Im a 19 year old male, Im about 190lbs and last time i checked i was like 18% body fat but that was a couple months ago, anyways, the only category i can put myself in is skinny-fat, and I want to fill myself out and look better by July, I’ve never really been too into fitness or meal planning or anything so im, while learning, very lost still, Ive been going to the gym 4/5 times a week doing my buddies routine and my meal plan is pretty bad, im very limited because I live in barracks and we have no access to like, cook other than with a microwave so a lot of options go out the window on that. I need Help building the perfect meal plan to get me to where i need to be, and also a side question, which workout routine on the site would be best for a skinny-fat transformation?

If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Hey man!

Diet is so crucial man.. if you can, do you think you could at least get an idea of what your macros are each day at the moment? Even if it's a rough guess. Because we can then take those numbers and tell you what you probably should be aiming for.. or better yet you can use the caluclator on the @mealplan page to get an estimate of a starting point!

If you're skinny fat, you definitely want to be in a surplus as well. In terms of a routine, the PPL or Cheat & Recover are probably good from your standpoint, so that you have focuses on fat loss as well as muscle gain. Cheat & Recover might be easier to split up into a 5 day split.

Okay, so i went on the meal planner tab and got this

Well 3300 calories would be a good starting point! So figure out what you get on average now, and slowly start adding more food in so that you can work up to that number. If you get to a point where you can gain with less than 3300, stay there for a while until you plateau.

For the macros, protein looks good, I'd just suggest altering carbs and fats a little bit. Take some calories away from carbs and put some into fat. Aim for 300-350g carbs and 110g-130g fat (fat numbers will depend on what you aim for with carbs to make up your total calories).

Hi Scott, I need your help! I'm getting really discouraged because I just don't know where to start. I've been going gym for 4 months and I don't think I've made the gains I could and that's down to diet. I don't know if I should be in a deficit or surplus. I've plucked up the courage to add this photo so you could maybe tell me judging from my photo? I just want to lose that little bit of lower body fat, it really gets me down. I am able and do go gym 6 days a week so dl ylu think your PPL is best ? also im 6ft 2 and about 188 pounds.Any help would be great. Thank you

Hi Scott, I need your help! I'm getting really discouraged because I just don't know where to start. I've been going gym for 4 months and I don't think I've made the gains I could and that's down to diet. I don't know if I should be in a deficit or surplus. I've plucked up the courage to add this photo so you could maybe tell me judging from my photo? I just want to lose that little bit of lower body fat, it really gets me down. Any help would be great. Thank you

Hey Luke, you need to be in a surplus in my opinion my bro! If you have only been working out for 4 months, you're still in the newbie phase. Chances are you can still drop some fat while being in a slight, 250-500 calorie surplus. You just might want to do something like carb cycling to help lose some fat, and adding a bit of cardio will be usefull too!

So I would put your goal on the @mealplan page as 'Lean Muscle Gain', so that you can start to add more mass! Have you decided which program you are going to follow as well?

What is carb cycling and how should I do it ? I will add cardio for sure! I'm going to follow your PPL programme. Also do you have a rough idea what body fat % I would be so I can do your calculator

You're probably somewhere around 15% for your body fat. Great choice of program!

Carb cycling is simply where you have high carb days and low carb days. Some people even have high, medium and low carb days. Basically it's just altering your carb intake on different days. What I'm suggesting is just low and high days - try a low carb intake on your off days, but a regular/high intake on your training days.