Dear Mehdi,

I am eager to follow your StrongLifts 5x5 workout formula. But i have man boobs and some excess fat. If i follow only the 3 exercises of each workout, for 3 days a week only, would it be beneficial for me?? Or do i have to do some other exercises too?

-Arjit

You can't lose your man boobs by doing a gazillion of chest exercises, just like you can't lose your belly fat by doing endless situps, because spot reduction is a myth. Man boobs is just fat tissue covering your chest muscles and since you can't burn fat locally, you have to lower your overall body fat to lose them.

So the good old fashioned strategies of fat loss apply: if the amount of calories you eat is lower than the amount of calories your body burns, you'll lose fat and thus also your man boobs. Here are 2 powerful tips you can use to instantly create a caloric deficit, plus an extra third tip which I'll explain.

1. Eat Healthier. Man boobs are almost always the result of years of eating junk food which contain more calories than whole foods. This doesn't mean you have to stop eating junk food forever to lose your man boobs, but you will have to eat a lot healthier the majority of the time.

• More meats, chicken, fish, veggies and fruits. No need to turn into one of those paleo nazis - grains are fine if you eat them in moderation.
• Less junk, alcohol and soda. 2 beers and a burger when out with friends is fine, but a DAILY 6 pack and TV dinner is an obvious no-go.

2. Get Stronger. One, muscle size is directly related to strength gains and so by getting stronger on the Bench Press, you'll "shape" your chest. Two, the more weight you lift, the more calories you burn in a workout. Three, strength training promotes healthier food choices and makes you stick to your diet better.

StrongLifts 5x5 is therefore plenty, even though you'll only do 3 exercises per workout, 3x/week. The amount of exercises doesn't matter, intensity does. As an example, check how StrongLifts Member Vlad (20y, Belgium) lost his man boobs with StrongLifts 5x5 after boosting his Squat from 20kg to 135kg.

StrongLifts Member Vlad (20y, Belgium) lost his man boobs with StrongLifts 5x5

3. Fix Your Posture. Working behind a computer all day can tighten your chest muscles and cause slouching shoulders which will then make your man boobs look worse. This is similar to how excess sitting can cause your hip muscles to tighten and your belly to look bigger as a result. If you look at SL Member Vlad's posture, it's clear his upper-back is straighter after doing StrongLifts 5x5.

Get used to sitting and walking with your shoulders back instead of letting them slouch all the time. Daily shoulder dislocations with a resistance band coupled with low bar Squats 3x/week will also improve your posture dramatically.

Don't worry about gynecomastia - man boobs caused by lowered testosterone and increased estrogen from taking certain medication or steroid abuse. The overwhelming majority of guys with man boobs will NOT need antiestrogen treatment, surgery or Kramer's "Mansierre", but can get rid of their man boobs naturally by simply eating healthier, gaining strength and fixing their posture.

This worked for many StrongLifts Members, and even myself.

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I stressed before that fat loss is all about calories in vs. calories out. Well here's more proof that backups what I say. Mark Haub, professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, lost 27lbs in 61 days on a junk food diet consisting of twinkies, nutty bars, donuts, etc. His before/after stats:

• Body-weight: 201lbs => 174lbs
• BMI: 28.8 => 24.9
• Body-fat: 33.4% => 24.9%
• LDL "bad" cholesterol: dropped 20%
• HDL "good" cholesterol: increased 20%
• Triglycerides levels: dropped 39%

Tough pill to swallow for those paleo FAD diets idiots that keep claiming that calories aren't made equal, that's it's all about insulin, that the body is not a closed system, and more similar utter nonsense. Here are the facts wiseguys: Mark Haub's diet consisted for 66% of junk food, yet he lost fat, because he was ONLY eating 1800kcal/day. Calories in < calories out == fat loss. Period.

And before you say this is an outlier, Scott Caswell lost 21lbs in 30 days on a McDonalds diet, completely discrediting "Supersize Me" with his documentary "Bowling for Morgan". How? Big Macs on a caloric deficit.

Did I just say you got to eat twinkies all day? No. What I'm saying is be flexible with your diet. You don't have to skip on the upcoming holiday parties or feel guilty for indulging. At the end of the week, month and year it's your average caloric intake that matters, not a single meal.

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What's the most important thing for fat loss? Diet -  most guys don't have the time to burn significant calories through exercise so you will have to eat less to achieve a caloric deficit. Note that you do need to build muscle first (training).

