One of the biggest mistakes I did in my 4 years of training was bulking before I got lean. If you’re skinny-fat, the first thing on your to do list should be to lose fat, not bulk up to look like a teddybear.
In this article I will share 10 simple fat loss tips that you can implement TODAY. You don’t have to implement ALL of the tips at the same time, but the more tips you use from this list, the faster your fat will melt off.
I have personally used the 10 tips posted here to lose 60 lbs of fat and gain a tremendous amount of muscle while staying lean.
Let’s get started:
1) Eat Maximum 3 Meals A Day
It doesn’t make sense to eat MORE meals throughout the day to LOSE fat. You lose fat when you eat LESS, not MORE – that’s just how the body works.
I used to do this whole 6 meals a day thing, getting protein every 2-3 hours, filling myself up on dry chicken breast and protein shakes, but I made no progress. Then one day I made the switch to 3 meals a day with no snacking between meals and as a result my fat loss took off. The reason why big meals worked better for me is that I could finally eat until I got full which removed the need to snack.
Solution: Pick 3 times a day you eat and stick to them. To avoid snacking, try chewing gum between meals to keep your mouth occupied.
2) The Importance of A Balanced Diet
If you see a diet that is “low” in something, then you know your body is going to miss something:
- Low calorie diets are difficult to stick to and unhealthy
- Low carb diets are not good if you’re training hard
- Low fat diets will result in low testosterone levels
- Low protein diets will make it difficult to gain and maintain muscle
The best diet is the one where EVERY meal has a good mix of protein, carbs and fat.
Solution: Start reading labels of foods so you know what different foods contain. I like to have one food that gives me fat and protein and one food that gives me carbs in every meal.
- Protein + Fat Sources: peanutbutter, red meat, eggs, fatty fish
- Carb Sources: white rice, rye bread, whole wheat pasta, fruit
3) Are You Drinking Your Calories? Stop It, Now.
Drinking your calories is a waste, since you have a limited amount of calories to consume during fat loss. If you’re used to drinking a lot of soda or sugary juice, you may see a reduction in body fat simply by eliminating those.
Furthermore, you want to reduce alcohol consumption since it’s diffcult to lose fat if you get drunk several times a week.
Solution: Instead of drinking sugary drinks you should be drinking a lot of water. Limit alcohol consumption to once a week.
4) Eat The Same Foods Day In Day Out
By eating the same foods everyday, you will get bored of them, but that doesn’t matter if you’re serious about losing fat. When food get’s boring, you won’t go into the kitchen to make a meal just because you THINK you are hungry. You will only want to eat when you’re actually hungry. An additional benefit of this tip is that you will eat slowly and this will result in eating less.
Solution: Find 3 balanced meals that taste good to you and are satiating. Those are the meals you’re going to eat every single day from now. Feel free to mix it up by using different sauces, spices or ways of cooking, but don’t change the foods. To ensure that you don’t get any vitamin deficiencies, simply take a multivitamin in the morning.
5) Fat Loss Starts At The Grocery Store
Instead of buying useless junk like candy and pizza, you should stock up your kitchen with solid and satiating foods, such as red meat, eggs, rice, peanutbutter and rye bread. This will completely ELIMINATE the option of eating junk while being at home.
Solution: To make sure that you stock up on the right foods, always make a shopping list before you go to the grocery store and stick to it.
6) Sleep More to Reduce Your Appetite
If you have trouble controlling your appetite and you tend to crave a lot of junkfood and candy, then you’re most likely not sleeping enough. Don’t make fat loss harder for yourself by not sleeping enough. I used to sleep 6-7 hours a day, but now a days I get 8-10 hours of sleep and as a result I rarely crave junkfood and sugar.
Solution: Stay productive throughout the day. Get a good sweat through exercising daily and don’t forget to exercise your brain aswell by reading and learning. If you do those things everyday, you should be tired in the evening and fall asleep early.
7) Give Yourself a Break
To lose fat you need to be in a caloric deficit, but that doesn’t mean you should be in a deficit every single day of the week. It’s perfectly okay to take 1 or 2 days where you eat more food to “reset” your body. By reset, I mean ensuring that your hormonal balance doesn’t get out of control. When you are in a caloric deficit everyday, your body may make up for the deficit by producing less testosterone, and trust me, you don’t want that.
Solution: The 1 or 2 days a week where you eat more is the perfect time to eat some of the unhealthy foods you miss.
8) Skip The Cardio
When some of you think about fat loss, the first thing that comes to mind is spending hours on the treadmill every week. Not only is cardio boring but it will increase your appetite, which will make you eat more food and thereby ruin the purpose of burning the calories in the first place.
Solution: Do strength training since that will enable you to maintain and possibly build muscle mass. Also, your joints will get used to training, so once you get lean enough to bulk you will be ready to train hard.
9) “You’re The Average of Your 5 Best Friends”
If you spend most of your time around people that order pizza for dinner and snack on candy throughout the day, then chances are you will pick up on those bad habits yourself.
Same goes for family. If your mom bakes a cake every weekend and you have candy, chocolate and junkfood lying around the house then it’s going to be difficult to lose fat.
Solution: Spend less time with friends that eat junk and move out of your home as soon as possible if your family is making it difficult for you to eat right. It’s a waste of time to try and change people that don’t want to change, but it’s not a waste of time to change yourself.
10) Ignore The Mirror, Measure Your Progress in Hard Numbers
Avoid using your mirror to evaluate progress during fat loss, it will just screw with your mind. The thing with fat loss is, that in the beginning you will look worse. Instead of looking leaner, you will start looking like a smaller skinny-fat version of yourself. You will probably think “shit, I’m losing muscle during this cut, I better start bulking again to make up for it“.
Don’t bulk, you are most likely not losing muscle. You are just experiencing the transition phase from a high bodyfat percentage to a lean bodyfat percentage. During this transition phase you don’t look leaner, you just look smaller. However, once you reach a certain bodyfat percentage you will start looking lean instead of skinny-fat, patience is key here.
Solution: Measure your waist, hips and weigh yourself once a week in the morning on an empty stomach to track your progress. Weekly measurements don’t lie but looking at yourself in the mirror everyday is a recipe for disaster.
How About Counting Calories, Macros and Weighing Meals?
Some people prefer to measure and count everything – that’s perfectly fine if it works for you. The reason why I don’t do it, is that I don’t need to when I follow the abovementioned tips. This gives me more mental energy to focus on training hard.
However, for beginners, I would recommend following a full diet plan including calories, macros and weigh meal for at least 3 months.
Why?
Because by doing that you will learn…
- The functions of proteins, fats and carbs.
- What foods contain proteins, fats and carbs.
- How many calories, proteins, carbs and fats there are in all the foods that are most important for you.
- How many calories you can eat to lose fat, maintain weight and gain weight.
- Discipline.
I wish that I had started off this way. It would have saved me many years of headaches with dieting.
Final Note On Hunger
The title of this article “10 Simple Tips to Lose Fat Without Starving Yourself” is both true and false. If you follow the abovementioned tips you will be able to lose fat without starving yourself every single day, however you will still experience hunger some days of the week if you’re used to eating a lot. Tolerable hunger is normal when you are in a caloric deficit, and that’s the price you will have to pay to lose fat.
You should only get worried if you experience intolerable levels of hunger.
Should it happen that you found this article useful, be sure to follow my daily updates on my facebook page and instagram.
