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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Leo Alves podcast and in today's podcast episode I'm going to do another QA but this QA is going to be centered
around one topic which is the topic of
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How to build muscle without gaining fat and just pretty much everything along those lines.
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I've got eight questions in front of me.
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Some I'll go into more depth on, some I might almost just
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you know, answer in quite a short manner and then keep going with it.
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You know, it just depends how much I have to say about it and how much I have in mind uh regarding it
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What I will say as well is that, you know, like most things in life, a lot of these questions are going to have an It depends sort of answer typically
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Introduction
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Now, I will do my best to emphasize why it depends
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And how so, more or less, without getting almost so you know specific on it that I lose you because that's not going to help anyone either.
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You know, there's a there's a middle ground with it because ultimately
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You know, I can't know what your exact goal is, what your exact situation is without me and you having a one-on-one chat and on that note I do have
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consult I uh you can pay to have a consultation with me in the show notes of this podcast episode.
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Um that is something I launched earlier this year and it has been quite useful for a few folks
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Um and it's just basically an hour where we discuss everything to do with you.
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Um basically you have the questions, I have the answers, and and we can just
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you know, design something for your lifestyle to help you make progress.
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You know, and I think this is r this works really well for people who don't want
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you know, something as much as one-on-one online fitness coaching.
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Uh maybe do you just don't feel like you need that level of accountability and maybe it's just, you know, out of your budget and you just feel like, you know what, I just
need an hour with someone who knows what they're talking about.
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So yeah, I'm going to do my best to like just kind of bear that in mind.
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But anyway, question number one: Can you actually build muscle without gaining body fat
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Can you actually build muscle without gaining fat?
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And yeah, it depends.
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Surprise, surprise, but you know, it it's going to depend more or less on where you are right now.
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So for example
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Like where are you starting on your fitness journey?
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Because if you
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Like f first of all I want to say yeah, but uh not perfectly and when I mean by not perfectly it's going to depend where you're starting off.
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So say let's say you're completely new to working out
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Or you've worked out, but it's very minimal.
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You've never really had a structured workout program.
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Maybe you don't really know what progressive overload is, so you've never really applied it.
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Um, you've been really inconsistent with the gym your whole life
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I would say in that situation, like, yeah, you can absolutely build muscle without gaining body fat because you're going to be so sensitive to a new stimulus
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You're going to easily like you could look at a barbell and pretty much grow like this period at the beginning is like almost like it's informally nicknamed the newbie
gains phase where you can just like
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You can pretty much just get stronger every single week, which when you're more advanced, um, yeah, you can continue to get stronger, but every single week starts to
become a bit of a push.
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Um but yeah, in that newbie games phase like you will find that you will gain muscle rapidly, you will gain strength rapidly because you've gone from doing nothing to
something.
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And when you've gone from doing nothing for so long to something all of a sudden and that something is like
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were very well thought out.
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Like you will make rad rapid progress for sure.
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Um now the more experienced you get, I don't want to say you can't build muscle without gaining fat.
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You definitely you definitely can
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You're just going to have to be much more dialed in with it.
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You're going to have to be smarter um with tracking your calories with your programming.
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You know, you can't
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You can't be as flexible as you otherwise could be if you're brand new and just starting out.
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So yeah, you can and uh
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It it's definitely one of those things where I would say overall, yeah, you can build muscle without gaining body fat, but the extent
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Is pretty much going to be determined by what your start point is and where you are right now.
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Do You Need a Calorie Surplus to Build Muscle?
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Question number two, do I need to be in a calorie surplus to build muscle?
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Um again it's kind to kind this guy this this question here is going to kind of overlap with my first one and I don't really want to repeat everything I've said in my first
one so I will say mostly it depends are you a complete beginner?
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If so
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I I wouldn't even say you need a calorie surplus.
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Like I said, you can gain muscle by pretty much doing anything.
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You can be in a deficit, which is the least ideal circumstance to build muscle in.
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But you're still going to gain muscle because you've gone from doing nothing to doing something and again you are going to be so sensitive to like muscle gains.
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Like it's going to be very easy to do compared to if you were very experienced
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Um now if you are more experienced, I would say being in a very slight calorie surplus is going to be a lot more necessary.
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It's a better idea and I say it's going to be a lot more necessary just because it's one of those situations like okay do you need to be in a calorie surplus?