The challenge is that most prepacked foods have misleading labels and contain hidden calories. It keeps amazing me how some guys will eat an organic donut, not understanding that a donut remains a donut - friggin' junk.

The only way around is to eat whole foods 90% of the time and cook your own meals like my SL Diet advises. But since you probably don't have the time to cook several times a day (I sure don't), you'll have to batch cook your meals.

Now what's the best time to cook your food?

Every productivity book will tell you the secret to getting things done is to do the most important thing first thing in the morning. Here's why: the more you procrastinate, the less likely you are to get it done. Add that most guys just don't have the patience to cook after a rough day at work.

That's why you have to wake up early. In fact, when I was still employed and commuting 2h/day, I cooked my food for work every single morning. During those 5 years I was still living at my parent's place, and it bothered the hell out of them and my brothers (not my dog somehow) to wake up every morning with the smell of my eggs cooking. But I assure you it got me the body I wanted.

You will say - "but Mehdi, I hate waking up early!" And I will ask you, once again, what do you hate most? Waking up early OR staying fat? Smart guys they give this a 30-day trial before making a bunch of excuses.

There's another way waking up early benefits fat loss, but that's for tomorrow.

STRONGLIFTS BVBA © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Snake oil "lifestyle nutritionists" obviously play on this by creating fad diets that don't require counting calories. We had low fat diets (1970s), then low carb (atkins), and now low grain (hunter-gatherer/caveman/paleolithic diet).

Yet all these "nutrition lifestyles" do the same thing: limiting the consumption of one or several "evil" foods to restrict the amount of calories you eat.

Those "experts" will claim that it's not all about calories. But you just need to look at the 30 years of data collected by the USDA ERS to realize that the rise in obesity is directly related to a huge spike in calorie consumption from meats, fats, flour/cereals, fruits and sugar - not one food in particular.

I'm a low carb proponent, my very own StrongLifts Diet limits the consumption of grains. Here's why that works for fat loss: most guys easily get 50% of their calories from carbs. Limiting grains limits calories, and thus you get fat loss. More important: many guys, including me, just feel better eating less grains.

But I also know why it does NOT work: you can still overeat of the "good foods". Your body doesn't care if you eat low carb, low fat, or organic. Excess calories will translate into fat gains, even if these calories come from proteins. Yes it IS harder to overeat on a high protein/fat diet, but it is NOT impossible.

The essential exercise: track everything for 7 days. Read all the labels, take out the measurement spoons, be miserable for a week. You might be surprised at how many calories there is inside those foods that you thought were "good".

I don't count calories because I've done it plenty during my crazy bodybuilding years. I know how many calories there is in each food, I know how much I eat, I've developed a feel for it. More important: I got my body-fat under control.

Yet if I'd need to lose fat or gain weight, I'd track everything. Most guys struggling with fat loss dramatically underestimate their food intake. Just like most guys struggling with weight gain OVERestimate it. It's all about calories, but you need exact numbers for the maths to work.

In fact, it's my observation that a guy's success and gains directly reflect the number of precise data he is measuring daily, weekly, monthly. Whether you're talking food data or training data, measurements gets results.

STRONGLIFTS BVBA © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

If you listen to those jacked, steroid-using, bodybuilding idiots in your gym the answer is yes. But put the broscience aside and look into actual science and you'll discover that muscle can't turn into fat - they're 2 separate tissues.

The whole "muscle turn into fat" myth comes from guys who quit training and neglected to eat less. Just look at my formula: the 200lbs guy doing SL5x5 with heavy weights 3x/week needs 2000kcal more than the 200lbs sedentary guy.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that if you quit lifting, you also need to eat less calories. It's not the muscles turning into fat, it's the excess calories that you're no longer burning at the gym. Duh.

As a personal example, in March 2009 I broke my right thumb when I felt on an icy slope while ski-ing in Bulgary. The result: thumb immobilized, 8 weeks no training. Yet my muscles didn't turn into fat because I ate less on purpose.

It always comes back to calories in vs. out, excess calories will turn into fat. But muscle can't turn into fat any more than mud can turn into gold.

STRONGLIFTS BVBA © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Today I want to give you the powerful formula that I successfully use with my private clients to estimate their TEE. Here's the Formula...

• Sedentary: 10kcal/lb
• Light training: 15kcal/lb
• Heavy training: 20kcal/lb

So if you're 200lb, just started StrongLifts 5x5 and the weights are still light, you need 3000kcal/day. But if you've been doing SL5x5 3x/week for a few months, weights are heavier and you're starting to stall, then you need 4000kcal/day (food is critical for optimal recovery and strength gains).

