Any of you had success losing fat while gaining muscle?

Hey everyone,

I just recently I really started to get serious about working out and going to the gym, and I have been going on strong now for 2 months now after joining a new gym, unlike before when I would go every once every couple of days or even weeks, I am now going 6 days a week and doing weight training mostly.

I have been keeping a notepad just about a month ago so I can track my progress, and I have seen myself getting stronger from the numbers I'm tracking, and also in size, seeing muscles grow bigger on my body (especially with my pecs, since I didn't have any before, and now I am growing some titties, it's exciting).

Anyway, I used to weigh at my lowest 120 pounds, and then when I started going off and on, I went up to 140 pounds, but maybe that was due to me eating more too, I don't know. Now after working out for a couple of months I am at 165 pounds, and I want to keep gaining more, I don't really have a set target weight, but just so long as I won't be a skinny twig anymore at my height of 5'10" or somewhere around there, I haven't measured lately.

But now I am considering on cutting out my bulking phase and working on cutting, because I have always had a little pot belly, just a little bit, probably from all the visceral fat of my past days of eating piece of shit junk fast food and whatnot, and I have like 2 stretch marks on my belly from probably constantly hunching over a little and not sitting completely straight up, and no one likes a pot belly no matter how small.

So, have any of you had any success doing something like this? It's like a paradox, because if you want to lose fat, you've got to eat less and burn more calories doing cardio and shit, but when you're bulking up and building muscle, you've got to increase your caloric intake and all that jazz (especially when you're a hard gainer ectomorph body type like I am). I'm not sure if it's going to work, but I want to try it out. And I think it would be better anyway to lose my pot belly and stay toned and then try to gain the muscle, instead of trying to bulk first and cutting down later.

Anyway, my current work out sets are like this:
Monday: Chest, Arms, Abs
Tuesday: Legs
Wednesday: Shoulders, Back, Abs
Thursday: Chest, Arms
Friday: Legs, Abs
Saturday: Shoulders, Back
Sunday: Rest

Any ideas on where I could throw in cardio to my routine? I was thinking I could do cardio like 30 minutes every day after my weight training sessions (probably the stationary bike or the stair stepper), and that I might have to cut back on the amount of different exercises I am doing during my weight training, since I usually do 6-8 different exercises per set of muscles I'm training. I usually work out anywhere from 1 hour to 2 and a half hours, depending on how long I rest between sets (but I think probably because I do so many different exercises per muscle set), but I think I will try to set my weight lifting to a maximum of 1 hour and then doing the 30 minutes of cardio. I'll have to fine-tune my eating again too, I guess, but I think the biggest factor will be finding the time and right place for cardio, so I don't lose too much muscle while I am trying to burn the fat or get way too exhausted.

Here's the workout I do for those of you interested, if you have any suggestions on what exercises I should cut out and put in cardio in its place:

Spoiler:

Chest: Dumbbell Bench Press, Dumbbell Flyes, Decline Bench Press Machine, Fly Machine

Arms: Dumbbell Concentration Curls, Supinated/Pronated Wrist Curls, Dips Machine, Tricep Rope Pulldowns

Legs: Smith Machine Squats/Power Squat Machine, Seated Calf Raises, Hamstring Curl Machine, Glute Kickbacks, Hip Adductor Machine, Hip Abductor Machine

Shoulders: Dumbbell Shoulder Press, Dumbbell Shrugs, Barbell Vertical Rows, Dumbbell Deltoid Abduction, Shoulder Press Machine, Deltoid Abduction Machine

Back: Lower Back Machine, High Row Machine, Row/Rear Delt Machine, Lat Pulldown Machine

I do 3 sets of each of these exercises and alternate muscle groups per sets of exercises (like if it's Monday, I'll do a chest exercises, followed by an arms exercises, then chest, then arm, so I don't kill myself before finishing my work out), except on the beginning part of my chest and arms exercises I do 4 sets of the DB Bench Press, DB Curls, DB Flyes, and Wrist Curls, because I want to work on those muscles more than the other ones first, since I am a skinny guy, want to beef up my arms, you know.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yea, I've been to BodyBuilding.com before, and got a shaker bottle and gym towel from their commercial side, good shit. Yea, there's probably better workout plans out there, and I should be tracking my nutrition better, but I'm just trying to get into the routine of making exercise part of my lifestyle still, so just doing things I like and think are kind of fun. I was thinking I could try doing the cardio after my weight lifting sessions for a week and then the next week trying an alternate plan of doing weight lifting one day and then the next day just cardio and then alternating like that back and forth and see if I like either one of those plans. I'll have to do more reading on that HIIT; first time I've heard of it, and it sounds really good for burning those calories.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Wow, they aren't joking when they say HIIT is hard. I tried doing a sprinting/jogging HIIT routine around the edges of the basketball court at the gym, but that beat the shit out of me, so I jumped on a stationary bike for a while, lol. I don't know if those machines are accurate or not though, but I was on the bike at a decent level (10, but I guess it doesn't really matter, since it calculates how far you have gone, and I guess a higher level just means you go a little farther each time you pedal) for about 30-40 minutes, and it said I had gone past 10 miles.

