Article

"When you carry excess body-fat your hormones are not optimised for muscle gains so you won’t gain much muscle mass from ANY kind of training you do. The key is to lose the excess body-fat first."

Guy did SS with proper nutrition and his lifts improved 704 Pounds On 5 Key Lifts In 1 Year. But his physique remained skinny fat, only FATTER as he gradually added more calories.

I'm kinda on the same boat.

If you train for strength, do not expect your muscle to become huge. That's the reason why bodybuiders uses Hypertrophy Specific Training, solely for Hypertrophy purposes.

"Strength does not equal to muscle, up to a certain degree"

Yes, but that's not exactly my point/question. I'm just curious that if skinny fat trainees like myself should actually cut first instead of bulk (like what most pros would tell people to do). The reason is what I pasted on my original post. What do you think about this?

Do you have any bf% or better yet, current progress pic?

Found an article that might have your answer: http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/...ilemma-bulk-cut

TLDR: It's all up to your preference. If you are still at THAT level, I doubt that you need to worry much about optimum muscle growth, what Important is that you start the body transformation.

This post has been edited by alien9: Feb 25 2015, 04:36 PM

I pmed u

Yeah, I agree. Previously, I've cut off 10kg of me but the weight loss became very slow and stagnant. I still have some fat around my waist but I was demotivated, so I decided to slowbulk. 7 months later, the fat on my waist just got bigger. I couldn't stand this and now back to cutting again. But this time, I think I'm gonna cut all the way till I'm at least 12%.

Sigh, talk about spinning my wheels.

This post has been edited by GameFr3ak: Feb 25 2015, 04:45 PM

I'll say that there's no use for you to cut. Reason being is:

1. Your don't have muscle mass thus your TDEE is low and there's very little calorie deficit you can create from it.
2. You'll need to do a lot of cardio to create a deficit due to no 1.
3. What happened after you cut? You'll go for bulk. Depending on the bulk, you'll either get a lot of fat or not much but either way, you'll definitely gain back the fat you lose before.

What happened if you bulk:
1. You'll gain muscle mass, more TDEE, greater deficit created.
2. Outcome of the cut after the bulk would be a lot better than cut without having any muscle mass in the first place.
3. You'll have more time to learn about "dieting while keeping minimal muscle loss".

Obviously, I'll go for bulk, but never fat bulk. Slow bulk would be just nice.

Do you have any pic for that 7 months bulk?

This post has been edited by alien9: Feb 25 2015, 04:53 PM

This guy is on powerlifting and he still sheds some bodyfat. You should watch



This post has been edited by degraw1993: Feb 25 2015, 04:55 PM

I've been to that route though. I did a slowbulk previously for 7 months. I did the bulk as careful as I could. I gradually added calories when my weight gain plateaued, yet the width on my waist is still very prominent.

So on my initial post, the guy leaned down to an appropriate fat percentage before slow bulking.

He explained "When you carry excess body-fat your hormones are not optimised for muscle gains so you won’t gain much muscle mass from ANY kind of training you do. The key is to lose the excess body-fat first."

I would say this is not a good example for his case. TS is skinny fat where as this guys is muscular (trained for more than 5 years) but just high on the bf%. BUT the information is damn accurate for cutting purposes.

Do you have any bf% and lean body mass value for before and after the bulk? We need data.

What I had in mind at the moment is that, if you have your diet on point, the culprit would be your workout. What kind of training did you do?

p/s: From my personal experience, when I started working out. I'm at 38% bf, doing SS for few months then add some isos, while doing fat bulk. I do gain lot of muscle mass.

If I have the same foundation of this dude when I started, I wouldn't even need to worry. I just need to cut.

I don't have these values but I started my slowbulk at 67kg and after 7 months, I'm at 73kg. I'll PM you the pics.

I believe I'm on point on my diet. The routine could be one of the factor for sure. Was doing a modified P/P/L OFF P/P/L. No proper periodization and progression.

No much gains on the number?

Stalled for at least 2-3 months on all major lifts..

Tell you very simple lar

1. Obese people can gain muscle on a deficit. This is known.

2. If you over are 20% bodyfat, you should NOT bulk. Dun worry 1. applies to you.

3. Do a slow cut instead for like 1 year or until 13% bf while running a proper program for your level.

4. Add cardio if weight loss stagnates.

Done.

I'm aware of number 1 la.... im already doing 3 & 4. Thanks guys

I think in terms of your condition now, just suggestion, your should

1) Increase your workout intensity (supersetting, HIIT, sprints, overload)
2) Maintain your calories as much as possible (try to keep macros for carb as high possible, don't drop it too much (training your metabolism)
3) Have a deload week then repeat and adjust your macros accordingly (if progress is stalling), this might help you break your bfat loss plateau

I know it can be demotivating when you eat so little calories and yet still be skinny fat. The key is to grow as much muscle as possible while losing fat slowly.

If your progress still plateau, try some other inconventional method (intermittent fasting for example, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless you have no other choice as this is quite difficult to adjust your lifestyle to)

If you look at the bolded points from alien9, another solid route you can take is eat a fixed amount of calories (your maintenance as of today) for like 1.5 years. Just run a proper workout routine with this. Guarantee your love handles fade away. There will be stalling due to TDEE increase after few months however this deficit will burn away your love handles and wala! you'll be that ripped 13% bf dude after 1 year ++.

This post has been edited by Armesh: Feb 25 2015, 07:47 PM

. Gamefreak i belief has done his homework b4 comin here ask question.

Anyway, do aware there is visceral fat. Visceral fat r hard to target. Usually skinny fat has this prob. Besides dat, sodium, water ,carbs intake will effects how u looks like.

for skinny fat, shud do minor cut once in awhile n also clean bulk (eat at nett tdee).

one thing i like to do during a plateau where my strength stops going up, i cut

but i try to keep my strength the same too, during my cut, try not to let it drop

then when i starts bulking back, it starts to go up again

but then again, im hovering at pretty heavy bodyweight even though at the end of my cut i'm still kinda bulky

This post has been edited by Manlet: Feb 26 2015, 01:03 AM

Thank you guys for all the feedback. However, the point of my thread is to discuss about nutrient partitioning and hormone regulation for a trainee with excess fat and lil muscle mass.

"When you carry excess body-fat your hormones are not optimised for muscle gains so you won’t gain much muscle mass from ANY kind of training you do. The key is to lose the excess body-fat first."

Cardio better or eat less better? LOL

Why not both?

Cardio better because then you can still keep your micro nutrient and macro intake high.

... ... I like the part he mention -- just a bigger version of his previous self ... ...

Calories in vs calories out full stop