How Long Can You Be in a Caloric Deficit? Mailbag!

In the last episode, we established that you can build more muscle mass while losing fat—even if you’re not a beginner in the gym.

Let’s follow that up with a bunch of great questions on the same topic, sent in by our fantastic listeners!

Timestamps:

• 05:50 – Question 1: I'm trying to be in a caloric deficit to lose body fat and lower my body fat percentage. How long can you be in a deficit of around 500-800 calories daily before the effect diminishes? Does the metabolism decrease by a lot?
• 12:00 – Question 2: How would you structure your strength training during a caloric deficit?
• 17:00 – Question 3: How much does muscle mass affect caloric needs? Can you increase your resting metabolic rate if you build bigger muscles?
• 21:00 – Question 4: How big of a caloric surplus should you be on to build muscle? When does the surplus become unnecessarily big?
• 26:00 – Question 5: If I recall correctly, you mentioned in an earlier episode that you should eat the amount of protein appropriate for your target weight when on a diet. This means that if I weigh 100 kg and want to drop down to 80 kg, and I want to eat 2 g protein/kg, I should count my protein need using 80 kg and not 100 kg. Will I lose more muscle mass if I do that compared to if I would have counted using 100 kg?
• 30:30 – Question 6: I strength train 3-4 days per week, and on the 5th day, I started doing kickboxing cardo, which usually burns around 1,000 calories in an hour. On the kickboxing days, I end up in quite the caloric deficit compared to the rest of the week, where I eat to a maintenance level of around 2,400 calories. My question is: should I make it a point to replace those extra 1,000 calories I burn from kickboxing in order to maintain my muscle growth, or is it not such a big deal since it is just one day a week?

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our community on Facebook here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.

If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.