Like the title says, I'm having a bit of a hard time

I'm fifteen, very active (6 x cardio a week) and do 45mins of weight training from Monday to Saturday. I do not know how many calories I eat a day but I guess I'll have to figure this out...

Well, I'm pretty sure I'm about 13% body fat..I'm 184cm and weigh 64.5kg. My scale shows I'm 16% but my 6-pack is quite visible so I doubt it. Anyway, I want to get my BF into the single digit zone, 9% will do. On the other hand, I would like to gain lean weight until I weigh my desired 70kg. I know I should lose the fat first and then bulk up but I'm worried I'll gain fat during the bulking phase.

Does anyone have any recommendations/sites with useful information?

All help appreciated.

I think at 15, attempting to get into single digit body fat percentages is dangerous and foolish. At 15, your bones, muscles, and organs are still developing and depriving them of nutrition at this stage is ... I'm sorry to be blunt, but I tend to shoot from the hip ... stupid.

You obviously are in good shape now and have a very low body fat percentage already - if you have a visible six-pack. Enjoy your fitness, work on staying in shape and building muscle, and don't do foolish things to damage your health.

I agree with you, I am rather crazy ^^. But I'm just living my life as it's the first and last one I will live

I'm not attempting to do anything drastic, I just want to look good and be satisfied with myself.

Thank you for your opinion.

Your body and BMI seem to be in pretty darn good shape, from what you've said! So, you want to bulk up from nice shape to Mr. Scary? :P Im no expert on this topic, but I agree with Kara. For 15, you seem to be in excellent shape, I would wait until youre 18+ or so if you want to get into bodybuilding and bulk up!

That said it all for me.

You: I want to do something really unhealthy cause you only live once and therefore should run your body into the ground after ignoring the opinions you asked for.

Us: that's not at all wise man, in fact it's stupid and dangerous

You: relax, I'm not going to do anything stupid and dangerous except that one thing you told me not to.



Also, just because you have a nice 6-pack doesn't mean your scale is wrong. I have a bodyfat analyzer and for some reason all my buddies want to be tested when they find out about it. Know what one thing is universal no matter who gets put on it? Everyone was sure their bodyfat was lower. Skinny guys tell me they are toting 10 percent cause they are skinny and then flip when they find themselves over 15% (or close to 20).

if your diet supports (nice, healthy and strict) your regime and is vigorous your body weight will not increase from just doing weight trianing. train hard, give your body what it needs and you'll get the results you want.

i do around 8-9 weight sessions a week as its my off season in rugby at the moment with the occasional 10-15 minutes of high intensity interval training and im as lean as a mouse. if you do it right you will be fine, but dont get too worked up about it, your 15, and 13% bodyfat is good. in terms of bodybuilding etc, around 15-16 is the perfect age to start due to hormones etc, BUT, only if your doing things right, otherwise all sorts of problems can develop such as posture imbalances, other muscle imbalances, toxicity from supplemenhtation etc. all ill say is do your research. good luck

From personal experience, I can tell you that it's extremely difficult, though not impossible, for a 15 year old to gain muscle mass. When I was 15, I was very thin and lean, and could eat anything without worrying about gaining weight.

Right now, your metabolism is super fast. To gain weight, you'd have to eat a substantial amount. I'm talking about consuming about 500 - 1000 calories more per day (yes, PER DAY) than you are doing now.

You would also have to decrease your workouts to 3 times per week. You would need to work on heavy, compound exercises such as squats, deadlifts, rows, and presses. You would have to virtually eliminate all other activities. So, if you're super active, basically you would need to become a couch potato aside from your 3 times per week weight training.

Are you prepared to do these things?

My advice is to just enjoy being 15, keep lifting weights, but focus on being healthy. One of these days, your metabolism will slow down, and it'll take a lot less effort to gain "bulk."

Just enjoy being lean while you can, because one of these days, you'll be wishing you could see your abs like when you were 15.

I wouldn't suggest eating an extra 1000 calories per day, that would be 7000 per week which is a 2 pound per week increase. At your age you can healthily put on some weight if you are smart about it.

You were right, you will need to figure out your caloric intake as this is key in dieting or putting on mass. So check the scale and for two weeks write every calorie you eat down.

At the end of your testing time frame, see if you've lost or gained weight. 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat, this is key here. So work out how many pounds youve lost, gained, or none if youve stayed the same weight.

So for example if you gained 2 pound in 2 weeks you would have eaten 3500 calories extra per week, which equals 500 more a day. So your base caloric intake would be 2500.

At your age id take it slow. Maybe 250-500 calories extra per day. But if I wer trying to cut some body fat, I wouldnt eat anything extra yet. Id eat my base recommended calories, and do your workouts, this way your lean body mass will increase, while your fat% goes down...

ps. as far as workouts go stay away from squats and deadlifts, until your bones have fully fused and grown, it is always best to do body weight exercises, pull ups, pushups, burpees, etc

i work with 15-17 year olds who play professional rugby league and with the right training and diets they do they gain weight pretty quickly, and they have to otherwise they might not make the grade. as long as your doing things properly and supporting your health at the same time im sure you will get the results you are aiming for!

as for squats etc, the human body learns to squat at a very early age (around 6 months give or take) and sqauts all throughout childhood, this is a key movement to the human body and would seriously think twice about leaving it out of ANY weight training program. its isolation work i would be more afraid of so as not to cause muscular imbalances at an early age.

make sure you don't burn out (mentally) on working out at such an early age. I've known alot of people in high school work out like crazy but then over the years out of high school get too tired or had life hit them hard and never return back to working out. Then they get depressed on when they Used to be fit and have a hard time gettin back into shape.

Like KaraCooks said:
Enjoy your fitness, work on staying in shape and building muscle.

i totally agree with socialgym, my housemate used to be a pro rugby player from 15-18 and trained non stop for years and then didnt make the grade, he is not somewhat a slob through the failure etc and isnt motivated to do any of it anymore. whereas i started at 18 and did it for the right reasons - for me! so yeah just make sure you do it for the right reasons and be healthy about it. good luck

For starters, you eat until you start to gain weight. your math falls flat in the real world. I can guarantee that for me personally who is well above the growing age of 15, adding a heavy resistance routine increased my metabolism by 1000 calories a day easy. If I added to that any sports program it would be 1500 more per day easy. From just everyday living to trying to gain weight, i went from 2000 calories a day, to about 3500.

For a 15 year old boy, who cares about numbers really. In this case, it's one of the rare times I say worry about the scale. eat 3000 calories a day for 2 weeks. If you're gaining weight, keep at it. if you have not, increase your calories. keep increasing your calories every couple weeks until you do start to gain. For growing ectomorphs, I've seen the magic caloric number be over 5000 calories a day. Stop worring about the math so much. math that in reality has very little bearing to this situation at hand.

You can't gain lean mass unless you're in caloric excess. so your idea of keeping calories constant and focusing on training will fail horribly. It's impossible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. body doesnt work that way.

also, to fuse growth plats, the amount of force required is well above what anyone can possibly hope to ever output. Lifting weights and doing compounds is very safe and recommended for all age and skill levels.