Confused about body fat after re-readingt Starting Strength

[rduwolf]

I’m a little concerned about my body fat and I am looking for guidance. I’m a few months into my second foray in Starting Strength. I did it January-April of this year and then was forced to stop due to some family stuff that I had to deal with. I am back now and committed to the program.

To start over I re-read Starting Strength (3rd edition). Page 309 basically says you’re too fat if you are over 20% body fat. I am currently right at 22% and not sure what to do. I know how to gain weight and I am building my strength back. At the end of April my 3 rep maxes where 250 lbs. squat, 205 lbs. bench, and 315 lbs. deadlift. I am working my way back to that and confident I will surpass it. I should note that prior to that I had zero weightlifting experience at all.

My problem is that the particular passage from SS has me convinced I might need to drop body fat (down to 15%). I am a 33 year old male, 165 lbs., 5-7 in height. I workout beginning at 5:30 a.m. fasted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Should I keep eating and gaining strength and muscle, or do I need to diet back to 15% and then start back over? I would appreciate any and all thoughts.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Starting Strength: Article

[Chris Kurisko]

Yeah, just get stronger. Learn how to train. Learn how to eat. There is a lot of information available on this website. Start doing some homework. When you deadlift 500, squat 400, and bench press 300 you will be more prepared to assess the situation.

[ithryn]

If you purposefully drop any significant weight at all right now you will crash and burn hard. You won't get past 275 on that squat of yours. I know it's hard to wrap your head around (btdt) but you're underweight. You need to gain weight while losing fat, and the only realistic way you're going to do that is lifting heavier weights while eating sensibly. Sensibly means a lotta carbs and a lotta protein. Try to eat "a lot but not too much" and as soon as you fail a set, eat more. If you're really concerned, track your intake & read Jordan's article. But serious daily tracking / macro counting / food weighing on top of a committed novice run of LP sounds like mental overload to me, but YMMV.

Once you start adding mass to your chest and shoulders you'll still obsess about your flab but other people won't notice as much. And you'll have a better handle on everything. I'm much more confident in my ability to trim some fat now that I just squatted (for one whole rep, ha) 405.

[Randy Scheingold]

OP - One way to look at this is to look at your lean body mass. So, you are 22%BF at 165 pounds. So that means that 78% is lean body bass....equaling 128lb of the good stuff...the stuff that matters. I'm about your height. And about 7 years older and weigh 198. So I have 162lb of lean body mass. That's a lot more muscle available. I am also concerned with my BF levels (although I tend to waffle (no pun intended) between caring and saying fuck it I like eating and I like getting stronger). But for me, I've learned to have other metrics. e.g., do I need to go buy all new dress pants, does my weightlifting belt still fit (or did I go out another hole), etc. And then when I get really annoyed at the body fat...I take a week and really watch what I eat, usually drop 5 pounds of bloat and water weight, look & feel better, and then go back to not caring as much.

I was a former fatty (up to 215 & 33% BF) 2 years ago, and lost 40 pounds with a huge diet & tons of cardio (and hated it…). Fast forward and I have gone from 175 to 198 over the past 7 months of my LP & a round of TM. My wife prefers the current me the best. While she would love me no matter what, when you are short and really fat you look bad. And when you are short and skinny…you just look weak and “petite” and most woman don’t want a petite man. They want someone that looks like a MAN. So short with bigger shoulders, arms, a real ass,….., etc….along with a moderate gut…was much preferred.

Similar to the post above, I’ll tweak as need to stay out of my fat pants. But beyond that, I don’t care, and likely won’t until I get to the 500/400/300/200 lifts….although by then I may end up gunning for bigger numbers.

[rduwolf]

I just realized I never responded to this, so thank you all for your comments. I am sticking with the program.

entering40strongerthan20 --- just curious here, but do you track your macros? About how much are you eating right now?

[Satch12879]

entering40strongerthan20 --- just curious here, but do you track your macros? About how much are you eating right now?

I don't know how e40st20 did it, but you're going to need a scale, a website with calorie content data (I like caloriecount.com), an Excel spreadsheet, and actual macro numbers you're shooting for.

[ithryn]

I don't know if the OP should care about counting macros other than to make sure he's getting enough. He's probably cutting himself short in protein and carbs, I'd wager.

After he gains a fair amount of weight and strength, I found that just going by Jordan's To Be A Beast macros in the article are working decently for me. Myfitnesspal makes it a no brainer. The scale was/is crucial but now I can roughly eyeball some things, since I'm not trying to make an Olympic weight class here.

But right now at 165 lbs even Jordan's high end recommendations put him at only 2788 cal/day, 181 g protein, 330 g carb, 82 g fat. I'm no expert but I'd probably have the OP eat more than that. Or: do this every day, plus add a cheat meal once a week or so. Or maybe: do this every day, but when you hit a sticking point eat your way through it for a couple days.