lowering body fat

[kray]

If I want to reduce overall body fat, but NOT lose any weight, what type of workouts could help me achieve this result? (I know running is helpful, but doing it too much just leads to weight loss).

[The0Self]

Increase anabolic activity as much as possible + adequate protein. Progressive overload on the muscles. Barbell exercises. You're going to have to lose weight to lose fat at any appreciable rate without anabolic steroids. What you propose is possible but an insanely slow process. You have to give your body a damn good reason to do it, because by God it sure doesn't want to -- extra muscle mass without extra fat increases caloric needs and makes starvation more likely. Your body will fight you tooth and nail to prevent this from happening unless you're basically telling it "well, you're gonna get hurt lifting these heavy weights if you don't." So yeah, lifting heavy is required.

[kray]

5 hours ago, The0Self said:

Increase anabolic activity

 

What does this mean?

[Michael569]

Actually running will be very counterproductive in this. What you are looking for is strength training. As you increase your muscle mass, your metabolic activity will increase through rise of testosterone and irisine. The more muscle you have the higher your resting metabolic rate and the easier it is to burn that excess fat. 

Consuming at least 1.4 grams of protein per 1kg of bodyweight will also help. You may temporarily go as high as 2g / kg but I would stay away from things such as whey protein or any concentrated animal protein powders if you value your health 

Making sure you eat regular meals, no skipping, no fasting. Start with proper large breakfast made of a good amount of complex carbs, fruits, good fats and some protein. 

Make sure you put regular mechanical pressure on your muscles (e.g. weights or bodyweight, calisthenics) that sot of stuff. 

Sleep is also essential. If the sleep is insufficient, fat loss is impossible because your stress hormones will override everything else when you are fatigued from lack of sleep  

[The0Self]

9 hours ago, kray said:

What does this mean?

Anabolism as opposed to catabolism -- specifically of muscle fibers. Growth stimulus. This is very important when losing fat so that it's almost all fat and not muscle.

4 hours ago, Michael569 said:

I would stay away from things such as whey protein or any concentrated animal protein powders if you value your health

While whey protein can make it far easier to meet protein intake goal, Michael569 is correct in that it is probably best not to do this. Whey protein has a high concentration of cysteine, which is very anti-thyroid. You want to keep thyroid hormone (specifically T3) high by eating at least 125g carbs a day and having some collagenous foods as part of your daily protein intake. Since you will need to be in a calorie deficit (your stated goal of losing fat without body weight is basically something you'd best forget about), you will be hungry and should eat whole, satiating foods like oats, rice, greek yogurt, eggs, potatoes, lean beef, fat free dairy, chicken, etc. My favorite meals are eggs + baked potato mixed, oats + greek yogurt mixed, and white rice + chicken + vegetables mixed. Skipping breakfast can help get your total calories down quite efficiently. The protein and strength training is crucial.

 

Don't "work out" if you care about your health. "Train."

Edited March 4, 2021 by The0Self

[Username]

Keto + exercises. At first I lost some weight, now I weight maybe 1 kg less than before. My fat percentage is 12-13 and it just a by-product.

[The0Self]

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone that knows about coaching athletes that would say the following isn’t optimal:

 

10% reset upon ~2 failed days in a row for a lift

Weighted stair climber / max inc tread WU for a few minutes

Only the first 3 exercises for each day are not optional:

    Mon

Squat 3x5, +5 lb per session

Press 3x5 +2.5 lb per session

Chin 3x5 (weighted chins and dips)

Dip 3x5 can save time by doing the chins and dips in combined sets

(Band) face pulls 2-3x10-20

Standing crunches 2x20

    Wed

Squat 3x5

Bench 3x5

Deadlift 1x5 +10 lb per session

Glute bridge 3x10

Barbell Curl 3x6-14 (8)

Tri ext (hand leading) 2-3x10-20

    Fri

Squat 3x5

Press 3x5

Chin 3x5

Dip 3x5

Lateral raises 3-5x10-20

Calf raises 2x10-25

...

Stretch

If cutting weight, you’ll probably soon only be able to add weight to the bar every other session, for this progression.

Deadlifts are hard to recover from:

 No touch-and-go reps

 Pull fast; avoid grinders and fails — better to rest before getting the last rep than doing it too soon and failing; always leave 1+ rep in tank for deadlifts.

 

Not saying you should do the above, it’s simply an example of the ideal. I copied and pasted it from my notes. Anyone who asks me what I recommend as the optimal program for a novice, I send them that.

If you don’t know much about barbell training, you will need to learn. You can get by on a much more minimalist program of this if you desire:

Chin 3x5-15 (combine sets with Dip to save time)

Dip 3x5-15 (see Chin)

Deadlift 1x5 / Squat 3x5

Probably do the Press too

Optional lateral raises or curls or whatever you feel like doing if you aren’t exhausted already

3 days a week

 

 

What you propose really requires a lot of work.

