Belly Fat / Get Lean Plan

FHFM50

Just want to get some advice here. I'm 5' 11 , 14 stone, Late 20's. I've been using the below plan since January with some, but very little results. I'm what you call skinny fat (small arms, big belly)

Breakfast : Muesli with Protein Milk , Natural Peanut butter on Wholegrain toast
Lunch : Skip, don't like eating during the day
Dinner : Beef mince or Chicken breast with frozen veg ( No Carbs)

Workout with 2 x 10KG dumbbells 3-4 days a week.

-Floor Press
-Shoulder Press
-Dumbbell Curls
-Tricep Extensions
-Dumbbell Squats

Long walk every evening (2 hours)

Anything I should add/remove?

CIARAN_BOYLE

What's the quantity of the food like.

Have you considered measuring out the quantity of what you are eating to total up your calorie intake.

20kg isn't a huge amount to work out with if you are around 90kg. You might need very high volume exercises to make progress with 2x10kg dumbbells.

Its very limited for exercise purposes. Does it feel like you are pushing or just going through the motions?

Feenix

FHFM50 wrote: »

Just want to get some advice here. I'm 5' 11 , 14 stone, Late 20's. I've been using the below plan since January with some, but very little results. I'm what you call skinny fat (small arms, big belly)

Breakfast : Muesli with Protein Milk , Natural Peanut butter on Wholegrain toast
Lunch : Skip, don't like eating during the day
Dinner : Beef mince or Chicken breast with frozen veg ( No Carbs)

Workout with 2 x 10KG dumbbells 3-4 days a week.

-Floor Press
-Shoulder Press
-Dumbbell Curls
-Tricep Extensions
-Dumbbell Squats

Long walk every evening (2 hours)

Anything I should add/remove?

Is that really your daily diet? It can't be healthy and the dinner is just grim.
Hard to imagine not eating all day during lockdown then sitting down to a plate of minced meat and frozen veg.

FHFM50

Feenix wrote: »

Is that really your daily diet? It can't be healthy and the dinner is just grim.
Hard to imagine not eating all day during lockdown then sitting down to a plate of minced meat and frozen veg.

I recently cut rice from the dinner to lower my carb intake but yeah, that's pretty much it. I might have to add it back in as the dinners are muck.

What is unhealthy about it?

FHFM50

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

What's the quantity of the food like.

Have you considered measuring out the quantity of what you are eating to total up your calorie intake.

20kg isn't a huge amount to work out with if you are around 90kg. You might need very high volume exercises to make progress with 2x10kg dumbbells.

Its very limited for exercise purposes. Does it feel like you are pushing or just going through the motions?

Breakfast portions will be big, I might sneak a second small bowl of museli, or a third slice of toast.Dinner is roughly 300g of meat with plenty of veg. (Lots of spices to add some flavor)

Honestly the 10KG dumbbells are enough. I have some 15's here and they're far too heavy for me.

Mellor

How big are the breakfast portions? Sounds like dinner is a double portion. If you are having a double breakfast, it’s possible that you are t close to a calorie deficit.

What’s the logic in no carbs at dinner. But a big bowl of carbs for breakfast?

Flippyfloppy

What is the calories like in the muesli? When I dieted I was only able to have a cup measurement of porridge with low fat milk and muesli should be much higher in calories than porridge.

FHFM50

Mellor wrote: »

How big are the breakfast portions? Sounds like dinner is a double portion. If you are having a double breakfast, it’s possible that you are t close to a calorie deficit.

What’s the logic in no carbs at dinner. But a big bowl of carbs for breakfast?

Bowl of muesli (No added sugar) , 2 slices of wholegrain toast with natural peanut butter.

There's probably no logic to it, I'm just experimenting with different things. That's why I'm asking for advice.

bladespin

FHFM50 wrote: »

Bowl of muesli (No added sugar) , 2 slices of wholegrain toast with natural peanut butter.

There's probably no logic to it, I'm just experimenting with different things. That's why I'm asking for advice.

What's in the bowl? is it 60g or 300g, museli doesn't need any sugar added, it's pretty high calorie as it is.

Why no carbs with dinner? unless you want to go Keto (guessing not from the breakfast - frozen veg=carbs too) I'd imagine you'd be pretty hungry later on, the worst time tbh.

