Thread: New member introduction and advice request

Hey good morning guys. Glad to be here and hope to gain some knowledge and encouragement.

I'm 53, and I've lifted on and off since college. I have a pattern of working out hard for a few months and then doing nothing for a while.

So last year, luckily just before covid, I bought a complete home gym package for my garage. Pretty cool if I do say so myself: squat rack, complete dumbbell set, all the bars and plates I need. That sat there and got sporadic use until January of this year when I looked in the mirror and saw a skinny/fat guy.

On that - I'm 6' tall, and in January I weighed 174 pounds and my pants felt tight, and nothing looked defined or strong. I started watching calories and nutrition, eating mostly lean protein and reducing carbs.

I started in January doing Athlean X "Inferno Size" program. Basically it consists of doing 10 sets of squats, bench, deadlift, rows, and some ancillary exercises on rotating days, either doing 10 reps or 5 reps depending on the day.

These stats are according to my bluetooth scale:

January 31: 171.6 pounds, 12.8% body fat, 142.2 pounds muscle mass, BMI 23.2.
June 17: 165.4 pounds, 12.2% body fat, 138.0 pounds muscle mass, BMI 22.4

So I do feel more defined, and stronger now. I can easily knock out 50 reps of unassisted pullups over an hour, my bench is in the mid 200's (estimated, I don't "max"), my squat is around 225, etc.

I still have a gut when I'm not pumped or flexed. If I stand there with totally no flex or pump I still look bad. If I'm pumped and flexed, I look pretty good.

I want to gain probably between 5-10 pounds of muscle, BUT I DON'T WANT to gain fat weight to do it. I don't want to look or feel bloated and then "cut."

So - what advice can you give me? How do I achieve this goal the way I want to achieve it?

Originally Posted by OldFartTom

I'm struggling to match your comments about skinny fat and having trained since January with...

January 31: 171.6 pounds, 12.8% body fat, 142.2 pounds muscle mass, BMI 23.2.
June 17: 165.4 pounds, 12.2% body fat, 138.0 pounds muscle mass, BMI 22.4

To the point I'm thinking you should ignore the readings from the scales. I think those scales % and estimated muscle numbers, which are never anywhere near as accurate as they want you to think, are unreliably inaccurate. Just go by mirror and training weights.

weird program, is there no movement to press above you??
very good decision to get that home gym equipment, wish I had space to do the same

Yes, it includes overhead press and other exercises. The basic formula is 10 sets of 10 or 10 sets of 5 depending on the day.

Yes I wonder about the scale accuracy. I do think I look better, but I doubt the weight reading on the scale is off.

My legs especially still look skinny despite tons of squats and DL. I don’t have a leg extension machine of course.