# Lack of food- train or don't train to preserve mass?



## Onrek (Dec 23, 2014)

Forgive me mods if this in the wrong section.

Basically, every so often because of my living situation I end up having to give up a lot of my available funds + food, so end up temporarily having to fast for a week or so. 

So my question is this- currently I'm stuck on a very subpar macro count for a week or two, and I want to preserve my mass as best as possible. Obviously I know not to do any cardio and take it easy, but *would it be better to skip training for the time being, or would it be better to continue training for the hormonal response, and would that help to preserve mass better than not training at all*?


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## deadlift666 (Dec 23, 2014)

Fasting as in eating nothing? Or just eating in a deficit?


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## Onrek (Dec 23, 2014)

Eating at a serious deficit.


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## ECKSRATED (Dec 23, 2014)

Trenbolone


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## MrRippedZilla (Dec 23, 2014)

How "serious" a deficit are we talking here? 

You should absolutely train if in any kind of a deficit if you want to maintain your muscle mass - just reduce the frequency & volume dramatically while keeping the intensity (weight on the bar) high. 
Something like a full body workout or classic upper/lower split, 1 exercise per body part, 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps done 2-3x week is the absolute minimum that I would go. 

But you really want to make sure that you keep protein high (at least 1.25g/lbm) even in the largest deficits - regardless of how much the other macros are being sacrificed. 
If you look into PSMF style dieting (protein sparing modified fasts), that's the most extreme you can possibly go before muscle loss becomes inevitable, training or not.

Of course if your currently on cycle, you wont be losing any muscle regardless of how large a deficit your running so it becomes close to irrelevant


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## JJyaya (Dec 23, 2014)

If you don't have the food you need to replenish after the workouts for a week, I would say rest, sleep often,  and eat what you can and to not workout. For my job I have a couple days at a time where I get almost no food and When I get food it sucks to say the least so I try to sleep and eat whenever I can to keep the weight on.


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## Onrek (Dec 23, 2014)

Not on a cycle atm. The deficit I'm talking is basically little to no protein available. Pretty much just have white rice, water, and whatever I can scavenge at the moment.


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## MrRippedZilla (Dec 24, 2014)

To answer your question: training or not, if your not getting enough calories (ESPECIALLY protein) then your muscles are in trouble. 

But honestly man, the lack of food availability required to stay alive should be a MUCH bigger priority for you than maintaining muscle.


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## Onrek (Dec 24, 2014)

The lack of food availability is a serious concern, but there isn't much I can do at the moment with my current situation as it's complicated. I'm going from eating 3500-4k cals a day with 200g protein to barely a fraction of that. If I can preserve as much as possible, I'd like to, until I can get my situation settled.


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## losieloos (Dec 24, 2014)

Onrek said:


> Not on a cycle atm. The deficit I'm talking is basically little to no protein available. Pretty much just have white rice, water, and whatever I can scavenge at the moment.



Yeah it's possible. Ever heard hulksmash? He eats one meal a day.


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## Onrek (Dec 24, 2014)

losieloos said:


> Yeah it's possible. Ever heard hulksmash? He eats one meal a day.



Who is this "hulksmash"? Curious to see what kind of body he has on simply one meal a day.


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