Can Strategic Fasting Enhance Muscle Gain (Reduce Fat During a Bulk)? | Bonus

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Ever wondered if you could hack your bulking phase to gain more muscle and less fat?

This episode answers a question from our free Facebook community that many data-driven "optimizers" are wondering about.

John asked if strategic extreme deficit days during an otherwise surplus-focused bulking phase could help "clean up" fat gain.

It seems logical on paper... create a weekly calorie surplus while periodically burning fat through protein-sparing modified fasts. But does your body respond to this the way you might expect?

Learn how muscle building actually works and how to optimize your approach to building muscle with minimal fat gain.

And if you want YOUR question answered with this level of detail, join our free Wits and Weights Facebook group and use the #AskPhilip monthly thread.

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Transcript

Bonus Q&A Episode Introduction

Speaker 1 0:00

Surprise, surprise, another bonus episode for Saturday. I'm dropping here a Q&A. This was a question posted in our Facebook group, free Wits and Weights Facebook group. We do a monthly Ask Philip, where you can ask a question and get a very detailed, personalized response. So it's a great way to do that. If that is what you're looking for and if you want to submit your own question like this and get a personal response in the live, click the link in the show notes to join our Wits and Weights Facebook group. It is totally free. Again, that's the Wits and Weights Facebook group Link is in the show notes. Enjoy.

Speaker 1 0:32

Let's dive into today's question, which is from John, and I love this. He says I have what I think is a logical plan. However, I'm sure something is missing. Oh, I got windows popping up here on my end. Something is missing, or the body doesn't work that way. Here's the scenario If you ate in a surplus and gain 10 pounds for this, let's say, five pounds muscle, five pounds fat very reasonable.

Speaker 1 0:58

50, 50, very common. A lot of people will gain even more muscle than that if they're doing it right, or if we're coaching them going to gain more muscle than that. If, though, during this period of gaining body weight. Once or twice a week on non-consecutive days, you ate an extreme deficit. Did protein sparing modify fast? Okay, so you're saying you're in a surplus overall, but within the week once or twice not on consecutive days, not a weekend or something. Two different days you really cut the calories down and I can think of the extreme of this being a fast. You mentioned protein sparing modified fast, which is you're going to keep your protein in there but everything else just drops off, so it's like pure protein. Would this allow you to burn some of the fat off you accumulated? Thus, at the end of the surplus, instead of gaining 10 pounds, it was seven pounds, with the end result being five pounds muscle and two pounds fat, having burned off the other three pounds of fat with the lower calorie days.

Why This Approach Likely Won't Work

Speaker 1 1:51

In such a scenario, I know you'd have to make up for the loss of calories on the low days to be in a surplus for the week. I have a feeling you'll tell me to try it and see which I plan to not serve. My thinking is logical or realistic. Thanks, as always. Actually, you're in luck, John, because I'm going to tell you that this probably is not going to work. So you don't even have to try it and and I know you're looking for clarity here so I would say you're, there is logic to your thinking, but it's not how the body works in practice. Because if you, let let's run through this and then I've got some main points I want to hit for you here.

Speaker 1 2:17

If you alternate between surplus days which would have to be higher surplus days, like you said and protein-sparing modified fast days, could it slightly reduce the net gain, net fat gain, during a bulk? I don't think so and I'm going to tell you why. The first one is that it's the overall surplus itself and the daily surplus that's driving growth, not just the weekly average. I know I talk about weekly averages, like for fat loss and muscle building, but for both of those, even for fat loss, if you have a lot of variants, that could actually throw a wrench in your plans for a number of reasons we're not going to get into, but one of them is being the inconsistency creates a sense of scarcity for your body that it then adapts to. But muscle growth is driven by a chronic surplus and adequate training with that right Like. You've got to be in that anabolic environment always If you dip into a large deficit once or twice a week, you might blunt that anabolic signal, confuse things. You might actually hurt yourself, despite the weekly average being what you want. Just you know, depending on how deep that cut is, which is going to be deep the way you're talking about, right, If you're normally eating, you know 4,000 calories on the other day and now you're dropping to 800, which is roughly what would happen, that's probably not great for your body, sending the signal to your body that it's in an anabolic environment. I'm not saying it would like hurt it tremendously, but I don't think it's gonna add to the fat loss, right, Right.

