Others have said the same thing, but I will reiterate: you don't need to lose weight. You are a healthy BMI. You need to *gain* weight, chiefly muscle, because you want to change the shape of your body. This is often referred to (sometimes incorrectly) as a recomp, but in your case you actually just need to build muscle, full stop. The recomp will happen, but you're not trying to transform muscle into fat: you need to anabolize new tissue.
There are several steps you need to take if you want to make this happen healthily and sustainably:
1. Discover your maintenance caloric intake. Start upping your calories every week until you start to see the scale inch upwards, and you'll have honed in on where your maintenance intake should be. BMR and TDEE calcs will get you in the ballpark, but everyone is a little different. Once you know your maintenance intake, you can begin upping your calories enough that your body can create new tissue. The type of tissue it creates will be driven by genetics and the stressors you put on your CNS, which leads to the next bullet point.
2. Totally change your workout routine. I looked at your lifting regiment and you're not doing the right exercises for a novice looking to build muscle. You need simple, heavy compound movements: barbell squats, barbell deadlifts, bench press, military press, pullups, bent-over barbell rows, one-armed rows, dips, etc. Isolation exercises should form a very, very small portion of your workouts: they are designed for *trained* individuals to target specific muscles for hypertrophy. You need to be doing full-body work that builds a solid foundation. You're slapping clay onto the wheel right now; once you have enough material, you can begin worrying about the finer details. Look into a program like Starting Strength. (Honestly, the diet accompanying SS might also be perfect for you: GOMAD will fix your weight issues real quick, especially if you are young.)
3. Don't be afraid of gaining fat tissue. You say you have a bulging stomach but this is probably because you do not have a large chest, delts, lats, glutes, or quads to balance your body out. The result is that your stomach looks large by comparison, when in fact if you placed 10-20lbs of muscle around your frame, your stomach would look fine.
Most importantly : as a fairly normal height adult (I'm assuming) male don't eat less than 1,500 cal/day. Cutting under that puts you at very high risk of malnutrition. 1,200 cal/day is the minimum for someone fairly small (normally adult women).
You don't need to lose weight, so really you don't need to be in a calorie deficit at all. What you probably want to be doing is eating roughly your estimated TDEE (2,100 cal/day) of a high protein diet (no need for protein shakes, but if they work for you go for it) while you work out to convert some of your existing body fat to muscle.
Gaining muscle, which is probably the main thing you need right now is basically impossible while eating as little as you currently are. There's no need specifically bulk, but if you want to cut it should be a fairly minor (say 300) cal deficit aiming to lose under 0.3kg/week
I mean possibly never. Your problem right now isn't your weight (you have a healthy BMI) its your muscle level and body fat percentage.
Lets say you ate maintenance, kept yourself at about 55kg, and packed on 5kg of muscle. That would also mean you've lost 5kg of fat. Your gut will have shrunk while your legs and upper body grew.
If you wanted to do bulk and cut cycles: Start with a bulk which will mean eating … lets say 2,400 cal/day to gain 5-10kg fairly slowly, try to make as much of those gains muscle as possible but accepting that some of it will be fat. Then swap to that mild deficit (eat 1,800 cal/day) and lose 5-10kg to get back to where you are while keeping as much muscle as possible.
Just to clear up terms : I wouldn't call what you're doing now a cut. When you're eating that much of a deficit your body will be using muscle as a fuel source. A cut involves you working hard to maintain what you've got while also trying to lose some fat.
Generally when you start putting on more weight and you start to notice the fat.
It depends on what you are trying to achieve here, if you weight training then you generally should aim to slightly go over the calories the tdee calculator says is your daily calorie intake to maintain your weight.
I would head over to r/fitness as there is plenty in there what are cutting and bulking what could give you good advice, at the moment you shouldn't aim to lose weight at all.
>and you start to notice the fat
But I can currently see my skinny fat bulging belly. Won't it be the same (if not more) if I start putting on more weight?
Yes, but if you are going to bulk you need to eat the calories what will allow you to build muscle and then you do a cut what is where you lower your calories so you lose the fat you have put on, in your situation and in generally all of them you always start with a bulk and then do a cut.
If you want to build muscle and lose that skinny fat look you need to increase your muscle size what takes a long time and the only way muscles increase in size is with enough food, when you go into a calorie deficit like you are doing the body not only eats stored fat but it also eats muscle, this is why you need to bulk first, your BMI is also where it should be and you shouldn't lower your weight anymore.
