Thanks, Gerald!
Glad you enjoyed the discussion around baseline calories and that you found this information useful! That’s always the goal with the content we put out.

When it comes to muscle hypertrophy you are correct, that not everyone needs a calorie surplus to build muscle, but eating too few calories does not support building new mass. And yes, protein does matter, but it doesn’t mean crushing unnecessary amounts of protein. What you are suggesting is body recomposition.

It can be done—but it is not optimal to approach muscle building in this way. It ends up being isocaloric and is a lot slower and harder for net gains. It is just not the fastest way and a lot harder for intermediates. For advanced it is damn near impossible.

How many calories and how much protein depends on the person, their experience level with training, and body fat percentage. In the absence of hyper caloric diet, someone can increase muscle size if they have enough protein intake but only if they have enough body fat percentage and are a beginner in the gym.

Metabolically, in a hypercaloric condition, various intracellualr pathways are easier to turn up or turn on. mTor and testosterone are examples and both account for hypertrophy. These are turned up with adequate calories. Conversely, hypocaloric conditions turn up AMPk which turns on aerobic adaptations and cranks up cortisol. This is shooting yourself in the foot for muscle gain.

What we suggest and what we do in our coaching program is optimize muscle building efforts. For higher body fat percentages go with a fat loss phase first, then move to a muscle building phase. This allows the person to be more productive in each phase and achieve results faster by using calorie adjustments more effectively.

Happy to share our knowledge and help break through the misinformation out there. Thanks for reading.

Very thankful for the information and knowledge.