Speaker 1 3:41

The second thing is, just because you're in a deficit for a day, you know your body's not like a bank ledger or that sounds so old school, like uh, you know what I mean A bank register, right, when you've got like money coming in, money come out. So you're thinking like I've got a surplus, I've got a deficit. It doesn't lead to like this net swap of muscle and fat, right, You're always muscle protein synthesis and fat oxidation are always occurring, and the deeper the deficit, the more likely you'll tap into fat stores. But guess what else? You're going to increase your muscle protein breakdown and your stress. And I know you're saying, well, look, I'm still holding on to my protein with the protein modified fast, but you're whacking out all those carbs. You're adding allostatic load or stress to the body, so you're offsetting whatever potential benefit might be there. And then the last thing is it's like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too, and I get it.

Better Alternatives For Lean Bulking

Speaker 1 4:34

I'm always looking for a creative little hack. I do think there are sometimes hacks like that, but they're more of hacks of practicality and sustainability than anything like the weekend diet that I talked about. Yeah, there's data that does show you might retain more lean mass in a fat loss phase where you have refeeds, but that could just as well be a function of your psychology and your energy and you're able to hit it hard in the gym and things like that. So when you're minimizing fat gain during, the bulk is definitely smart. That's why we want to go to reasonable rate of gain based on your training age. Right, the more advanced you are as a trainee, the more conservative that rate of gain is going to be, and you can't like clean it up as you go with these drastic low calorie days. It might actually slow the whole process down. I would actually.

Speaker 1 5:19

I'm going to give you a middle ground, a compromise I would, I like either making sure the bulk itself is just a nice lean bulk it's going to take longer, but you're going to minimize fat gain Again. However, it depends on your training age. I've talked about this many times, but if you're a complete beginner you could go 2% a month, like half a percent a week easily for a beginner. As you get more advanced it drops to 0.4%, 0.3%. Maybe the vast majority of people I work with it's going to be at least 0.3. Some women, or if you're leaner or if you're a little bit scared of gaining too much fat or too much weight, we'll dial it back to like 0.25, 0.2, understanding it's going to take longer and that sometimes can be more frustrating because you don't quite see the visible changes in muscle and you're gaining a little bit of fat and so your waist starts to increase. So for some people, being more aggressive is actually feels better, right Cause then you're really seeing the muscle gain and the strength gains.

Speaker 1 6:12

The other compromise, option B, here is what I've talked about before rapid fat loss phases, mini cuts and micro cuts, just interrupting the bulk. You know your nine month or 12 month bulk, that's usually where it's more appropriate, rather than like the bare minimum six months. But if it's like a nine month or 12 month and you want to interrupt it with six weeks of a mini cut or two or three weeks of a rapid fat loss phase and then shave off three pounds, that way, to me that's way more efficient and it doesn't interfere with that whole muscle building phase. The other thing, man, is that sounds miserable, Like what you're proposing, just sounds miserable.

Speaker 1 6:48

It's like when I'm in a bulk. I'm in a bulk, I want to be eating, I want to be nourished, I want to be fed, I want to be thriving on all cylinders. You know, sometimes I have to shift training days around or I don't get enough sleep. I want to know that food is always there. It's always there. I'm hitting it hard. I'm hitting it hard, and so many people don't do that enough. So there's nothing wrong with experimenting If you want to try it and report back to us.

Episode Wrap and Program Announcement

Speaker 1 7:09

I would love to learn from you selfishly if you decide to do it. And you know who's really good into all this stuff is loud McDonald. He loves all these like, almost like biohacking, these different strategies. So maybe check out his stuff. He might've actually talked about it. But don't sabotage this process of growth just to try to stay a little bit lean during a bulk. That's not the point, right. Go at the right rate of law of gain or throw a mini cut in there when you need it, but like, really give yourself that chance to grow. And there you have it. That is it for today's bonus episode.

Speaker 1 7:36

Just wanted to share a taste of what we do in our free Facebook group Link is in the show notes and remind you that our early prelaunch of the new WWPU and remind you that our early pre-launch of the new WWPU, which used to be 87 a month and now we have a $27 a month tier, is open. If you use the link in the show notes at the very top of the show notes to join, you'll also get a free nutrition plan from me. It's a custom nutrition plan for your goals, whether it's building muscle, fat loss or maintenance. Link in the show notes. Again, that's 27 a month. You can join now early, get all the features in there, plus a free nutrition plan that will later on be a $47 add-on. You can get that for free. Thank you for tuning in, as always. Looking forward to talking to you on Monday with our next full episode. Cheers.