Body recomposition: lose fat and build muscle at once

What is body recomposition?

The traditional approach to changing your body is to alternate: a “bulk” in a calorie surplus to build muscle, then a “cut” in a deficit to lose fat. Body recomposition does both at once. Because you are adding muscle while losing fat, your weight might barely move, but you look leaner, your clothes fit differently and you get stronger.

Who can recomp?

Research suggests recomposition happens most easily in some groups:

• Beginners to strength training, who build muscle quickly in their first year.
• People returning to training after a break, thanks to “muscle memory”.
• People with more body fat, who have plenty of stored energy to fuel muscle growth.

Well-trained, lean lifters can still recomp, but slowly. For them, separate building and cutting phases usually make faster progress.

How to do a body recomposition

1. Set calories at or slightly below maintenance

Find your maintenance calories with our calorie calculator, then eat at maintenance or up to about 200 to 400 kcal below. A bigger deficit speeds up fat loss but makes building muscle much harder. If you have a lot of fat to lose, a slightly larger deficit is fine.

2. Eat plenty of protein

Protein is the single most important part of a recomp. Aim for 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of body weight a day, spread across three or four meals of 25 to 40 g. Use our protein calculator to find your number, and our high protein meals to hit it.

3. Lift weights with progressive overload

Without a reason to build muscle, your body will not. Train each major muscle group two or three times a week with weights, machines or bodyweight exercises, and keep adding a little more weight or a few more reps over time. Compound lifts such as squats, deadlifts, presses, rows and pull-ups give the most return for your time.

4. Sleep and recover

Muscle is built while you recover. Seven to nine hours of sleep makes a measurable difference to both muscle gain and fat loss, and to how hungry you feel the next day.

5. Keep cardio sensible

Walking and moderate cardio help with fat loss and health. Very high volumes of cardio can interfere with strength gains, so make lifting the priority and use daily steps for extra activity.

How to track a recomp

The bathroom scale is a poor guide here because fat loss and muscle gain cancel each other out. Use several measures instead:

• Waist measurement at the belly button, once a week.
• Progress photos in the same light every four weeks.
• Strength: are your main lifts going up?
• Weekly average body weight, which should be stable or falling slowly.
• Your protein and calorie intake, so you know you are sticking to the plan.

A sample recomp day

For an 80 kg person aiming for about 160 g of protein. As listed this comes to roughly 1,850 kcal:

• Breakfast: feta and spinach omelette with a slice of wholemeal toast (about 33 g protein)
• Lunch: chicken and quinoa bowl (about 40 g)
• Snack: skyr and berries plus a banana (about 17 g)
• Dinner: turkey chilli with rice (about 43 g)
• Evening: protein shake with milk (about 31 g)

Add rice, bread, fruit or healthy fats to bring it up to your own calorie target. Our macro guide explains how to split the rest between carbs and fat.

Stay consistent

Recomposition rewards consistency over months, and the part people drift on is protein. Calori makes it easier to stay on track: snap each meal and it logs the protein, carbs, fat and calories, with progress charts that show your weekly and monthly trends rather than one day at a time.