Be proud but stay hungry,
Oskar Faarkrog
The 3 Most Important Exercises for a Skinny-Fat Guy
I see you don’t recommend bulking, but what if i am already “skinny” but i would’t think you can call me lean. Btw i am 182cm tall and i weigh around 68kg.
And the diet seems pretty easy to follow except dairy gonna be tough. But is it “ok” to eat musli in the morning with milk, and then don’t drink anymore that day?
And theres one more thing i wonder about, the foods that are connsiderd bad like protein pulver,milk,pasta. Are they bad cause you eat more of it b4 you get full.
Or are it cuz it have “estrogen” in it ? Did’t really got that, anyways thanks for motvation and i love that a body type like mine can get so much better, nice work man. (Btw not native english speaker :p)
Just bulk man fuck what he says, the situation for him is waay different since he had crappy genetics and way too low testosterone to begin with. My own bone strucure is similar to his, but i can easily build mucle and have normal Testoreone for 16 year old. So yeah man, just bulk bulk bulk if u skinny af..
I’m 79kg and 183cm. My body fat level is around 19-20 %.
I think I carry too much fat on my body to be able to develop in bodyweight exercises.
What do you recommend? Maybe go slightly below maintenance for 2-3 month and lose excess fat while doing bodyweight exercises?
I problem is that i can do 16-20 diamond push ups but i barely can do 2-3 chin up while for pull up i only can do 1-2. Is there any way that i can increase my reps for chin up/pull up and do u have any suggestion for me to do a workout for my back other than chin up/pull up?
I really hope u can answer this :)
Hey Oscar, can you suggest some Indian diet plan for fat loss?
Hey Oskar,
I’m about 152 and I’m skinny fat. I’ve been doing circuit training as well as sets of pull ups and different types of push-ups every other day(on and off, but going to be more strict about it) and I limit my meals to 3 a day with a small peer workout meal. I can see a 4 pack in visible lighting but my face is still fat. I’m gaining muscle and I believe my stomach area is losing fat, but don’t want to assume! Should I jut keep on going?
Thanks !
And thanks again for your articles. Really a life saver!
Hey,so how long did it take you to see the pack’s?
Hey Oskar,
I’m about 152 and I’m skinny fat. I’ve been doing circuit training as well as sets of pull ups and different types of push-ups every other day(on and off, but going to be more strict about it) and I limit my meals to 3 a day with a small peer workout meal. I can see a 4 pack in visible lighting but my face is still fat. I’m gaining muscle and I believe my stomach area is losing fat, but don’t want to assume! Should I jut keep on going?
Thanks !
And thanks again for your articles. Really a life saver!
Hey Oskar,
I’m about 152 and I’m skinny fat. I’ve been doing circuit training as well as sets of pull ups and different types of push-ups every other day(on and off, but going to be more strict about it) and I limit my meals to 3 a day with a small peer workout meal. I can see a 4 pack in visible lighting but my face is still fat. I’m gaining muscle and I believe my stomach area is losing fat, but don’t want to assume! Should I jut keep on going?
I want to lose body fat and face fat and am going to go on a deficit for 6 days of the week while training. Is that fine?
Thanks !
And thanks again for your articles. Really a life saver!
Hey, great job on the progress so far. I would try reducing salt intake and also experiment with cutting out wheat, since salt and wheat can make your face hold water.
Should I start pump training? I have some love handles and fat around the stomach region. When I flex I have a 4 pack and I really want to get rid of the fat from my face as well as my body. Should I start doing the serge training or just keep on lifting weights and start playing some basketball to get lean and ripped.
Thanks
You will feel HUNGRY from time to time on ANY DIET. That is a key point to understand and ACCEPT.
Once you accept it as NORMAL its actually very easy to endure MODERATE hunger for 1,2,3 hours between 3 daily meals just using your willpower a little-bit.
BALANCE IS KEY as in any nutrition and training – you dont want to STARVE yourself – bad for hormones and mood. But you should accept that you dont have to extinguish every sign of hunger with food the minute it surfaces.
Western people are used to grab a food or snack the minute they feel even slight discomfort.
I tried so many different nutritional plans and schemes over years but i always wanted to loose fat but feel satiated every minute of the day.
Until i accepted that “MODERATE FEELING OF HUNGER” is INTEGRAL part of any calorie deficit diet or weigh-loss program.
Once you accept that it is normal to feel hungry on calorie-restrictive diet you will employ your willpower and be able to push through. Iam talking about moderate feeling of hunger that may last 2 hours – between meals – and than you extinguish it by next healthy meal.
There is no EFFECTIVE diet where you also feel satiated the entire day. Thats a TV-Ad promise of FAD DIETS.
Once i realised its OK to feel little hungry several times a day between meals and than fix the sensation every 3 hours… calorie deficit is easy.
If you never feel hungy on diet you are doing something wrong because your body is getting enough calories to MAINTAIN ITS CURRENT WEIGHT and thus never triggers the “hunger sensation alarm” – in another words if you feel satiated all day – your fat cells are satiated too and doing ok
Hi oskar
will the diet provided in the ‘how to get rid of puffy nipples ‘ section help for my weight loss in the 1st phase.
Hi Oskar!! I would like to thank you for such an awesome article. I am a skinny fat guy , I have been on a cut program and have lost abt 10 kgs of weight. here are my current dimensions.
waist=81.8cm
hip=89.4cm
body weight=61 kgs
height =179.5cm
I still find some fat around my waist(love handles). Shall I start the bulk programme or shall I cut more.
Maybe it works for a 20 year-old but losing weight without cardio is unrealistic.
How can you even give that advice?
Most of my clients are 30-40 years old and they are losing weight just fine without cardio.
Hey Oskar ,
Thank You for the knowledge you are sharing with us. I am a guy from India who is lean and slim but i have fat around my belly and chest and my arms are slim but very loose. I am training from 5 months yet i have seen no progress. One thing i want to tell you that being an Indian wheat flour and rice is a part of our everyday meals. So what should i do to loose that terrible fat. By the way i am 6 feet tall and my weight is 70 kilograms.
Thank You again
Bro, you became handsome too on losing the skinny fat, no homo, in my case, i am skinny fat since i have skinny arms (12-13”) and fat under my chest and on my thighs, waist etc but i have wide-ish shoulders (51” circumference), would getting lean as you say is better to do instead of bulking up initially make me narrow, i am worried about that?
Oskar
The transition phase has always been my problem.
I would cut, my reps on bodyweight exercises would increase and my weight decreased but on the mirror I would see a smaller same-shaped version of myself, even flabby, and I’d think “this is not working” and would go on a bulk to “recover my muscles”.
Have been spinning my wheel for years because of this, this time I will hold on and really get lean.
Thanks
Great to hear Daniel!
Hello oskar…I just have one thing to say
I am kinda skinny fat…not that fat but no muscle..
I’m 5’7 and i weigh 59kgs already i.e 130 pounds so if i loose weight ill look as if I’m suffering from tuberculosis..Please guide me man..Thanks
You might be under muscled. Try eating a slight caloric surplus and train your ass off 6 days a week and see what happens in 3-4 weeks :)
Thanx sir…… You said that instead of cardio I should focus on exercises like pull ups and chinups… But i dont have strength to even do 1 chin up or pull-up…maybe because my weight is very high…. Please suggest something..
Get on my email newsletter and read through my free ebook “how to create the illusion of wide shoulders”. It will show you how to go from 0 to 15 chin ups.
Hi Oskar
What about pre workout meals if I am eating only 3 times a day? I need to eat something before gym right? Also sometimes my post workout meal is not my dinner when I train in the afternoon.. So you are saying skip pre and post workout meals for fat loss?
