How do you lose fat and gain muscle?

• adjust your diet, you need a reasonable caloric deficit
• regular training, if you have no condition at all / never trained, go easy at the start. If you have had some form of training before in a sport you a little heavier. I recently lost 15lbs in fat and increased muscle mass by 10lbs. Took me about 6 months and it looks way better. I am at 6.2" 190lbs now.

In contrast what people say, it is possible to get rid of fat and gain muscle mass if you don't have unrealistic expectations.

Regular exercising + diet :(

and to make life easier: don't take in any useless calories like sugary drinks, alcohol (beer), high fructose corn syrup, chocolate, simple carbs, reduce big meals, ideally no pizza, fries, etc

good: oatmeal, whey protein, cottage cheese, water, sugar free drinks, some milk / not too much, chicken, lean meat

Skinny fat is tough. It means the following: a) No strength/muscle b) Bad diet c) unlucky genetics, you probably gain fat very easily and muscle slowly

You need to fix your diet, and get stronger. I really want to emphasize that DIET IS PARAMOUNT. You can workout like a madman, but if your diet sucks, you will make no progress whatsoever.

When eating foods, make sure your plate makes up of mostly protein and veggies, and a small portion for carbs(breads, mashed potatoes, etc). Viewing food portions in this manner will result in a huge change in your body composition.

Here are some random facts I you should be aware of: - Your body doesn't turn fat into muscle. - You need to drink x amount of water per day. Just drink enough water every now and then to satisfy thirst. Forcing yourself to drink water will result in you peeing every 5-10 min, and this is definitely not healthy. - If your pee is yellow, it doesn't mean you're not drinking enough water. - Fact-check everything people tell you about lifting/nutrition. Sometimes, there are no easy answers for a fitness related question. - CARBS have a lot of calories. You don't need to eat that many carbs. Eat as little of them as possible. - Don't rush into learning the big lifts, bench, deadlift, and squat. The big three, especially the deadlift and squat, are really technical, and many people lift them with dogshit form. Watch tons of videos (Alan Thrall is amazing at explaining these), and I would probably recommend you have someone teach you in person (I had the luxury of people in my college gym and home gym show me how to improve my form). - If you care more about muscle size than strength, do 3-5 sets, 8-12 reps per set. For strength, 3-5 sets and 3-5 reps per set.

There's so much more. Just watch Alan Thrall and learn.

lift heavy and eat at maintenance is the best way i've found

it's slow going

Best thing for me has been carb timing. Only eat carbs around intense workouts (a little before and a little after) and avoid them otherwise. You don't need them for anything else.

For me anyway, reps/sets don't matter much. 3x10 or 5x5, whatever. Just find a schedule you can maintain and watch the carbs.

I'm gonna keep it simple because I think things like carb cycling and meal timing are all inside baseball and can distract you from basic principles

for healthy weight - caloric deficit. if you get that by eating less, fine. if you get it by moving more, fine. once you've done this for several months, you'll get a sense if you're plateauing. if you start to plateau, then play with the specifics of your diet more.

for muscle - depends on the starting point, but in my opinion, starting strength is the best base. if you can't do that because of lockdown, do pushups, bodyweight squat jumps, rows/deadlifts/curls with stuff around the house (heavy backpacks/suitcases, water jugs, etc). there's plenty of bodyweight workouts online, no excuse not to find something.

in general - focus on form over numbers. I'd much rather have you squat a 45lb bar perfectly to depth with a neutral spine than load it up with a couple biscuits just for the 'gram and then tear your back apart because you have tight hips. on that note, mobility mobility mobility. the ready state (formerly supple leopard) is a good book for this, but plenty of videos on youtube

once you have some sort of exercise routine, whether it's a bro split, push/pull, whatever, then get into specifics. first order of business is losing the flab and getting into a level of shape where you're not getting DOMS for a week after 30 squats. too often I see advice for someone who doesn't exercise mimic the advice for someone who's been lifting for 5y and is trying to break a plateau. are they wrong? no, but my opinion is that you need to build a base first.

finally, good on you for starting this journey

Fat burning is a simple equation of less caloric intake then your body needs.