Remember these are ESTIMATES. Your TEE fluctuates daily based on body-weight, body fat, food choice, etc. There is no way you can accurately predict your maintenance caloric needs. Use my formula only as a guideline and adapt your caloric intake based on your goals & progress.

One popular calorie calculator recommended around 3200kal/day for a 200lbs guy. That will work if you just start SL5x5, but I assure you it won't be enough when the weights get heavier - you'll stall on your Squats.

Note that this same calculator claimed I was "over-weight" because I have a 25BMI at 165lbs. Nuts. I got visible abs year-through as you can see here.

Online calorie calculators are made for, and only work for, average people. You do StrongLifts 5x5 3x/week you're anything but average.

STRONGLIFTS BVBA © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Today I want to talk about calorie calculators. I've said before that losing fat is simple maths. Well many guys struggle to lose fat because their numbers are wrong to start with. Calorie calculators are a big reason for that...

• Too many factors influence your TEE
• There's no way you can ACCURATELY calculate your TEE
• Even if you could, your TEE fluctuates based on exercise, food choice, etc

As an example, consider 2 guys who both weigh 200lbs.

• Guy 1 doesn't exercise, hardly eats protein, and is 50y old
• Guy 2 does SL5x5 3x/week, follows the SL Diet, and is in his late 20s

The 2nd guy obviously has a higher TEE because he's younger, exercises, and eats more protein. But you won't see any of that if you use those calorie calculators that only take your body-weight into account.

Tomorrow you'll get a powerful formula to determine how many calories you need per day. Stay tuned.

STRONGLIFTS BVBA © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Today I'm going to show you how to figure out your TEE or Total Energy Expenditure. The amount of calories your body burns is the sum of...

• Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). How many calories your body burns at rest. Influenced by your body-weight, muscle mass, age gender, exercise, etc. Accounts for 50-70% of your TEE.
• Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). Calories you burn processing food. Influenced by food choice: protein has a much higher TEF than carbs and fats. Accounts for about 10% of your total TEE.
• Thermic Effect of Activity (TEA). Calories you burn through exercise. Influenced by how much you exercise, how long and how hard. Can be very low if you're sedentary or very high if you train like an athlete.
• Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). Calories you burn through non-exercise activities. Influenced mostly by genetics, but also by fidgeting, chewing gum, etc. Like TEA, your NEAT varies.
• Adaptive Component. Positive or negative changes in your metabolism influenced by weight loss, body fat, exercise, sickness, environment, etc.

So when you take the sum of all of these components, you'll know EXACTLY how many calories your body burns. Then you simply start eating less calories than that, and you'll lose fat. I've told you fat loss is easy, it's simple math.

Next week you'll get a powerful formula to calculate your caloric needs.

STRONGLIFTS BVBA © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Have you noticed what I just wrote? Eat less CALORIES. Some guys think that eating less is enough - it's not. You may "not eat a lot", only getting 5 small meals per day, but if they're all caloric dense then you'll end up eating MORE calories than your body burns. Compare for yourself:

• 150g broccoli: less than 50kcal
• 150g pasta: over 500kcal

And that's for blank pasta! So you may do that portion control crap that leaves you hungry, but if you don't have a caloric deficit you won't lose fat. Eating less is not enough, you have to eat less CALORIES than your body BURNS.

Fat loss is simple mathematics: calories in vs. calories out. That's why you must know your numbers. How do you figure out these numbers? You tell me in the blog comments, my answer follows tomorrow.

STRONGLIFTS BVBA © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

The temptation is huge to think there's more to fat loss OR blame your genetics, metabolism and age. It's also a guaranteed way to get caught in those fad diets that claim that calories don't matter, blame a new food every month instead, yet ignore the FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS ...

• Eat less calories than your body burns => you'll lose fat
• Eat more calories than your body burns => you'll gain fat

If you can't lose fat although you're eating healthy, hardly eat anything and exercise a lot, then you do NOT have a caloric deficit. It's as simple as that.

Maybe you know a skinny "hardgainer" who keeps telling you that he can eat everything he wants, but never gains weight. Well if you'd actually track his calories you'd see he isn't eating a lot at all - that's why he's skinny.

The same applies here: can't lose fat without a caloric deficit. And that's the biggest fat loss mistake you can make - THINKING that you have a caloric deficit, while you don't. The solution is for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

STRONGLIFTS BVBA © 2011 All Rights Reserved.