[sonick]

Originally Posted by Razor Ramon HG

My goal is to gain some muscle, but at the same time, I want to get rid of my belly.

During the past year, I was pretty much eating without much concern. I just wanted to gain weight, and being ignorant just assumed that I should eat everything in site. This in the end has resulted in me with a bit of a belly. Yes, skinny with a belly. I'm very self-conscious about it.

Now the thing is that I want to get rid of the belly, so I've been doing cardio like running and jump rope. But at the same time, if I want to gain weight, it's not really helping my cause, right?

So I guess, what do you guys recommend I should do? I really hate my belly, but I don't really want to lose too much weight.

You can definitely do both at the same time with something like intermittent fasting with a calorie surplus, basic compound lifts (Squat, DL, bench), and some HIIT thrown in.

I would focus on bulking up now with a calorie surplus and minimal cardio, then come Feb/March-ish start cutting but still lift so you will maintain muscle but have less belly come summer 2012.

I started very similarly from you, I was low-140 at 5'8" but skinny-fat about a year and a half ago. I started bulking about two springs ago, and got up to 160 at my max (around last Nov/Dec) but with a belly bulge, almost no abs, and was puffy due to water retention with Creatine.

In March I started cutting by doing IF, an EC stack and still lifting; got down to 148 with around 10%-12% BF. Got off the EC stack and bulked back up a bit by doing IF and got back up to 150 for the summer while still at ~12% BF.

It's far from the size that most guys in this thread have/are working toward, but compared to the average person it's definitely "athletic" looking... I've even been called 'ripped' before LOL.