It really doesn't look like a great plan tbh, there are far less harsh ways to loose weight.

FHFM50

bladespin wrote: »

What's in the bowl? is it 60g or 300g, museli doesn't need any sugar added, it's pretty high calorie as it is.

Why no carbs with dinner? unless you want to go Keto (guessing not from the breakfast - frozen veg=carbs too) I'd imagine you'd be pretty hungry later on, the worst time tbh.

It really doesn't look like a great plan tbh, there are far less harsh ways to loose weight.

I don't measure it out but I go through a 1KG bag in about 5-7 days so I'd say around 150-200g a day.

Right could you give me plan or modify mine? My one rule is no added sugar.

Mellor

FHFM50 wrote: »

I don't measure it out but I go through a 1KG bag in about 5-7 days so I'd say around 150-200g a day.

A serve is maybe 50g. You’re having 4 serves, plus toast with peanut butter. I’d advice that for somebody trying to gain weight. Easily 1200 cals.

And then a double sized dinner. No wonder you don’t need lunch.
Breakfast needs to be cut in half or changed entirely.

bladespin

FHFM50 wrote: »

I don't measure it out but I go through a 1KG bag in about 5-7 days so I'd say around 150-200g a day.

Right could you give me plan or modify mine? My one rule is no added sugar.

There’s 700 cals in that bowl alone,

Plan is very simple, work out your maintenance calorie and eat 20% less, track your food properly and weigh it if possible, eat whatever suits you but stay within the limit, exercise as you like, no need to walk 2hrs unless you like doing that.

eet fuk

Download MyFitnessPal app, weigh all of your food (liquid calories too, so include milk etc.), and then report back after a few days.
It's impossible to give decent advice without knowing more detail about your diet. Quantity/quality of food matters - 200g of muesli per day will affect you differently than 150g of muesli over a few weeks/months.
It will be an eye opener to you more than anything, and you should be able to see what you're doing right or wrong after a week or two of tracking nutrition.

As far as working out goes - you are really limited by your equipment. You can still get results though, if you approach it with a plan. This is just off the top of my head and I would encourage you to google home workout routines (ideally one that gives you a progression over the course of a few weeks at the least):

Day 1 (Upper)

4x8 Pushups
4x8 DB Overhead Press
4x8/8 Single are DB row
4x30s planks

Day 2 (Lower)
4x8 Bulgarian Split Squats
4x8 DB RDLs
4x30s Glute Bridges
4x20s FlutterKicks

Repeat Day 1 and Day 2 as needed (so you can workout either 4 times, or 6 times per week). Keep the rest times consistent (use a stopwatch) - likely around 1-2 minutes between sets.
I have no idea what your form, mobility, training history is like - so please don't take this sh*tty template as gospel. The main idea is that you want to progress, so if you are managing 8 reps per set on week 1, try for 10 reps on week 2, 12 reps on week 3 etc. When you can do 15 reps, start using your heavier dumbbells and start at 8 reps per set again. You can also progress by reducing the rest time between sets.

Nothing will beat consistency, so do your best to take enjoyment in the exercise and movement. The people who see the best progress stick to their plan no matter how optimal it is. I've seen good progress in individuals using non ideal routines, purely because they put in consistent effort and just did the damn thing!

Black Sheep

FHFM50 wrote: »

Just want to get some advice here. I'm 5' 11 , 14 stone, Late 20's. I've been using the below plan since January with some, but very little results. I'm what you call skinny fat (small arms, big belly)

Breakfast : Muesli with Protein Milk , Natural Peanut butter on Wholegrain toast
Lunch : Skip, don't like eating during the day
Dinner : Beef mince or Chicken breast with frozen veg ( No Carbs)

Well, your diet is a factor here, it's inadequate for any kind of mass building goal. Which is what your goal should be, if you are skinny fat.

Let's say you're at 30g of protein for your breakfast.

Your dinner, if it's 300g of mince (Which is quite a lot) is 40 - 45g of protein.

For an 88kg guy you're probably around 60g minimum short of what I would recommend in terms of your protein intake.