Just eat when it’s most convenient for you. Don’t stress the timing too much.
I was trying to find out how to get rid nipple fat but it led me to this what do I do?
All this seems like good info and advice for your body type being a little big when you first started out but in my case I’m 6.4ft tall and 165lbs with 25% body fat and I got chicken legs and can lift for shit in the gym. Unsure if cutting first is wise because I’m already weak but I WANT to cut without losing size in my arms and legs will that be accomplished with your plan? If not will clean bulking add fat to my face and belly?
It’s mostly about asthetics and looking good in the mirror for me personally to boost self confidence but I also want to lift heavy and be athletic to show off to friends. Please help I’m dying out here.
Hey Oskar,
I have but one question. How on earth did you lose them ugly love handles and that ugly saggy belly without counting calories and without cardio?
I have the same fat distribution you used to have in your early skinnyfat days. I used to do some extreme dieting and i looked like a smaller skinnyfat version of myself, but that belly and love handles just didn’t go away. I eat the right foods (eggs, chicken meat and milk grown by my grandparents), i don’t eat bread, i cant stand junk food nor sodas, but i dont know HOW much I should eat. It’s hard to say whether i should eat 3 meals ’till i get full, because i can eat enormously large quantities of food. So could you give me an example of the meals you ate in your early days?
(Btw, i’ve just started my bodyweight training – I can do 4 chin-ups and 15 diamond push-ups)
Thank you for your time.
What should be my calorie intake daily? I’m doing 1800 calories to try to cut at the gym but yeah I was just feeling bigger but still skinny fat. I’ve started to mix some bodyweight but know Im convince I’ll go full with it. Food is really important for me so thats my only question, the calorie intake.
Can you show a photo of the lean base after which you decided to bulk?
Your Diamond pushups ,pull-ups are really helping me gaining muscle . I became quite lean few years ago going from 85 kgs to 68 kgs by low carb ,low fat , high protien and fibre diet and lots of cardio. but i didnt know how to get a little muscle mass. I cant do weight training cause i tend to get acne from it. i am following your basic body-weight training everyday last 2 months and ive already almost hidden my gynacomastia,and gained some back and arms. I am also eating like a happy man without getting fat. Thanks Oskar. Your articles are simple but effective.
Hi, Oskar
First, I’d like to praise all the effort you are making to help other people. I’m a huge fan.
My problem is that a couple of years ago, I went on an extreme calorie deficit, and cut my weight by 20kg or so. I look very skinny now, everybody tells me that, but I still have a relatively high body fat percentage. I’m not sure what it is, but my abs are not visible, even with exercise. Also, I think I have gynecomastia (what led me to cutting in the first place) and now I’m not sure if I should be cutting weight further, because i don’t want to look any weaker. One year of training has made very little effect on me, although I do admit I couldn’t stick to a proper diet (not unhealthy, just not that good).
What do you suggest?
Whether you should cut further depends on one question: Is your waist flat or not? It it’s flat, focus on building muscle with the short bulking and cutting cycles: https://skinnyfattransformation.com/how-to-bulk/. If not, lose more weight by following the tips in this article.
About training program, there’s another key question to answer: Can you do 15 pull ups with good form? If not, do my basic bodyweight routine until you reach that point: https://skinnyfattransformation.com/bodyweight-training-skinny-fat/. If you can do it, do the serge nubret pump routine: https://skinnyfattransformation.com/serge-nubret-pump-training/
In other words, you either do the BW training + fat loss tips or the pump routine + bulk/cut cycles depending on your strength levels and leanness.
About gynecomastia: You can improve your condition through training by building the upper pecs, but you can only get 100% rid of the gyno through surgery (see my latest article).
Oskar, Reg. your answer to randomguy, many of us are confused about that.
I, for instance, have a flat belly when I am standing in good posture. But if I slump or sit down in bad posture, I look like I am pregnant. If I stand upright I cannot pinch much of my belly (so does that mean I have very little belly fat?). But when I sit down I can pinch a lot of my belly (Does that mean I have lots of belly fat?).
As you can see, it is confusing.
Do you have loose skin from weight loss? Also, it’s normal to have a bit of belly when sitting down unless you have always been very lean.
How do we distinguish between loose skin and fat? Do they both jiggle or only fat jiggles? Assuming it’s loose skin, will crunches or something fix it, or am I doomed?
There’s one simple solution: get as lean as you can through diet and exercise. Once you’re lean, take a body fat test.
If you’re 8% Body-fat or less and you still have anything its most likely skin.
Crunches can add muscle size and “fill out the skin” to a small degree but it won’t be enough if you have a lot.
My case is the same as Oscar. For example, even after intense abs workout, I can’t see or feel them at all, though it looks flat when I’m standing (chubby when I sit)
Also, I’ll check out Serge Nubret training in these summers. Thanks for that!
It’s the diet plan that worries me. Not exercising.
I can send a photo?
Send a photo through the contact form
DK, If we make it a point to eat only two meals a day, then it would be impossible to gain fat since no one can eat that much in just two meals. So even without counting calories, there will be a calorie deficit. That’s the whole point – creating deficit but without the headache of calorie counting.
But you will be hungry most of the time, so at some point you will bounce back to your old habbits
Two heavy meals, then you won’t be hungry.
Fair enough about the metabolic rate. And I too do not want to count calories, macros etc. We have better things to do in our lives :)
But the fact is that if you want to lose weight, you have to reduce your food intake. If you do not want to do it through calories/macros, then you have to do it through generalized quantity restriction and food selection.
Eating 3 or 4 or whatever number of meals does not change anything as you said.
So what made 3 meals work for you was probably determination and elimination of snacking, which in the end means less daily food quantity. But as you are saying in your tip, you have to use tricks to avoid snacking.
My point is that you are focusing your tip on the wrong point. People need to reduce the food quantity that makes them fat, but to make this sustainable, they need to organize eating in a way that it is comfortable to their lifestyle and hunger/eating/snacking habits. Otherwise there will be a point when you will get tired of it. Especially if you are out of gum :)
The number one tip is a bit silly.
You are missing the point of “more meals per day”, which is to help your metabolism, not to eat more food.
When people say eat more meals per day, you are supposed to just divide your current target daily food and caloric intake into more meals, not add more food with each meal…
It should be obvious that eating more calories will get you fatter…
More meals per day do not speed up your metabolism in any significant way. Read through this site for more info on that: http://www.leangains.com/
3 meals a day is practical for someone who doesn’t want to track his calories and macros.
I’ve been doing Stronglifts and Starting Strength for about 2 years now. Had the same results as you suspect, stronger, but not leaner. Gained 30 pounds but same fat%. My upper body and neck are bigger, so at least my big waist doesn’t look as bad.
I’m about 4 weeks from reaching a long-time goal of a 1000# triple lift. My next goal is a 2x body weight deadlift and squat. I will be keeping the same working weight, just upping the reps, adding an extra workout or two each week, and reducing the rest time between sets. I have a squat rack and 400# of barbells in my basement, so no time savings doing body weight lifts.
I really like your advice here and will incorporate the principles.
A 1000 total is impressive! I think my total would be somewhere around 900-950, definitely not 1000.
Keep me updated on your progress.
Dear Oscar, excellent information.
I am around 5’10 and 160 pounds with 34 inch waist (if I measure it above belly button). Mostly I am lean, so am I right in thinking that my bf% would be 20%? If so, do you recommend cutting to 15% before bulking?