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Probably you don't probably need
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to be but it it would probably be more optimal.
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It'd be a better idea.
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You are probably going to make a slightly faster rate of progress if you are in a slight calorie surplus when it helps uh when it comes to building muscle the more
experienced you are
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Um I think where most people overdo it is they hear calorie surplus and then they just eat anything and everything
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And um and then the the the the rate of fat gain massively outpaces the rate of muscle gain because again you're just eating everything and ev anything.
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Like you're not really tracking your calories, you just think, oh, I need to eat more
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And then before you know it, you're in like a 1,000 calorie surplus, 1,500 calorie surplus.
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And that that m amount of surplus is just not necessary.
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You're going to it's it's it's it's just not a good idea.
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You're going to um
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That's going to work against you more than it's going to work for you because you know gaining so much just body fat to an un unnecessary amount, it you know, it's it
negatively will impact your health.
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So
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It's about being in a very marginal surplus, something like maybe like 200 calories, 250 calories, 300 300 calories maybe at a first, you know
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And that's probably where I'd go with the upper end of it.
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Question number three, how much fat gain is normal when building muscle?
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How Much Fat Gain Is Normal?
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So let's assume you're in a site slight calorie surplus, which means you know
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Inevitably you are going to gain some body fat.
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Now the the question is can we keep that rate of body fat um
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under control as much as possible.
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Like I said, I think the the mistake many people make is they go on an aggressive bulk thinking it's better, it's not, it's actually worse.
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That's why I'm not a fan of the you know like
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The term dirty bulking.
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I did a formal for that many years ago.
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Uh it's just not a good idea.
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And this is me again speaking from experience and you know just what I know.
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You don't want to just be eating as much as possible.
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So yeah, like I said, some fat gain is normal when you're trying to build muscle.
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I would say like a more or less a good rule of thumb is gaining around 0.
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25% to 0.
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5% of your body weight per week.
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So if you weigh 80 kg, that's roughly like 0.
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3 kg per week where you might be gaining slowly, slowly, slowly, like
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I would say if you're gaining faster than that, chances are a lot of that extra weight probably isn't muscle.
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It's probably starting to become more body fat than you want.
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And I would say like what's realistic in this scenario is like small slow increases, strength is, you know, gradually going up alongside weight, and I'll touch more on
that shortly because
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If strength isn't going up alongside weight, it does indicate that something is off.
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Um, I would say clothes are fitting slightly tighter, not dramatically, but slightly tighter, and in the right areas as well
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Maybe around um your shoulders, your chest, your back, your arms.
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If it's around your belly, then maybe it's time to pay a bit more attention, you know.
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Maybe your quads, your hamstrings, your glutes.
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I I I would say those are all good areas.
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Like the the more tight it starts to fill around your belly, that's where you want you might want to pay a bit more attention.
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Um
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I would almost say like the way you want to frame it is it's the the rate of body weight increase almost should be something you barely notice on a weekly basis.
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Like you might notice it over the months, that's for sure, but on a weekly basis it should be so minor that you you don't really notice it um
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I would say what's excessive, which is important to bear in mind as well, is like if you're gaining like half a kg to a kg every single week or most weeks like that
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That's a lot.
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Like you definitely want to slow down.
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Chances are you're a way you're in way too much of a calorie surplus.
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Um
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Maybe if you're bulking like I said, but your lifts they're not really improving.
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That's that's an issue because it just shows that um if your lifts aren't improving
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across the wall, then you're obviously you're not you're not gaining muscle, you're not gaining strength, body fat's just going up, like what are we doing?
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Um I would say if you're visibly getting very soft, very quick, that's also like something to pay attention to.
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I would say overall the easy way to think about it in this situation is if you're gaining weight fast but your lifts aren't moving, you're not probably you're probably
not really building muscle.
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You're just eating more
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So maybe think of it like that to simplify it.
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Question number four.
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How to Tell If You’re Gaining Muscle or Fat
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How do I know if I'm gaining muscle or just getting fat?
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Um I would say there's some easy way to do this.
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Uh to to to think about this.
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I I don't think I need to spend too long on this question
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I would say, is your strength progressing?
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Are your lifts going up on a weekly bit basis?
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This is why it's important to log your lifts as well.
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How much are you lifting?
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Because
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Memory put plays up.
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That's just a fact.
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You're not going to remember every single weight you lifted for every single exercise, for every single amount of reps on every single set, you know.
