Why you should, or shouldn't worry about carrying some fat


As someone who grew up with superhero images of men with small waists and well-defined muscles, I was surprised to find out that real strong men didn't look that way. And it just has to do with the different layers on your body - your fat layer sits on top of your muscles.

And what that means is that it's just about impossible to look at someone and know if they're hiding a lot of muscle under their fat, or if they're just fat. That is, until you see them lift something crazy heavy! And the point here is that if your goal is pure strength, don't worry at all about carrying some fat over it. Go lift some heavy weight and eat plenty of protein and you'll get stronger and stronger - that's how it works.

If, on the other hand, your goal isn't just strength and power, but to be able to show it off when you take off your shirt, you're gonna have to calm down on the calories and spend some time dieting. And I gotta tell ya, dieting is a lot less fun than building muscle.

I started my muscle-building project as a very skinny guy in my twenties. My goal was to just gain weight, which I did, both with muscle and with fat. It took me about a year to go from skinny to average-looking, and I remember that I was just delighted! Then after that I started to grow a belly, or a "pooch", along with some cellulite - I remember my girlfriend mentioning it in a joking way. I was just plain eating too much!

After my accident, in my forties, I was eating way too much, and my "pooch" now included fat around my neck, my arms, and my legs. I focused on dieting, which sucked, but eventually I got myself down to a goal weight, losing about 40 pounds of fat.

But, and let's be clear here, I didn't need to lose the fat, not really. I was never a "fat man", I just started to look like an average man in his forties carrying a bit of weight (a little under 200 pounds and a little under six feet tall), but I didn't like what I saw in the mirror.

And that's the whole point here, the difference between gaining muscle and strength (along with some fat) as opposed to trying to look as if you would be asked to be the next Wolverine.

So it's up to you. If you want to tell people how much you can bench, don't bother dieting. A bit of fat won't hold you back from gaining more strength - and people will be impressed by how strong you are! If your goal is to have the chiseled look of Hugh Jackman, you're gonna need to build muscle AND lose the fat, that's the way it works.

I hope this helps.

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