A Case for Eating MORE (and building the physique you really want)
The fitness industry is hammered with the idea that being in a calorie deficit is the be all and end all of fitness goals, and while a calorie deficit is 100% needed in order to lose weight, losing weight is only one part of building the physique you really want. For the purposes of this article I will be referring mainly to female goals, as I notice a much higher ratio of woman being afraid of any sort of calorie surplus with a fear of fat gain rather than men. That being said, if you are a guy looking to build up your physique, the principles I discuss will apply to you too.
Let’s first discuss why calorie deficits and diets have become the main attraction of fitness, the most obvious being that when most people first start getting into fitness, they are coming from a place of being overweight and looking to slim down. The majority of new clients I take on have their number one goal being to lose weight, so naturally we learn that in order to lose weight we need to be in a calorie deficit, BUT, a fat loss phase is supposed to be exactly that, just a phase. When we look at what most females would consider their goal physique (usually along the lines of leaner and stronger, gravitating towards an X frame or “athlete” bikini body) it is important to note that this requires the building of muscle as much as the loss of fat.
So if we want to achieve this goal look we will most likely need to at some point eat in one of three different diet phases:
Calorie deficit: Eating less calories than we burn, with goal of reducing fat while maintaining as much muscle as possible.
Calorie Surplus: Eating more calories than we burn, this would be a growth phase, with the goal being to increase muscle mass, strength, and training performance while minimising fat gain.
Calorie maintenance: Eating close to our maintenance calories, we ideally will be in this phase often to support performance and general lifestyle. We use this to maintain our results (an often-forgotten part of fitness).
If we take this into consideration, fat loss is just one of the three phases we want be in when it comes to building our dream physique. It also happens to be the most difficult to maintain. By definition we are eating less calories than we are burning, and our bodies react to this by using fat for fuel (which is the goal), but they also don’t like doing this, hence why we are hit with hunger, cravings, and a lack of energy. This can all be managed with a smart dieting plan but at the end of the day they are impossible to avoid all together.
Let’s quickly address two side points, firstly, if you have a substantial amount of weight to lose, then a longer-term fat loss phase will be necessary and I suggest you talk directly to a health professional to assist you with this. Secondly, the mental health benefits of eating at maintenance. If you have been “trying to diet” for a long time with little success, then having a dedicated period of time where you eat at maintenance and prioritise things like training performance as opposed to just weight loss will be very beneficial. It can be uncomfortable to purposefully eat more at first due to the constant “you need to eat less” mentality that gets floated around, but if you want to improve your relationship with food, seeing that eating a bit more usually results in benefits (increased energy, strength increases, less cravings, etc) will be helpful.
So what if you do need to enter a fat loss phase? A good saying I’ve heard thrown around recently is “earn your right to diet”, this basically means that before you put yourself into a calorie deficit, ensure that you:
Know how to eat at maintenance, the difference between eating in a deficit and maintenance is usually only a few hundred calories, so if you can’t maintain your weight, there is no point trying to lose it yet.
Know how fat loss is actually achieved and the purpose of the diet. You should know about energy balance and macronutrients (even if you aren’t focusing on tracking)
Know what to expect and have a plan, you will be hungry sometimes, you will lack energy sometimes and you may lose some strength. With that being said these can be mitigated with smart planning. It always helps to have an end point in sight or diet breaks planned out.
Following these guidelines, you should be set up for success when it comes to any diets phase, now lets talk about some growth. Muscle growth is an important part of any goal physique, ever said “I want to get toned”, well that toned look is only possible if we have some muscle to tone. In order to create an environment where muscle can grow, we need to be eating AT LEAST maintenance calories with sufficient protein intake. Want to grow your glutes? Want to look like an athlete? It isn’t going to happen on 1200 calories. I have another article entitled “Fundamentals of Maximising Muscle Growth” which goes into more detail on muscle growth but eating enough calories is a fundamental part of that.
Ill finish off by talking a little bit about my own experiences being in both growth and fat loss phases, and straight off the bat I’ll tell you life is better in a surplus. For many years I kept my calories relatively low (probably never went more than a few hundred calories over my maintenance for any extended period of time) due to not wanting to put on excess fat and “lose my abs”, and this meant that my muscle growth was compromised. I still made progress, but it was relatively slow and my strength and muscle gain would plateau for long periods of time (or even go backwards if my training dropped off).
It was only towards the back end of 2020 that I really hit a growth phase with real dedication. I got a new coach and we put me in a pretty decent starting surplus (3200 calories, where before I’d never really eaten more than 2800). This resulted in many PBs in the gym and the first significant muscle growth I had in a while. There was also relatively little fat gain, which went to show that if you stay consistent with your training you can somewhat “direct” the majority of your growth towards your muscle and mitigate fat gain. Now you don’t need to jump right into a surplus, but it might actually be what you need to alleviate that “fear of fat gain”.
Hopefully this article has shed some light on why eating more may be the key to achieving your physique goals and improving your knowledge of how to build the physique you actually want. If you are looking to put a plan in place to achieve your goals, my coaching services are always an option, alternatively I will have articles coming which will go more in depth about nutrition and training specifically.