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Memory is going to play up
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This is why it's important to log it.
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And as you're logging it, you can see oh your strength's improving.
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Maybe not 100% of the time.
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Because you know, there's always the odd exercise that might not just might not agree with you, right?
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Like everyone's a
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At the end of the day, we're we're all our own unique people with our own unique builds and some exercises are just much better suited for others.
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But I would say as long as most of your lifts are improving, that's a good sign.
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I would say your measurements, like pay attention to your measurements, like I said, around your back, your chest, maybe your shoulders, your arms, your your quads,
your hamstrings, like
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Are they improving?
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Good.
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If they are at a very slow pace, this is a good sign.
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Maybe keep track of measurements around your belly.
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Like I said, maybe around your belly button, I would say, to keep it consistent.
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If it's going up way too fast, that's also something you want to pay attention to.
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Take progress pictures.
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I would say every month, maybe on like j just a way to keep it consistent, maybe like the first Sunday or first Monday of every month
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That's a good idea.
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And then you can like compare Oh I don't know.
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Did you hear the beeping outside?
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I don't know what happened outside just now.
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Something's just happened outside my window.
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But anyway
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I would say take progress pictures because then you can compare your your pictures like I said first Monday, first sun or or the first Sunday, whatever suits your
routine best every single month, that's going to help.
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Um ideally you might not even want to compare like back to back pit
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You know what scratched that last bit of what I was going to say?
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Because I was going to say basically maybe don't compare back-to-back progress picks.
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Um because sometimes on a fitness journey, like progress takes longer than just one month
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to really notice, especially when it comes to progress pictures.
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Like progress pictures are one of those things that can really come in clutch.
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Maybe when you look at it in regard to like
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A four, five, six, seven, eight month difference where you look at yourself in I I guess like September and then you look back at your picture in I don't know from
February or March.
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You can really see differences for sure, assuming you've done everything right
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But then there is the question of I think sometimes, you know, if you compare it month to month, assuming you are in way too much of a an aggressive calorie deficit.
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That might be enough uh enough of a time to be able to say, whoa, I am gaining body fat way too fast.
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So yeah, I I guess I guess it depends.
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Um
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Oh yeah, and uh scale weight trends as well are really of uh are another good indicator of progress.
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I I would say you can take it I I would say the more
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The more scale weight measurements you have, the better.
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Because the more data you have, the better.
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You want to be consistent with weigh-ins.
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Ideally the first check uh the first
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Ideally it should be the first thing you do every morning when you wake up in a faster state after using the toilet
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Because that would keep it consistent.
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And uh and the more data points you have, the better, right?
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It will allow you to paint a better picture of how things are are trending over the long term.
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With that
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You don't really want to compare weigh-ins back to back.
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Like don't compare your weigh-in on Monday to your weigh in on Tuesday.
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Like that's just an easy way to drive yourself nuts.
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Uh you're
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You're going to get frustrated.
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Like whale scale weight on a whale weight?
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Scale weight can fluctuate for a variety of reasons on a daily basis.
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And the reason why you would take more scale weight weigh-ins and have more data is to then be able to realize, okay, what what's just noise, what's fluctuations, what
doesn't look like it's right, but when you have consistent weigh-ins
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over the long term, you can paint a much better trend line and you can and you know anything that just looks like it was a bit of noise where, you know, okay
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That way and doesn't look right from that day.
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It spiked one kg overnight.
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Maybe it's just the late meal I had the night before that was still in my stomach when I weighed myself that following morning
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You know, I can I can tell that that isn't correct because of the rest of the w the the the way the rest of the trend line is looking.
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So yeah, the more waners you have, the better.
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Um and I would say if that trend line is going up way too fast then chances are you're gaining too much body fat
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What Should Your Calorie Surplus Be?
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What should my calorie surplus actually be?
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I would say keep it simple here.
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A small surplus is going to be a much bigger surplus for the various reasons I've already said throughout
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People just don't eat need to overshoot here again.
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There's a there's the mistake many people make where they just think the more they eat, the more muscle they're gonna gain.
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That's not the case.
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You can only gain so much muscle.
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Especially when you're a natural and you're not like using
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um steroids or or your assisted um so I would say in this case a small surplus is much better because you're going to minimize the amount of fat gain that you gain
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Um like you don't need a 500 plus calorie surplus every single day, for example, like 600-700 calorie surplus.
