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

The Strength Log

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?

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