Q: I am a little overweight, with a bit of a gut. What worries me is that i have big 'man boobs'. When I squeeze them they are mainly soft but there is a sort of hard bit around my relitively large nipples. Is this normal for someone a bit fat?

A: Yes, this is fairly common. A lot of men have relatively large fat deposits in the chest area (a.k.a. man boobs) even when they are not significantly overweight. The degree to which your body stores fat in the abdomen vs. chest vs. other areas is genetic and you don't have any control over it. But if you lose fat overall, then you will lose it in the chest as well, eliminating the man boob effect. In addition by exercising chest overall and especially the upper chest, you will develop your chest muscles (pectorials or pecs) so that your chest will be broader and bigger and a little fat on it will not be nearly as noticable as now.

So you should attack this in two ways: one is to lose the fat overall, and two is to build your chest up. The first thing is accomplished through general whole-body weight training, moderate cardio, and a fat-burning diet. If you haven't already done so, read the two main articles in the Article section of this site. They will tell you how to go about weight-training and the diet. For cardio, do what you like best, but in moderation. Something like 2-3 times/week, maybe 30 minutes or less each time. Aim for weight loss of no more than 1-2 pounds per week -- slow and steady definitely wins the race here. Your first week you might drop a little more than that because you'll lose a lot of water when you switch to a relatively light-carb diet, but from then on aim for 1-2 pounds/week or less weight loss. The weightlifting article gives a number of weight-training programs. Pick whichever one suits you and stick with it for a couple of months before changing to another one. Remember to always maintain good form and at the same time to push yourself hard in the gym.

The second part as I mentioned is targeting your chest muscles to make them bigger and mask whatever fat is on your chest. For this, simply prioritize chest training as part of your overall routine. Do the chest exercises as the first ones in the gym, then do the rest of the routine. Maybe add a couple of sets extra for the chest. Best chest exercises by far are plain bench press and the incline bench press. Just don't go crazy doing 10 sets of bench press 3 times a week though -- stick to the program recommendations in the weight-training article or any other reputable program you choose to follow and alter it only slightly to target the chest more. And don't ignore the rest of your body, including legs -- big exercises like squat and deadlift are incredible muscle builders and fat burners for your whole body. Good luck!