I need some direction

[shaneb]

I'm stuck in a chicken or egg kind of loop here and I need some advice.

I've been working out/lifting pretty steadily for a couple years now, and I have really enjoyed it. I started out as kind of a skinny fat guy. Tall and lean but still overweight. I'm now moderately defined skinny skinny guy. I want to be a big WELL defined guy. Hopefully you followed all that...

My problem is that I don't know what to focus on first. I have lost a lot of body fat but I still don't have visible abs and I really want that.

So basically I find myself in one of two cycles most of the time. I'm either eating with a deficit to try to get my bf% down so I have really good definition with the muscle that I have, and end up feeling too skinny when I look in the mirror, or I eat to create a surplus and feel like I am gaining too much fat and covering up any gains that I might be making. Granted I try to eat mostly good foods in both cases...

Whats the smart way to proceed here? I just need some expert advice on the best way to eventually be that big well defined guy.

So should I focus on size first and then worry about definition later? Or should I get defined first and thus use that as motivation to add to the muscle that I can see?

(If your answer is going to start with "It depends" then please with all due respect, don't bother, I'm already confused enough)

Thanks

Shane

[Lisa~]

Build muscle first.

[Berg77]

Shane -

I hear ya on the being stuck between 2 modes. Your story sounds similar to mine. A few months ago, I started on NROL and cleaned up my diet big time, as well as simply started keeping track of what and how much I was eating, and in the process lost about 25 lbs up to a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm at the point where I'm wanting to put on some muscle because I am fairly skinny now but not "cut" - i.e. no six pack prominently showing yet...

From all I've read on here and other forums, first of all, you want to primarily focus on either losing fat or building muscle. If you are above 13-14% body fat, I would suggest primarily working on losing fat first. If you try to put on muscle but are not low enough in body fat, a bigger percentage of the weight you put on will be fat rather than muscle, and then you'll have to work harder when you try to cut back down.

If you are at 13-14% BF or lower, I'd suggest trying to put on muscle. Maybe try eating at what you think is maintenance for you for a couple of weeks and then up the calories by a few hundred, while lifting heavy.

The workouts on NROL are great for whatever goal you're working on. Hope that helps.

[shaneb]

That makes sense. At one point I was at 13% but I have gained some fat back due to time off from injury so I will focus on getting down to that level again and then work on adding back calories little by little and see how that affects things.

It's just so hard to know sometimes what will work when you have to try something for like a year to see how it will affect you.

(For the record I use the NROL workouts, which is why I posted in this forum. I didn't really make that clear earlier)

[Berg77]

I wouldn't think you'd necessarily need to try anything for a year to know if it's working. Assuming your diet is in check and you're training hard, you should be able to notice changes within 4-6 weeks at least. Keep a workout log, take pictures, measure yourself, get your body fat checked every few weeks - you should be able to tell if you're making progress by all of those.

The hardest part for me was figuring out where I needed to be calorie-wise. Keeping a food log was huge for my progress. I was eating way more than I needed to be to lose fat. Once I fixed that, the pounds came off.

By the way - the Metabolic Overdrive program in NROL for cardio works real well too.