Body and belly fat loss

alwald

Hi guys,

I have been dieting and training for a little over a year now, I learnt everything about exercises, dieting, cardio, weight lifting etc from internet so it took me time to take off and to start seeing results.

I started being very consistent and thorough in the last 3 to 4 months only, I am a male in my early thirties, 5 foot 9, my weight dropped from 190 pounds to 163 pounds, I gained in strength and the muscle definition has improved.

Training and dieting are part of my lifestyle at the moment and I don't feel that they are a burden, I enjoy the meals I make and I designed my training routine based on the exercises that I like and enjoy following a push/Pull & leg routine.

I believe that my diet is good as I consume a good amount of Protein, Carbs and fat and the results are not too bad, I measure everything and track all my food in myfitness pal. My training hasn't suffered as a consequence of my diet, its the opposite, I increased the weights I am lifting.

I got to a point where I am beginning to feel that my weight is dropping but not the body fat, or at least not as much as I would have expected, I am beginning to feel kind of skinny, is this a normal stage prior to loosing the body fat or is it a sign that something is wrong with my diet? is targeting 154 pounds reasonable for my age/height or is it too low?

I do intend to bulk a bit but I would like to shed more fat first.

Any advice is more than welcome !!

Elemonator

Well I am afraid to tell you that as with anything, you never stop learning. But nonetheless, it sounds like you are doing very well! One thing to remember is that you are only in this a year, and time will yield more progress. It's not a long time in the grand scheme of your lifelong health.

There's a few things I want to pick out. You say you are involved in fitness for a year now but you learnt everything you know on the internet. While this is not strictly bad, there could be some things you are missing from your exercises that you may not realise and it is hampering the full benefits of the exercise. You may be doing simple exercises but there's some exercises out there that can lead to serious injury. Are you a member of a gym? They have instructors on hand that will give you some help. A problem I had when I started out was I was too focused on isolation exercises that I had learnt off the internet and my exercises were totally unbalanced. I never did much ab work or shoulder work. It is only when I got gym time with an instructor who showed me how to do compound exercises properly that I realised I had been doing it all wrong and I was unmotivated for a while. I have since moved to kettle bells.

Another thing is I'd like to say with regards to training and dieting is be patient and don't get too caught up in the whole thing. While it is good to eat healthily, if you spend time being over the top with it, you can actually give yourself more problems than benefits in your head. Some of the diets you see online are made for world class athletes who need their energy and nutrients to perform to their ability. I think you should eat healthily but make a point not to starve yourself, listen to your body.

One problem to avoid with regards to training is to not allow your body to adjust to your routine. I train regularly with kettle bells now and I used to do heavy weight training. I found that to stop myself from stalled progress, I needed to change my routine every 3 months. Not only that, if I didn't, I would have got totally bored and I did. It is only since I started using kettle bells that I enjoy exercising again. Again speak with an instructor if you can.

Another point I'd like to make is, what are your goals with your workout? Purely fat loss or are you looking to build muscle? You may be following the wrong workout for the goals you wish to achieve. If you want to gain muscle, your cardio could be eating into your energy. If you want to lose fat, I suggest exercises that work multiple muscles at the same time as they will burn the most calories. Again I must suggest an instructor. Speaking from my personal point of view, I used to do exercises for small muscles and I switched over to compound exercises. I went from 15 exercises down to 8 with some cardio. It was only then I began to see results. I then moved onto heavy kettle bells as it allowed me to have my goals with only 40 minutes of exercising four times a week.

Sorry if I couldn't help you a whole lot, this is just my 2c.

alwald

Elemonator wrote: »

Well I am afraid to tell you that as with anything, you never stop learning. But nonetheless, it sounds like you are doing very well! One thing to remember is that you are only in this a year, and time will yield more progress. It's not a long time in the grand scheme of your lifelong health.