Building muscle requires both a healthy diet (this does not mean cutting out carbs and fats) plus consistent workout regimes

Fortunately you don’t need any equipment to do upper body and core exercises. Circuit training primarily emphasized on push and pull movements are extremely effective. Go to the store and get a few resistance bands and water jugs.

Heres a simple ~45 minute upper body circuit I have been given to help maintain strength:

warmup: general active warmup (no static stretches)

Set 1: 2 min of pushups ( feel free to pause at anytime but try to do as many as you can)

Main Set: 6 rounds total 4 exercises per round 45sec on 15sec rest 1. push-ups 2. overhead press w/ water jugs 3. Banded row (balance on toes) 4. suitcase abs (weighted)

final set: 100 banded curls (break however you like) 100 body weight dips (break how you like)

My advice for starting out, google the person you want to look like and see if you can find their diet/workout. You don't have to copy that, but gives you an idea. For example, don't think you can look like the Rock eating 500 calories a day.

That follows focusing on goals. You can lift weights in an effort to lift heavy weight (usually these guys don't care how they look), or in effort to look better (usually these guys don't care out how much they lift).

For diet, which is the most important remember the basics:

1g protein = 4 calories 1g carbs = 4 calories 1g fat = 9 calories

Find your ideal body weight and eat that many grams of protein per day. Ideally, you'd want to figure out how much calories you're eating now, figure out if you need to eat more or less, then you can divide up the rest between carbs and fats (if you're going to do this, google more, it's very individual and can't just take advice off of what works for me).

Also remember, carbs aren't necessary bad. It's just people eat way more of them than they should. You never hear overweight people talk about how they ate 20 baked chicken breast (which is protein and fat), but you do hear them talk about the whole pizza/chips/cake/beer they ate/drank (which is a lot of carbs, way more than you should consume). The chicken would get stored as excess fat, ppl just don't OD on protein.

Eat less and move more, but seriously I like seeing people trying to improve and seek advice with an open mind. here’s what could help:

1. track your calories over the next week (daily). decide which are unnecessary and slowly carve some out. over time, this will help get you leaner.

2. use free weights. a lot of people do some weird and useless exercises. stick to the main exercises: bench, squat, deadlift, shoulder presses, barbless/dumbbell curls, close-grip presses and pull ups. track you key lifts every day (obviously rotate body parts) and over the next few weeks try to a) increase reps with same weight or b) try to use more weight with the same reps. there’s a million online places to find a program.

if you want abs, that gets done by diet and staying out of the kitchen. if you want to rep 315 10+ times or 18 inch arms, you need to lift heavy and do the key lifts. if you want both, it’s a non linear and dynamic path / upward battle to balance calories with maintaining a six pack and you need to be ready for 2 steps forward and 3 steps back at times.

Diet: No need to go gung-ho on a over-restrictive diet. Just use common sense with whatever your eating, more common sense than you are now. Snack on beef jerky, turkey sandwhich, or some tuna throughout the day. Eat some fruit 30-45 minutes before your workout and right after. Just find some nifty ways to include more protein in your diet without having to overeat. Cheat meals 1-2x a week are great too just to keep yourself happy.

Training: 3-4x a week full body or 6x a week push-pull-legs if you wanna go full tryhard mode. Don't need anything fancy just make sure during all your exercises you're doing your set for at least 45-60 seconds.

Your body will naturally lose fat and gain muscle your first year. Usually the cause of being skinny fat is just having no muscle so when you put on 10-15lbs of muscle in your first year it'll be somewhat of a balloon effect where the fat distribution on your body is better making u look more jacked without having to lose weight dieting.

No one has mentioned this but stay away from creatine and other supplements. Being disciplined by counting macros and training efficiently will yield good enough results for someone who wants to gain strength and become aesthetic.

This to me sounds like, how do I buy all the things I want but save money at the same time

Other people have given great advice. I'm just going to say a bit about my thoughts having very recently been in this scenario in the past year.

I found myself kind of in a rut where I was 5'11" 185 lbs or so, and not that strong at all so very skinny fat, or if I'm being honest just pudgy. I thought about whether to begin heavy lifting / bulk up, or whether to cut first. I made the conclusion to start lifting heavy; I did 6 months straight of really cracking on the main lifts. Improved my bench from 5x115 to 5x185, squat from 5x135 to 5x225, deadlift from ??? to 5x245, OHP from 5x95 to 5x145.

