Paradox! page

[TheTeddy]

I started my primal journey at 180 a month ago I dropped to 175, then I abandoned my workout and started PBF. I'm now at 178-180 with no real change in my eating habits, and I look better than when I was 175. Can you lose fat and put on muscle simultaneously? I thought those actions were mutually exclusive

[yodiewan]

I thought those actions were mutually exclusive.

Not necessarily. Though it is a pretty rare occurance if you are not working out. If you were consuming inadequate protein, then I guess it is possible to add muscle simply by getting more. The classic case of body recomposition is when you start out overfat and untrained. You lost fat by eating better and build muscle from working out. There are many people on the forum here who have accomplished just that. When you are lean and have been training consistently for a long time, that is when it gets hard/near impossible to recomp.

[workinprogress]

My guess would be that you didn't lose fat as much as you put on muscle. Its difficult at best to lose fat and build muscle at the same time but not impossible, and you didn't necessarily lose much weight anyhow. That 5lb initial loss could have easily been water weight and now you are building some muscle, without having changed your fat stores significantly. Yodiewan also makes an excellent point to consider.

[TheTeddy]

Well I'm hovering around 14-15% bodyfat. My goal is to get between 10-12% by Christmas day. So no fat storage for me! Haha. Any tips?

[workinprogress]

Any particular reason for that number? You can either lift a lot of weight and be very careful of your intake and hope you put on more muscle than fat. Or you can restrict calories and hope you lose more fat than muscle. Personally I would ignore the arbitrary numbers and just try putting on as much muscle as possible. But that's me.

[AdamK]

Any particular reason for that number? You can either lift a lot of weight and be very careful of your intake and hope you put on more muscle than fat. Or you can restrict calories and hope you lose more fat than muscle. Personally I would ignore the arbitrary numbers and just try putting on as much muscle as possible. But that's me.

Our lean tissue and fat tissue are comprised of complex "stuff" that won't necessarily bend to dietary or exercise interventions -- even good ones, like Primal.

Once you start to reconceptualize the fat-loss-muscle-building quest as an attempt to reregulate body systems that may have gone offline, the paradox resolves, at least IMHO

This is a better explanation... The Dastardly Doings of the Magical Energy Gnomes |

[TheTeddy]

I guess it stemmed from a goal "weight" instead of a goal composition. Damn CW influence. I just have a little more bodyfat than I want to carry around. I've been toying with IF and VLC days. I've done one fast a week for two weeks, I might extend them or add another to speed things along. Also, I really don't care so much where my weight ends up when I get the composition I want, though I'd like it to stay under 180. I don't want to jiggle anymore, you know? I mean, it's only a slight jiggle now, but I command it to be gone. Haha