Yes, always cut and stay between 10-15%
Thanks, Oskar. Should my waist be 30 inches for it be 15% bodyfat, or is there some other way to know? Above belly button it is 34 inches but below it is 36….
Hey Oskar,
I had a quick question concerning cardio. I play tennis at a fairly high level, and I do it often. During a “good” week I can probably play about 10+ hours throughout the week. I’m starting at the very beginning with the bodyweight phase and just wanted you opinion. Is tennis going to have to be a sacrifice or can I work around it?
Yo Oskar great advice.but i am confused.in your previous article you said you should avoid strength training and lose fat first.but here you say to do strength training.what should I do.
Also I have puffy nips for 6years.can you give some advice.
Thanks.
Big fan by the way.
Hey Ram,
If you’re a beginner, do the basic bodyweight workout to gain some basic strength on the bodyweight exercises. You must build a strength base before you do a hypertrophy routine.
Did you read my article about puffy nipples? It explains pretty much all I know about this. The advice there should help you with the problem, but the only real fix is often surgery.
Hi, I’ve been training in the gym with big, compound movements consistently for the past 2 years and I can squat 1.5x, deadlift 2x, bench more than 1x my bodyweight and have been doing HIIT for the past 2 months. Together with the consistent trainings, I watch my diet but I still am skinny fat. I have a pretty small frame with only fat on my belly. I found your website really useful and plan to change my training accordingly. I am relatively fit and I can do chin ups and pushups without any problem. But what would you recommend for someone who isn’t really considered a ‘beginner’ as most of your articles are targeted for?
Read through the Serge Nubret Pump Training article.
Thank you so much for these great directions and advices. i be in shape but I stopped the gym and now my muscles have melted and I need to get in shape again of course. I will follow yoir advices and soon I will have a body like you :-)
Let me know how your progress comes along
Hello.
This site has broken all the wrong information we had about weight loss and muscle building. But problem is that, even after reading the content of the site many times I still can’t understand what are the actual steps to be done. It’s Because material is written in haphazard manner.
I have one important question about the first step to do, it’s about dieting. You said “Furthermore, instead of focusing on eating as much protein as possible everyday, I focused on eating more fat in my diet”. Please tell me how to lose fat while having more fat in diet? What kind of fat you are having that isn’t getting stored in body? What exactly you mean by balanced diet? How much should be the share of each macronutrient everyday? How much less calories should we consume from the amount we need as per our exercise and weight, sex.?
About the exercise, what exactly was your exercise routine for exercise in leaning period? What kind of cardio you used to do, how many times a week, and what exercise you used to do? I understand body weight exercises, but did you do. It everyday?
Please ignore the comment, I have got my question answered in other page of the site. Sorry for repeat posting
Hei (: i just found your blog 2 days ago and love it.
I’m skinnyfat and i want to try the method.
But i have one question.
2 years ago i weight more than now.. than i felt in a little depression and stoped eating.. i eat one meal per day and lost ALL my lovehandles.. i felt like shit..
by this point i began to eat normaly But i got fat buy just eating 2 little meals a day.. my Body now Dont need as mutch calories as a ‘normal’ Person does.. so how can i fix this to get to a normal calories intake :/? Ihave no clue
That’s a good question Robin.
Unfortunately I’ve never been in this situation, so I don’t know what you can do. I always reduced my food intake gradually.
HI Oskar!
First I want to THANK YOU for creating this blog, it has amazing and very helpfull articles!!
But well, the reason why I’m writing is because I readed some comments that made me confuse ( a LOT)
So, basically, I saw that some people were telling you teir results and a lot of them were losing bf and building muscle at the same time! Like, I readed one comment that said that the guy lost 3,3% of bf (something like 15 to 12% I guess) and only lost 3lbs, which means he gained muscle mass while losing bf or he would have lose more weight..
So, for the same results, should I eat in a deficit, surplus or to maintain?
And other thing, in my case, I do a LOT of cardio, as I train MMA 3x a week and I have to run 2x a week to for resistence, but I can still do calisthenics and some sets of weight lifting (like you said – till I can’t do more) 4/5 times a week.
(I spen a whole year at the gym without gaining any muscle mass, just fat, even thought I was eating a balanced 6meals a day diet) wich I changed now for 3 meals :)
So, for gaining muscle (even thought it’s something minimum) while losing fat, should I eat in a deficit, surplus or maintaining level?
Sorry for making you read so much, but I’m really confused now
And a BIG THANKS TO YOU! Very inspirational! :)
Thanks for the kind words Fabio!
Before I can recommend you anything, I need to know what fitness level are you at. What is your body fat level, bodyweight and how many pull ups can you do?
Well, I’m 60kg (132lbs), 1,68m (5feet 6,15in), the pharmacy balance says I’m 17%bf, and I can do 12 pull ups (neck behind the bar and hands at the same level of the shoulder), so I’m still not that strong.
I was thinking of doing 4/5x a week something like a basic calisthenics routine, wich would consist in doing 3-4circuits (max reps) of pull ups(chin ups – alternaiting day after day), push ups(diamond push ups – alternaiting day after day), squats, dips and leg raises, what do you think? To build some muscle mass and lose this extra fat I have?
But my biggest doubt is about the caloric intake as I mentioned before
Thanks for being so fast !! :)
Oskar,
“shit, I’m losing muscle during this cut, I better start bulking again to make up for it“.
I am going through the phase where i think I am losing too much muscle and look much smaller. I have dropped about 10 lbs and looking in the mirror is not helping. It was wreaking havoc on my psych and I considered bulking up again but I hope what you say is right!
The key is to strategically put in some days where you eat high calories to maintain your muscle. Don’t be in a deficit every single day. Take 1 or 2 days a week where you “reset” the body.
Hey Oskar! First off I’d like to say a lot of this information has really hit home with me. I’m 22 years old, 5ft 10, 158 lbs of mostly fat (coming from 200+lbs when I was about 18). People say I’m skinny but I can see the man boobs in a t-shirt. I feel like I’d be a lot leaner if my diet were clean. My two major problems are what I eat at dinner, and the soda I drink.
I eat the same two things every day for… breakfast :Oatmeal w/ blueberries and a glass of milk, and for lunch: a salad (lettuce, loads of tomato, a bit of cheese, turkey/tuna/chicken breast for variety salads, never with dressing. I hate dressing.) Dinner is where I’m sure I fall short. I don’t THINK I eat a lot at dinner, but it could literally be anything from fried pork chops, rice and tomatoes with veggies to a hamburger, to hot dogs to lasagna etc etc.
This one I “”KNOW”” is a huge issue. I am addicted to 44 oz cups of Dr. pepper from gas station fountain drink machines. In the past I would drink 2 a day. I’ve drank them for most of my entire life. I’m down to 32oz, sometimes every other day and I know thats still a load of empty calories I’m drinking. Its weird because after I have my soda “fix” I can drink water the rest of the day with no problems. Is that a mental barrier that I just feel okay after a soda and can switch to water for the remainder of the day?
Anyways, I’ve tried SS and my own mashup of weight lifting to not much avail. I felt like I was spinning my wheels for about 3 months with no progress. I’m going to try your routine for a few months and see how that goes!
Picture of me: http://gyazo.com/f26d403cbe63a0f32371c32a6a930767.png
Your biggest problem right now is that soda. You need to get rid of it since it has no nutritional value.
My advice is that you take 3 weeks out of your life and make it your first priority to get rid of that soda addiction.
Do anything in your power to avoid having soda around you. It will be tough in the beginning, since sugar is very addictive.