Sounds like good progress? The problem was that my weight also increased to 200 lbs and I really started feeling the effects of being heavier. I got to a point where I wanted to increase my lifts but I also absolutely did not want to be significantly heavier / fatter then where I was. My pants barely fit, or I should say, did not really "fit" the way they should, and I just treated it like it was normal.

Covid snapped me out of that fantasy by keeping me out of the gym and giving my time to really focus on my diet (instead of eating out 3x a day like a normal banker). I developed really good eating habits and have been doing an intense bodyweight fitness regimen from a USMC Drill Instructor. I shed the pounds like crazy and now am 170 lbs as of today.

Let me tell you, I feel a hundred percent better at 170 than I did at 185 and especially 200. I have no idea how much my "Big 4" lifts have gone down, but I almost don't care. At 200 lbs despite those lifting numbers I could only do maybe 1 strict pull-up. I can do easily 10 very strict pullups now. I couldn't move around very easily at 200 and had little cardiovascular health (had to take big rests in between lifts at the gym), now I feel fucking sprightly by comparison after 100 burpees. Maybe I have "lost" all my muscle and back to where I was, maybe I'm stronger than where I started out when I was 185 but with 15 fewer pounds of fat. Regardless I can see the proof in the pudding. Stopped snoring at night (halfway convinced my self-diagnosed "sleep apnea" was just me being hella fat).

All goes to show, when I was in the gym the lifting numbers felt like a competition and the weight seemed like an afterthought. Now I really am focusing on function - do I feel healthy, i.e. a good combination of being strong and cardio fit? Also, diet probably did 80% of these results and the 1 hr of cardio / bodyweight stuff is window dressing / to try and keep some muscle. Food for thought!

Also just going to ping @Isaiah_53_5" our resident fitness madman.

You're young, this will be easy. White foods (bread, potatoes, rice) turn into sugar just like a donut or soda - eliminate or minimize. Fake zero-cal sweeteners fool your body, to keep it very simple - eliminate A lot of people swear peanut, corn, soy, dairy are so messed up these days (even organic) that they cause inflammation and some level of reaction in your gut - may want to consider eliminating. Definitely those all soy fake food bars are not your best bet. Basic diet: Clean protein, vegetables, fruit, water. Eat real food. Don't go hungry. Don't eat late at night (if you can finish by 7, great). Have a day or a couple meals a week that are more indulgent. The ol' whoosh effect. Weight training is your best friend. Cardio is important a couple days a week, but endless cardio without weights = no change. Yoga ain't just for girls, it can define you. Abs tone very fast - a month of daily work (5-10 min a day) will do it after the belly goes. Send a picture when you're done.

Everyone has made extremely good points. One thing that worked tremendously well for me was creating my small calorie deficit through exercise instead of diet. For diet I ate clean 80% (we are all humans it is okay some cheating will happen) and ate my maintenance calories. The exercise allowed me to create a small calorie deficit (200-300) which helped me do a really nice recomp. While this works best for me, everyone is different and you might need to test different methods to find what works best for you. Fitness is a marathon not a race.

I don't think you can do both simultaneously. It's very easy to get fat-muscular. Especially if you start lifting weights and start eating a lot of protein right away. If you want a lean and muscular look, then I recommend you lose the weight first and then work on getting muscular.

1) Cardio & Diet Change:

Do lots of cardio to lose weight and to build up your metabolism & energy. For running this means, 3~5 times week for 25+ minutes. Replace empty carbs with healthy ones like potatoes and oats. Don't eat processed food. Once exercise becomes part of your routine, you'll notice that you've lost a lot of weight.

2) Start lifting & Reduce overall carb consumption:

Once you feel like you've lost enough weight, start lifting. Alternate between running days and lifting days. Gradually start reducing carb consumption and replace with veggies and lean meat.

