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nyyanks937
nyyanks937 g Yevgeniy Kruchenetskiy
86 Post(s)
86 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: October 10, 2017
Posted

As I've mentioned before, overall I'm skinny but have a bit of fat on my stomach/abs area. I hoped that while working out to build muscle I'd be able to lose the fat around my abs, but that doesn't seem to be happening as my stomach has appeared to look the same over the past 3-4 months. Today at the gym I was looking at it in the mirror and one of the trainers noticed and told me the only way to lose the fat in that area is to do cardio. Is that true??

Zeke_BE
Zeke_BE g Brandon Ellsworth
55 Post(s)
55 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: December 12, 2017
Posted

Your waist is one of the first part of you body where it starts losing fat. Once the body feels it in a healthy place its one of the bodys last reserve to keep for survile! Its the last spot on your body where it stays on the longest. Doing cardio, or ab work will not target your waist. You can't target fat like you can target a muscle. The only way is by a calorie deficit. Either by eating less then what you need to maintain or eating your calories and then do a work out like cardio to be in a deficit. A faster way is eat less and do some type of work out. If your trying to keep gains you don't want to be running every day for long periods of times. There is a reason martahon runners are skinny twigs and sprinters look huge. If you want to loose weight eat your calories and do HIIT cardio with your work out and keep a deficit. Also if your really skinny adding muscle will help if you clean bulk. Its hard to shred to a body with no lean muscle. You will keep getting lighter and looking skinny fat. Gain muscle

jmboiardi
jmboiardi p John M Boiardi
2.6K Post(s)
2.6K Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Bodybuilding Date Joined: October 10, 2013
Posted
Posted By: Zeke_BE

Your waist is one of the first part of you body where it starts losing fat. Once the body feels it in a healthy place its one of the bodys last reserve to keep for survile! Its the last spot on your body where it stays on the longest. Doing cardio, or ab work will not target your waist. You can't target fat like you can target a muscle. The only way is by a calorie deficit. Either by eating less then what you need to maintain or eating your calories and then do a work out like cardio to be in a deficit. A faster way is eat less and do some type of work out. If your trying to keep gains you don't want to be running every day for long periods of times. There is a reason martahon runners are skinny twigs and sprinters look huge. If you want to loose weight eat your calories and do HIIT cardio with your work out and keep a deficit. Also if your really skinny adding muscle will help if you clean bulk. Its hard to shred to a body with no lean muscle. You will keep getting lighter and looking skinny fat. Gain muscle

I agree with everything you said except that the stomach is the LAST place to get lean not the FIRST. The body loses body fat evenly over the entire body. The areas with the most fat - like the abdomen, obliques, and lower back in men - will be the last places to lean out.

 

It just takes time - much longer than 3-4 months - and patience. Consistent training and eating correctly with the right caloric deficit will produce results. It could take up to a year so patience is key.

 

John

34 years of lifting and nutritional experience and resident "old man" :-) MS Athlete and past Super Hermanite since 2013.
STEMJeff
STEMJeff g
90 Post(s)
90 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: December 12, 2017
Posted

I can vouch for this entirely.

When i started focusing on my fitness I was 190 with a pretty high BF- I estimate 25% to be truthful. My belly was where most of it was.

I'm now 173 and my BF was 14% when I measured it two weeks ago. I still note that my belly still shows most of this fat. When I used the BF calipers, I get the biggest reading in the middle.

But it's way lower than it used to be.

I think for me I would have more results but I haven't really had a dialed in meal plan until about 4 months ago - and with this site, I have it dialed in even more now.

 

Just keep training, eating right, and being consistent. You got this!

nyyanks937
nyyanks937 g Yevgeniy Kruchenetskiy
86 Post(s)
86 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: October 10, 2017
Posted
Posted By: jmboiardi

I agree with everything you said except that the stomach is the LAST place to get lean not the FIRST. The body loses body fat evenly over the entire body. The areas with the most fat - like the abdomen, obliques, and lower back in men - will be the last places to lean out.