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Like it's not necessary, I would say like two to three hundred.
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And that's that's perfect.
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Um question number six, how important is protein for building muscle without gaining fat?
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How Important Is Protein for Lean Muscle Gain?
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So protein is going to help control fat gain, it's going to support muscle, it's going to you know help with keeping you filler for longer
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Um, it doesn't need to be extreme either.
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Like I've seen some people on like Threads and if you're not following me on Threads already, make sure you do at leoalvespt.
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Like they'll sit they'll make a post and it's like, oh, it's so hard to eat 250 grams of protein daily and I'm like, why?
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W why does anyone need to eat 250 grams of protein daily?
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Like you don't need to do that.
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Like that's absurd.
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Like
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I would say about a gram per pound of body weight is pretty good.
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I would say if you're very overweight, then maybe you could do a gram per a pound of your goal body weight because then, you know, it can end up being quite high, your
protein goal.
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But yeah, think of like protein as like your building blocks.
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So like let's say you're building a house.
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The protein are your building blocks.
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You're going to need that to build the house.
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If you're just you know eating and you're not prioritizing protein and you're not having that much, it's kind of like trying to build a house without the blocks.
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Like you're going to have a really tough time, right?
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Um question number seven, what training mistakes lead to unnecessary fat gain?
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Training Mistakes That Lead to Fat Gain
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I would say
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The common ones are not progressing your lifts, so not progressively overloading.
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If you're not progressively overloading, then you again you're not going to be gaining strength over time.
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You need to be adding maybe some weight or some reps or be controlling the exercise better.
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You know, progressive overload can take various forms.
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So I would say you have to really ensure that you're progressing your lifts because you know if you've been doing this bolt for about six weeks and none of your lifts have
progressed, that's a clear sign that
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That's going to be a mistake.
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It's definitely leading to fat gain.
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And chances are it resulted in very mi minimal muscle gain.
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So you need to progress your lifts gradually over time.
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I would say training without intent as well is another big mistake.
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Like so many people train.
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So many people work out actually, let me say, but mo a lot of people don't actually train.
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I think there's a difference between like working out and training if we're really going to get into the semantics of the words.
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Like working out, just turn up, go through the motions, sweat a little bit.
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You're not really thinking about long-term progress.
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You're just showing up for the day because you want to like, you know, get that um
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That that the the word slipping from my mind, you want to get you know that that boost, that serotonin boost that exercise gives you.
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But long term, if you keep doing this, you're gonna struggle to make progress.
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You know, it's not inherently a bad thing
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um if that's your goal like t to to to not really think about your long term progress.
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I don't know why it wouldn't be, but like long term if you want to make
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conscious progress, you do need to, you know, have a structured workout program.
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Be training with intent.
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I see so many people, especially folks who are like the one-to-one online fitness members who have just started with me.
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Like this is such a common mistake I see because you know it's years of
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of um of just not thinking about this and it's something I really try and emphasize in the early days it's like I really want you to go into this set with intent because
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For example, what I'm seeing right now is you're finishing a set and it just looks like you had so much left in you.
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Like you look like you had so many reps left in you.
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Like you just deadlifted.
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I'm gonna I'm gonna make up a random example
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Alright, you've just deadlifted 50 kg.
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And that 50 kg for the six reps you did it, it looked very easy throughout the entire time.
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The sixth rep rep looked exactly like the first rep.
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It should look like it's starting to get hard toward the end.
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It should look like it's becoming a little bit more of a grind.
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Like it should look like you're genuinely pushing yourself.
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If you finished a set and you feel like, you know what, I could have done a lot more reps with good form.
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Chances are you're not pushing yourself enough.
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You genuinely need to be getting close to failure, and in failure in this case is a good thing.
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You need to be getting close to failure when you're finishing your sets
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Assuming good form, of course.
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It doesn't mean that form should be trash and it goes completely out the window.
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Like, but you should be getting close to failure or at failure sometimes
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And that's training with intent.
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That's going to lead to long-term progress.
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That genuinely shows that you are lifting the correct amount of weight that's required to
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stimulate the muscle that's going to result in muscle growth and that's going to result in long-term progress.
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That's what's going to help you get to where you want to go long term
20:17
But if you keep just turning up, lifting any sort of weight on the day, you know, doing the reps, doing the sets, not really any thought to, okay, I just finished that set.
