Well i want to start here. I was pretty skiny before i started doing some exercises. Before year and a half i started doing some crunches and pushups at home becouse i wanted to start with gym later. Now i have almost 1 year gym experience. Also i never get suplements. Just natural food like dairy products, meats (chicken and fish mostly), a lot of egg whites, and i alsmost never eat the white bread. BUT the problems started when i started with the gym. I started to eat a lot, and i think im starting to gain fat in my abdominal. I have a problem now with the balance, if i get lower food intake, im scared i will lose my muscles and i will need to work hard again to build them, and if i feed like this i will start gaining more and more fat in abdominal part of my body. I dont have a lot of fat, you can still see mu uper abs when i fleks them, but i have still fat in the lower abdominal, and i dont have problems with other parts of the body. Pls help me with the food intake, becouse if i start a diet for losing fat im scared i will lose my muscles too as i said before :S
Comments for this blog entry.
mdg on 23-Jan-10
ya i kinda went thru the same thing way back except i never had sixpack to begin with haha. you go on a cut and lose some fat and then bulk back up again. mike will hook you up
Trax on 23-Jan-10
Hehe i never had 6pack, i can only show the first 4 ab muscle, the 2 on the bottom of the abdominal are covered with fat :((( not that much but enough so nobody can see em :D and for my obliques, they are pretty good too, covered a lil bit with fat, but they are pretty visible
mike on 24-Jan-10
Welcome, Trax! Congratulations on what you've already accomplished! As far losing some fat, MDG got it right -- the only real way to do it is to go on a cut. Yes, you will likely lose a little bit of muscle and some strength, but once you get down to the level of bodyfat that you want to see you can once again start to bulk up and you will find that you regain your lost strength fairly quickly and with time your lost muscle mass as well. It's not a fast process, but these consecutive cycles of cutting and bulking are the best way to keep gaining muscle and losing fat.
You have already seen the first year's gains -- your first year of training generally always sees the best gains in muscle and/or losses in fat. From then on you'll have to work a little harder to keep making progress. Assuming you are a young guy and have a good training program and nutrition plan and gain or lose weight as slowly as possible, here is the math... You should expect that on a typical bulk 2/3 of the pounds gained will be muscle and 1/3 fat. Similarly, on a cut you should expect that 2/3 of the pounds lost will be from fat and 1/3 from muscle. So supposing you go on a cut and lose 15 pounds over about 4 months (a good slow weight loss pace), you should find that 10 of those lost pounds were fat and 5 pounds were muscle. Then you reverse the course and spend about 8 months bulking up by about 15 pounds (you should gain weight slower than you lose it to prevent extra fat gain), of which 10 pounds are new muscle and 5 pounds are new fat. So after a year you wind up with the same weight as before, but with 5 more pounds of muscle, 5 fewer pounds of fat and 2-3% lower body bodyfat level than before.
It may seem like a slow process but actually a drop of 2-3% bodyfat and gain of 5 pounds of muscle is very noticeable. More importantly, this is a very realistic plan for somebody like you, who is already in very good shape (as I said, those who start out out of shape make initial progress much faster) and some will be able to gain muscle and lose fat even faster.
I hope the above helps you plan your course of action with going on a temporary cut to lose the extra fat and then reversing the course and rebuilding the lost muscle.
Aside from that, general tips to keep fat gains minimal while gaining weight are of course to keep the diet as clean as possible (read http://www.mikesfitness.com/article_nutrition.php if you haven't already), gain weight as slowly as possible -- 1 pound every 2 weeks is a good pace, and maybe do HIIT -- traditional cardio is somewhat counterproductive when trying to gain weight, but HIIT has many of the same health and fat-burning benefits without impeding muscle gains.
If you would like you can post more information about yourself (age, height, weight, etc), and your current diet and training program in detail here and I will give some suggestions, including how to alter them if you decide to go on a cut. Good luck!
Trax on 24-Jan-10
Well i think my lil problem is the diet. I dont have some precise diet ... i eat freestyle :D:D trying to have like 4-5 meals per day, but sometimes i cant make eve 3 meals :S becouse of work and study. I also think that if i get some protein powder my situation will be really good. Also other think that confused me when i went to look what kind of proteins can i buy in the shop, they shown me many but some of them were 50% protein 50% carbs ! And i think that carbs are bad and we need to avoid them! And just so i ask, sorry but im not good with english so i wanted to ask what is the meaning of the word "cut" ?
mike on 24-Jan-10
A "cut" is when you are lose weight to to lose fat while trying to preserve muscle. A "bulk" is the opposite -- when you are gaining weight while trying to build muscle while minimizing new fat gains. Training does not need to be different on a cut compared to a bulk, though most people will do more cardio on a cut. The diet is the difference between a cut and a bulk. On a cut you eat fewer calories than needed to maintain bodyweight, mostly at the expense of fewer carbs. On a bulk you eat more calories than needed for maintenance. Again, read http://www.mikesfitness.com/article_nutrition.php if you haven't already.
As far as protein powder -- yes, it can be useful if you are not getting enough protein in your everyday foods. And you are right to be suspicious of the store that's trying to sell you a protein powder with a lot of carbs! They are probably trying to sell you what we call a "weight gainer", which are marketed as some sort of magic muscle builders. The truth is that they are packed with sugars and are inferior to real healthy foods for gaining weight and building muscle. A good protein powder should have around 80-90% of its calories come from protein with only trace amounts of carbs and fats.
As far as your diet, I can certainly understand not having time to eat 5 or more full meals every day. But, as I said before, the fact is that the better shape you are in the harder it is to keep improving (whether losing fat or gaining muscle) and what may have worked before as far as "freestyle" diet may not work in the future if you want to keep gaining muscle and losing fat. So you just need to determine your priorities and decide how much time and effort you can put into your diet plan. Maybe you'll be able to have a successful cut just with your freestyle plan, by eating fewer carbs. It helps if you are still young (teenager or early 20s) -- your body is much more forgiving at that age. But a more structured diet plan would certainly increase your chances of success. That's your decision to make, how much effort you are willing to put into your diet vs. how important your training goals are.
Trax on 24-Jan-10
Ty a lot Mike! And just so i tell, my goals are not to build that much muscle ... i just want to look sexy :) something like the fitness models are :) Thats why i will train hard to get more muscle mass, and will start with my fithness training, so i still keep some muscles on me and not burn em all with training :D
mike on 25-Jan-10
You're welcome! Remember you can always do more than one bulk-cut cycle, and with each cycle you'll lower your body fat a bit and get closer to your goal.
bigbubba on 25-Jan-10
How's it going? Anyhow, one quick comment I'd like to throw in. I plan my food carefully every day. This actually does not take that much time. Every morning (or night before) I pack all the food I will need for a day and stick it into my lunch bag. I cook in bulk on weekends those things I eat like beans, brown rice, and chicken. Then, when it comes time to eat, I reach into my lunch bag, pull out what I am going to eat, and microwave what needs to be microwaved, and there it is, very simple, very easy. I know that not everyone can eat like this, so you have to find a point where you are comfortable. As for myself, when I free-style it, that's when my pants start getting tighter, so this strategy works for me.
P.S., I've never had to worry about losing my 6-pack because I've never had one HA!
