tough to post this as im a pretty private person, but I need an idea of where Im at so i can plan for the future. Mid-life crisis’esque i decided to pick back up training. Had a history when I was in my late teens/early 20s but marriage, home ownership etc, you know the drill.
anyhow, high bp and some kidney cancer scared me straight. I know im super thin but peeling off the weight was paramount. Built a basement gym and started hammering.
The end result was 255-165 @ 5’10" the other end result was energy levels and libido in the complete gutter I wanna try to maintain a bodyfat level where im not so drained, but a general weight around 180. To even know here to go I need to know where I’m at.
Are you sure you don’t just want us to check out your physique and compliment you?
I ask because I can’t see a good reason for taking a picture like this and putting it on the internet. No-one is going to be able to accurately measure body fat from any picture, never mind this one. Even if they magically did, I don’t understand what you’re going to do with that number.
There’s simply no such thing as a “relatively accurate bodyfat % estimation” based off a picture. And if there was, the only way the picture you posted could be less useful is if you were wearing the shirt that’s on the rack.
It looks like you’ve got some ab definition right now. Maybe some loose skin from the weight loss, too? Tough to tell from the pic.
If you want to get bigger, gain bodyweight slowly while monitoring how quickly that ab definition disappears. If you want to get leaner, drop bodyweight slowly while monitoring how total body definition improves.
i can associate that number with where im at visually, as im too broke and care too little to do something like a dexa scan. Wouldnt even know where to go.
perhaps i have that body dysmorphia thing, as i dont see much beyond being lean as compliment worthy. Theres such a thing as too lean especially when there isnt a lot of underlying muscle.
165lbs at 5’10 lol.
the short answer is no. I didnt come here for compliments. I give very few farks whether people like it or dont like it. I literally want an idea where I am.
Health first and foremost and while this sorta looks healthy, I dont feel the greatest. Looking to strike a balance.
I wanted to get under 10% which i believe i achieved. It gives me a anecdotal/arbitrary measuring stick.
I need to gain weight but what kind of weight im going to gain or shoot for is dependent as well.
As for your reply specifically, I gave you the reason for posting it. I want someone with more experienced eyes to tell me how lean i am.
I tried posting on the bb.com forums where theres a thread 100’s of pages long specifically for that purpose. Apparently at least “some” people understand.
that being said, theres a required post count and I wasnt so concerned I was going to go on a posting campaign. I figured this was a good bet as the forums are also BB-centric.
It took about a year. I started super slow sans resistance training. Diet and ignorance of what point i was at in my life led me to start with the BB insanity program.
Destroyed my knees jumping around at 255 lbs lol. Still tough to squat and deadlift cause of it but thats another conversation.
That endeavor took off the first ~1/2 or so. Then I went from about 200 to the pic above over roughly the following 6 months with weight training and diet, i cut the aerobics completely lol.
Absent the ability to see through your skin and view the visceral fat between your organs, no one will be able to provide you a relatively accurate bodyfat % estimate from a photo.
You look how you look. It’s whatever number it is.
That’s a reasonable margin of error on a highly trusted metric, like DEXA. It’s completely unreasonable from a photo.
Well, i guess this is another instance of my ignorance striking again lol. Considering how pervasive of a metric it is, and how many sites use pictures of “other” people your supposed to look at to get an idea of where your at, I figured this would be one step above.
Primarily the weird pose (angled/leaning forward). The arm up, the distance, the lighting/shadows, and the fact that not much of your body can actually be seen are other factors.
Basic progress pics are the least forgiving and the most painfully honest. Facing camera, arms at your sides. (Newspaper-holding for proof of date… entirely optional nowadays, classic move back in the day.)
Those are ballpark guesstimates. According to most of those guides, having any visible ab definition could range from 10% to mid-teens.
But really what it comes down is that the number doesn’t actually affect your goals or training at all. A wise man once said, there is precisely zero real world relevance to knowing your numerical body fat percentage. None. Nada. Kinda like IQ, the main reason to get professionally tested is so you can then go around telling people, “I was tested and this is my score.”
If you’re 11% or 14% or 17% bodyfat, you should adjust your diet and training according to how you actually look and how you want to end up looking, not how close you are to a number.
Yea i can agree more or less. Perhaps I was more looking for validation as to the way I feel (generally bad/low libido etc). Theres an arbitrary point I didnt want to go below.
I wanted to achieve 10. Obviously 5 would look better, but I didnt care so long as i could reach 10. Especially considering the tradeoffs. Trying to ascertain whether I did or not.
I was operating under the premise that if someone said “youre below 10” i would think “okay, perhaps thats too low and is why i feel like crap” and i’d be lying if i didnt say there was a very small iota of trying to reclaim youthful bravado. To know I can still do it and say to my grandkids 25 years down the road “i was able to get down to xxx bodyfat” at xx age.
Plus if I spouted off my own estimation to a friend, i’d feel it much more objectionable than a number or average of numbers given to me by objective strangers. Believe it or not, some of my dad-bod friends do ask.
Still, numbers aside - I doubt theres any arguing im better off than I was at 255. My bp was in the 150’s and was 116 at my last dr appointment.
I wanna try to maintain a bodyfat level where im not so drained, but a general weight around 180. To even know here to go I need to know where I’m at.