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How many how many reps did I feel like I had left
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Yeah uh just one?
20:29
Two?
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Okay, that's probably the correct amount of weight.
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Or on the other hand think, you know what, I probably could have done another six reps.
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That's a clear sign you're not pushing yourself enough.
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So I think that's something you really need to think about as well
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And then I would say another one is like just bulking, like I said, an aggressive bulk.
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Um that's going to lead to unnecessary fat gain, like where you're just going unnecessarily aggressive.
20:52
Like why are you doing that
20:54
Before you I did that mistake many years ago.
20:57
Live and learn, right?
20:58
I'm telling I'm now I'm giving you a heads up.
21:00
Like just don't do it.
21:01
You're going to look just overly soft and the amount of m fat you gained like
21:06
Chances are you don't need an extra 5 or 10 kg of body fat, depending on how hard you went.
21:13
Um
21:15
Like you would have been the exact same strength uh 5 kg less body fat.
21:19
So okay, question number eight, final question.
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Should You Bulk, Cut, or Recomp?
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Should I bulk cut or try to recomp?
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Um
21:27
I would say it depends.
21:30
Of course it depends on where you are right now.
21:32
You know, if you're overweight and you are struggling with body fat as is, obviously don't bulk.
21:37
Like that would be a silly idea.
21:39
Um
21:40
You don't need to bulk, just focus on being on a calorie deficit.
21:44
You know, still strength train, still aim to progressively overload, still train with intent
21:49
But don't put yourself in a calorie surplus when we obviously need to lose body fat.
21:53
Um, a calorie deficit is the best thing right now, right now.
21:57
Um, if you're like quite lean
22:01
And maybe you're more of a beginner.
22:03
I would say you could focus on like body recomposition, which is the process of uh gaining muscle and losing some body fat.
22:12
That's very possible because again you're a beginner.
22:15
You probably could do that just by being at maintenance.
22:19
I would say if you're quite advanced
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Chances are, and let's say you're you're at quite a low body fat percentage, then chances are you could probably do a small calorie surplus for a while
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You know, it depends on the goal as well, long term.
22:30
Final Thoughts & Key Takeaways
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Um but otherwise that's pretty much it from me today.
22:33
I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode.
22:35
I I think I might I would quite like to do more QA's around a single uh a single subject.
22:40
I think these are really good to go in depth on
22:43
Again, if you ever want to set up a consultation call, then the link for that is in the show notes of this podcast episode.
22:50
It is paid.
22:51
I don't want to share the price for it on this podcast episode because this podcast episode
22:56
It's going to be out forever, right?
22:57
And uh and my prices might change down the line.
23:00
So I don't want to say one thing on this episode and then it's another thing where you click the link and that's quite because that would be annoying.
23:05
So what I will say is just click the link
23:07
And the price is going to be there.
23:08
I'm very transparent with it.
23:09
So this isn't a case of me like trying to not be transparent.
23:12
I'm very transparent.
23:13
Like it's what it's it's very predominant what it is, and it's going to like ask you like two or three times, are you sure?
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Like this is the price.
23:20
So you can just check that out and click on that.
23:22
And um I've had a few consultations already since launching it about two months ago.
23:28
And honestly, I'm very happy that I've launched this.
23:30
I do wish I had launched it earlier because there's obviously a place for it.
23:34
Like I said, a lot of people don't
23:36
one the level of I guess one-to-one that online coaching brings.
23:40
I think some people just like need an hour with an expert they trust
23:44
Um and I'm I'm happy to be that for you.
23:47
Again, if you enjoyed this podcast episode, please do subscribe to the podcast if you're not already.
23:52
Um that always helps on whichever
23:55
podcast platform you listen to this on and leave me a review as well.
23:58
You know, reviews massively help small businesses like mine.
24:00
Um especially when we're competing with like the big sharks on these podcast platforms.
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Ever you you might think your review doesn't matter.
24:10
It absolutely does because the more reviews I have, like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, they're going to push it in their algorithm more.
24:18
And um and it all adds up, especially like I said, there's like some massive podcasts out there, like they are sharks in this world.
24:24
And um and I stand no chance for as long as you just don't review me and as a small business
24:29
ever every every single review matters so I would genuinely appreciate that from the bottom of my heart if you found this podcast episode helpful today.
24:37
Otherwise take care and I'll see you in the next podcast episode