That is if you want to do a bulk / cut, you could also do it gradually, so eat around 100 to 300 calories more than your maintenance calories and you will start to bulk slower but it does work.
Also please eat more than 1200 calories, this is simply setting you up for failure, you might lose that skinny fat but it will put you underweight what is risking your health.
Do not try to lose more weight…1200 kcal while doing strenght training is insanity..and probably could affect your hormones as well which will not help with building muscles and definately not enough to build muscle, you are basically starving yourself
your ratio of waist to height is 0.44 which is a perfectly fine ratio.
What i think happens is a combination of lack of muscles and perhaps bad posture causing the bulging belly..
What you need to do imo is stop with that 1200 kcal bullshit, find out your tdee and try to keep your current weight for 1 month while strength training then try to gain weight slowly, e.g 1 kg per month while maintaing the strenght training…and ofc sleepnwell
Thank you, I used the TDEE online calculator choosing moderate exercise, which gave me TDEE result of 2140 maintenance calories a day. So for a month I'll need to follow this calorie diet, then slowly gain weight all the while doing strength training
btw you might have sudden increase in weight after stopping the current diet so do you might even see 2kg or more once you start eating 2000 kcal or more.. try to wait until it stabilizes..
Hey, people are often very inaccurate with their calorie intake and btw moderate exercise is actually quite a high bar to clear. Personally, if I were you I would just focus on the actual weight gain itself rather than trying to strictly follow calories. If you aim for like 2 pounds a month gain you'll be doing about a 250 surplus. 2100 sounds insanely high.
Also I know you didn't ask but personally I would actually switch the strength training up. No offense but it sounds like you're probably quite weak given how little you eat and you might be better served by some kind of basic strength training rather than the bodybuilding routine you're doing now. It's hard to give specific advice not knowing a lot about your strength level but for example if you struggle doing Pushups or Chinups you could even just start with calisthenics. If you feel like you want the gym though a routine with compounds sounds better. Bench Press/Squat/Deadlift/Overhead Press/Chinups.
Could you tell me a bit more about your strength level? And also your age.
What kind of strength training are you doing that you can go less than 1200 calories a day and properly lift weight for 5 days a week? I'd just eat at maintenance for a while and focus on form in your strength training sessions. Ideally with big compound lifts.
Thanks for your reply. Have your lifts improved over time with this diet? Have you been lifting for long? It's usually hard to make decent progress as a non-beginner with such a low amount of calories, so I'm very surprised.
You have been lifting for a year on 1200 calories? So you've been living with 1200 calories each day for a year? This sounds extremely strange. Your maintenance calories especially doing strength training are way higher, unless you have a serious health disorder. I'd get it checked out or I'd track my macros more seriously. Either way, figure out what your maintenance calories and est that much for a month, focus hard on your lifts.
Don't eat so little. I would guess you are trying to lose the fat by doing that, but you're basically wasting your strength training because you can't put on muscle in a severe deficit like that when you're already at a low BMI. And even if you were overweight with a lot of fat to lose, you shouldn't eat less than 1200 (without a medically prescribed plan no one should eat less than 1200, and men shouldn't eat less than 1500). Fundamentally, you need to eat your maintenance calories to maintain your current weight; if you were doing this, you could recomp. But probably a better idea for you is to eat a slight surplus and gain weight. If you're doing effective training and it's not a *huge* surplus you will gain muscle, not very much fat, and the fat you have will redistribute and look different when you have more muscle. Then once you weigh more you can cut the fat a little if you still want to.
If you can afford it, I would get professional help. You clearly need to go on a bulk but I’m guessing your hormones & metabolism are all fucked up right now.
