Comment by ANewFormation
2 months ago
The percents are very different. For example in bodybuilding one normally 'bulks' while working out, because it maximizes muscle gain. But then naturally this needs to be paired with cutting, unless you're a Greek Grizzly, but the total muscle loss is relatively negligible, especially when maintaining a proper high protein diet.
At 40% muscle loss you're getting awful close to losing weight while increasing your body fat percent!
But of course you're right that diet+exercise is key but for those maintaining such, they wouldn't end up on these drugs to start with.
For example in bodybuilding one normally 'bulks' while working out, because it maximizes muscle gain. But then naturally this needs to be paired with cutting
This comes from professional bodybuilding, where people are using steroids, along with various, uh, interesting chemicals on the cut[1]. It has almost no benefit to (real) natural bodybuilders. It's closely tied to cycles of steroids.
[1] Ephedrine, Albuterol, Clenbuterol (literally only approved for horses in the US), DNP, and probably more that I haven't heard of. Here's an NIH article on the dangers of DNP, to put it in perspective: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3550200/
Natural bodybuilders 100% go through bulking and cutting cycles.
Outside of noob gains it is incredibly difficult for a natural to add muscle mass when in a calorie deficit and recomposition at maintenance calories is also inefficient in the vast majority of cases.
They won't bulk the same way someone on gear does, but it's still the most efficient way to add muscle mass in the vast majority of cases.
Natural bodybuilders 100% go through bulking and cutting cycles
No, they don't. They simply eat enough to continue muscle growth and attempt to shed fat before a competition. Any non-competitor doing this is just engaging in quasi-religious nonsense or rationalizing a bad diet.
Bulking and cutting have meaning, and we're not going to turn it into any caloric surplus vs deficit.
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Are you claiming that a drug free person can gain as much muscle mass while in a calorie deficit as while in a calorie surplus?
If so, I would be very curious to that reference.
What an utterly ridiculous extrapolation. These comments are exhausting. Bulking and cutting have a specific meaning, and it doesn't just mean eating at a sufficient caloric surplus to sustain muscle growth. That's simply called eating enough.
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The most important cutting aids are the same ones in bulking - AAS like testosterone and its close (cheaper) variants like trenbolone and methylated testosterone but yeah, the interesting chemicals are featured too.
Most natural bodybuilders recommend the 'clean bulk' where one simply eats the same cutting foods but in larger proportions. And also not to be too strict in general - that way lies disordered eating, binges, purges etc.
In order to gain more muscle mass, at some point you need to be in a caloric surplus. You can't make something out of nothing - your body needs the extra resources to make itself bigger.
You do know that your metabolism can pull energy out of your fat storages, right? And that metabolism is extremely flexible and adaptable, to be sure? Your body certainly isn't pulling out a calculator every night before you go to sleep to determine whether you've eaten in excess or not for the day, and then deciding to build muscle or not based on that alone. That's ridiculously simplistic, and wrong. It's a multitude of processes working constantly, and factors like exercise, protein intake or adaptation to ketosis, just to name a few, are of the utmost importance. Some people tend to think of the human metabolism as a calorimeter, when it couldn't be farther from it.