You've probably heard that you need to choose: either bulk (gain muscle and accept fat gain) or cut (lose fat and accept some muscle loss). That's the traditional bodybuilding approach, and for elite athletes chasing the last 2% of performance, it may be accurate.
For the vast majority of people — including busy professionals who are overweight or at a "normal" weight with low muscle mass — simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain is absolutely achievable. It's called body recomposition, and it happens to be what most of our clients experience in the first 12 weeks.
The Science: Why Recomposition Is Possible
The traditional argument against recomposition is that building muscle requires a calorie surplus, while losing fat requires a calorie deficit — and you can't do both at once. This logic holds at the extremes, but it ignores a crucial variable: body fat stores.
When you're carrying excess body fat, those fat stores can be used as fuel for muscle-building processes even while you're in a small calorie deficit. Your body draws on fat stores to power protein synthesis. The leaner you get, the less true this becomes — which is why elite athletes with 8% body fat struggle with recomposition, but someone at 20–30% body fat can achieve it readily.
Who Can Achieve Body Recomposition
Recomposition works best for:
- Beginners — people new to structured resistance training have significant "newbie gains" potential
- People returning after a break — muscle memory means you regain muscle faster than you originally built it
- People with excess body fat — typically above 15% for men, above 25% for women
- People who haven't been eating enough protein — increasing protein while adding training creates simultaneous conditions for both goals
If you're a natural athlete who's been training consistently for years and is already relatively lean, recomposition is slower and requires more precision. But if you're a professional who's been desk-bound and undereating protein, the conditions are near-ideal.
The Protocol
Calories: a small deficit
Set calories at approximately 10–15% below your maintenance level. A deficit of 300–400 calories per day is the sweet spot for recomposition — large enough to produce fat loss, small enough to preserve muscle-building capacity.
Avoid aggressive cuts (500+ calories below maintenance). These accelerate fat loss slightly but significantly impair muscle gain and increase the chance of losing muscle.
Protein: higher than you think
During recomposition, protein is the non-negotiable. Target 0.8–1g per pound of bodyweight daily. This is substantially more than most people eat, but it's critical for maintaining and building muscle in a deficit.
Practically, this means having a protein source at every single meal — eggs, Greek yoghurt, or lean meat at breakfast; chicken, fish, or legumes at lunch; meat or fish at dinner. Protein shakes fill gaps when needed, but whole food sources should be the foundation.
Training: progressive resistance work
Cardio burns calories but doesn't signal muscle growth. Resistance training does both — it creates a calorie expenditure and signals your body to build muscle. Three to four sessions of compound lifting per week is the engine that makes recomposition work.
Tracking progress correctly
Here's where people get discouraged: the scale doesn't always reflect recomposition accurately. If you're losing fat and gaining muscle simultaneously, your weight might barely move for weeks while your body composition is changing significantly.
Track progress through photos, body measurements, how clothes fit, and strength improvements in the gym. These tell the real story.
Realistic Timeline
In the first 8–12 weeks of a well-structured programme, it's common to see 4–8 lbs of fat lost alongside noticeable strength and muscle gains. After that initial period, the rates diverge — fat loss and muscle gain may need to be optimised separately.
For most people, though, 8–12 weeks of recomposition produces a transformation that's visually more impressive than either bulking or cutting alone, because the combination of less fat and more muscle changes the shape of your body — not just the number on the scale.
This is exactly what Cadence programmes are designed to achieve in the first phase.