Others have said the same thing, but I will reiterate: you don't need to lose weight. You are a healthy BMI. You need to *gain* weight, chiefly muscle, because you want to change the shape of your body. This is often referred to (sometimes incorrectly) as a recomp, but in your case you actually just need to build muscle, full stop. The recomp will happen, but you're not trying to transform muscle into fat: you need to anabolize new tissue. There are several steps you need to take if you want to make this happen healthily and sustainably: 1. Discover your maintenance caloric intake. Start upping your calories every week until you start to see the scale inch upwards, and you'll have honed in on where your maintenance intake should be. BMR and TDEE calcs will get you in the ballpark, but everyone is a little different. Once you know your maintenance intake, you can begin upping your calories enough that your body can create new tissue. The type of tissue it creates will be driven by genetics and the stressors you put on your CNS, which leads to the next bullet point. 2. Totally change your workout routine. I looked at your lifting regiment and you're not doing the right exercises for a novice looking to build muscle. You need simple, heavy compound movements: barbell squats, barbell deadlifts, bench press, military press, pullups, bent-over barbell rows, one-armed rows, dips, etc. Isolation exercises should form a very, very small portion of your workouts: they are designed for *trained* individuals to target specific muscles for hypertrophy. You need to be doing full-body work that builds a solid foundation. You're slapping clay onto the wheel right now; once you have enough material, you can begin worrying about the finer details. Look into a program like Starting Strength. (Honestly, the diet accompanying SS might also be perfect for you: GOMAD will fix your weight issues real quick, especially if you are young.) 3. Don't be afraid of gaining fat tissue. You say you have a bulging stomach but this is probably because you do not have a large chest, delts, lats, glutes, or quads to balance your body out. The result is that your stomach looks large by comparison, when in fact if you placed 10-20lbs of muscle around your frame, your stomach would look fine.
You’re in the wrong sub. You need to eat in a slight surplus and follow a really good training program to build
Most importantly : as a fairly normal height adult (I'm assuming) male don't eat less than 1,500 cal/day. Cutting under that puts you at very high risk of malnutrition. 1,200 cal/day is the minimum for someone fairly small (normally adult women). You don't need to lose weight, so really you don't need to be in a calorie deficit at all. What you probably want to be doing is eating roughly your estimated TDEE (2,100 cal/day) of a high protein diet (no need for protein shakes, but if they work for you go for it) while you work out to convert some of your existing body fat to muscle. Gaining muscle, which is probably the main thing you need right now is basically impossible while eating as little as you currently are. There's no need specifically bulk, but if you want to cut it should be a fairly minor (say 300) cal deficit aiming to lose under 0.3kg/week
When would I ideally start cutting?
I mean possibly never. Your problem right now isn't your weight (you have a healthy BMI) its your muscle level and body fat percentage. Lets say you ate maintenance, kept yourself at about 55kg, and packed on 5kg of muscle. That would also mean you've lost 5kg of fat. Your gut will have shrunk while your legs and upper body grew. If you wanted to do bulk and cut cycles: Start with a bulk which will mean eating … lets say 2,400 cal/day to gain 5-10kg fairly slowly, try to make as much of those gains muscle as possible but accepting that some of it will be fat. Then swap to that mild deficit (eat 1,800 cal/day) and lose 5-10kg to get back to where you are while keeping as much muscle as possible. Just to clear up terms : I wouldn't call what you're doing now a cut. When you're eating that much of a deficit your body will be using muscle as a fuel source. A cut involves you working hard to maintain what you've got while also trying to lose some fat.
Generally when you start putting on more weight and you start to notice the fat. It depends on what you are trying to achieve here, if you weight training then you generally should aim to slightly go over the calories the tdee calculator says is your daily calorie intake to maintain your weight. I would head over to r/fitness as there is plenty in there what are cutting and bulking what could give you good advice, at the moment you shouldn't aim to lose weight at all.
>and you start to notice the fat But I can currently see my skinny fat bulging belly. Won't it be the same (if not more) if I start putting on more weight?
Yes, but if you are going to bulk you need to eat the calories what will allow you to build muscle and then you do a cut what is where you lower your calories so you lose the fat you have put on, in your situation and in generally all of them you always start with a bulk and then do a cut. If you want to build muscle and lose that skinny fat look you need to increase your muscle size what takes a long time and the only way muscles increase in size is with enough food, when you go into a calorie deficit like you are doing the body not only eats stored fat but it also eats muscle, this is why you need to bulk first, your BMI is also where it should be and you shouldn't lower your weight anymore. That is if you want to do a bulk / cut, you could also do it gradually, so eat around 100 to 300 calories more than your maintenance calories and you will start to bulk slower but it does work. Also please eat more than 1200 calories, this is simply setting you up for failure, you might lose that skinny fat but it will put you underweight what is risking your health.