However, after a few weeks your body will stop craving sugar and you’ll be good to go.
There are no secrets to do this other than willpower and avoiding it.
I am so thankful I’ve come across this website. It looks like you put a lot of hard work into making this, and needless to say congratulations on your body transformation. I feel like you answered 95% of my questions just by reading what you wrote, and I also feel that I am in a very alike situation to the one you were in. I am currently 17 years old, and I am one week away from entering my senior year in High School. If you reply to this, I’d like to send you a picture of how I am now to track my progress and also for some tips on where to start. Over the summer I had a gym membership and I really can’t say I’ve made much progress because time was always a problem, and also because I was not sure what to do with the situation I am in (skinny fat). The good thing I can say about it though is that I’ve familiarized myself with different excersices and machines and understand how to target different muscles with different excercises, but then again I am not strong because,,,I’m skinny fat. I literally just came back from a cruise and I was embarassed to take off my shirt the whole time and have now decided enogh is enough. The thing is, even though I thought I was taking care of myself and went to the gym during that week in the cruise, I gained 10 pounds….cruise food…. whatever, now it’s up to me to help myself out if I want to end being skinny fat, and it would be great if I can have you by my side and get your advice.
Thank you Jose, I’ve sent you an email.
Hey Oskar, my friend was a skinnyfat guy like you at the “before” pictures, almost identical, and he got a pretty nice body doing SS and keeping a diet.
Could it be that you had bad genetics?
Can you send me a before/after of your friend? Yes, I definitely have bad genetics. Prior to training I was never able to do a proper push up despite doing sports/being active most of my life.
Spot on with this write-up, I absolutely feel this website needs
much more attention. I’ll probably be returning to read through more, thanks for
the advice!
It does not matter at what time do you eat. As long as you are in a cal deficit, you are loosing weight. You can eat 8 times a day, or just once at night, as long as you eat less, you are ok. That is the big picture. Everything else is just tips and tricks! Eat when you are hungry, whole and nature foods, eat less. It is as simple as that!
Exactly Alex!
Hello Oskar! Wanna ask you about the first tip. At what time exactly should i eat the three different meals?
The time doesn’t matter. Just eat according to your preferences.
I doing what u wrote
I eating 3 meals in the day:
Morning: 1/2 breads with cheese Spread 5%
Afternoon : white rice with chicken or meatballs (3 plastic glasses)
Evening: Omelette 2 eags, 2 breads, 2 cheese spread 5 % (125 gr each )
And salad.
So all this Count not a lot food, so how u suggest me eat less?
I really don’t know how do it
Agian as u know I am 67 kg, 178 height
Thanks
Update :
I checked now: I eat 1710-1720 Calories
This is photo :
http://sizmedia.com/my.php?i=dy1wykdtmzjy.jpg
It’s in Hebrew so the final is: 1707 calories, 27.07% Protein(92.3 gram)
Fat 19.52% ( 66.7 gram) and Carbohydrate 53.44% ( 182.5 gram)
This is the total my food Nutritional Values
So what u think ? Cuz my bmr is 2,111 calories so I actually not eating much , so what u suggest me to do ?
Thanks !
Hi Oskar. Love your articles, it really helped me as a lost beginner!
I just need advice on my body fats percentage.
You see I have been exercising regularly through calisthenics for the past two months and 2 weeks and I took the bulking method (I used to follow other bloggers before I found yours). I started off with a body with fats (not sure how many percentage) and I think I am not improving in terms of losing body fats. I think I have been “eating” a lot for the past two months and my weight is still around 62-65kg with some muscle mass around my arms. Having said that, my whole body is still not losing fats. Its like I am building muscles on my fats.
How do you think I should go from here? I am 175cm. I am not sure my body fat percentage but I know I still have fats around my body. The only area I could see my veins are only my hands and forearms.
Thanks Oskar!
Hey Oskar,
Great site and very helpful! I wished I could have found your blog earlier when I started. I am lost. The reason why I am lost is because I have been following another site earlier before I found you and they made eating simply easier because they mentioned that “eat when you are hungry” and workout. But their transformation is from a SKINNY person to BUFF not from a fatty body. I think I could manage my weight at 63kg (without increase) is due to the amount of time I placed.
I have been into calisthenics for two months now and I have been training almost everyday (30 min in the morning after breakfast and 1hour in the evening before dinner).
Usually my 30 min training would only be abs (4 times per week) and 1 hour will be pull ups, chin ups, push ups , variations of squats and just handstand (6 times per week) with 1 day rest. I dont do cardio.
*Mon- Pull ups
Tues- Abs and Shoulders/Squats (lower body exercises)
Weds- Push ups
Thurs- Rest/or maybe abs
Fri – Pull ups
Sat- Push ups
Sun – Abs/Squats
I have been eating 3 main meals in a day and 1 snack time (before workout). For post workout I usually drink milk and I have fish oils with every main meals
Meals:
Breakfast: Oats, Fruits, 3eggs
Lunch: Rice, Chicken, Veggies
Snack: 2eggs, veggies OR Peanutbutter sandwich
Dinner: Varies but usually includes rice and chicken
I have the body structure earlier as I have broad shoulders and a longer upper body (so I am medium slim). This structure make me look big but slim at the same time. I dont think I am lean as I could only feel “soft-ness” around my body not muscular gains.
I have been following the diet and exercise regime for two months now and I have seen improvements in my body as in some formation in muscles and strength. But the strength varies as this week I could do *for example* 15 pull ups and then next week it drops to 10 or 6. I am confused on whether I should be on a caloric surplus or deficit. I am 175cm (5’7) and 63kg. Also, I feel like I am not changing in terms of body fat percentage as I still have visible fats around my belly and other areas on my body. I only see muscle building up over fats around my biceps and triceps. I could not see my abs visibly if it is not after an abs workout. I am not sure how lean I am as the calculators online are not accurate (there is one saying that I am 9.5% bf when I am not lean). So, I just want to know am I doing it right? or it is still early to see improvements? Where should I go from here?
Sorry for the long post, but I hope you can help me with this. Thank you in advance!
Hi Oskar, i am following your site and i find it very usefull. Expecially your articles are well written, good!
I do not know if you can help me but im in the following situation:
Im trying to lose fat and tone my muscles in the same time (im not bulking i just want to wake them up!).
I am 171cm x 82kg my scale say that i got 22% body fat, 41% muscle mass, 58% water, 11.7kg of bones, anyway i dont think is very precise even if is a good scale.
My prolem is that it seems that i am not loosing fat even if i think to do alot for it;
I Run and walk for at least 10km every day except sunday, i also do 150/200 pushups everyday (2 day of rest i do some pullups).
This is what i eat:
Morning: 200grams of milk, two cookies.
Meal: 60gr of rice with 5gr of olive oil, random veggies, fruit not banans or such.
Snack: fruit, apple or peach or other.
Dinner: i mostly eat 140/150grams of chicken, 200/400gr of random veggies, 20/30 grams of rye bread, 5 grams of olive oil.
All this food is around 1300 calories maybe 1500.
I drink one gallon of water everyday and i do not eat any candy, cocholates or fizzy drinks.
Im doing this from two weeks and i do not see any significant weight loss, im like stable.
How this can be possible?
I dont think that im gaining all that much muscle weight from pushups! Right?
By the way i never did pushups before now in two weeks i can do 30 of them in a row with proper form.
Please whats wrong in all this? (excep my english :p)
Thank you so much!!!
Thanks for the compliment on my writing, I appreciate it!
