Steves advice is best, he's the pro here...all I know, is I've read countless times that building muscle helps to loose weight faster....but like I said, its just what I read, Steve would know more than I.

Great job dude. You look great. What was your diet/exercise plan like? What shirt/pant size were you before and what are you now? Sorry for all the questions, just curious.

Just eat less exercise more, it's pretty simple when you don't obsess over every little calorie.

I was a L/XL shirt and a 42 pant before, now a S/M shirt and 34 pant.

Hey Matt, couple of things....

1. You look amazing and that's some amazing progress. As mentioned before, you don't even look the same.

2. We need to be careful with terminology. Toning traditionally means fat loss. In this thread it's been used to mean muscle building or hypertrophy, or so it seems.

3. Muscle is more metabolically active as Korrie stated. But it's not a savior in terms of fat loss. For instance, if you were to try adding muscle now, that would require a caloric surplus, right? Building muscle is an energetically expensive process. If you're in a caloric surplus, you're not going to be losing fat your currently have.

4. I'd be interested in hearing what your weight training has looked like while you've been dieting?

5. Here's the real point I want to express. There's no right or wrong answer as to whether you should add muscle to your frame now or not. I'm not even sure of the look you're going for. Some guys would really love the look you have going on right now. Others would be starting to feel too skinny. You're a tall guy.

And you're right, you do have a bit of fat to lose yet. Not much, but some.

IMO, you're at a crossroad in your progress.

In one hand, you can continue cutting the fat. The problem I see here is you're already looking skinny. Cutting much more fat would leave you looking to frail in my opinion. But remember, that's only my opinion.

In the other hand, you could try bulking up a bit. You have to remember that rarely do you find someone who can simply diet down to their 'goal weight' and look exactly how they hoped for. It usually takes cycles of losing fat and gaining muscle. When you're losing fat, you're trying to maintain your muscle. When you're gaining muscle, you're trying to minimize fat gain.

For example, I didn't get to where I currently am by simply lifting and eating for muscle development. It has taken multiple cycles of cutting and bulking.

When is the right time for you to start bulking?

Only you can answer that.

Ahhh, see now that makes sense

Well since I'm in a weights class in my Senior year at high school- we had to follow a regimen of heavy lifting/toning for the first two months- I couldn't lose a bloody ounce of weight during that period.

However, we started learning about different types of lifting, and I opted for circuit training to give me increased calorie consumption. Just all over body circuits for 1 hour.

I'm also pretty active after school, just walks and stuff.

Ah I think my assigned timing and posture to take the images is at fault for that. I take the pictures in the morning, standing as tall as a possibly can to get the most accurate look at what my frame looks like.

If I stood normally, I wouldn't look as skinny. Apart from my arms... for some reason they develop slow as a sloth when I tried body building them.

There's no real desired look I'm going for- just lean body with a bit of bulk.


Your post has helped me tremendously, I can not stress that enough. I think I will opt for cutting ALL the fat back first- it's more an OCD thing than anything, but I don't mind looking skinny for a while whilst I lose the extra poundage. After that I'll look to bulk up whilst minimizing fat gain- it all just seems a bit easier in my mind.


Thanks once again for the insight and very helpful information! :-)

Here's something else to chew on.

Circuit training is great for complete novices and people carrying around a lot of fat.

For those who do not fall into those camps, it sucks, assuming it's your only form of weight training.

It simply won't send optimal signaling to your body for muscle preservation.

I've come across so many guys who were doing high rep, low weight, low rest weight training (circuit training) from fat to thin. They missed the boat when it came to changing their training stimulus as their bodies changed. The price they paid was unfortunately a healthy dose of muscle loss and when that occurs, it's near impossible to obtain the lean look most were shooting for.

But couldn't someone do circuit training until desired leniency and then bulk up doing body building routines?

That just seems less complicated then preserving muscle whilst losing fat- couldn't you just lose the fat, then switch to body building?

You'd be taking a step backwards. Losing muscle should never be suitable. Never. Sure, you're going to lose some when you diet, but steps to preserve as much of it as possible should always be priority number one, assuming your goals are physique or performance related.

AMAZING JOB!!! VERY INSPIRING to see what a year can do if focused properly!!!

Great job! You are pretty much unrecognizable from your befores and afters. You look great. Good luck on reaching your next goals

-Sam

omg im soooooo shock at the transformation in you its amazin how much you can truly transform your body . id say your before pictures is about the same size of my now in a womans body obviously haha . You look really good now tho . cute too hehe x

Oh my Lord! This is so amazing I could almost cry! I wish I could do what you have done, I just don't have the motivation right now! You should come back to England so you can teach me how to do this!!!

Well done, you look great!

Again, great job bro. You look like a totally different person and must feel so much better.

Hehe, thanks! There really is no secret to it, almost ALL the information you need is in this forums' stickies and in the informational topics.

If you do it well enough, you won't be on a 'diet,' you'll just have changed your eating and exercising habits enough so that the fat just falls off really.

Nothing like going for a morning walk in brisk old England! :-)

Thanks VERY much, that clarified one of my major misconceptions. I'll be sure to continue doing some good muscle preservation.

Back at ya, those were some amazing pics I saw on your topic as well mate!


Thanks to all for the kind words, hopefully I can get some sort of weight loss video out in the next 6 months. :-P

No problem, I've been looking at so many "before and afters" on this forum and your thread actually made me sign up just so I could comment, you're very inspirational.

Like you said, it seems this forum can actually help me!!! I've seen so many motivational people on here already.

Oh yeah, England has it's perks, I was in Brighton this Autumn, it was lovely. Why did you move, if you don't mind me asking?