Cutting Calories When Not Training Makes You Lose Muscle!

Many of us have come to realize that eating a high amount of calories on certain and specific days (not everyday) is essential when trying to gain muscle mass naturally. Especially those of us that may be naturally on the skinny side, it is of even greater importance to not only make sure that we're on top of our workout routine and scheduled rests, but also our eating.

However, for some reason, many have a fear of getting fat when eating to gain muscle. So, either they severely lower the amount of food they eat on days they don't workout or they drastically restrict calories when they go through periods of not training, like when they take a break from the workout gym for 1-2 weeks or longer.

Is that the case, when going through periods of not weight training that we must severely cut out calories so that we "don't start to get fat"?

Well, a study found in the American Journal Clinical Nutrition, of this year, 2007, they conducted a test to basically mimic what goes on in space with astronauts, which is the fact there's no gravity, it means that their muscles really don't have any resistance on a day-to-day basis. As a result, many astronauts begin to lose muscle mass, and on top of that will cut calories.

So, the scientists basically used bed rest to imitate not having any resistance on the muscles. But, what was also put to question was if it was a wise to also drastically cut calories (the thought being that if the individuals are going to be lying in bed, then they don't need the calories, thus avoiding any fat gain).

Well, they found that 14 days of bed rest combined with a low calorie diet caused a 2.5 pound loss muscle mass. However, the men were able to maintain muscle, even while being on bed rest, when they increased their calories by 20%.

Now, granted, anyone that is a serious and consistent fitness or bodybuilding enthusiast isn't going to subject themselves to bed rest unless they become seriously ill or injured. But again, many feel that when they take a break from training that they must also cut out food consumption big time so as not to put on fat weight.

You must balance calorie intake with exercise activity....but drastically lowering calories simply lowers your metabolism, places the body in a catabolic state, and loss of muscle is sure to follow.

Now, if you think this is the only thing that the muscle building and weight gain industry is completely wrong in, you need to go and read the other articles that Firefighter Jonathan Perez has written regarding this. Check out one here: http://www.muscle-weight-gain.com/water-can-enhance-muscle-definition/

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