Hey Guys,

My name is Matt and I'm 18 years old. I'm about 6'1 and weigh about 185 lb. I came here for a little bit of help. :-D. My body shape is weird. My upper ribs stick out and then theres a line and under that line my stomach pooches a little. The scale I bought says my body fat is between 19 and 22 percent and I'd like to get that down to around 14 or 15. I was hoping the people here could help me out with a program that would work. For the last three weeks I was trying to eat much less and drink only water and I lost about 9 pounds in two weeks, which didn't seem healthy, and as soon as I realized how much it sucked not eating I went right back up to 185. I have just a few questions.

Firstly, at my age how many calories should I really be eating and what kind of ratio should I have between carbs protein and fat.

Secondly, Is it really possible to lose fat and build muscle at the same time???

If so, how should it be done? I can bench about 145 at the most but I can rep 90 about 8-10 times. How many sets and reps should I do to build the muscle. What about for my biceps, triceps and shoulders? What exercises are best to target these muscles?

My last question is about abs. Is it possible for every person to get those washboard abs? It seems like with the way my ribs stick out and the line in my stomach that I will never have those washboard abs. When I look at my side profile in the mirror its like flat chest the flat upper stomach/lower chest...then my back like bends in and my lower stomach pooches a bit.

Thanks for any support. I probably shouldn't have posted all of this in the members intro forum. Sorry...:-D

Matt

Hey Matt,

To answer your questions, it is possible to build muslce and lose fat at the same time but your diet/nutrition and trianing/techinique needs to be of a very high quality.

The washboard asb, biceps, tripceps all those things you asked about, you can do all that in one go and its actually the best way to go about it. FULL BODY WORKOUT. Start doing compound lifting excersises like :

Squats
Bent-over rows (barbell)
Bench press
Military press
Deadlift
Good mornings
Barbell Curl
Overhead press (barbell)
to name a few...

If you don't know what the heck these things are read up about them. They are the best way to target pretty much ALL the big muscle groups in the body and are the most effective way to build indivuidal muslces also.

I would suggest you do a full body workout 3 times a week with cardio in between for example:

Monday: Full-body workout
Tuesday: Cardio (riding a bike, running, stationary bikes, rowing machines etc)
Wednesday: Full-body workout
Thrusday: Cardio
Friday: Full-body workout
Saturday: Cardio
Sunday: Rest

Do 3 sets of 8 -10 reps of all the excerises progressivly overloading your muslces.

Now, to go along side your training you need to have a healthy diet.

Here is a part of a post by Wrangell i think is very educational.

______________________________________________________________

Simple, time-tested, no nonsense habits that you need to get into when designing a good eating program.

1. Eat every 2-3 hours, no matter what. You should eat between 5-8 meals per day.

2. Eat complete (containing all the essential amino acids), lean protein with each meal.

3. Eat fruits and/or vegetables with each food meal.

4. Ensure that your carbohydrate intake comes from fruits and vegetables. Exception: workout and post-workout drinks and meals.

5. Ensure that 25-35% of your energy intake comes from fat, with your fat intake split equally between saturates (e.g. animal fat), monounsaturates (e.g., olive oil), and polyunsaturates (e.g. flax oil, salmon oil).

6. Drink only non-calorie containing beverages, the best choices being water and green tea.

7. Eat mostly whole foods (except workout and post-workout drinks). "

...courtesy of John Berardi.

Now, armed with this info, all YOU have to do is find a list - Google is a good place to start - of foods that make up ...


- lean protein

- fruits and vegetables

- saturated fat & monounsaturated fat & polyunsaturatesd fat

- whole foods
____________________________________________________

To get the list of these foods go to the Nutrition part of the forum and look in the stickies at the top, there is one called LV's grocery list, have a look in there it gives a very comprehsive list of good foods to plan your diet.

It's a steep learnign curve but if you do these things result will come hard and fast. Ok that is all lol, sorry if this post is too big. GOOD LUCK and have fun with it!!

P.S i had the same problem you described with the upper ribs sticking out it disapeared with time.

Sounds Good. After doing some research I posted the workout I was going to be doing and it contained all of the exercises you said...(and then some)..lol. The first time I tried it I overloaded my muscles because I did 4x10 on every excercise. I will try the one less set and less reps this time. As for the nutrition I'm eating what we have here at home which isn't as healthy as I'd like, but isn't that bad either. When I get paid I'm going to do my own grocery shopping and probably pick up some skinless chicken breasts and some salmon for meat...Is it okay to marinade the food before eating, or does that make it unhealthy? I'm also going to pick up some vegetables, but I was wondering if the ones in the can were okay. lol. Well anyways I'll keep my progress posted. I want to be down to 9% by Halloween.

Welcome.

Nice post FG.

Pfft, You never tell me anymore when I made a nice post, tony...

loved the rest of the post, but confused here.

I would, if any were nice


What is confusing deschain?

That really hurts tony...

It's possible to build muslce and lose fat at the same time, especially when starting out to some extent as is the case with Matt I assume. The further one gets in their training the more perfect their diet and training/technique needs to be. This is my personal opinion I based on my own experinces and research it could be wrong, maybe it just seems that way. Was that what you were confused about?