[quote]Spartiates wrote:
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
I feel similar to the OP.
A former fat kid. I have slightly visible abs. I keep thinking I’m like just another month away from a real six-pack, but it never comes. It’s pretty frustrating. I’ve already cut calories to where my lifting/size gains are slowed down from what they were just a couple months ago. I’m not sure I want to do more, but if I really need to get skinny before I can be large and lean, maybe that’s the direction I’ll go.
It’s particularly frustrating because I radically cleaned up my eating (went from drinking six-pack+ per day to maybe a drink or two a week for example), and while I was effectively able to put on a good amount of muscle/size without getting fatter, and my lifts really improved, the fat around my stomach has barely budged at all: I attribute my now partially visible abs to an increase in their size, not a decrease in stomach fat.
It’s frustrating.[/quote]
Add more muscle. It’ll improve your insulin sensitivity in the long run and that’ll make it easier to get lean. 5’10 210 and a little doughy really isnt big at all.
And from somewhat limited personal experience Ive seen that beer bellies are unusually stubborn areas for guys who arent the most active individuals.[/quote]
The thing is I’m very active. I was fat up till the end of high-school. Combination of eating less + construction job took me from 240 pounds @ 5’11" to about 180. After that I got on the cardio band-wagon and did things like joined the Marines, and did Search and Rescue for awhile in college, i.e. lots of running with a pack, no focus on muscle bulk. At my lightest I got down to 160… still no abs. Must have really been skinny fat. This winter got up to 220 at my heaviest before I started doing “damage control”, now I’m at 207ish, I’m dead-lifting 410 pounds for reps (don’t know 1rm max) and my arms are a little over 16.5" (up from 14 this time last year), my waste is in the 32/33" range.
Your advice would be to eat above maintenance, rather than maybe try a real cut (which I haven’t tried in years)? I’ll try whatever is going to be effective, even if it’s counter-intuitive. But I’m thinking that belly fat might just be so suborn that I’m going to need to really diet down first… then start building back up.[/quote]
Im not the best source of info on losing stubborn belly fat because I dont carry fat there but Id think carb cycling is the best approach. Allows for a caloric surplus without relying on a ton of carbs each day.
You were down to 160 and still didnt have abs. What makes you think you even have the capability to have abs right now? Honest question, not a knock. Youre body is conditioned to hold fat there. Youre going to diet down and MAYBE get shredded. But because you’ll weigh so little at the end, the slightest increase in calories will trigger the weight gain. But you cant stay at the super low calories it took to get there because you’ll feel like shit. Now realitically speaking, you dont have “lean genes”, thats just the way it is for people who arent naturally lean while theyre young (before the metabolism begins to slow down).
Unless someone is obese the answer is ALWAYS to add muscle first. When you add substantially more muscle (5’10 230 usually begins to look filled out) you’ll be able to eat more while dieting. Consuming more total calories will inevitably keep you metabolism higher.
Of course this is pretty much all speculation but Im not pulling info out of my ass. Its one of the reasons you rarely see the smaller natural bodybuilders getting really lean.