Edited March 4, 2021 by The0Self

[kray]

6 hours ago, Michael569 said:

 

Make sure you put regular mechanical pressure on your muscles (e.g. weights or bodyweight, calisthenics) that sot of stuff. 

@Micheal569 I don't have barbells, and all the gyms around me are closed. You think I can accomplish this by doing push ups? (I do around 50-100 a day)

[Michael569]

@kray try this https://athleanx.com/xero

Beware thou, he will put you through hell and back but you will become strong as an ox using only your body. @BlackMaze can testify   

[BlackMaze]

@Michael569 i am always happy to testify. In fact i just finished my workout for today. I don't know your fitness level but whatever it is definitely start at - 2. I'm really happy with my gains so far. 

[The0Self]

4 hours ago, kray said:

@Micheal569 I don't have barbells, and all the gyms around me are closed. You think I can accomplish this by doing push ups? (I do around 50-100 a day)

If you already do 50-100 a day, not much will happen by doing more unless you add weight or make it harder. Elevate the legs; put hands together, etc. Include a push, a pull, and a legs-based exercise in your routine, otherwise it's incomplete. Find a tree or something you can do chin ups with. Wear a heavy backpack, etc. If you can do  more than 20 reps of anything, it's too light and needs to be made harder. Do the same movements 3 nonconsecutive days a week, always progressing in some way (preferably weight added) otherwise it's not telling your body to hang on to muscle. Doing an exercise super hard 1 day and being too sore to do it again until 5-7 days later is wasting time. Imagine if baseball players, gymnasts, etc only practiced once a week... Same goes for this.

Edited March 4, 2021 by The0Self

[kray]

@Michael569 I'll check it out  

[ilja]

@The0Self any concentrated protein suplement makes it easier to meet your protein needs. choose plant protein ones.

[Leo Gura]

Not realistic.

When bodybuilders add muscle, they also gain fat. Then they do special cutting phases where they shed the fat while keeping the muscle but not gaining more muscle. And usually they use steroids to do that because you would normally lose muscle too. Gaining muscle requires eating a lot.

Eliminate refined carbs and sugars to reduce fat. And do cardio.

[The0Self]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

And do cardio

If the matabolic fatigue component to the "cardio" doesn't involve significant muscular loading, it will result in significant muscle loss, and therefore relative fat gain. MetCon/GPP will actually cause one to lose fat and virtually no muscle -- sled drags, farmers walks, barbell complexes... basically cardio that also tells your body: "don't eat the muscle, you'll need it to not get hurt."

[vinc3nc]

@kray I'll assume you're a beginner so I will give you the following advice.

Start with a few sets of push-ups 3-4 times per week. Or maybe do a few ab exercises for 5 min every other day. Why? Because what you need at the start is not a perfect workout but something that you can sustain over the long term. Focus more on changing your lifestyle in a slow, gradual way. And then over time, start adding in more and more exercises to also train other muscle groups, but not too soon. Again, if you start doing too much, you will not be able to sustain it.

Don't rush anywhere. Habits are not built in 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month. You need to permanently change how you eat and how much you exercise. If you do that, you'll lose fat & build muscle mass over the years.

Cardio? 2-3 times per week. Not because you want to lose weight, but because you want to be healthy. But you don't need to start doing it at the start. First take care of developing that self-discipline.

Edited March 5, 2021 by vinc3nc

[UDT]

@kray  This is physiologically impossible. Its like you go on a big scale with a big watermelon and then you expect to throw the melon to shreds without the scale moving.

 You´ll "lose fat" only once your body decides that blood sugar is so low it has to convert fat to sugar (gluconeogenesis) and starts burning more fat in the mitochondria (beta oxidation). Guess how you get to low blood sugar --> not eating or working out. 

[ricarhimel]

It will take having more information to lose weight properly. Otherwise, you can only hurt yourself. I, too, got into fat-burning without prior intelligence. I didn't see good results and got stressed out. I started going to the gym without seeing good results. I bought myself a smart Vont bathroom scale with a BMI function. I even took a yoga class to improve my stress tolerance. Now I have good muscle mass, and when I look in the mirror, I am happy with the results. Even my sleep is more restful.

Edited February 17, 2022 by ricarhimel

[hamedsf]

that's the tricky part. 

right now, my goal is to gain extra amounts of weights since I'm showing lesser than my real weight due to my height. yet at the same time, I'm fighting with the unnecessary fat around my belly and other parts.

I eat as much as my caloric amount for the weight per kilogram requires, yet at the same time, I drink lots of coffee and green tea which burns the extra stuff. but all in all, you're gonna have some fat in your body when you decide to increase your weight. so some fat is natural and even plays a necessary role in your erection.