Now, I don't know how the bike calculates 10 miles, but I know that back in high school I could barely do the 6-minute mile (and this said I did 10 miles in about 40 minutes, so that's like a 4-minute mile, no way), and so I'm guessing that the bike calculates 10 miles as though you were riding a bike and not jogging, because it's sure as hell easier to travel 10 miles on a machine like a bicycle than by jogging 10 miles. I've done 6-7 miles by foot when I was in this Army PT class down at the university and that was hellish from what I remember, and it seemed a lot tougher than just sitting down on this stationary bike and pedaling my legs. Anyone know how it works?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

What's up guys, interesting to hear your different ideas about how I should go about doing this. I'm not sure what I want to do, but I have been doing cardio every day now. I think it's helpful, because it's always good to have a good cardiovascular system going on you know, and so many younger people these days have coronary artery disease and don't even know it, what with all the fast and processed foods, and I know I have been on that track for a while now, and am proud to admit I haven't had fast food since I started exercising. I have long put off doing cardio, so I think I should start now while I'm still motivated to exercise. Sure you can't get rid of arterial plaque build-up, but at least I won't be contributing much more to it.

Anyway, I've been eating clean these past couple of months ever since I started lifting. I haven't been keeping track of caloric intake or anything like that, but I should make a little diary to see what I'm eating and how much of the stuff I'm putting into my body. Here are some of the stuff I'm eating:

Mornings: Whole grain bread toast, scrambled eggs with milk, cheese, and bacon sandwich. A banana and orange juice. Now I'm only eating cereal and a banana, trying to cut down on some of my calories to help my cardio sessions in burning off some fat. A cereal I've been eating for a while now is that Kashi Lean Go Fit or whatever cereal. It's high in protein 13g per serving and has decent fiber and other boring crap.

Afternoon: After class I go to the gym, so I don't usually eat anything prior, but when I do get home I make a protein shake that is about 500mL milk and two scoops of protein mix which comes out to about 46g of protein (from the whey protein mix alone, but I know the milk has some good protein in there too). Then I usually mix it up, sometimes I eat Quaker's classic oatmeal made with milk and add dried raisins, sometimes I eat whole grain brown rice with chicken breasts, or I'll carve up some sweet potatoes and bake those and eat it with a chicken patty.

Night: Pretty much the same thing as afternoon, so whatever I'm in the mood for. I'm trying to up my fruits and vegetables intake too, and lately I just started trying to eat asparagus, and I really like it, so I put that into some chicken noodle soup sometimes and eat it. Sometimes I buy a loaf of french bread to eat with the soup (and even though it's a white bread, it was a good source of carbs). I'll eat some fuji apples and oranges (if they're in season).

Hmm, I think that's about it. My diet is pretty basic and boring (it's all about sacrafice though, right, no pain, no gain, and I guess that it's painful to have to eat healthy when you know there's lots of sugary goodness out there waiting to give your taste buds an orgasm), but it does the trick, I think. I used to make peanut butter and honey whole grain bread sandwiches before, but I haven't eaten any of those in a while. And I drink plenty of water. That's about it.

I do agree with Giri on how I think it's good that I lose some excess body fat that I've been carrying around for almost a decade now, since it can't be healthy for me. But maybe once I tone down, I can start going back into the bulking phase and eating more clean and monitoring my calories more closely, so I just eat as much as I need to build lean muscle but not contribute so much to fat synthesis and whatnot, since I figure most of my fat deposits are from excess carbohydrates in one sitting, so I'll try to spread out my meals into way smaller portions and just eat more throughout the day. Sometimes it's hard though with school and work to find time to eat in little bits.

What are some foods you guys eat to keep it clean and nutritious? Also, do you guys use any supplements? I only use whey protein and down a complete Centrum multi-vitamin everyday, but I am somewhat concerned about the EAS protein mix I drink. Sure it tastes good, but it has those artificial sugars in it like Splenda and all those other things. Sure the jury isn't out on whether or not there sugars will be harmful in the long run, but I'd rather take something that tastes good that was more natural.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Do you keep a log of your diet, Will? Maybe you can copypasta some of it down here so I can see what I might be able to incorporate into my own regimen. I've heard about how you should get on average about 0.8g of protein per kg of weight, even 1.0-1.5g/kg for those doing heavy lifting, but I don't know much about how calories would factor into it, like knowing exactly how many calories you need to break your current threshold in gaining weight and all that (and not just calories, but breaking it down further into carbohydrates and lipids and such). Maybe you need expert help from a dietician to find this stuff out? I do know eating more than you do normally will eventually add up to more calories and more weight gain, but that's about it. What greens do you recommend for someone who doesn't particularly like vegetables? I could smother stuff in cheese sauce like broccoli or something, but I don't think that's healthy.

I was speaking idiomatically.