How important is fat in building muscle on a lean bulk ?

[MR-FQ320]

How important is fat in building muscle on a lean bulk ?

I can understand the concept of fat intake when trying to lose bodyfat, but what about when building lean muscle ?

I might have missed a lesson or two when it comes to muscle building, so please entertain me anyway.

Carbs and protein build muscle right ? what about fat ? good ones i am talking about.

[Twist]

I don't quite understand your question... If you are bulking and you want to know how much fat to consume I would say take your fish oils and eat your red meat but don't add any fats just for the sake of adding fat to the diet. It's an easy way to get cals in but dietary fat is meant to go to fat stores so I strongly advise against that.

You eat fat and it goes to fat stores in your body or gets used as energy. EFA have many great properties but to my knowledge do not have much (other than adding cals) to do with muscle growth.

[MR-FQ320]

So the answer is : fat is not required to build muscle. right ?

I am trying to bulk without puttting on any fat while on cycle. my typical daily training day macro split is 50p 35c and 14 fat ( and that was 6 tbsp of natty pb).

So why do people recomend the old 40/40/20 split.

[brad1986]

all calories are needed to build muscle. Go off percentages of total calories. For example 40% carb 40%protien 20% fat so if you were eating 2000cals per day that would be 44.44 grams a fat per day.

[gbrice75]

Twist is spot on.

I see where you're taking this, but your logic is flawed. Fat may not directly build muscle - i.e. it really has no effect on insulin like carbs do and protein does to a lesser extent, and isn't used as a building block like protein is, however it impacts so many bodily functions and regulates so many other processes, your body wouldn't function properly (or survive) without it. So, it would indirectly affect muscle gains, does this make sense?

At the end of the day, excess calories can result in fat storage. It's not just about fat intake, or carb intake for that matter. As Twist suggested, get your EFA's (fish oils, etc) and whatever fat comes by 'default' with your foods, and that's about as low fat as you can and should get. My .02

[Twist]

MR FQ your split is fine. The higher you get into calories the less fat is needed. If you were eating a 10,000 cal diet you would only need to have like 5% of that or less from fat.

Your body starts converting carbohydrates to fat only when dietary fat is less than 10% of your total calorie intake. I would think that this only applies when you are eating normal amounts of food.

[brad1986]

MR FQ your split is fine. The higher you get into calories the less fat is needed. If you were eating a 10,000 cal diet you would only need to have like 5% of that or less from fat.

Your body starts converting carbohydrates to fat only when dietary fat is less than 10% of your total calorie intake. I would think that this only applies when you are eating normal amounts of food.

good point