In terms of carbs and fats I would suggest you're also short to support any kind of meaningful training and mass building. I know based on some of the comments above people are suggesting the overall carb intake appears too high and that might be the case, I do agree with tracking for a period of time to find out. But at the same time, if you are skinny fat then in practical terms I don't think you can cut your way out of that.

The carb intake at breakfast may be very high but then there's nothing until dinner, with the frozen vegetables (Likely to be negligible in terms of carb content unless you're eating 3-4 plates of broccoli, peas, carrots etc.)

Also worth factoring in the fact that this guy is walking two hours a day, although intensity is likely to be doubtful.

Workout with 2 x 10KG dumbbells 3-4 days a week.

-Floor Press
-Shoulder Press
-Dumbbell Curls
-Tricep Extensions
-Dumbbell Squats

Long walk every evening (2 hours)

Anything I should add/remove?

Your dumbbell workout is difficult to assess without knowing intensity and volume.

To be honest at your weight a pair of 10kg dumbbells is not going to be adequate for any of those movements bar maybe the tricep extensions. If you are banging out high rep sets you're not going to be in an optimal rep range for hypertrophy. You could try using techniques like pre-exhaustion, supersets and really emphasising the negative part of the movement to mitigate this to some extent.

You'd like be better served working in sets of push ups, various grips, for the chest. Keep the dumbbell shoulder press, that's fine. You could increase difficulty by doing them seated. 10kgs should be do-able for sets of dumbbell side raises and you could also look at things like seated dumbbell power cleans to train the upper back. At the moment I would say push-ups are the best overall facacde builder you have access to though.

For your arms you can do lying tricep extensions, overhead tricep extensions and standing and seated curls. if you train your arms directly and aggressively if your diet is right you should see some improvement there.

It is crucial to find some sort of way to train your back (Pull-ups, inverted rows, whatever).

Dumbbell squats with the 10kg DBs is not going to be adequate either, you should look at lunge variations and single leg romanian deadlifts for the moment and for variation's sake probably try to progress to things like bulgarian split squats and one legged squates.

A 3-4 day frequency is fine.

In general what you eat is going to be as big a component of addressing your body composition problem as your training will be.

FHFM50

OK thanks for feedback. So maybe something like this,

Breakfast : Muesli (50-100g) with protein milk,
Lunch : Scrambled egg (3)
Dinner: Beef/Chicken (200g) with brown rice and broccoli
Evening snack : Greek yogurt, Peanut butter on wholegrain bread/rice cake

eet fuk

FHFM50 wrote: »

OK thanks for feedback. So maybe something like this,

Breakfast : Muesli (50-100g) with protein milk,
Lunch : Scrambled egg (3)
Dinner: Beef/Chicken (200g) with brown rice and broccoli
Evening snack : Greek yogurt, Peanut butter on wholegrain bread/rice cake

Well pick 50g or 100g. Don’t eyeball it

Mellor

Black Sheep wrote: »

Your dinner, if it's 300g of mince (Which is quite a lot) is 40 - 45g of protein.

More like 65-70g.
But I think there’s little point looking at the macro split when the calories are all over the place.

Also I think at 90kg with a belly. Adding mass isn’t necessarily the goal. Op asked about losing weight. With no other info, I’d stick with the weight loss plan.

Black Sheep

I think worth your while trying to keep a log on the MyFitnessPal app and actually get a sense of where you are.

Black Sheep

Mellor wrote: »

Also I think at 90kg with a belly. Adding mass isn’t necessarily the goal. Op asked about losing weight. With no other info, I’d stick with the weight loss plan.

I agree that now I read it 5'11 and 14 stone is not that compatible with being 'skinny fat', but in fairness I mainly focused on him saying he was skinny fat and gave advice on that basis. We don't know his body composition for sure really.

If someone is genuinely skinny fat I do think a weight loss mentality is not the solution.

italodisco

Jogging will do more for weight loss in your situation.it doesn't have to be flat out jogging, it can be a mix of run /walk, but it will be a game changer.

The exercises you're doing with the weight you have available are not going to help you drop weight the way you want.

Calculate your TDEE Total Daily Energy Expenditure and aim to go 200 to 500 calories below it daily.