This is your number one problem right now. You need to choose ONE goal at a time. There’s no toning muscles. You eat a caloric surplus, then you gain some muscle and some fat.
However, since your bodyfat is fairly high (22%), you need to lose the fat first and get to 10-12% bodyfat.
To do that, you need to fix your diet. Follow the advice in this article – you’re not doing that right now. Also, take a look at this article: https://skinnyfattransformation.com/fat-loss-mistakes/
You need to eat SOLID meals with more good fats and proteins and stop doing so much cardio. Focus on resistance training instead of cardio: https://skinnyfattransformation.com/bodyweight-training-skinny-fat/
Finally, be patient! It’s been ONLY 2 weeks. Running 10 km a day while eating 1300 calories at 82 kg of bodyweight will mess up your hormones.
Hey Oskar thank you for the answer.
I’ve sightly changed the diet by adding more fats and proteins in every meal i’ve cut a bit the bad carbs such pasta and bread and dropped rice to 40grams, i integrate carbs with more vegetables. I’m actually 80.5kg when i’ve begun i was 86kg > 3 weeks.
It looks that doing low cardio works more than hard running for me (i’ve read your article about low cardio) After your advice i also sightly changed my cardio session by doing only 7km each day and more by going more slowly (mostly fast walk).
As for strenght training im doing 150/200 pushups 5 days at week (i have some kind of moobs), the other two days i do pullups however they are very hard for me because im still pretty overweight!
I feel the strenght in my chest is increasing, but i have so much fat in my chest that no muscles are visible, and some love handles too..
As you said: i must have one goal,i do!
The first goal is to lose fat until im 74/75kg i have very strong and big bones i will never look skinny, at 75 im already lean.
Second goal (very important to me) is to work hard on my chest so that by toning the chest the moobs will look a lil better when ill be lean.
For that im doing lot of pushups till failure.
Note that i do not have gynecomastia but only a pseudo, i say this because years ago when i lost 22kg my chest was almost normal (no moobs but no muscles).
I tought that losing fat plus pushups will give me some decent result, dont you agree?
At last when ill be ready ill start bulking but that’s not for now. Thank you so much.
Oskar i forgot to ask you something, is normal that i dont feel any kind of soreness after so many pushups? The first week i was soring but not after 3 weeks of constant pushups i feel like i can do 1000 in a day without getting muscle soreness. Whats going on? Should i put weights on my back or keep pushing like this? Ty
You’re on the right track then! There’s only 1 thing I’d change: do diamond push ups instead of regular push ups. Read why in the articles below:
https://skinnyfattransformation.com/build-beach-muscles-diamond-push-ups/
https://skinnyfattransformation.com/puffy-nipples/
Don’t worry about soreness. It doesn’t matter. I rarely get sore anymore. When you get used to an exercise you will stop getting sore. That doesn’t mean you won’t grow from it.
HI, WHAT SUPPLEMENTS WILL YOU RECOMMEND TO TAKE DURING FAT LOSS ?
You don’t need any supplements for fat loss. You should take supplements if you have deficiencies in something, or if you need them for a specific reason.
Hi Oskar
I’m 150lbs of skinny fat right now and I’m finding your site so helpful, thank you! My main question is I’m horribly fat on my lower body (stomach, thighs, hips) but people tell me I look so skinny and I need to eat more. However they do not see what I do when I’m not in clothes, is it healthy for me to drop weight until my body fat is acceptable to me?
Bodyweight is just a number, and it depends a lot on your bone structure and muscle mass. As a skinny-fat guy you most likely have a small bone structure and little muscle mass, so your bodyweight might be low despite you carrying a lot of fat. My advice is that you ask yourself: what do I want? It sounds like you want to get lean, so that’s what you should do. As long as you don’t drop down to something crazy like 3-5% bodyfat you will remain healthy, don’t worry.
Hey Oskar Nice Blogs. I’ve been following you for 3 weeks now been taking your advice for cutting, and eating the same exact foods as you mentioned in your comments the rice and beef with taco sauce is superb lol. I’m pretty much the same body weight and height as angelo above here and I got to say this stuff works. I already look leaner and my muscles are harder and a bit bigger to definitely the chest back and biceps and triceps show a difference since doing body weight exercises .
Happy to hear my advice works Jovani! Keep me updated on your progress.
Hi Oskar,
this page is great, thanks so much for all this advice.
I too have a skinny-fat body type, I am 5’10, 166lbs. I have been going gym for a couple years (on and off last year), but fairly consistent otherwise.
So seeing your other posts, you recommend high volume lifting right? And little squats? I tend to get a big arse, also because played ice hockey as a kid, so my legs grow easy.
thing is i love to weight lift and lift heavy (ego), so I’m concerned I’ll get weaker with high volume and lighter weight. Also, I have a pull up bar at home, but doing bodyweight exercises everyday might be kind of tiring for me… any tips? Wish I could upload a pic of my upper body, so frustrating. lol thaks agian
Thanks Felix,
I have used higher volume and lighter weights for the past 2 or so years, and my strength hasn’t changed much. In my experience, you won’t lose much strength as long as you stay active. And, even if you do lose a small amount of strength, you will regain it quickly because of muscle memory once you start lifting heavy again.
Hey Oskar I’ve been skinny fat for as long as I can remeber 180 pound about 6 foot 1 I always drop to like 170 but people tell me I look so thin and sickly at that weight and I don’t see major changes and I get discouraged. Most of my weight is in my stomach!! The other part of my body as thin. I was wondering if you’d be able to provide me your diet while cutting. And as for exercise how a program like p90x?
I never use a diet. Also, my way of eating would most likely not work for you since it’s specific to my situation.
I don’t know P90X, but my advice for you is that you get lean first no matter how thin you will look, then build your body slowly from there with the basic bodyweight exercises. Read more here: https://skinnyfattransformation.com/bodyweight-training-skinny-fat/
Owen, Intermittent Fasting and carb-cycling, walking on uneven terrain and pavements have nothing to do with weight loss. BCAAs has nothing to do with muscle loss. To lose weight – eat less. To gain muscle – progressive overload. Everything else is just tricks and illusions!
Hi.
All very good tips. I lost 20lbs fat in just over 2 months finally hitting 12% BF. But I also do Intermittent Fasting and carb-cycling for convenience purposes.
Not sure if anyone have mentioned this, but a BIG tip I learnt: Fasted-state WALKING @120-130bpm for 15mins, 2hours, etc. No running or jogging. If you really get bored, do a 10sec sprint.
Do this first thing in the morning or just fast during the day. For rough bpm, go on a treadmill and feel out the speed. Then walk like that outside because I found that uneven terrain and pavements rapidly increases the fat-loss and you’ll see results on the weight scale every 2-4 days. If overly worried about muscle loss, put half a scoop of BCAAs in your water bottle and drink that evenly during the walk.
This is so effective even unnatural bodybuilders do it.
Hi Owen, that’s a very good tip. I remember doing this at one point and getting leaner, but I couldn’t stay consistent with it since I found it boring.
Hi Oskar,
I am 5’5ft tall and had started my weight loss journey last year 1st of May’13.
