this is what less than 10% BF looks like on me: PICS

[David Romano]

I started the challenge somewhere in the neighborhood of 12% or so, I think. Possibly higher. Now I'm at like 9.4% or so based on basic measurements. Yup, having a w00t moment!

Before:

^^^ no abs, carrying most of my BF in my belly...

After:

^^^^^ look, I have ABS!

[Anivair]

Wewt! Way to go! What sort of dietary changes have you made?

[David Romano]

pretty much eliminated carbs. My old diet consisted of toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and pasta or rice for dinner. I cut out all of that, plus the snack food. While i still "cheat" by eating snack food, I buy healthy stuff like veggie sticks or pretzels and am totally meticulous about serving size. Otherwise it's fruits or trail mix or nuts fir snacking, eggs, chicken, turkey and ham for meals, lots of veggies, and once a week I have all-natural peanut butter sandwiches.

All this goes out the window on Sundays after church when I go hang out with my adopted family, but that's ok.

[bprime]

Uhm. I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but how are you testing exactly?

Because: http://anabolicminds.com/forum/weight-loss/86686-body-fat-pics.html

[Ryan Sannar]

Congrats! Now to Chisel those in!

[David Romano]

Uhm. I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but how are you testing exactly?

US Navy formula. height, weight, neck, waist. 63 inches in height, 130-ish pounds, 14" neck and 28" waist puts me somewhere in the neighborhood of 9%. That's the formula I used. *shrug* If it's not accurate, such is life, I've still got less body fat than when I started, and see myself as a work in progress at 40 years old.

[Top Boss Ultra]

Bprime, doesn't appearance vary at different BF depending on muscle mass? If so, David won't look like those guys even given the same BF%.

[Top Boss Ultra]

US Navy formula. height, weight, neck, waist. 63 inches in height, 130-ish pounds, 14" neck and 28" waist puts me somewhere in the neighborhood of 9%. That's the formula I used. *shrug* If it's not accurate, such is life, I've still got less body fat than when I started, and see myself as a work in progress at 40 years old.

Grats. You're kicking ass for 40, especially if you're like me and have no desire to ever look like Arnold.

[David Romano]

Bprime, doesn't appearance vary at different BF depending on muscle mass? If so, David won't look like those guys even given the same BF%.

I could be wrong, but body composition, fat distribution, and muscle mass are all part of the game.

I am carrying most of my body fat in my gut, so I know that I have more work to do to be that shredded in the abdominal area. On the other hand, I look at my twenty-year old self who was 5'3" and 100 pounds and had no muscle tone or strength to speak of any I probably was in single-digit body fat, just not in a good way since I rarely ate and did NO physical activity.

When I was working with a personal trainer a couple of years back, and had to be subjected to the monthly body-composition measurements, it was always the same story. I would have nothing to grip on my tris, back, pecs, thighs, etc, but a ton to grip on my gut. He would always try to make me feel better when I got the 12% and 13% results by pointing out that I wasn't carrying much fat anywhere besides by abdominal area, which, by the way, not much comfort, but that's a story for another day.

At the end of the day is that I've gone down from a 32" waist to a 28" waist. I can work on fine-tuning it as we go along.

Grats. You're kicking ass for 40, especially if you're like me and have no desire to ever look like Arnold.

Exactly

[David Romano]

Congrats! Now to Chisel those in!

yes! now "how" is the question.... I guess patience and a clean diet

[bprime]

I'm definitely not saying that your body fat % hasn't dropped, and congrats on that. It's good work.

I'm just weird about correctness. Appearance with obviously vary with how much muscle you have, but it seems that sub 10 should be more defined, how much muscle notwithstanding.

But either way you're on the right path.

[David Romano]

I'm definitely not saying that your body fat % hasn't dropped, and congrats on that. It's good work.

I'm just weird about correctness. Appearance with obviously vary with how much muscle you have, but it seems that sub 10 should be more defined, how much muscle notwithstanding.

But either way you're on the right path.

Believe me, brother, I wish what you were saying were true. I've always been lean, and I've always carried most of my body fat in my gut. Even when powerlifting and pushing a 200# bench press I was still small, except for my gut.

I wish my body fat was more evenly distributed so that I could have a more defined look to my whole body after seven weeks of busting my ass working out and changing my diet and finally getting to single-digit body fat. I wish that 9% BF on me looked like 9% BF on those guys in the pics. Hell, I wish that 14% BF looked that good on me as it does in the guy in the first pic.

But I look like me, not them.

And this is what 9.31% body fat looks like on me.

This is what a 28" waist looks like on me.

This is what more muscle and less fat looks like on me.

So I have two choices.... kill myself trying to look like something I may not be destined to be and be sad/angry/depressed/unhappy because I don't and give up because I'm so vain I don't see the health benefits to what I've done, or work smarter to lose more body fat and love the body I have, healthy, strong and fast as it is.

I'm going to post pics and love the body God gave me.

[scott82962]

This is an interesting topic. I don't have any way to really quantify this, but I have in my circle of friends some serious marathoners and ultradistance runners. Most of them have very, very low body fat, but they don't look as strong and fit as you do David. So the body fat/hypertrophy ratio seems to be what makes the difference...

Hell, I ain't no expert. But good job! This is my last year in my 40's, and I am very happy to be in better shape, by all measures, as I enter my 50's than I was 10 years ago.

[Guest Eduard]

Umm, Sir... it seems like you have lots of cuts on your stomach in the last pic. O.O

[StrengthIsBeauty]

Awesome work!!

