Maintenance and Building Muscle

During the WL phase I was working out to maintain the lean muscle that I started with and would like to start building some new muscle mass. I don't want to be a bodybuiler, I would just like to build a little muscle and look better.
The question I have is, has anyone had issues building muscle on the caloric intake that most of us are at?
I know its going to be a slow road at my present age 47 and I haven't been in great shape since my military days, 17 years ago but after losing over 150 pounds and almost 25 BMI points, I feel like I own it to myself to get back in great shape and be around for everything my 20 month old may need me for in the future.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

I have found that it was hard to really build muscle when I was low calorie during the weight loss phase at about 1000 cals daily....I was lucky to just keep some muscle tone then....

But I'm seeing a lot more gains now that I'm in maintenance and around 1800 calories daily, and now that I can really eat more of real foods like steak, chicken, etc. But I have to be careful, when I choose poor food sources, I see that muscle go really fast. My trainer says she can always tell when I'm pushing the protein. I have also added back in protein shakes in order to really gain some muscle and lose more body fat.

I am in the greatest shape of my life, now, so it is definitely possible....I'm stronger than ever, and I have more lean muscle mass than I had even when I worked in gyms in my 20's.

I can only tell you what my doctor tells me, increase your protein intake.  My doctor wants me to up my protein to 120 grams a day. 

Hopefully, Mac will chime in. Increasing protein intake is important as Elina mentioned, but also, according the person who did my body fat testing, calories also need to be increased. How much, is most likely an individual situation, depending upon your muscle mass and RMR.


Gail

Protein, protein, protein with a few complex carbs thrown in for good measure and enough fat to make the protein slide down. I just started serious weight training myself!! It's good stuff!

ITA!!! I love weight training. I just wi**** would take care of my loose skin, but alas, it is still there.


Gail

I am no expert as I don't have alot of muscle, but my younger brother recently put on quite a bit of muscle mass . He was always really skinny and he put on about 20 pounds of muscle and it is muscle because he gets body fat measured.  He consumes about 150 g protein a day. That and a lot of work with weights.   so yeah you will have to up your calories but i don't know how much.  diane

Thanks for all the responses. I am slowly increasing my calorie intake with good food and normally get about 100 grams of protein so I will try to up that as well with the weigh training and see what happens.

I've been told that you can't really increase muscle mass when operating at a calorie deficit, you have to operate at a surplus. This makes sense to me because, when we operate at a deficit, we tear down "stuff" (fat, muscles, organs if we take it too far) to supply the energy we aren't getting frmo food. But, IME, I don't think it's 100% black & white like that. I think really out of shape people can build up *some* muscle operating at a deficit.