I've come a long way... help me go further please! =)

[OUstud82]

I am 21 years old and have been lifting heavily and religiously for 7 months. I could go on for paragraphs about being 3 or even 4 times stronger than I was last summer, but I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about. My body fat percent has dropped from 20 to 14 and I notice people looking at me with interest a lot more than they used to. Girls feel my arms and chest now when they flirt with me when they never used to before. It's a great feeling to have your arms fill out your shirt sleeves for once. In fact, I even saw my top 2 rows of abs for the first time last week.

Over the course of the last 5 or 6 weeks, I've really begun to watch my diet. I've gained almost 15 pounds (all of muscle thanks... at 5' 7" I've gone from 137 to 151) in the last 6 months. I've heard that it's necessary to cut carbs in order to lose fat, but I've also heard that cutting carbs can be dangerous and can cause your muscles to cannibalize themselves. Accordingly, I watch my carbs and I've tried to restrict them but by no means eliminate them. What is the best approach when it comes to carbs? Clearly I've made a lot of progress that I don't want to jeopardize. In fact, I've given serious consideration to taking creatine to increase my results in the gym (I've heard that creatine can help one gain an additional 10+ pounds in a month or so, which would be great.. I'm not worried about a little water related bloating.)

As I mentioned before, I finally saw my top 2 abs last week. It took nearly 7 months and thousands of leg raises and crunches, but I'm getting there. In junior high, I was "fat" kid. I lost all the weight in high school. I did it the wrong way, by not eating, but I did it. It's taken a long time to undo what I did to myself but I'm getting there. No matter what I try, I can't seem to get rid of that little pooch underneath my belly button and those love handles on the sides that are keeping me from having a really nice body. What is it I need to be doing?? Spring is coming SOON and I want this to be the first year that I feel great when I take off my shirt.

Summary for my lengthy, wordy post:
-What does everyone feel about cutting carbs and about creatine to see better results?
-What does everyone think about how to lose that last little bit of vanity fat (Either via training or diet)?

Thanks!!!

[CTeen]

Howdy howdy,

Well, I'm no professional (yet) but I'll take a stab at this.

I am a Health Science student who is about to go into Dietetics, and while I am by no means an authority on Nutrition, I have picked up a fair amount of info.

1) You would want to cut fat from your diet and not carbs. Carbohydrates are the main form of energy that the body uses to keep you going throughout the day. The body can get energy elsewhere (Protein, lipid...) but carbohydrates is probably the easiest and healthiest way for the body. Ingesting too much lipid (fat) in one sitting normally makes one feel congested, sluggish and slow, as excess amounts of lipid actually remain in the blood-stream until the body can store it (eww). Ingesting too much protein creates a lot of Nitrogen waste the body needs to expel, and while it normally isn't a problem you don't want to overdo it.

All that to say that carbs give you energy. If you take in more energy than you use you will store it as fat. If you use more energy than you consume then your body will go to its energy stores for that energy (normally lipid, THEN protein). If you want to get rid of that lil bit of budge, you need to burn the excess energy that your are storing and that is not always easy: human beings cannot choose where they to lose fat from, it is done proportionately all over the body... and the stomach/waist area is one of the places that males store their fat (hips/butt in women).

So no, don't cut carbs out of your diet, cut the fat. Keep your protein levels high-ish as you do want to build muscle, but you want carbohydrates to be one of your main sources of energy. Just make sure that you don't eat too much and that you work off those carbs.

IF you DO cut carbs you will notice a fast initial weight-loss of a few pounds (thats one of the reasons why the Atkins Diet is so popular: immediate results encourage people to keep going) but those pounds are only because of water: your body uses water to hydrolize/break down carbs, and less carbs = store less water. And its better for your body to have that extra water available to it... but anyway...

But as for Creatine... I will honestly say I don't know. Too much protein can tax a person's digestive system (when you're young its much less of an issue, but if you do it for years it can catch up to you at a later age. Don't make that an issue if its possible) but as far as what it actually does I don't know.

2) To burn the fat you need to burn calories/energy that you have stored up, and not just from your abs but all over your body as you cannot control where you lose weight. With that in mind, the best way to lose weight is to do cardio exercise. Cardiovascular exercise generally burns more calories than muscular strength training, and it has other benefits as well.

Muscular strength *does* burn calories... and you actually burn more calories by doing nothing if you increase/have a higher muscle mass... but it is not nearly as noticeable or dramatic as cardio. Also, doing 100s of crunches a day won't necessarily trim the fat off those abs: it will trim the fat from all over the body and build *muscle* at the abs. But even if you have more ab muscle, they will still be hidden under a small layer of fat. If you have large enough ab muscle, they will show through the fat.

Losing fat while gaining muscle is typically difficult to do, as your nutritional intake must be carefully monitored and you must make sure that your body has enough energy to grow. Its normally easier/faster to focus on one, get it over with, then move back to the other. You would probably also get frustrated by trying to do both at the same time and get mixed results. By the sounds of it you don't have much to lose, so perhaps you should take a breather from muscle gaining and dump the weight? Lastly, just to restate this again, losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time is NOT impossible, just more difficult. Especially when you want to do both quickly.

Well, I hope this was somewhat informative. I wish you well!

Best wishes,

-Jon

PS: Almost forgot! Genetics. Genetics are important. Some people and body-types are built in such a way that they just don't have incredible abs. Just as some people have small hands, hooked noses, green eyes etc... some people do not have the genetic make-up to get the physique they want. Thats not always true, but if you do insane amounts of work with no results then keep this in mind.

And most importantly: SLEEP! The body heals itself while you sleep. A lack of sleep can completely destroys several days worth of exercise, so make sure you are getting the rest. When muscle-building you are actually tearing those muscle fibres you are working on. The body then rebuilds itself when you rest in such a way that your muscles grow. Let yourself get bigger by sleeping.

[buffdoc]

OU, it sounds like you have made some great progress. In general, you can only see abs when you body fat is less than 12% and more practically closer to 10%. If you want to get leaner, you are going to have to cut back your total caloric intake and consider upping the cardio. Unfortunately, you most likely will loose some size but reductions in body fat make you more cut and give an illusion of much greater size.

Keep the protein high to minimize muscle breakdown, the fat low and really cut back simple carbs and instead favor complex carbs: brown rice, oatmeal. and fibrous veggie carbs are my personal favorite.
I would not take creatine--while it may give you some size, it tends to make you hold water and look less lean. You should also know that the areas of fat you are concerned with are the most intractable in men--they are first to be deposited to in caloric excess and the last to melt away with caloric reduction. Also start to accept you accomplishments--even if your midsection isn't perfect, your overall physique is probably 98% better than the average joe.

[hecad84]

BuffDoc - you mentioned creatine and water retention/bloating. I have heard that several other places too. What does one do to get rid of excess held water?

[buffdoc]

hecad84 - it is hard to avoid the water retention because it is intrinsic to the mechanism of action of creatine. In addition to increasing cytosolic energy stores (theoretically), it also promotes water retention in muscle. This partly explains the size increase users experience and may even be more important in explaining the reported increase strength with this agent. Physiologically, hydrated muscle performs better--it can handle larger physical loads. In many ways it is analogous to the oral steroid Dianabol, which produces rapid strength increases and large water accumulation. (No I am not saying that creatine is anywhere near as powerful nor as effective as Dianabol!) But both agents have very transit effects on muscle strength and size when used alone--when stopped any gains quickly and dramatically regress.