I was around 72kg(158lbs) when i started, i dropped to around 55kg(121lbs) with regular exercise(mostly running,for about an hour,3-5miles) plus clean diet in just after 3months. Since then, i haven’t lost much. I am now 51-52kg. It’s been a year now. I have lost all my body mass and people say i look ill/weak. I look like the smaller version of what i used to be.my arms and legs have become smaller. my waist has become smaller. only thing is i still have this stubborn belly fat. when i don’t feel like running i would do home workouts such as burpees,jump squats, planks,push ups,leg raise etc. i don’t want abs or anything like that.i just want a lean body with maybe a little muscle definition. i take 3 meals a day just like you. mostly oatmeal(with milk), multigrain bread with peanut butter, green tea, eggs, olive/mustard oil, chicken etc. I didn’t drink much alcohol during the first three months. I drank like once after every 2-3weeks like that. But these days I drink atleast once every week and sometimes even twice. I do not gain anymore weight though and my diet are still clean. But i just have trouble getting rid of this belly fat. should i continue running with calorie deficit diet plan and lose all these fats for good (with no more alcohol drinks)? I’m also afraid i would look too skinny if i do that. Please suggest me what i should do next as i don;t know what to do anymore. Should i incorporate whey protein powder to my diet?
Good job on the fat loss.
To me, it sounds like you have some loose skin/fat cells around your waist after fat loss, which gives you a slight pinch. If I were you, I wouldn’t bother with it and focus on gaining muscle now.
Supplements are not necessary at all.
thanks a lot for the reply, i will start my lifting routine now :)
btw, should i still do cardio after lifting? because i just love running.
You don’t need cardio, although you can if you want. I like to use cardio when I want to go from lean to very lean (read: 7 fat loss mistakes article)
I have used this approach one year ago. I have dropped to 8-10 % bodyfat. But I purposely did not excersize. When you train, you need food therefore you have to eat. Anyway, after that I started to workout with the 20 rep squat routine. And of course I gained fat and very little muscle. Now I have to loose 20 lbs. I know how to do that. But this time I will add some bodyweght training as you recommend to see what will happen.
P.S. Sorry for my english, I am from Bulgaria.
Hi Alex, you seem to know how to lose fat without overcomplicating stuff, however keep in mind that if you don’t train while eating a caloric surplus, you will lose some of your muscle mass.
Oskar, when do you eat your two meals? For example: morning and evening, noon and evening, afternoon and evening?
I eat 3 meals currently: medium size breakfast, small pre-workout meal in the afternoon, medium-big post-workout meal in the evening.
Meal times depend on when I wake up and when I train.
When I ate 2 meals I would usually sleep as much as possible, wake up late, wait a few hours, eat my first meal (fairly big), then train 3 hours after my meal, come back home, wait an hour or two, then eat my second meal in the evening. 2 meals a day are much easier when you get sufficient sleep.
Hi Oskar,
Great site!, I’m having the skinny fat physic as long as I can remember, never been really fat but always light weighted and soft with a little bit of a belly.
I’m working out for over 1 year now, have made multiple attempt to start bulking but every time I couldn’t continue because I felt I become just fatter in the process.
But from mid January until February I had decoded to just bulk for 1 month to if bulking was “working” for me, well, I did gain some mass and my strength improved after a long time of no increasement what so ever. My body weight increased(by 2 kg) I’m sure I also gained a bit of fat..
Mentally being skinny fat is very hard, I put much time and effort in training and want that “aesthetic” physic so bad, but that seems to be a far reached goal for me.
I like your idea about doing “short bulking and cutting cycles” But being still skinny fat I think I have to do a “hardcore” cut sometime to start from a lean base.
I would love to continue bulking because I’m finally making progress again after my newbie gains. Problem is I’m getting fatter and fatter..
Would you recommend a “mini cut”, I do plan to do this with a more then traditional aggressive approach. Like only eating after my daily weight training and fasting for the rest of the day.
Like fasting and maybe doing some cardio, until the evening when I do my weight training.
Hi Kees,
Thank you!
I can’t tell you if you should bulk or cut, without knowing how lean you are. What is your estimated bodyfat percentage? Do you have visible abs in good lighting?
Hello there Oskar.
I agree that the get lean first then slowly bulk up strategy is better. However I almost come from an opposite experience than yours.
I wasted my 1.5 first years of training trying to figure out how to eat . I was mainly cutting,as a result my progress on the lifts got stuck on novice level. I injured myself because of regressing strengh. I am now lightly muscled but still skinnyfat. I am afraid of cutting again because I might loose strengh again. What is your opinion ?
I can’t just guess whether you should bulk or cut based on that information. How much fat did you cut in those 1.5 years, and how lean are you right now? What are your strength stats?
I hadn’t measured bodyfat but when I started this journey I was 80kg and dropped to 73 in 1 year or so . 5’9
Then I returned to my parents house and hit 75 kg . Fast forward 5 months and I am 80kg , feint abs, bigger shoulders and back, but still skinnyfat,Bench 60kgx3
Deadlift 95×5, squat 90×5
Cut down until you have visible 4-pack in good lighting (or around 10-12 % bodyfat), then do the short bulking and cutting cycles after your cut to gain muscle while staying lean.
That I will do.
By the way I just saw your transformation video. It is mindblowing how your lats exploded near the end of your cut.
Sounds good!
Thanks, I always trained my lats super hard to overcome my narrow-shouldered look. Losing the fat around the waist also helped tremendously to make them look wider.
Hi Oskar.
Again, I must say, really nice blog/site, and awesome articles. They are really detailed and explained so everybody can understand.
Anyway, I’m having a problem on my mind right now, and that is becouse I have some muscle that I built from going to the gym for 4-5 months, I mean it’s not much, but it took time to gain it, so I would not like to lose that.
So, by eating 3 meals a day, I’m sure cutting on a lot of calories, I mean, I’m trying to make those 3 meals as healthy as possible, but still i think I’m not hitting 2191 calories, which is like the calories calculator said my number of calorie intake during losing fat, and the number is way bigger if I want to try the standart “bulk” (around 3000), but I’m not going to go for a classic bulk, instead I’m going to follow this skinny fat program that you wrote and hope for best results.
Thanks Haris, I try to make them simple and actionable, without making them too superficial.
Don’t worry about losing muscle. As long as you don’t starve yourself and train regularly, that won’t happen. I used to stress about this kind of stuff too, but it’s a waste of time. Stressing about it is more likely to cause muscle loss than not eating exactly 2191 calories a day.
Hi,
I eat a balanced diet consisting of fats, proteins and carbs. I wish to lose weight but when I eat even slightly lesser than I am used to, I feel really hungry. I get the urge to go and eat something immediately when I try to cut down on my food. What can I do about the hunger pangs?
I’m 21 and dont have a very active lifestyle but I workout everyday. Approximately how long will it take me to lose a couple of inches of fat from my belly? I know fat loss occurs overall the body and spot reduction is not possible so if my previous question sounds dumb, i think a better question would be, how long did it take you to go from having a fat belly to the flat belly that you have currently?
Thanks.
Hi Ann,
How much do you sleep? Have you tried chewing gum and drinking tea/coffee during the day? Sufficient sleep + chewing gum + coffee/tea helps a lot with hunger.
As for losing inches around your belly, it depends on how lean you already are, how large your deficit is and your genetics. For me, it takes about 4 weeks to lose 2 inches around my waist. It took me 18 months to go from my fattest (235 lbs) to my leanest (177 lbs), but it can be done much faster, and most of my fat was stored around the hips.
Thank you so much for your quick reply. I sleep 8 hours a day. I don’t drink tea, coffee but I will definitely try out chewing gums, it did strike me as an idea some days ago but I had no idea that they would be so effective. Thank you so much. You are awesome.
No problem and thank you. Let me know how it works out for you :-)
Loving the recommendations bro. I still haven’t started training or eating appropriately, but I am getting the plan laid out and preparing myself to start mentally within a week, max. As far as percentage of beef goes, how do you calculate that? LOL, silly question, but I actually don’t know.
