As far as I am concerned, a beach body isn’t something you acquire, it’s the state of simply taking your body to the beach.
With the evenings getting brighter and leaves populating trees, we know summer is on the way. Is there a way for us to banish our “man boobs” in time for the poolside?
Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Welcome back to Get-Fit Guy. If you are new here, I’m coach Kevin Don and the goal of the show is to discuss matters related to fitness and health, as well as provide some answers to your burning questions. If you aren’t new here, the previous is still true.
It tends to be that this time of year, we start to see the usual suspects of click bait “fitness” headlines. Namely, those centered around how to look (and more importantly FEEL) better on the beach or by the pool. Now, as far as I am concerned, a beach body isn’t something you acquire, it’s the state of simply taking your body to the beach. Media sells you the narrative that you need to change your body because it helps sell you things like fad diets and expensive gym memberships and that's how capitalism works. So, while I care much more about you being fit as in healthy, I do want to give you my take on how my male listeners can address something that often is important to them: the fact that as they age, they development a larger chest, often called “man boobs” in popular vernacular.
What causes this physical change as we age? Well, first of all, it's important to recognize that there could be a couple of things going on. You could be storing fat there. Or you may have a condition called gynecomastia, or gyno for short. We often see newborn babies with gyno due to exposure to estrogen in the womb. As we age, we see it, again, due to hormonal changes affecting the estrogenic/androgenic ratio. Causes can be as simple as declining testosterone levels as we age, thyroid issues, or things like alcohol or pharmaceutical side effects.
You can easily tell the difference between fat deposits in the chest area and gyno by manually examining your chest. In gyno, you’ll have a palpable mass in the breast area, usually around the nipple, on both sides or just on one side. Typically, we find that fat deposits are more malleable and tend not to have a defined “mass.” If you suspect you have gynecomastia, it's definitely advisable to see a physician because they will want to perform tests to exclude the worst outcomes and narrow down the cause.
Typically, in the event of a gynecomastia diagnosis, if the mass isn't resolved within 2 years, then some kind of intervention will be required. This will either be a pharmaceutical or surgical intervention. This is where my input on that subject track must end because I am not qualified to provide medical advice—I know my limits!
However, in about 75% of cases, it's not gynecomastia, but pseudogynecomastia and fatty tissue deposits—in which case, a training and lifestyle intervention can definitely help! So this is where I will pick up the reins. I would advise a two track approach to helping with this problem: one where you look at your food intake and one where you look at your training.
On the first track, food intake will be important because you have stored fat, so we need to look at how to reduce your body fat levels. I would advise using an online TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calculator to find out what you need to have as calorie intake. From there, you need to create a calorie deficit. I would aim for 250-500 calories daily under maintenance—anything more is too aggressive and won't be easy to sustain to the goal.
You will find it easier to reduce calories and feel more full if you stop drinking your calories. What I mean by that is that a large caramel macchiato has around 330 calories. When one pairs that with a breakfast food, we can end up with a situation where we have consumed 30-40% of daily calories in one meal alone. For 330 calories you could have 4.5 ounces of broccoli. Now, I’m not suggesting to go on a strict broccoli diet—the point I’m making is that when you consume 330 calories of liquid, you STILL need food. If you consume 330 cals of nutrient dense food, such as broccoli, you feel full.
So add in fibrous, nutritionally dense foods to your plate. This will fill you up and mean you may eat less of the more calorific, typically starchy foods. You might be thinking, well Kevin, can’t I just work out more to burn off those extra calories? Eating nutritionally dense foods is a much easier option for you to reduce your caloric intake than it is to increase your exercise prescription. For some people, burning that caramel macchiato off might look like 30 minutes on a rowing machine (depending on effort level).
