What would you do if you looked like me?

[zaphey7]

I have read several threads and stickies but I am still at a loss and need some help from guys over 35. I just turned 37 and am 5-11" and 210lbs. My main goal is to get down to 8-10% BF which means I need to get down to about 150lbs and then start building serious muscle and getting a great body by the age of 40. My question is should I just get rid of the fat asap and get down to the 8-10% BF or should I do it slowly and take a year or so to do it? I ask this because most people on this forum say you can't really build muscle on a deficit....and if so then shouldn't I just loose the weight asap and then start lifting on a surplus once I get down to the appropriate weight?

My pictures are included so you can see what I look like. And thanks for any and all help.

[Iceman1800]

Start a beginner lifting routine now, no reason to wait. Eat at a slight deficit and be patient.

[loggerboots]

You're just a little fatter than I was when I started this past winter and ten years younger. You should be able to do this.

I dieted and did a lot of calisthenics, but that's only because that's what I used to do when I was young. Weight training would work just as well, if not better. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I do think I was able to shed fat and gain muscle, though I had the benefit of muscle memory as I was very fit when younger. There's also 'newbie gains' and the fact that you have a lot of body fat that you can convert to energy. So, it imho, it is possible for you to gain muscle and lose fat, but others will disagree. Just try it and see what happens.

fwiw, Before and after pics are in my profile, but I wasn't brave enough to take a shirtless selfie when I was overweight, but you can get a basic idea about where i started from from the clothed 'before' pics.

I second the notion of just starting a beginner weight training routine and start carefully tracking calories and macros. Everything you need to know about dieating is in the stickies in the nutrition section. All of the popular beginner training routines are in the stickies in the workout section.

It's really very simple, the hardest part is just getting through the first couple weeks of dieting, giving up the crap you've been eating and replacing it with nutritious food. This is something you'll HAVE to do - if you're restricting calories, almost everything you eat needs to be nutritious and with a macro-nutrient profile that allows you to hit your daily macro goals. It takes some time to get the hang of it, but it's easy after a couple weeks of practice. The good news is, you can eat basically whatever you want as long as you hit your calorie and macro goals. I wouldn't bother with omitting entire macro-nutrients (like keto would have you do).

Get a food scale. One tip is make sure youre food scale can measure in grams. Serving sizes on food packing is usually measured in both volume and mass, and the mass is in grams. I find it much easier to weight my "servings" to the gram rather than depending on volume measurements (e.g. one cup, two 'round' tablespoons, etc).

MyFitnessPal is a really useful app. Look for the feature it has where you can scan barcodes to get the nurition info for your food - I didn't notice that feature for months and was manually inputting my food. The scan makes it much easier!

Big thing though is just start. It took me several weeks to really figure out what I was doing and it will probably take you the same. But just get started - you'll learn more from trial and error than you will trying to figure everything out up front. Get a food scale, learn how to measure and record your food and macros (with an app), pick a calorie and macro level and just learn as you go.

[shaneinga]

Agree with the above.

It really is simple, you just have to realize it is going to take a lot longer than you realize. Get that 8 to 10 percent body fat idea out of your head. There really is no reason for someone who is new in the gym to go and start thinking it is time to chase single digit body fat numbers.

Instead concentrate on these 4 things.

1. Consistency. Consistently show up to the gym. Consistently hit your calorie goals. Consistently work towards your goal of getting in shape.

2. Eating right. Learn what you daily calorie needs are to maintain weight. Eat less than that. 500 calories less a day than what it takes to maintain will net you a pound a week loss. Get a food scale and learn what ACTUAL serving sizes look like. Get the myfitnesspal app and weigh and record your food. Learn about macros, carbs, fats and proteins and how to portion them out. You don't want to be eating all you calories in mashed potatoes and carbs do you? Get those macros right.

3. Beginner lifting program. Allpros, Fierce 5, Starting Strength, something with a barbell and linear progression. Do this for 6 months. Once you stall out on your linear progression program, find another program like 531, or move to a bodybuilding type PPL or bodypart split. Doesn't matter, at this point you have learned how to workout, how to track it, and a lot more about yourself in the gym than you knew going in.

4. Did I mention this takes time. Patience will go a long way. Don't get discouraged, and don't quit. People who are in the shape you want to be, do this daily and it is a "lifestyle." Understand you goals will change as you go and everything works but nothing works forever.