There's a few things I want to pick out. You say you are involved in fitness for a year now but you learnt everything you know on the internet. While this is not strictly bad, there could be some things you are missing from your exercises that you may not realise and it is hampering the full benefits of the exercise. You may be doing simple exercises but there's some exercises out there that can lead to serious injury. Are you a member of a gym? They have instructors on hand that will give you some help. A problem I had when I started out was I was too focused on isolation exercises that I had learnt off the internet and my exercises were totally unbalanced. I never did much ab work or shoulder work. It is only when I got gym time with an instructor who showed me how to do compound exercises properly that I realised I had been doing it all wrong and I was unmotivated for a while. I have since moved to kettle bells.

Thank you for your long and detailed reply!! I always appreciate a good read on what other members of the forum have to say.
It has been a learning curve and it will always be, while I learnt everything on internet I have to say that it took me time to find the right information, the proper form on how to execute the exercise, the contraction, the time under tension and so on.
I mix between compound and isolation and I change my exercises as I see fit, this has helped me in keeping motivated as I don't have to rely on an instructor or a personal trainer.
While your advice is completely valid I have to say that as of now I don't really want to pay an instructor simply because I am enjoying the process and the learning aspect of it, I might use an instructor in the future .

Elemonator wrote: »

Another thing is I'd like to say with regards to training and dieting is be patient and don't get too caught up in the whole thing. While it is good to eat healthily, if you spend time being over the top with it, you can actually give yourself more problems than benefits in your head. Some of the diets you see online are made for world class athletes who need their energy and nutrients to perform to their ability. I think you should eat healthily but make a point not to starve yourself, listen to your body.

My experience about dieting is that the beginning is hard, I followed an aggressive type of dieting at the beginning and I played around with the macros and calories a bit so I tried a low carb high fat/Protein and low fat high protein/carbs, I also tried a 40/30/30 combination of it. From the daily calories point of view I tried different calculators and I have to say that they differ a bit and they all give different results, especially about cutting.
I also did the mistake to follow diets from internet without looking whether they are fit for purpose for me or not.....it has been a learning curve too but I managed to understand the whole concept better and I played with the numbers until I found the number of calories and macro nutrients that fit my goals and my body, I don't starve and I allow myself to eat a variety of food and to change my diet as I wish as I know how to calculate everything....this is better than the traditional meal of chicken, rice and broccoli everyday.

Elemonator wrote: »

One problem to avoid with regards to training is to not allow your body to adjust to your routine. I train regularly with kettle bells now and I used to do heavy weight training. I found that to stop myself from stalled progress, I needed to change my routine every 3 months. Not only that, if I didn't, I would have got totally bored and I did. It is only since I started using kettle bells that I enjoy exercising again. Again speak with an instructor if you can.

Agreed there and I do tend to change and tweak my routine to shock my muscles and to keep me interested as well .

Elemonator wrote: »

Another point I'd like to make is, what are your goals with your workout? Purely fat loss or are you looking to build muscle? You may be following the wrong workout for the goals you wish to achieve. If you want to gain muscle, your cardio could be eating into your energy. If you want to lose fat, I suggest exercises that work multiple muscles at the same time as they will burn the most calories. Again I must suggest an instructor. Speaking from my personal point of view, I used to do exercises for small muscles and I switched over to compound exercises. I went from 15 exercises down to 8 with some cardio. It was only then I began to see results. I then moved onto heavy kettle bells as it allowed me to have my goals with only 40 minutes of exercising four times a week.

The main goals are eat healthy, be fit, shed fat and build some lean muscle.
I do eat back my calories when I do cardio, I usually do around 15 to 20 minutes and I vary between steady pace and HIIT workout on the treadmill based on the day, my mood and how my body feels.

Mellor

If you are getting more definition than you are losing fat. The only other kind of weight loss is losing muscle, and if that was happening you be unlikely to feel more defined.

154lbs (70kg) is not unreasonable for your height. I'm only slightly taller (5'10ish) and aim for 160lbs (73kg).
However, the amount of muscle/fat mass you have at a given weight will reflect how you feel at that weight. You could well feel "skinny" at a given weight if more of that weight was fat rather than muscle. Inversely being leaner would make you feel/look bigger - even though your weight could be the same.
In the absence if body fat measurements, maybe just aim to get to goal weight and re-evaluate.