My name is Marius and I'm from Norway. I am 17 years old and I've been working out since august 2013, really hard since december 24th 2013. I started really focusing on what I ate in April 2014 and I started counting calories and getting as much protein/carbs/fat I needed on july 20th.

I had a question earlier that Scott answered and told me to make a post in the forums, however, I managed to figure out the answer to my own question and everything worked out. But I have some other questions that I really could use some help answering aswell if you guys have the time.

I am 5ft 10 and 144lbs with exactly 17% bodyfat. I know I don't have much muscle on my body, but I can definitely say I have improved since I started working out, however, I've been hovering at 20% bodyfat since I started till I started dieting on july 20th. My goal is definitely to be fit and muscular, but I don't know wheter to lower my bf or try to increase my muscle mass first. I have read countless of articles on the internet and most say you should have a 15% or lower bodyfat to maximize muscle growth during a calorie surplus. That's why I decided to start dieting. What my question is though, after having read an article of which it said to not try to lower your bodyfat if you didn't have a lot of muscle, could anyone please tell me if I should be focusing on clean bulking and trying to add as much muscle as I can or lower my bf to 10-15% before I start doing that?

Thank you, Marius

I started around the same weight as you. I'm 5' 10 as well and currently weigh about 150lbs. Honestly never measured my body fat percentage. I just try to lift heavy, have a consisent workout schedule, and track macros. I've been getting results. Currently I'm playing with 3500 calories, 440 carb, 148 protein.

Well Marius, in my opinion, you could try and cut down your body fat while still building lean muscle - what we call 'Lean Gains' here at SHF.

If you eat in a calorie surplus of about 200 calories above maintenance, while eating a clean, low carb high protein diet, you should be able to lose fat but still make muscle gains. It will be a slow process, but good things take time.

You should also implement High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) into your training programme, as it burns fat and boosts your metabolism.

What are your current macros? Post them here and we can help you make any adjustments needed.

#HTH!

Thanks for the respond, I will definitely try and eat in a surplus like you're saying, I think it's probably the best thing I can do right now. I have decided not to track my calories though, I will know roughly what number I'm at, but I won't track it to a specific number. I talked with a friend of mine who just came home from a year in USA who's really fit and muscular, he basically told me that when he first started he just focused on eating healthy whenever he was hungry and getting protein shakes in during the day, and then he started focusing on surplus eating later on.

I have currently done 10 minutes of HIIT after every one of my workouts (4-5 days a week) and it's been going great and helping with the fat loss. I considered cutting them out, but now I've decided to keep them going. When I was dieting I ran a 40% protein, 40% carbs and 20% fat diet and it worked out great. I lost 2kg (4 pounds) of fat during the month I tested myself with a fat scan and I gained 1 pound of muscle. I think I am going to stick with it and just increase the amount I eat to focus more on the muscle building part and less on fat loss. I ate 1700-1800 calories during this period and I have currently created a surplus of what I think will be 200-300 calories to try what you told me. (my bmr is 1640 and from what i've calculated I should be at around 2100/200 TDEE) I will be eating 2300-2400 calories.

I don't drink anything other than water during the week except one glass of milk during the weekend. I get my fat mostly from nuts and my protein from chicken, eggs, greek youghurt, cottage cheese and protein shakes to keep the intake as high as 200+g which for me is pretty high. My carbs come mainly from brown rice or brown pasta and some from salads.

The foods in your meal plan look pretty good bro!

In regards to your calories, yeah work with those total numbers and just make adjustments as required - e.g. if you are putting on too much weight/fat, drop the calories, and if you aren't making gains, increase them.

One final note would be that if you want to ensure you are hitting your target calories, you should count your macros. If you have the same thing basically everyday, you probably only need to calculate it once or twice, then you will know exactly what you are getting everyday.

Thanks a lot Joe, I'll try my best to monitor my progress whenever I can!

And ye, I pretty much eat the same thing everyday except for saturday and sunday. I usually cook my food on sundays till friday, but I still keep my foods clean during the weekend and I'll eat leftover chicken from week or make some protein pancakes. Although I don't eat as much during the weekends than the week I still feel like I'm full mainly because I'm not as active as I would be on weekdays. However tracking macros during the weekends is something I could improve on as I really have no clue how much I consume.

I'm glad you took the time to give some advice and tips, it really helped me, so thanks again Joe :)

Anytime bro, happy to help!

What Scott says, about bodyfat, is that it decreases the production of testosterone, therefore reducing the speed of muscle gains. I've read that also in other places, but I've also read the "bulking up" theory, that you gain more if you have more body fat, because the body has huge energy reserves and so is more eager to "waste" energy on building muscle.

From my personal experience, I tend to agree with Scott, less fat slightly helps to make gains. But the difference is not huge.

From another point of view, nothing improves estetics as much and as fast as dieting: I'm 5 10, and a few months ago I dieted from 206lb (20% body fat) down to 183lb (9% body fat). It really made a difference. I went from not wanting to be seen barechest, to finding every reasonable excuse to do it every time I girl I liked was around. I still don't have a six pack, but still, now I really look well. ;)

It's up to you to decide what you want, but I never regretted it.

Another simple thing you can do, if you don't want to cut too much on food, is try to concentrate it a bit more at breakfast and in the pre-workout meals: they are meals that help to make your methabolism faster.

My name is Alex and I'm from Australia. I am nearly 17, 5ft 9, 73 kilograms and have about 9% body fat. My overall goal at the moment is to gain muscle, and though I have been exercising for more than a year, I have not seen any significant muscle growth. I have been told that the reason that I have not gotten any bigger is because I am not eating enough, however I feel sick after eating too much more than I already do. I have no restrictions and the only injury I have suffered was tendonitis in my right shoulder from doing shoulder presses. What am I doing wrong, and how can I increase my muscle gain?

Hey Alex.

Your diet is really important when it comes to fitness and body building. You will probably find that, yes, you need to eat more. Have you calculated your BMR? You can go here: http://scotthermanfitness.com/mealplan.php

This will let you calculate how many calories you are burning at rest and in motion. Find the average by adding these two numbers together, then dividing by two. You need to be eating between 250-500 calories ABOVE this average number in order to gain weight and muscle.

Also, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZjxWqwoWTg

It will show you how to figure out your macros and build a meal plan.

Figure out these number and put them up here, then we can help you out more!

Also, post for us your training routine and we can give you some tips on that too

#HTH!