Body Recomposition: How to Lose Fat and Build Muscle at the Same Time

The usual advice is to pick one: bulk to build muscle, or cut to lose fat. But plenty of people do both at once. It is called body recomposition, and if you are newer to lifting or have some fat to lose, it may be the most rewarding way to change how you look.

This guide covers who recomposition works for, how to eat for it, how to train with progressive overload, a full four-day plan you can start this week and how to tell it is working when the scale refuses to move.

What is body recomposition?

Body recomposition, or recomp for short, means losing fat and gaining muscle over the same period. Because one is going down while the other goes up, your weight can stay almost the same while your shape changes. Your waist gets smaller, your lifts get heavier and your clothes fit differently, but the number on the scale barely shifts.

That is why so many people give up on a recomp that is actually working. The scale cannot tell fat from muscle, so you need better ways to measure progress, which we cover below.

Who can recomp?

Recomposition is often described as something only beginners or people carrying a lot of body fat can do. They do tend to see it most easily. But a 2020 review by Barakat and colleagues pointed to a substantial body of research showing it in people who already lift, too. The review named two main drivers: progressive resistance training and evidence-based nutrition.

• Newer lifters usually have the most to gain, because muscle responds quickly to training it has not had before.
• People with more fat to lose also tend to find it easier, as they have more stored energy to draw on.
• Lean, experienced lifters can still recomp, but progress is slower. If that is you, dedicated phases of building and cutting may get you there faster.

How to eat for a recomp

Calories: maintenance or a small deficit

This is where most recomps go wrong. A big deficit gets you lighter quickly, but it makes building muscle much harder. A 2022 meta-analysis of resistance training studies found that training in an energy deficit held back gains in lean mass, even though strength still improved about as much. Its analysis suggested that a deficit of around 500 calories a day was enough to stop lean mass gains altogether.

So keep it modest:

• If you have a fair amount of fat to lose, eat in a small deficit, well under 500 calories a day below maintenance.
• If you are already fairly lean, eat at or around maintenance and let the training do the work.

Not sure what your maintenance is? Log what you normally eat for a week while weighing yourself most mornings. If your weekly average weight holds steady, that intake is roughly your maintenance. Our guide to losing fat when you have no time walks through it step by step.

Protein: higher than you think

Protein is the nutrient that makes a recomp possible. A large meta-analysis found that extra protein improved gains in muscle and strength from resistance training, with the benefit levelling off at around 1.6 g per kg of body weight a day and some people benefiting from up to about 2.2 g. For a 75 kg person, that is 120-165 g a day.

The easiest way to hit your number is to build every meal around a protein, spread across three to five meals a day. If cost is a worry, here are the cheapest high-protein foods in UK supermarkets.

How to train: progressive overload

Muscle grows when you keep asking it to do a little more than last time. That is progressive overload, and it is the single most important training principle for a recomp. You can add more weight, do more reps with the same weight or do more sets, but you have to keep nudging at least one of them up over time.

For building muscle, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends that newer and intermediate lifters mostly use moderate weights for 8-12 reps, over one to three sets per exercise. Its rule for adding weight is simple: when you can do one or two reps more than your target in two sessions in a row, increase the load by 2-10%, using the smaller jumps for small muscles and the bigger jumps for big lifts.

Double progression, made simple

Double progression turns that rule into a system you can follow without thinking. You progress reps first, then weight, then repeat.

1. 1

   Pick a rep range

   For most exercises, 8-12 reps works well. For the big lifts like squats and deadlifts, 6-10 or 5-8 is fine.
2. 2

   Start at the bottom of the range

   Choose a weight you can lift for the lowest number of reps on every set, with a rep or two left in the tank.
3. 3

   Add reps each session

   Keep the weight the same and try to beat your reps from last time, even by one.
4. 4

   Hit the top on every set, then add weight

   Once all your sets reach the top of the range, add the smallest jump you can and drop back to the bottom of the range.

This only works if you write down what you lift. The free BarbellBites app logs every set, rep and weight, so you can see what you did last time before you start each exercise.

How hard should each set be?

Hard, but you do not need to grind every set to failure. A 2023 meta-analysis found that training to failure gave little or no extra muscle growth compared with stopping short of it. Finishing most sets with one or two good reps left keeps your form tidy, lets you recover between sessions and still gives your muscles plenty of reason to grow.

How many sets?

More weekly sets generally means more growth, up to a point. In a meta-analysis of training volume, muscle gains increased in a graded way as weekly sets went up, with 10 or more sets per muscle group a week linked to the biggest gains. The plan below is a starting point. Once you are recovering well, add a set to the exercises for the muscles you most want to grow.

A 4-day upper/lower plan

A meta-analysis on training frequency concluded that each major muscle group should be trained at least twice a week to maximise growth. An upper/lower split does exactly that in four sessions, and it is the setup the American College of Sports Medicine suggests for intermediate lifters who train four days a week.

Warm up with five minutes of easy cardio and one or two lighter sets of your first exercise. Rest 2-3 minutes between sets of the big lifts and 60-90 seconds on everything else. Each session takes about an hour.

Upper A

Lower A

Upper B

Lower B

Sleep: the part most plans skip

Sleep is easy to cut and it costs you more than you think. In a tightly controlled study, people on the same calorie deficit lost a similar amount of weight whether they slept 8.5 or 5.5 hours a night, but the short sleepers lost much less fat and more muscle. That is the exact opposite of what a recomp needs, so treat your sleep as part of the plan.

How to track a recomp

Because the scale hides what is happening underneath, track a few things together. Methods for measuring body fat all have their limitations, as Barakat and colleagues point out, so do not judge your progress on any single body fat reading either.

• Waist measurement. Measure at your belly button once a week, first thing in the morning. A shrinking waist with a steady weight is the classic sign of a recomp.
• Your training log. If your reps and weights keep creeping up, you are almost certainly building or keeping muscle.
• Progress photos. Every two to four weeks, same light, same time of day, same poses.
• Weekly average weight. Day-to-day weight jumps around with water and salt. The weekly average shows the real trend.

How long does a recomp take?

Longer than a straight cut or bulk, because you are doing both at once. Strength usually moves first, then your waist and clothes, and the visual changes follow. Think in months rather than weeks, and commit to at least 12 weeks before you decide whether it is working for you.

The people who do best are rarely the ones with the perfect plan. They are the ones who eat enough protein, add a rep whenever they can and keep turning up for months.

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