Glad you like it man, let me know how it works out for you! :-)
The beef packaging says how many percent of fat it is.
Love your blog, I started to lose weight back in April and had some pretty good progress, I was trying to lose some extra weight before a hip replacement surgery. I am only 33 but had avascular necrosis of the hip so my hip had collapsed into itself and it was time for a replacement. I had a successful surgery but gained back some of the weight that I had lost since I was not very active during my recovery. After a few months I started to feel pretty good and decided I was going to start stronglifts, I set up a bunch of weights that a friend let me have and was ready to start. It was only a day or two later that I read one of your blog posts about bodyweight exercises and it was enough to convince me to not worry about the weight lifting just yet. I have now been doing body weight exercises only, I started a push up challenge and just recently incorporated pullups(although I can only do a couple) I have been doing reverse pullups or negatives until I get strong enough to do more real pullups. When I started I was over 25% bodyfat and could only do 11 push ups. Now 2 months later I am 15% bodyfat and can do more than 40 pushups. I am still a work in progress but have seen some great improvements. I plan on using your blog post on bulking without weight gain once I get rid of a bit more bodyfat but as of now I am still in a slight deficit while I get rid of that last bit of belly fat, still hopeful that the excess skin will tighten up by summer time. Sorry for rambling but I guess the point of my post is just to let you know that I appreciate your page and your blog posts. I definitely consider myself a skinny fat guy and hopefully over time I can achieve the aesthetic looking body that I am aiming for.
Hi Joshua,
I’m glad your surgery was succesful, that sounds like an unfortunate thing to have to go through.
Wow, you added 29 reps to your push up max in 2 months and lost a lot of bodyfat. That’s VERY good progress man, keep it up!
If you keep this up, you will definitely achieve an aesthetically looking body. It seems like you know what to do now and how to do it, so just stay consistent and you will reach your goal.
Don’t be sorry for the “rambling”, I’m sure other skinny-fat guys will be inspired by this, and those kind of comments motivate me to write more content for you guys.
– Oskar
How do you guys motivate yourself?
When I start training, I feel like I lose all my energy and I become weak in mind.
Thanks for all the advice. I’ve used it and have dropped from 170 15.5% bf with only 3 chin-ups to 167 12.2% bf with 15 chin-ups unjust the past 10 weeks. I’ve also never been able to do a diamond push-up and now I can do 20 in a row. Strong lifts was just making me fat before and now that I have implemented MAINLY bodyweight training my physique is skyrocketing to where I’d like it to be. I don’t know when I should start bulking though. Ha, maybe in like two or three months when I get to 9-10% bf. :) And I love intermittent fasting and no tiny meals I have to prepare every two hours.
WOW Inspiring!! Do you have any before and after pics? Keep up the good work man.
I would skip the rice and bread and get my carbs from real vegetables. You’ll get essential nutrients and fiber. A vitamin where you piss out most of the nutrients can’t really take the place of that. Spinach, broccoli, asparagus take less than 4 minutes to cook. Just grease you pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, throw you vegetables in with some fresh pepper, red chilies or chili paste, crushed garlic, tbsp of soy sauce and flash fry for 3 minutes. And voila!
Hi Luc,
Thank you for the recipe. I’ve added vegetables to my dinner now, however I won’t remove all rice and bread from my diet since they are essential for me to train hard.
Only that?? Everyday ? You don’t get hungry? I would be hungry for sure haha. Which multivitamin? Any prefered brand?
Those 2 meals are what I eat everyday yes. I put a lot of peanutbutter on my bread though and I eat +1 lb of meat for dinner and a lot of rice. On days where I train very hard I add a 3rd meal either before going to bed or between the 2 other meals depending on when I’m hungry.
I just buy the cheapest multivitamin they have at the pharmacy, I only take it because I don’t like to eat vegetables.
Wonderful blog. That’s what i needed. From what i have seen you told us you only eat 3 meals a day. What are those meals in a normal day? For example … And are you taking any kind of supplements?
Thanks Arthur, I’m glad you like it.
I wake up quite late most days of the week so my first meal is brunch where I eat 4 slices of rye bread with peanutbutter and a lot of fruit (bananas, honey melon, smoothie). For dinner I eat 10-14 % beef with rice and taco sauce on top of it.
I take multivitamin and vitamin D + calcium.
I only eat three meals a day when cutting. I stick to lean beef or chicken, eggs, green veg, salads, fruit like cantaloupe and healthy fats like all natural peanut butter or olive oil.
Breakfast
Eggs
1/2 a cantaloupe
Lunch
Beef or chicken
Salad or green veg
Some cantaloupe
Dinner
Beef or chicken
Salad or veg
1 tablespoon of olive oil or all natural peanut butter
Every 3rd day I’ll have a bit more carbs just to offset the body getting to use to a lower calorie diet.
Sounds like an overall good diet. Only changes I can think of on top off my head are to include some inflammatory fats as well a few times per week to speed up workout recovery and increase hormone production. You’ll get those from fat cuts of red meat.
My brother did a very similar routine… he is 5’4″ and weighed 350 pounds for over 10 years…finally, after 14 months, he lost HALF his body weight (his doctor thought he was on drugs LOL). My other brother, who used to weight lift and eat huge meals so he could bench like 400 lbs is NOW grossly over weight — he kept eating like he was weightlifting, though instead of weightlifting he was living the family life (job, wife, kids, etc.)…and that caught up with him. I am very fortunate…5′ 11″ 170 lbs, I never picked up eating large meals or drank sodas (I drink about 1 can of soda every other week, while I drink black coffee and teas every other hour LOL)…the thing for me that kept me from gaining weight — I NEVER have junk food at home: no sweets, no chips, no dips, no cookies…just basic stuff like milk, eggs, vegetables, etc.
Wow on that weight loss, congrats to your brother for losing 175 pounds in 14 months!
“I NEVER have junk food at home: no sweets, no chips, no dips, no cookies…just basic stuff like milk, eggs, vegetables, etc.”
This is one of the best ways to stay lean and get lean. Remove the temptation to make fat loss so much easier.
Remove temptations — great point. I believe you condition yourself to eat healthier as you can condition yourself to eat too much and/or eat bad. Like I have a friend that drinks a 12 pack, literally, 12 cans of Dr. Pepper EVERY day for the past 15 years…though he is only 31, he looks like he’s 45+ years old, seriously, no lie. He eats no vegetables, no fruits…. ALL processed foods, period. And, yeah, he doesn’t have the prettiest smile: my smile here :D and his smile? Way over here ——————-> :e
Can you give some examples of proper, balanced meals? That’d be great!
Also – how do you calculate the amount of protein that you need?
I don’t worry about protein intake, I believe it’s highly overrated. I used to get 200 g of protein per day at 200 lbs bodyweight during my first few years of training, but now I eat 100-120 g of protein per day and I’m still progressing and gaining muscle.
I wake up quite late most days of the week so my first meal is brunch where I eat 4 slices of rye bread with peanutbutter and a lot of fruit (bananas, honey melon, smoothie). For dinner I eat 10-14 % beef with rice and taco sauce on top of it.
You do chicken?
I rarely eat chicken
Hey Oskar!
Have you tried sweet potato? One of the best carbs you can get :)
Actually, I haven’t tried that, but it sounds great, gonna give it a try, thanks!
hey, Carbs mixed with Fats and Proteins ? i knew that they won t digest properly.