Eat at a 250 caloric deficit. Lift 3x/wk doing a full body 5 set per body part routine M/W/F mostly compound lifts. Get 0.8g/lb of protein. Split the rest of the calories mostly as you see fit. Focus on linear progression (more reps/weight each time). Research has shown rep ranges from 6-30 can build mass so you have broad latitude to work out as you enjoy. You can buy resistance bands with up to 200lb resistance relatively cheap online.

Do that for 4-6 months and you will surely see results and look pretty good. You'll be ~10lbs lighter with maybe 5-10lbs more muscle and 10-15lbs less fat. After that becomes a bit trickier/harder to progress. But that alone will fix the skinny fat problem. People at high BF%+those who are beginners can gain lean mass on a deficit easily (body uses internal fat to fuel protein synthesis).

After 6 month mark and being lean-ish you'll have to eat at a small surplus to gain appreciable mass for someone with average genetics. But you tackle that problem when you get there.

Train a lot and eat healthy, gotta love it

Interesting:

https://www.lumen.me/how-it-works

Unlock your metabolism

The CO2 concentration is measured using a unique breath maneuver, which is performed by inhaling a fixed volume of air through the Lumen device (dynamic to each individual), holding it for 10 seconds, and exhaling fully.

High CO2 - Carb burn

Low CO2 - Fat burn

Also, this nutritional guide is pretty helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Quick-Study-Health-BarCharts/dp/142321…

My friend was in a masters of science (nutrition) program at Columbia and they gave them these sheets in orientation. It’s a pretty good overview of nutrition and each component.

Chloe Ting full body shred—don’t knock it until you try it

As you can see it's one of those things that everybody has an opinion on. Here are the principals that worked for me.

1. Lift heavy weights with a simple linear progression programme - "Starting Strength" is a great place to start. Learn the main lifts Bench Press, Shoulder Press, Squat, Deadlift, Row. These are compund movements that target wide areas of muscle. As an untrained noob you need bang for your buck. Put these lifts into a simple 3 day a week programme and increase the weight each workout and you'll see results rapidly.

2. Look at body recomposition as a long term goal - Commit to it for a year. You will notice results almost right away as a noob but it takes time to get good results. Yes you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time but it is hard and requires a very strict diet. It is better to focus on one goal at a time. I would say take six months to focus on your lifts and eating a lot. You will get bigger. You will add muscle and you will also add a little bit of fat. Once you have a good base of strenght, you can start eating less and focus on cutting the fat. Maybe add in some cardio too at this stage.

3. Don't overthink diet - Use common sense here. People were big and shredded long before some of these modern crazy diet suggestions were around. Lean Protein, Natural food, Fruit and veg good. Sugar, processed foods bad. Eat a lot to grow big. Eat less to lose weight. Adjust according to the results your getting. That is all there is to it. Really.

Get your T levels checked. If it's low, get on TRT. Don't waste your money on Nugenix or any other bullshit... if you've been a sedentary desk jockey for a few years, your T is likely shit. Start on a basic strength building platform, 5x5 Stronglifts is a good one. As your strength builds, add in more movements/accessory lifts and increase the rep ranges to aid hypertrophy (8-12 rep ranges). Mix in some cardio, and try to eat in a slight caloric deficit. Keep your protein intake on the high side, don't cut carbs or intermittent fast. Just try to consume around 250-500 less calories than you burn in a day. That's the tricky part, use a variety of calorie calculators to determine your daily requirement, and make slight adjustments after a couple of weeks if you're not seeing the needle move. That being said, take body measurements before you begin, and every so often, because as you build muscle and eliminate fat, the scale can be misleading. Mirrors and a tape measure are often better metrics than just weight. If your pants are getting looser, and you look better, you're doing it right, regardless if you may have "gained a few pounds."

And I fully expect MS to be thrown for suggesting TRT, but it changed my life. My initial levels were around 380, Doc keeps me around 1k now, and it's amazing. I feel 19 again. Big difference between running full-on gear and taking Dr-prescribed test.

People do love giving advice on fitness - a truism as old as time. A lot of good advice here.

I applaud you taking the initiative to do this and, as a formerly overweight kid, understand the challenge of starting from square one. My one piece of advice - try a lot of things, and find what works for you - then never again read about someone's diet, fitness regimen or anything. Especially celebrity or athletes - I spent so many years trying to emulate them, until finally i realized that half of it is bullshit and the other half unrealistic for the majority of people. Eat well, get strong, be happy and then maintain it.