This is were the crap bit comes along, calorie tracking /macro watching. I'll admit it's zero fun BUT, as someone who has over 20 years experience in competitive physique related sports I can tell you now that once you stick to it for a month then it will become 2nd nature.

It's also worth noting that cutting out cheat days is hard, as is reducing carbs, sweets, crisps etc but if you persevere for a few weeks the fight becomes much easier and you will reach a point in which you'll be convinced your stomach capacity has shrunk, simply because your body will adapt and you will no longer be able to eat as much.

I have some good stuff I will share, it's on the home laptop so I will dig it out later this eve and upload to Google drive and share a link.

italodisco

I also just wanted to add that in order to build mass, you need to understand the basics of progressive overload.

Unfortunately you also need a higher calorie intake.

It is NOT possible to gain quality muscle mass eating in a deficit, you can try to maintain what you have but even that is a struggle.

Muscle helps burn fat, but for that to work you need more than average muscle mass.

I am 5'10, 98 kg @ 12% body fat via caliper measurement and If I could go back in time and start again I would firstly lose all that weight I had at the start (I too was skinny fat) and start my bodybuilding Interest without the belly and boobs. Much easier to gradually increase carbs as you can really notice it affecting you when you are slim, and quickly reduce the intake before adipose tissue sets in.

CIARAN_BOYLE

FHFM50 wrote: »

Honestly the 10KG dumbbells are enough. I have some 15's here and they're far too heavy for me.

Obviously you do you. I can't tell you what's too much or not enough.

I have to ask are you sure you aren't in a comfortable exercise zone where you are moving and it's not a real challenge.

If you don't feel like you are pushing yourself you mightnt be getting value from the exercise.

A lot of people think tired after 10 reps is too heavy while it's a great weight to train.

FHFM50

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Obviously you do you. I can't tell you what's too much or not enough.

I have to ask are you sure you aren't in a comfortable exercise zone where you are moving and it's not a real challenge.

If you don't feel like you are pushing yourself you mightnt be getting value from the exercise.

A lot of people think tired after 10 reps is too heavy while it's a great weight to train.

The thing is that I have very skinny forearms so curls with the 15KG are a no go. I can do a good few squats and about 6-8 reps for shoulder press, tricep extensions,etc,.. with the 15's

Again the plan is to get lean, rather than get big

Ray Donovan

FHFM50 wrote: »

The thing is that I have very skinny forearms so curls with the 15KG are a no go. I can do a good few squats and about 6-8 reps for shoulder press, tricep extensions,etc,.. with the 15's

Again the plan is to get lean, rather than get big

PM sent

CIARAN_BOYLE

FHFM50 wrote: »

The thing is that I have very skinny forearms so curls with the 15KG are a no go. I can do a good few squats and about 6-8 reps for shoulder press, tricep extensions,etc,.. with the 15's

Again the plan is to get lean, rather than get big

To me lean is about lean muscle so it really helps to build muscle to lose weight.

Feel free to mix it up. Do squats with 2x15 and do curls with 2x10.

Personally my curl weight is a lot lower than my squat weight.

riffmongous

I'd suggest you get yourself a strong resistance band (15 or 25kg rating or so) for your workouts, you can do all the most important exercises and easily adjust the resistance

Rossie11

italodisco wrote: »

Jogging will do more for weight loss in your situation.it doesn't have to be flat out jogging, it can be a mix of run /walk, but it will be a game changer.

The exercises you're doing with the weight you have available are not going to help you drop weight the way you want.

Calculate your TDEE Total Daily Energy Expenditure and aim to go 200 to 500 calories below it daily.

This is were the crap bit comes along, calorie tracking /macro watching. I'll admit it's zero fun BUT, as someone who has over 20 years experience in competitive physique related sports I can tell you now that once you stick to it for a month then it will become 2nd nature.

It's also worth noting that cutting out cheat days is hard, as is reducing carbs, sweets, crisps etc but if you persevere for a few weeks the fight becomes much easier and you will reach a point in which you'll be convinced your stomach capacity has shrunk, simply because your body will adapt and you will no longer be able to eat as much.

I have some good stuff I will share, it's on the home laptop so I will dig it out later this eve and upload to Google drive and share a link.

Would be interested in this as well thanks