I have read a lot of articles and one thing that i get a little confused on is should you be in calorie surplus, if you already have a high BF% in order to build muscle?

So to give an example, i was around 27% BF earlier this year. I figured out my calorie maintenance and reduced it by a few calories. Since then my BF % has dropped to around 21% ish but have gained a lot of muscle since.

Now i was eating just below my maintenace intake as i wanted to reduce my BF. In order to do that you need muscle i suppose.

Does one need to be in surplus if they're around 15% BF? As for myself i think i can continue as i am without altering anything (except for increasing the weight i lift). Does this sound reasonable or do i need to make some adjustments in order to continue to reduce fat and increase muscles? That said i dont want to lead people on to think what im doing has now stopped working, it hasnt but this is just a question i would like to learn and know when there are signals to try and change my routines. I do a full body workout 3 times a week.

Hey man how's it going? Sounds like you are making good progress on fat loss. Obviously you need to be in a surplus to gain muscle and a deficit to lose bf. Now it's not impossible to build muscle and burn fat but it depends on you, your macros and workout program. Usually easier for beginners to do both as well. Let's keep things simple, when you are on a surplus and building muscle you will accumilate fat too so it's best to be around 10%-12% bf to start a muscle building routine. Imo you should continue on a deficit until you get to a lower bf and then go to a surplus to build muscle and when your bf gets higher say 15%-16% then cut back down. That's what many seem to do including myself because if you keep trying to build muscle and accumilate too much bf at already a high bf when it is time to get lean to see and show those muscles it is a lot longer road to cut when your bf is too high. 1% is usually equally to 2lbs of bf which is not an exact number but something to go by.

Totally agree with @Adawg38 some good advice there you should consider. In addtion if you want some more info on caloric surplus/calorie cycling for making lean gains then why not give my article below a quick read.

http://muscularstrength.com/article/Lean-Gains-Is-It-Really-Possible

Hope this helps you @EssCee

Thanks @Adawg38 and @Time_is_Muscle this helps. Great article BTW

Your Welcome @EssCee :) now go make thoses GAINZ!!!!!!!!

@esscee

Awesome question! Your body fat % is based on how large your fat cells are from excess glucose (energy) being stored in the past. Your calories for the day, are your calories for the day. And what I mean by that is yes, you should be on a calorie surplus when trying to gain muscle, even if you have a little extra body fat. If you are above 20%bf I WOULD RECOMMEND that your diet has a slight decrease in Carbohydrates, however keep your Protein still rather high. Hope this helps man!

There are tons of articles that would help with future reference on dieting/bulking.

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Totally agree with this.

If you want to gain muscle, and if that is your most important goal, then stay in a surplus. Once you have reached your goal for muscle gain, then lean out from there.

Make sure you post again if you need help with anything else @EssCee!

Jordan