Good luck man. Go kick some azz, you will be really surprised how much you can change your physique in a year. Seriously.

[ljimd]

Didn't you already start your training/diet?

https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showt...hp?t=174666271

[T9Fingers]

Hey Zaphey7, I would totally, absolutely start lifting now. I was in a similar(ish) situation to you when I started at the beginning of the year (age 40). Zero lifting experience, zero exercise experience of any kind if I'm being honest and as skinnyfat as the day is long.

Started doing two days a week in the gym (and got really lucky with a personal trainer who is freaking amazing - it's only now that I (kind of) know what I'm doing that I know just how lucky I got). Only stepped it up to three days a week a couple of months back. Results have been really, really good. Lots of fat gone, and plenty of muscle added. (I fixed my diet at the same time which has helped a lot, you really need to just go to town with protein). The whole diet down, then start lifting when you're low body fat/can't gain muscle if you're in a deficit thing is (IMO) massively overdone for beginners like us who have no experience, and plenty of fat =).

A lot of the people who give you (usually good) advice have been lifting for years, and I think things are probably pretty different for them (bulking, and cutting do look like they become kind of necessary at some point if you want to continue putting on muscle at a decent rate).

I haven't posted much (even though I lurk a decent amount, and my lifting sessions are probably just about my favourite part of the week), but your body kind of looked familiar and I remember having so little clue at first and being really uncertain about what was "best". Starting lifting has been awesome. Amazing for my confidence, and Mrs T9Fingers is pretty chuffed as well. It's a weird feeling to look in the mirror and kind of think "huh... that's... actually not bad". Three different women have laughed and squeezed my arms in the last couple of months, and I honestly thought that was a myth, or something that people put in cheesy novels. Start now! Start yesterday! I wish I'd started fifteen years ago, sure, but I'm still pretty glad I started now.

The thing that helped me most was reading people saying that consistency was key. I knew I was going to be really, really weak (and I was - could barely bench press an empty bar, couldn't overhead press an empty bar), but I read someone saying that the best thing you can be is someone who always turns up. And I thought, well, I can do that. So I did. And now nine months later or whatever, not so weak =).

Try not to overthink it, and just dive in. Best of luck.

[zaphey7]

Thanks for all of the replies guys. I was going to do the Keto + IF thing but after reading up a lot more I figured that wasn't the best beginner move to make. My pictures look horrible but I actually did some lifting back in my twenties and got some newb gains and looked pretty decent so I'm hoping muscle memory is real even 10-12 years later. I have decided to do AllPro's routine but I still need to figure out how many calories I need to consume which is a bit of a mystery to me. I figure I will start out at 2000 calories with protein around 180g and the rest from carbs and fats. I actually have been eating pretty clean the last few weeks and like it so I'm good there.

[shaneinga]

If you sign up with MFP it will give you an estimate, just make sure to adjust your macros. My advice, eat as much as you can while losing weight at a steady rate. I know that sounds crazy, but the more you lose the slower and harder it gets. No need to blow your wad eating 2000 cals right off the bat if you can lose a pound to a pound and a half a week eating 3000. Don't use the first 2 weeks to set your numbers by. You will lose a lot the first 10 days to 2 weeks. The next 2 weeks should tell you how you are really doing as far as your TDEE goes. Once you get your number figured out, then you can decide how rapidly to drop weight.

[zaphey7]

Ok good. I'll wait for the two weeks and try to figure my cals in the mean time. thanks.

[rtwilli4]

Already so much excellent advice above, not much else to say.

A lot of people here will disagree but the healthiest thing you can do is stop eating/drinking animal products. Even just reducing your meat/dairy intake by 50% would be huge.

[OldFartTom]

Stop over thinking this - It's not complicated.

1) Start a program, don't just do some stuff, follow a program.
2) start a sensible diet that has definitely *Not* more than 500 calories a day defecit.

The good news for you is there is a short period of time (when completely out of training and needing to lose some fat) where you can gain a little muscle and loose a little fat at the same time. Bad news is that will only be possible in the first few months, then fat loss and muscle gain at same time becomes dramatically harder. Once you are in good shape it becomes impossible to do both at same time. But you my friend will be able to do it at first, so make the most of it and get started!

Sensible questions from here are...

