of the weight gained will be muscle mass. As above, and as I've mentioned previously, a bigger issue is keeping fat gain from being excessive. Some genetically average folks will gain one pound of fat for every pound of muscle they gain and, at some point, that fat has to come back off.

Now, there are some folks who have trouble gaining weight, for no other reason than they possess a poor appetite. For example, in many cases of severe wasting, the numerous inflammatory chemicals (cytokines, leptin, etc.) tend to shut off appetite. These folks are losing bodymass as much from the wasting syndrome itself, as because they can't eat enough. Many older individuals lose bodymass for the same reason: their appetites become poor and they simply don't eat enough calories.

But there is another group of people, usually hardcore ectomorphs (super skinny individuals) who run into the same problems. These folks are actually doubly-screwed when it comes to weight gain. First and foremost, they tend to be somewhat hyper-active (I don't mean this in a derogatory sense, but in the actual sense of the word) and tend to become more hyper-active with overfeeding. Studies document that some folks can increase spontaneous activity and burn off an excess of their caloric intake. On top of that, hardcore ectomorphs tend to have a total shut down of appetite with evey a day or two of overfeeding. The chronically high caloric intakes needed to gain weight in these folks simply becomes impossible to attain.

But beyond those few exceptions, gaining weight usually isn't too difficult and this phase is usually pretty simple both psychologically and physiologically. It's rare for anybody to bitch about having to eat TOO MUCH, and our bodies are made to gain weight far more readily than to lose it. Once again, ensuring that the greater proportion of the weight gained is muscle mass is a different issue, one I'll adress later.

Obviously, to ensure that a greater portion of the weight gained is muscle, intensive weight training is generally incorporated. Some people like to maintain lots of aerobics (and some athletes have no choice in the matter) but this tends to impair weight gain overall; at the very least, you have to account for the calories burned with aerobics. Moderate amounts of aerobics (20-30 minutes 2-3X/week) tends to have an overall positive effect on appetite, as well as improving recovery a bit.

Gaining muscle/losing fat

If there's a single question that comes up more often than any other it's along the lines of "How can I gain muscle and lose fat?" And the general answer is "Unless you'e a beginner or coming back off of a layoff, you can't." I know, I've given it myself enough times. Actually, I've previously said it was impossible but that's not entirely true and I wish to retract every time in the past that I've said it. It is possible in a few specific circumstances but let's look at them individually before adressing the question itself.

Beginners have a notorious propensity for gaining reasonable amounts of muscle while losing fat at the same time; I've seen it enough times first hand. Actually, it turns out not to be beginners per se but rather fat beginners. A lean individual who is starting out in training isn't going to lose fat while they gain muscle. In someone with relatively average bodyfat levels, a loss of 5-10 lbs of fat and gains of 3-4 lbs of muscle over the first 8 weeks is quite common with even the most basic routine. And, as it turns out, the bodyfat issue isn't a trivial one. As you'll learn in upcoming chapters, a higher bodyfat percentage makes fat mobilization easier. As well, a beginner doesn't have a lot of muscle mass to begin with, so they find it easier to make gains. So gains of muscle along with fat loss is not uncommon. Once you get to a certain level of leanness and/or muscle mass, the odds of this occurring go down at a staggering rate.

Folks returning from a layoff can get amazing results like this as well. Muscle memory is a very real phenomenon and, empirically, it seems like folks who were once lean (especially genetically) can get lean again with less effort. This is actually how most of the magical before/after photo comparisons in the magazines are done. Someone will start in amazing shape, deliberately get into bad shape by eating like crap and not training, and then let muscle memory get them BACK into shape rapidly. That is, they aren't getting into shape but rather getting BACK into shape in those photo spreads. I shouldn't have to tell you that every before/after photo shoot involving a pro-bodybuilder means that an absolute crapload of drugs were involved: any supplement they are claiming to have used played no role in it.

I should mention that drugs can cause simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain as well. In non-users, low-dose testosterone can cause a repartitioning effect (gains in muscle with a loss of fat). Clenbuterol has the reputation for almost magical makeovers, at least until it stops working in 2 weeks. Growth hormone injections tends to cause profound fat loss and a gain in lean body mass but studies show that the LBM gained is mostly connective tissue and water, not actual muscle. Since this book is primarily about non-drug solutions to body recomposition, I mention this only for completeness. So what about everybody else, can you gain muscle while losing fat at the same time. A lot of it depends on what may seem like rather semantic/pedantic issue.

Fundamentally, the question of "Can I gain fat and lose muscle at the same time?" comes down to an issue of how much; that is, how much of each are you trying to gain or lose respectively? You can also make an issue out of the phrase 'same time' in coming to your answer.

For example, if you looked at someone alternating phases of muscle gain and fat loss over a year, they'd have obviously gained muscle and lost fat at the 'same time': one year. Even someone who is alternating 2-3 week periods of fat loss with 2-3 week periods of weight gain will be, technically speaking, gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time (i.e. over a 6 week span). But they're doing it by alternating individual phases (fat loss OR muscle gain). As well, it's usually possible to gain small amounts of muscle while losing small amounts of fat at the same time. You can do this with cyclical diets for example. I'll talk more about those later. I also know of folks who accomplish this by using tiny caloric deficit (i.e. 200 cal/day below maintenance) and severe micromanaging of nutrient intake. Reports of a few pounds of muscle gained while losing a few pounds of fat over 12-16 weeks are what you typically hear. Even they admit that it tends to drive them completely insane and I just can't see the point of going to that much trouble for such a minimal overall gain. In those same 12-16 weeks, coupling an actual diet where maximal fat loss was the goal, with an actual weight gain phase where maximal muscle gain was the goal, would result in better results without the psychotic need for micromanaging the diet.

But these aren't really what people are asking. When someone asks "Can I lose muscle and gain fat at the same time?" what they generally mean is "Can I lose 20 lbs of fat and gain 10-20 lbs of muscle in a few month span?" Seriously, I've gotten questions where people were hoping for those kinds of results. They usually hide it in body composition numbers (or don't realize what they are trying to achieve), wanting to go from 200 lbs at 20% bodyfat to 200 lbs at 10% bodyfat in 12 weeks, which represents a loss of 20 lbs of fat and a gain of 20 lbs of muscle over that time span. To that, the answer is 'Absolutely not, unless you take a shitload of drugs.'

A related comment comes when folks state "I want to lose fat without losing any weight." Well, see, here's the problem: fat has mass (and hence weight). The only way to lose fat without losing bodyweight is to replace every pound of fat lost with a pound of muscle in a 1:1 ratio. Alternately, someone might want to gain muscle without increasing weight. Again, we're faced with the basic problem that muscle has weight, to maintain a stable weight while gaining muscle would require fat to be lost in a 1:1 ratio. It's a lovely idea, but it's quite unlikely to happen. Impossible? No, I'm sure someone will manage to do it. Improbable? Yes.

To put it bluntly, if you want to lose a considerable amount of fat, your odds of gaining even small amounts of muscle are fairly small. Depending on your starting bodyfat percentage, the best you might achieve is not losing any muscle (or only losing a pound or two). If you're trying to reach super leanness, you may sacrifice considerable muscle getting there. Someone trying to diet to 7% bodyfat is not going to gain muscle while doing it, not without drugs. By a similar token, if you want to gain a lot of muscle (or gain it at a reasonable rate), the odds of losing a lot of fat are pretty minimal. The odds of losing any fat at all are, quite honestly, fairly slim. At best you would gain only a small amount of fat. Odds are, unless you're genetically blessed or very lucky, you'll gain quite a bit of fat.