Need proper advice on losing bodyfat!

Hi everyone!

I saw this forum searching for fat loss techniques and thought you guys might be able to help me out.

Im 14 years old and have had a huge growth spert which helped me lose a ton of baby fat I had.
Im 5'8 , and at my highest weight i was around 165 , and ive managed to get down to 120 with eating right and working out. Ive also been a vegetarian for around 5 months.

Ive been doing alot of research on fat loss and muscle gain , but to be honest , im not interested in being bulked with muscle. I prefer the lean "skinny-boy" look most guys my age would probably hate.
Most of the articles ive read on fat loss basically involve cutting your calories lower and doing lots and lots of cardio, but once again, i dont want bulging calf muscles.
Now im fine with cutting down calories, but I dont understand how you can do this without going into the dreaded "starvation mode" i hear about. When youre eating very little, is your body going to burn the fat or the muscle? And is it possible to keep your calories low without killing your metabolism? I know that eating small meals over the day will rev your metabolism up , which in turn keeps you burning fat all the time, but how does that work along with eating less? So basically im looking to be as lean as possible , with little to no fat.
If you guys could just give me some advice, id highly appreciate it.


Thanks for anything guys.

while i do agree that it is never too early to start eating healthy, i honestly dont think you need to start worrying about all this just yet. all this is gonna do is add more stress to your life. you could run across the street and have a higher metabolism than most guys in this forum. my advice would be to stay active, play a sport and the rest, at least for now, will take care of itself. if you got involved in just one daily activity after school, then i can almost guarentee you will lose fat and gain muscle. with regards to eating, again, your metabolism is going a mile a minute right now. just try not to eat fast food too much and you'll be fine for the next few years.
 
i know its not what you wanted to hear, but its the truth. ENJOY YOUR YOUTH.

why would anyone want to be that skinny??

yeah... and you're so young...

You're 5'8" and 120lbs?  That sounds too skinny, IMHO.

ORIGINAL: JohnnyJ
Ive been doing alot of research on fat loss and muscle gain , but to be honest , im not interested in being bulked with muscle.
... but once again, i dont want bulging calf muscles.

You're not going to gain muscle accidentally. It's not like one day you'll wake up all huge and green and looking like Lou Ferrigno. Gaining muscle is hard enough to do on purpose, you don't have to take steps to avoid doing it accidentally. Doing lots of cardio isn't going to suddenly give you unwanted bulging calves (doing cardio doesn't add much muscle anyway). If you're 120 pounds, you're already pretty skinny, plus you're growing right now, so you're not going to be doing yourself any good by cutting calories.

If you want to get really lean, you may want to add some muscle, because muscle is the thing that actually burns fat. But I can't imagine you actually have much excess fat at your weight anyway.

At your age, I would mostly focus on eating a healthy diet, and staying active. That could mean lifting weights, or getting involved in a sport, playing ultimate frisbee with your buds, riding around on your bike, whatever.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

It sounds like you should just be a runner.  Running doesnt build muscle.

Run everyday and find a different website for your goals.



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