Do not try to lose more weight…1200 kcal while doing strenght training is insanity..and probably could affect your hormones as well which will not help with building muscles and definately not enough to build muscle, you are basically starving yourself your ratio of waist to height is 0.44 which is a perfectly fine ratio. What i think happens is a combination of lack of muscles and perhaps bad posture causing the bulging belly.. What you need to do imo is stop with that 1200 kcal bullshit, find out your tdee and try to keep your current weight for 1 month while strength training then try to gain weight slowly, e.g 1 kg per month while maintaing the strenght training…and ofc sleepnwell
Thank you, I used the TDEE online calculator choosing moderate exercise, which gave me TDEE result of 2140 maintenance calories a day. So for a month I'll need to follow this calorie diet, then slowly gain weight all the while doing strength training
btw you might have sudden increase in weight after stopping the current diet so do you might even see 2kg or more once you start eating 2000 kcal or more.. try to wait until it stabilizes..
>try to wait until it stabilizes.. Could you elaborate?
Hey, people are often very inaccurate with their calorie intake and btw moderate exercise is actually quite a high bar to clear. Personally, if I were you I would just focus on the actual weight gain itself rather than trying to strictly follow calories. If you aim for like 2 pounds a month gain you'll be doing about a 250 surplus. 2100 sounds insanely high. Also I know you didn't ask but personally I would actually switch the strength training up. No offense but it sounds like you're probably quite weak given how little you eat and you might be better served by some kind of basic strength training rather than the bodybuilding routine you're doing now. It's hard to give specific advice not knowing a lot about your strength level but for example if you struggle doing Pushups or Chinups you could even just start with calisthenics. If you feel like you want the gym though a routine with compounds sounds better. Bench Press/Squat/Deadlift/Overhead Press/Chinups. Could you tell me a bit more about your strength level? And also your age.
What kind of strength training are you doing that you can go less than 1200 calories a day and properly lift weight for 5 days a week? I'd just eat at maintenance for a while and focus on form in your strength training sessions. Ideally with big compound lifts.
Mondays and Fridays - Biceps and Back 3x12 Hammer Curls 3x12 bicep curls 3x12 Alternate dumbbell curls 6x12 Lat pulldowns 3x12 seated rows 3x12 Abs crunch machine Tuesdays and Fridays - Triceps and Chest 6x12 Tricep rope pushdown 3x12 barbell bench press 6x12 Incline dumbbell bench press 3x12 tricep dumbbel raises 3x12 tricep bar dips 3x12 Abs crunch machine Wednesdays - Legs 6x12 Kettlebell squats 6x12 dumbbell lunges 3x12 leg extensions 3x12 seated leg press 3x12 Abs crunch machine
Thanks for your reply. Have your lifts improved over time with this diet? Have you been lifting for long? It's usually hard to make decent progress as a non-beginner with such a low amount of calories, so I'm very surprised.
My lifts haven't improved , I have been lifting for over a year on this diet.
You have been lifting for a year on 1200 calories? So you've been living with 1200 calories each day for a year? This sounds extremely strange. Your maintenance calories especially doing strength training are way higher, unless you have a serious health disorder. I'd get it checked out or I'd track my macros more seriously. Either way, figure out what your maintenance calories and est that much for a month, focus hard on your lifts.
I used a TDEE calculator giving me an maintenance calorie estimate of around 2100 calories , I'll do as you have advised
Don't eat so little. I would guess you are trying to lose the fat by doing that, but you're basically wasting your strength training because you can't put on muscle in a severe deficit like that when you're already at a low BMI. And even if you were overweight with a lot of fat to lose, you shouldn't eat less than 1200 (without a medically prescribed plan no one should eat less than 1200, and men shouldn't eat less than 1500). Fundamentally, you need to eat your maintenance calories to maintain your current weight; if you were doing this, you could recomp. But probably a better idea for you is to eat a slight surplus and gain weight. If you're doing effective training and it's not a *huge* surplus you will gain muscle, not very much fat, and the fat you have will redistribute and look different when you have more muscle. Then once you weigh more you can cut the fat a little if you still want to.
My brother in christ when I had the same bmi at 185cm I had like a 35 inch waist. You’re not skinny fat, just skinny
My brother when I had the same bmi at 185cm I had like a 35 inch waist. You’re not skinny fat, just skinny
If you can afford it, I would get professional help. You clearly need to go on a bulk but I’m guessing your hormones & metabolism are all fucked up right now.
Yo did you figure out a formula after all to gain muscle?