Calorie deficit and still progress in bodyweight exercises

Hello,

I'm new to the forum and started doing bodyweight exercises 2 month ago.

(bodyweight every second day and cardio between those, 1 day rest a week)

Since then I lost body fat but there were also progressions according to the bodyweight exercises as well

(increasing number of push up reps for example ...).

Still usually guys talk about a calorie surplus to gain strength and mass.

I'm actually not interested in bulking but rather in achieving advanced techniques during the upcoming years.

Originally I started loosing body fat, hence I'm currently on a calorie deficit.

I read that there is also the CNS that needs to be considered when performing those bodyweight exercises

that would explain the improvement of reps. But is this just due to the simplicity of the beginner exercises and

that I need more calories to make actual progress when facing harder techniques (e.g. planche)?

Is it possible while maintaining the calorie deficit and loosing body fat to still make progress in those bodyweight exercises? (assuming there is a proper nutrition with enough protein etc. and the deficit is about 300-500kcal)

Thank you in advance

If you don't have excessive body fat, I think you shouldn't be worried about having a caloric deficit. You should just eat enough quality food based on your genotype. People that trains hard, should eat hard quantities of the right food for them.

chuchodani said:

If you don't have excessive body fat, I think you shouldn't be worried about having a caloric deficit. You should just eat enough quality food based on your genotype. People that trains hard, should eat hard quantities of the right food for them.

Thanks for the reply but I'm not sure whether I understood this right. What do you actually mean that I shouldn't worry about a caloric deficit if I don't have excessive body fat according to the question?

Rey said:

Thanks for the reply but I'm not sure whether I understood this right. What do you actually mean that I shouldn't worry about a caloric deficit if I don't have excessive body fat according to the question?

I meant to say that if you still have fat to lose, it could help you. But if not, a caloric deficit maybe can make your progress stall. If I don't eat the right amount of food in a day, my performance tend to suffer the consequences. 

chuchodani said:

I meant to say that if you still have fat to lose, it could help you. But if not, a caloric deficit maybe can make your progress stall. If I don't eat the right amount of food in a day, my performance tend to suffer the consequences. 

Ok, but how does it come that I'm able to make progress while being in a deficit. Is it due to the loss of bodyweight so that I need to lift less in  my exercises or is the body using those fat depots to build up muscles?

fat doesn't turn into protein.    you're burning the fat for energy and using dietary protein to build any muscle.    

part of it is that you're lighter, the above process might be part of it (depending on how much of a beginner you are), and the rest is neurological (your nerves are learning the patterns and to recruit more muscle at the same time).

Part of the problem you're having is confusing short term results with long term.

You can get away with it for a short while, but not for years on end.