 

It just takes time - much longer than 3-4 months - and patience. Consistent training and eating correctly with the right caloric deficit will produce results. It could take up to a year so patience is key.

 

John

I know that being in a deficit would help lose the fat, but the thing is that my goal is to build muscle so I'm in a surplus. I remember in some of your other posts you mentioned that you can lose a little bit of fat while still building muscle if you stay in a surplus of around 250-500 calories and/or eating fewer carbs on rest days while still staying in a surplus on those days (correct me if I'm wrong). That's what I've been doing for several months but it doesn't seem to be doing anything to my abs. I'm not saying I expect to see every ounce of fat gone from my abs after just a few months, but I don't really notice any change at all.

 

Also regarding my initial question...is what the trainer told me correct? That adding cardio is the only way to get rid of that fat? That just doesn't sound right to me.

Zeke_BE
Zeke_BE g Brandon Ellsworth
55 Post(s)
55 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: December 12, 2017
Posted

You might lean out in a surplus, but more then likly you will keep it on. Once you build more muscle it will be eaiser to shred because fat to muscle ratio will change and easier to shred to lean muscle.

 

Regarding your inital question stop worrying about cardio and worry about calorie surplus or deficit. No its not the only way. You can go to other weight lifting forums and ask around and there are lots of ripped bodybuilders who don't do cardio. Weights and diet! (a great number of bodybuilders hate running) When shredding yes cardio (short cardio) or HIIT training are great ways to speed things up, plus its good for you to be condtioned. So yes that trainer is wrong!

 

When bulking Scott has taught try not to burn any extra calories while at the gym you need them to build muscle. Any extra work, play, cardio needs to be replaced while bulking. Like this morning I played football over an hour according to a website calculator and the amount of sprints I burned 800 calories. Im bulking so breakfest calories was a freebee to replace football and now I need to make sure I hit the rest of my 2500 calories today to keep muscle growing.

 

Again this is from all what Ive learned from other trainers and people experince.

jmboiardi
jmboiardi p John M Boiardi
2.6K Post(s)
2.6K Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Bodybuilding Date Joined: October 10, 2013
Posted
Posted By: nyyanks937

I know that being in a deficit would help lose the fat, but the thing is that my goal is to build muscle so I'm in a surplus. I remember in some of your other posts you mentioned that you can lose a little bit of fat while still building muscle if you stay in a surplus of around 250-500 calories and/or eating fewer carbs on rest days while still staying in a surplus on those days (correct me if I'm wrong). That's what I've been doing for several months but it doesn't seem to be doing anything to my abs. I'm not saying I expect to see every ounce of fat gone from my abs after just a few months, but I don't really notice any change at all.

 

Also regarding my initial question...is what the trainer told me correct? That adding cardio is the only way to get rid of that fat? That just doesn't sound right to me.

1) It will take longer than a few months. It could take a year. It will be slower when you have a slight surplus of 250-500 calories (lean gains) as your primary goal is to gain muscle versus lose fat. When natural, you can't do both to the fullest - you have to choose one as the primary focus.

 

2) Cardio does help with fat loss as it creates additional energy expenditures to burn more calories. However, cardio does not promote muscle gain so again you have to choose your primary goal - muscle gain or fat loss. I don't do any cardio but am very lean because I run a slight calorie deficit, cycle my carbs, do intermittent fasting, and my workouts are very short (60 minutes) and intense and burn the same amount of total calories as doing weight training with cardio. They average about 750-800 calories each.

 

3) As you gain more muscle mass, you will lose some fat as your BMR will be increasing due to the addition of more active muscle tissue. The results will be slight but you're more than likely to sense them with the way your clothes fit versus the mirror.

 

 

John

34 years of lifting and nutritional experience and resident "old man" :-) MS Athlete and past Super Hermanite since 2013.
muscular strength
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