[Waldo]

Have you tried the other formula for BF% with a tape, I believe it is called the YMCA formula? The Navy formula give me a a really low # for bodyfat. According to the Navy formula I'm at 12.4% and have about 6 lbs to go to 10% BF. LOL no. There is another formula out there I don't know the name of, but the YMCA formula is a modification of it. The YMCA formula gives 17% for me and about 17 lbs to lose to get to 10%, which is much more realistic. Sub 15% you should have ab outlines when flexed. Right now I'm about where you were in the first pic. Awesome work. Its nice to have muscles, even nicer when they pop because you aren't hiding them with fat.

[David Romano]

Have you tried the other formula for BF% with a tape, I believe it is called the YMCA formula? The Navy formula give me a a really low # for bodyfat. According to the Navy formula I'm at 12.4% and have about 6 lbs to go to 10% BF. LOL no. There is another formula out there I don't know the name of, but the YMCA formula is a modification of it. The YMCA formula gives 17% for me and about 17 lbs to lose to get to 10%, which is much more realistic. Sub 15% you should have ab outlines when flexed. Right now I'm about where you were in the first pic. Awesome work. Its nice to have muscles, even nicer when they pop because you aren't hiding them with fat.

The YMCA formula put me at 5% I'm thinking the Navy one is a bit more accurate, lol. Am gonna blog about the body image stuff and my own opinion on it. I think we let fitness mags dictate what we think we should look like instead of going with the flow. Will post my thoughts on my personal blog and my Nerd Fitness blog.

EDIT: Here is the BLOG post I wrote on the subject.

Umm, Sir... it seems like you have lots of cuts on your stomach in the last pic. O.O

Yes, I do. A scarification done when I was in my darker days... paid someone to draw a lotus flower on my stomach with a scalpel.

[Waldo]

The YMCA formula put me at 5% I'm thinking the Navy one is a bit more accurate, lol. Am gonna blog about the body image stuff and my own opinion on it. I think we let fitness mags dictate what we think we should look like instead of going with the flow. Will post my thoughts on my personal blog and my Nerd Fitness blog.

Its tough because it is nearly impossible to know exactly how much BF% you are at lacking an expensive test, every other method is merely an estimate, however photos do become very effective from about 17% on down, probably surpassing most other methods. I think it was on bodybuilding.com, but I wasted a good bit of yesterday afternoon going through a thread for estimating BF% from photos, trying to apply it to my own. But this isn't the first time I've done that, as I really want to pin down where I am relative to the waist formulas. I've picked up on a few things to look for for % estimation, regardless of muscle mass. Usually at 10% you should have good detail in your quads when flexed. The line between your biceps and deltoids should be well defined. You should be able to see ribs and pick out the muscle under the armpit that almost looks like ribs (I forget its name). Your abs should have good vertical and horizontal definition inside and out. There should be a line (forget its name, something belt) from your hip to your groin area. There reaches a point, where you put fat on ceases to matter, you have so little of it, by 8% or so you start getting significant striation in all muscles, no matter what their size.

Not that it really matters, after it is just a number. And what you should look like is a matter of personal opinion, almost nobody but actual bodybuilders prepping for a competition think that you should be much lower than about 10%, it starts to reverse the cosmetic effect (under about 8-9%, you start looking nasty IMHO). Having a 6 pack is having a 6 pack, that is usually mens goals, and you usually get the start of one in the 12-13% area with sharpness to in the 9-10% area. By 15% usually any significant concentrations of fat are gone.

The strength of the Navy method is that relative changes are really accurate compared to almost any other method. If you are trying to figure out if you have gained muscle mass, the Navy method is a great method for doing so.

Regardless of what your actual BF% is though, you are at the point where losing a pound or two of fat leads to a significant sharpening of your muscle detail.

['Roos]

Congrats dude, you look awesome. Also, Tattooo woooot!

[Narakyndryn]

Yes, I do. A scarification done when I was in my darker days... paid someone to draw a lotus flower on my stomach with a scalpel.

I think it looks great. (Body modification enthus', here.)

More importantly though, YOU look great-- and as long as you FEEL that way too, no one can take that away from you.

[HenryFnord]

I'm in the same boat and look a lot like your before picture (after dropping a bunch of weight.)

Got definition in my legs first, now starting to see some in my arms. Gut went down in size, but that is definitely where the bulk of the fat is being stored.

Did you do any cardio as well? Desk job?

Also, how did your lifts/strength do without carbs? Although I guess you're effectively doing a sugar/carb refeed every week?

[David Romano]

Did you do any cardio as well? Desk job?

Also, how did your lifts/strength do without carbs? Although I guess you're effectively doing a sugar/carb refeed every week?

I did cardio as well, yes. Either running intervals when it warmer or just a thirty-minute circuit I do at home; running in place, jumping jacks, size lunge with punches, mountain climbers... Some combo to hit thirty minutes.

Food wise, I was very strict no-carb for the first few weeks. I loosened that up a bit as I got into the challenge, but not by much. I do hit the pretzels or candy once in a while, and Thursday dinners and Sunday lunches are much more relaxed than other meals, which are no carbs at all. Lots of fruits, veggies, meats, eggs, although I do eat cheese as well, and do try to find heathy snacks to eat when I want a break from apples, trail mix, grapes, and nuts.

I do have a desk job (attorney), but walk ten or so minutes to work, home for lunch, back to the office after lunch, and home from work. And I walk to and from the office to the courthouse. I have been known to wish for a more physical job, but God gifted me in other ways

[David Romano]

Oh, and no real issues with body weight sets and no carbs. I found I was actually a bit stronger without them. Less junk and processed garbage in my body

[shutterpillar]

Congratulations! you look great!

[Hardy]

I hit 41 years old next week - You sir have INSPIRED me!! (seems to happen alot around here!)

Thank you!!