Just my two cents -

If you're a beginner lifter, you have a fantastic opportunity for body recomposition (gaining muscle while losing fat). I'd watch some videos by Jeff Nippard / Vitruvian Physique on YT to learn more - they have some helpful stuff.

The one things that I cannot emphasize enough for beginner lifters is progressive overload. That is the main driver for both hypertrophy and strength gains. Just pick a couple of key lifts that you enjoy doing and you can see yourself doing long term, and get better at them over time. Not just increasing weight, but there are other ways to get induce progressive overload - increase rep scheme, reduce rest time, make movement more mechanically difficult (eg. slow down eccentric and explode on concentric). I'd recommend starting each workout with 1-2 core compound lifts that constitute ~70% of hour lifting workout (eg. OHP, Deadlift, Squat) and then using the remainder 30% of your workout to do a couple of key isolation lifts.

Make sure you define which body parts you want to focus on- if you want to have boulder shoulders, it's probably a good idea to do lateral raises 3-4x a week. Make sure you vary the training style - for lateral raises, consider using rest pause training, drop sets, etc. Especially for isolation movements, you can go much higher on rep scheme and overload much more while for a lot of compound lifts, this might be physiologically taxing. I'd toss in cardio 2-3x a week for 20 minutes, just to keep your heart healthy. As I'm getting older, I think the main focus on lifting is more so longevity - not trying to hit some absurd deadlift and blow out my lower back as I did in my late teens and early 20s. Good luck man and remember - the day you start lifting is the day you become forever small.

crack

someone bring Greg Ogallagher into the discussion

• prioritize protein in every meal and be selective with carb intake. get the bulk of carbs at breakfast. fats are crucial for health but also useful for filling up. half an avocado at lunch goes a long way
• weight lifting 3-5x per week. if you have limited time, limit each workout to 3-5 exercises of 3 sets each. Give 100% focus and decication to those 35-45 minutes workouts. DO NOT NEGLECT LEGS - they are massive muscles that will burn a lot of calories.
• cardio: even daily walks go a long way. I went through a period of walking 5k every morning with my wife before work. I rarely broke a sweat, even in NYCs pre-summer humidity. I still saw gradual cuts over time.
• no booze policy is extremely effective but IMO, life is too short. The comprimise is NO BEER, vodka sodas only. Add Crystal Light lemon powder if you must.
• Be patient. you may see results in 4-6 weeks, buddies may not see results until 12-24 weeks, ladies may not see results until 52 weeks

If you rermember only thing: you can't outexercise a bad diet. So do both, but fix the diet first.

But it's really three things. Food, exercise, rest.

Food: cut out the added sugar, processed food and the white flour. Three meals a day, one dish each. Get a decent balance of protein, fat and carbs - without the aforementioned ingredients. Prioritize water over other beverages. Avoid cheats such as "sugar free" snacks - it's empty nutrition. You'll just hungrier afterward.

Exercise: blend three kinds - 1) big compound lifts 2) HIIT 3) recovery cardio. The compound lifts: squats, deadlifts, bench - there are several available programs online, just don't do them all the same day. Do it with just your bodyweight or just the bar if that's all you can handle. You're competing against your gut, not bro numbers. HIIT: go for sprints, get a jump rope, or get a 20lb sandbag and do full body workouts. Recovery cardio: do this on your rest days, or after your compound lift sessions. Enough to sweat, clean up toxins, not much more.

Rest: cut out the phone before sleeping, map when necessary, give yourself at least one full rest day a week.

Not sure if this has already been posted but this thread is what kicked of my fitness journey once I started working full-time: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/a-monkeys-guide-to-the-gym

I lost 30kg in c.2 years after which I shifted focus to bulking and never looked back

Diet and a lot of exercise should make it

Losing fat and gaining muscle is great for overall health, but it’s especially important for heart and vascular wellness. Combining regular exercise with a balanced diet can help reduce cardiovascular risk and support long-term heart health. I’ve seen helpful insights and preventive assessment tools shared on CONNEQT Health Coupons.