Hello everyone,
I am at an impasse here and I need some help constructing a new fitness/diet plan for myself. My current stats are, I am 21, 5'11 185lbs 36 waist 41 chest. Above all else my goal is to have a great chest to waist ratio, and I want to have a very good strength to weight ratio as well. So somewhere in the range of 190lbs 33 waist, 45 chest would be optimal.
Now for some background.
I started lifting weights on and off 5 years ago, and have been doing so consistently for 1.5 years. When I started, I was a 155lbs skinny little hard gainer, who just wanted muscularity. My father, and my grandfather before him, were both bird-chested, that is, they had no pec development and genetically I have found that adding inches to my chest is incredibly difficult, and much of what I have gained has come from my lats, which are easy for me to develop. Now I was new to the world of bodybuilding, and all I knew was how to work out to gain mass. Sometime later I discovered that I would have to eat and eat a lot if I was going to pack on the muscle I so desired. So every morning I would eat 3 eggs with a lot of butter and cream cheese, at lunch I would eat a bunch of peanut butter sandwiches, and I would have a big caloric meal for dinner every night that I worked out. At the time I was not drinking enough water, I was taking 2 hours naps in the middle of the day, and I was going to sleep at all different hours of the night. During this time I did gain weight, but I didn't really stop to think about why I was gaining a lot on my waist as well as everywhere else.
Sometime within the last year I overhauled my routine with multivitamins, fish oil, ginko, myoplex, whey protein powder, and drinking close to a gallon of water a day. I also changed my breakfast to 2 scrambled eggs cooked with olive oil, and a bowl of oatmeal. I went from working out 2-3 days a week, to 4-5. My routine since then, has been Monday = Biceps/Shoulders, Tuesday = Legs, Wednesday = Chest, Thursday = Abs/Lower Back, Saturday = Upper Back/Tris. I wont pretend that I have stuck with this routine to the letter, because of fencing I have shirked Tuesdays a lot, and there are many times I will miss Thursdays or Saturdays. But for the most part this routine has worked for me, as my chest, arms, and back have grown quite a bit since I started the new plan. There are still days where I will take naps, or work out later in the day and miss my myoplex at night before bed. But I always take my 2 scoops of whey protein mixed with berries, a banana, and soy milk, 5 minutes after my workout, and I always drink a lot of water throughout the day. Obviously however, this has not been enough for me, as my belly still sticks out past my chest, to the point where I'm so embarrassed by my full side profile, that for the past year when I am in public I am almost constantly sucking my stomach in, including when I am at the gym working out in my black wifebeater.
I am here now because this has gone on for far too long, and I am putting my foot down. I just got back from my vacation and I haven't worked out in around a week. I am fresh and it's time to make some changes. I am asking that everyone advise me as to the following: Do I continue my routine of bulking (perhaps with the addition of some supplements to minimize further fat gain while maximizing muscle gain), or do I cut cut cut the fat (perhaps with the addition of supplements to minimize muscle mass loss while maximizing fat loss) and start over with my chest at a later date. If I do this, I will need help formulating a new diet/excercise routine, as well as what supplements to take. I'm very diciplined when it comes to diet, so if I know what I'm suppose to eat/not eat, I'm likely to stick with it. I was thinking I would do interval training and swimming, and I would also need a new weight lifting plan, whatever I do I don't want to stop doing that because I really enjoy it.