How to choose a program...
What's a sensible diet...

There's a lot of good advice on both those questions already on this site. You came to the right place.
Good luck, and enjoy!

[3maj]

Already so much excellent advice above, not much else to say.

A lot of people here will disagree but the healthiest thing you can do is stop eating/drinking animal products. Even just reducing your meat/dairy intake by 50% would be huge.

Absolute nonsense.

[dazlittle]

Thanks for all of the replies guys. I was going to do the Keto + IF thing but after reading up a lot more I figured that wasn't the best beginner move to make. My pictures look horrible but I actually did some lifting back in my twenties and got some newb gains and looked pretty decent so I'm hoping muscle memory is real even 10-12 years later. I have decided to do AllPro's routine but I still need to figure out how many calories I need to consume which is a bit of a mystery to me. I figure I will start out at 2000 calories with protein around 180g and the rest from carbs and fats. I actually have been eating pretty clean the last few weeks and like it so I'm good there.

your profile says you are 47, but you said in your post you are 37. Might wanna fix that

[misterponytail]

A lot of people here will disagree but the healthiest thing you can do is stop eating/drinking animal products. Even just reducing your meat/dairy intake by 50% would be huge.

Yep, I disagree. I think the healthiest thing you can do is to eat a wide variety of food from as many sources as you can. Humans are omnivores.

[derekaz]

Already so much excellent advice above, not much else to say.

A lot of people here will disagree but the healthiest thing you can do is stop eating/drinking animal products. Even just reducing your meat/dairy intake by 50% would be huge.

You should probably include the caveat here that eliminating entire food groups from one's diet can shed pounds in the short term, but the following is also true:
1) You can reduce caloric intake by eliminating sugars/carbs, fat/protein, or any number of combinations or single food items. However, this rarely results in a sustained life change, and in fact if you eliminate a food group and find yourself supplimenting the nutritional deficiency you have created, you are wise to reconsider why you would eliminate it in the first place.

2) Demonizing a particular food group is pseudo-science. It's been happening since the diet fad revolution of the 70's and it's more of a book seller than a sound dietary regimen. Science likes to conduct hyper-focused studies which do not account for thousands of existent variables, and narrowly focus on a single food's positive or negative effects, and usually takes consumption to an extreme to elicit a result that supports a preconceived hypothesis. Everything in moderation is a wise rule to follow here.

3) If one is looking to eliminate things from their diet, they might do better finding those items that have little to no nutritional value, such as Snicker's bars, sodas, trans-fats, and the like.

I apologize if you are a vegan and have convinced yourself of the evils of the dairy/meat industry. This also happens when people sign up for religions... they begin espousing god/devil aspects to all behaviors. It makes us feel good about our decisions, when we are right and everyone else is "wrong". For me, I don't go down that road. I do what I think is best for me, based on evidence that is verifiable and vetted. If I do something weird or kooky, I retain that right, but I don't tell others to do it.

[BecomingSmaller]

Lose weight whilst lifting hard. Aim for 160 pounds as your first target. That will put you around 15% body fat. Then come back and ask for advice again.

[Squid24]

Doesn't look any different than when I started.

Lots of great programs in my sig to try.

[drkelly74]

I would not use body fat % as a marker or goal. Use the mirror.

[PiperBill]

Your only goals should be to get into the gym, lift on a decent beginner (compount lift based) program, eat to support your workouts. Lofty goals of low % bf will only mess with your head and motivation.

Do the above OVER TIME and you will see drastic a changes.

[Watsonm5]

You must figure out your current caloric intake first to figure out where you really are at this point. Buy a food scale, LEARN HOW TO MEASURE FOOD (biggest human mistake imo), find a calorie counter and log in your food every single day. Focus on weight lifting at a beginners level and have a veteran check your form on all exercises to avoid injury. Fierce 5 is great!! Very basic, simply but effective as hell!! Keep progressing on your lifts with good form. It actually works. You can do Cardio if you're up to it but at this point focus on a good lifting program first. In summary, eat less and figure out your macros. BE PATIENT! It doesn't happen over night but gradually the fat will start to disappear. Lastly, be true to yourself and don't cheat. Small daily goals will get you great success.

[tazithman]

I'd do the truffle shuffle...

But seriously, get diet in check and on a good starter lift program, and you'll be loving your reflection in no time.