Need Help Dealing with Man Boobs

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

Ok, I’ve let myself go, gotten fat, and now have moobs. I need help with diet and exercise tips on how to get rid of these. I’m a 26 year old, 5’11", and 195 pounds.

I know my way around the weightroom as I used to lift avidly, but haven’t done any real lifting in the past three years.

How do I lose the fat without making the moobs more pronounced? Also, will the excess skin from the fat hang less if I lose fat slowly? I’ve heard somewhere that skin stretches, and will contract if weight loss is slow enough. although there still probably would be excess hanging skin.

would appreciate any help. Thanks.

2

[quote]xylitol wrote:
Ok, I’ve let myself go, gotten fat, and now have moobs. I need help with diet and exercise tips on how to get rid of these. I’m a 26 year old, 5’11", and 195 pounds.

I know my way around the weightroom as I used to lift avidly, but haven’t done any real lifting in the past three years.

How do I lose the fat without making the moobs more pronounced? Also, will the excess skin from the fat hang less if I lose fat slowly? I’ve heard somewhere that skin stretches, and will contract if weight loss is slow enough. although there still probably would be excess hanging skin.

would appreciate any help. Thanks.[/quote]

You lose your “man boobs” by lowering your overall bodyfat percentage.

Just as with the places your body stores excess calories, there is no way to influence the order in which the deposits will get used up again.

You should always try to avoid weight loss at a rate faster than ~1 lbs per week, because otherwise your body will most likely burn up muscle tissue for energy as well which makes losing fat even harder.

At this rate, unless you’re are really obese at the moment (which i doubt because 195lbs sounds more like chubby variant of skinny-fat to me), your skin will tighten again.

Building muscle will also help to fill out the volume and reduce the effect of overstretched skin.

As for diet, just eat a clean and balanced diet, medium to low in carb, start around 2000-2500 calories per (training) day and see what happens, if you do not lose weight fast enough lower calories (slowly).

Also, you should have a look at the new V-Diet forum http://www.T-Nation.com/tmagnum/category.jsp?categoryID=84&pageNo=1&s=forumsSidebar

Try to do some cardio on non-lifting days, depending on your fitness you should try some form of interval training, if not steady state is also ok.

use the search function and feel free to come back with any specific questions :slight_smile:

3

Yup just drop the fat and they should go.

4

Lose fat, and if they are still pronounced you might have some gynocomastia/have a mild zinc deficiency. Zinc is an anti aromatase, it reduces the conversion of testosterone into estrogen. Polquin talked about it in the last question on strength, look it up. Basically those tissues are very sensitive to estrogen and can be reduced by getting adequate zinc.

5

[quote]joebus wrote:
Yup just drop the fat and they should go.
[/quote]

Seconded.

6

Just to add:
There is also an interesting article on this site that says that you may possibly need more Zinc and fiber in your diet. Some thing to think about as you go about losing weight.

7

Third on the notion of just dropping the fat.

Petrichor’s post was awesome, but I do disagree with one thing: Don’t do the V-diet yet. Get your ass back in the weightroom and lift like you use to. Train for strength by lifting heavy weights and eat properly and those pecs will get tighter and your overall bodyfat will decrease.

8

It sounds to me like all you need to do is lose fat, not build anything, so this sprint program should help.

Week 1 Max-Effort Sprint Recovery Reps
Day 1 60 seconds 180 seconds 3
Day 2 60 seconds 120 seconds 4
Week 2
Day 1 60 seconds 180 seconds 4
Day 2 60 seconds 120 seconds 5
Week 3
Day 1 60 seconds 180 seconds 5
Day 2 60 seconds 120 seconds 6
Week 4
Day 1 60 seconds 60 seconds 5
Day 2 120 seconds 120 seconds 3
Week 5
Day 1 60 seconds 60 seconds 6
Day 2 120 seconds 120 seconds 4
Week 6
Day 1 60 seconds 60 seconds 7
Day 2 120 seconds 120 seconds 5

9

[quote]xylitol wrote:
Ok, I’ve let myself go, gotten fat, and now have moobs. I need help with diet and exercise tips on how to get rid of these. I’m a 26 year old, 5’11", and 195 pounds.

I know my way around the weightroom as I used to lift avidly, but haven’t done any real lifting in the past three years.

How do I lose the fat without making the moobs more pronounced? Also, will the excess skin from the fat hang less if I lose fat slowly? I’ve heard somewhere that skin stretches, and will contract if weight loss is slow enough. although there still probably would be excess hanging skin.

would appreciate any help. Thanks.[/quote]

Stop drinking tap water ^^

10

[quote]xylitol wrote:
How do I lose the fat without making the moobs more pronounced? Also, will the excess skin from the fat hang less if I lose fat slowly? [quote]

Cue the echo of losing the fat to get rid of the moobs. I’m in pretty much the same boat as you - 6 weeks ago, I was 215 5’10" with moobs. My initial weight loss was not the smartest perhaps (I did Anabolic Diet), but I took off 20 lbs in 4 weeks. Couple with lifting on the Starting Strength, and I’m notice a nice change in my chest.

At this point, I’m noticing the moobs getting smaller, and, oddly enough, my nipples are migrating to the side, and I can tell the muscle is building up beneath them. I’m sure that they’ll be gone by the end of summer, with proper eating and lifting.

Good luck, stay consistent, and you’ll be rid of them soon enough.

11

Very informative responses. Thank you all very much. My only fear was that rapid fat loss might lead to loose skin, but I can see that it was unfounded. Weightlifting along with fat loss (and appropriate diet and supplementation) ought to fill in any lose skin, and the rest will just tighten up.

Thanks all once again.

12

bout skin after fat loss,
personally I lost 40 ibs in

13

Immediately jumping into sprints from a sedentary lifestyle may not be wise. After all, your joints are not accustomed to the tremendous impact of running, not to mention sprinting.

Secondly, you are fat and thus your joints will be taxed more heavily to support your body weight. Chances are your balance is poor too.

My advice: If you can sprint pain free, do it. If not, you can hit up the cardio machines at a gym and do sprint-like workouts on them.

14

Listen to NJ. Start sprinting on day one after years of being a couch potato is bad. I overdid it when trying to get back into shape at first and caught some nasty ankle tendinitis that had me in a walking boot for 2 weeks. God that hurt.

15

From what i’ve heard, there’s two types of manboobs - gynocomastia and pseudogynocomastia. You probably have pseudogynocomastia (a fancy word for fat on your chest), drop the fat and the manboobs will go away. If they still don’t go away you might have gynocomastia, here’s a thread about it:

http://www.T-Nation.com/tmagnum/readTopic.do?id=2235209

16

Obviously go for fat loss.

Beer can be a big cause/make it more pronounced.