It’s also important, aside from getting the veggies in there, to increase protein intake. Protein is going to be super important with the training you’ll be doing but also, as we age, we become less efficient at utilizing protein. That is: an older person needs to consume a larger dose of protein to create the same muscle protein synthesis event as a younger cohort. We also know that protein has a great thermogenic effect, which is that our bodies use more energy digesting it than it does with either carbohydrate or fats.
What you might be seeing in your mind when you hear my advice is a plate of food with some vegetables and some protein. You would be right. Basically, you should be thinking about eating “real” food. I know that y’all know what real food is, too! Think about being alive a few thousand years ago and living in a time of hunter gatherers. What foods would you be able to source and how abundant would each of those be? Meats, vegetables, some starch like sweet potatoes, fats like those found in nuts and sugars in sources like fruits and honey. The ratio of those will be determined by how available they would be. Sure, nuts were available, but the amount of effort required to get enough nuts to feed a tribe versus taking down a bison or harvesting some vegetables tells you that protein and vegetables will be the largest part of the plate.
What this means when you go to the grocery store is that you will be unlikely, in general, to find yourself in the middle of the store. You may have noticed that the “real” foods are perishable and are almost always located around the store perimeter. This doesn’t mean that I think you need to demonize something from the middle of the store, but merely that if you have a goal, perhaps those processed foods and snacks might not be a great choice for you right now.
I would also advise everyone to avoid fad diets. Eating real, whole foods isn’t a fad. It's how humans developed and were eating for 300,000 years. Most of the branded diets that you have to buy a book or sign up to a group to follow are doing the same thing by just creating a calorie deficit.
Now, on to the training side. It can be super tempting to think that we can spot reduce fat where we work, but it doesn't really work like that. Doing some bench press work may, indeed, help visually because we are increasing the muscle size and that itself is making the skin smoother and tighter over the affected area, but this doesnt mean we have reduced fat in that area. We need to be consistently in a calorie deficit and then you will, eventually, lose chest fat (which can be a bit stubborn). You just have to stick with it as a long term project.
So, what WOULD training look like? Well, strength training would be super important! This is because muscle mass is costly to the body to build and maintain, which means even at rest, you will be burning more calories. Training also damages existing muscle fibers, so some energy will be diverted to repair, in addition to the building of new tissue. As I mentioned, we can't spot reduce, so whilst building some chest muscle will help tighten the skin and fill the space that losing fat will leave, it's important to hit the big compound lifts. They are more exhaustive, meaning you burn more energy performing them, and they build more muscle mass, giving you access to greater calorie burn. Compound exercises are those which use multiple muscles and large ranges of motion, so squat, both deadlift and pressing variations. I would also advise doing more reps, somewhere in the 8-12 range, because this is where we will get the most bang for our buck in terms of muscle tissue building.
Aside from strength training, what about cardio? Well, absolutely, anything that you do on top of strength training and your normal daily essential movement will allow you to more easily reach a caloric deficit. One of the most common debates is whether or not fasted cardio (usually in the morning) is better for fat loss than non-fasted cardio and actually there are many studies indicating that both are true. Since that can't be the case, since it’s an either/or scenario, I would say that if you find you have a very poor training performance, feel sluggish, and have a low effort level when training fasted, then don’t do it. You will have a better result if you can train with some real intent!
We should also look to do what we can to increase NEAT, which stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This is basically anything you do that burns calories that is neither essential to your daily survival, such as energy consumed running cellular processes in the body, nor your intentional, deliberate training. Going out for a walk after dinner is exercise. Parking your car at the end of the grocery store parking lot or taking the stairs instead of the escalator is NEAT.
Remember: the only way to know for sure if you have gyno is to visit a doctor. They will perhaps use an ultrasound to confirm the presence of a tissue lump and do some blood tests to check your hormone levels. If you have fatty deposits, then increasing your energy expenditure and getting your food intake in check will be the best, most efficient way to tackle the problem.
As always, please email me if you have any questions or just want to complain about my latest episode. I love them all! Contact me at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com or check out the Get-Fit Guy Facebook page!