First things first, I just want to say thank you to the community and the guys behind the website for providing such a valuable and well managed resource! I've been a long time lurker and now I'm hoping to be a little more active on the boards to help my journey... and to help anyone my limited experience might be of value to!
My story at its core is probably a very common one that is told in beginners sections of most fitness communities...
I'm a 24 year old 5ft11" male who due to on going eatment of a cardiac issue as a teenager was around 20 stone 3 years ago. This weight was gained through a mixture of medications, the need to be sedentery and comfort eating through a stressful time of the usual teenage issue, exams and staring at your own mortality ;p
Having had an operation to correct my heart abnormality when I was 21 and being assured by my cardiologist that is was a success - I quickly got my head down and corrected all the lifestyle issues that had plagued me. I took up running and eating healthily and went from a sendentry lifestyle to competing in marathons at a 10min mile within 18 months, happy days!
...but I'm not happy. With my clothes off I look like a regular guy, the running has given me nicely athletic legs but probably due to the reduced calorie diet I've been on for the past 3 years my upper body has had a lot of muscle loss and I still have a high body fat percentage. My scales say just under 20% which upsets me.
Last year I took up kettlebells which I kept up for around 6 months - had a nice full body routine going and really enjoyed it - however I was terrorfied of getting fat again so I was training on reduced calories and high protein. I still saw gains though, both in strength and size but ended up stopping that training as I was convinced I was building muscle under too much fat and told myself I'd work on lowering the bodyfat percentage for a few months then restart the kettlebells when I'd be happy to do it right and feed my muscle and not be scared of putting on some fat.
I'm now 24 and around 12 stone 6lb, 20% bodyfat and for all intents and purposes look "normal" - I'm not a fat guy anymore, I wear small t-shirts and have a 32" waist...
I want to start doing my weights again, but this time eating properly with more calories than needed to build my muscle back up, but I'd also ultimately want to lower my bodyfat percentage to under 15%... I'm reading so much conflicting information thats making me think I'm being a bit stupid putting on muscle with a bf% this high, that when I build muscle i'll be adding a slight amount of fat to my already high bf% and worst of all, when I try to loose fat ill be sabataging my muscles and loosing my gains!!
I'm in such limbo and don't want to fall into a trap where in a years time I've messed my metabolism around too much and have no hope of shifting the body fat... and worst of all I've put a ton of weight on hoping it's muscle ;)
Can anyone offer any personal advise onhow they'd approach my situation and any tips on how I could move forward?
Just to recap:
I'm a 24 year old male
5ft 11" 12 stone 6lb 20% Body Fat (home scales, could be off)
I work 14 hour days and their isn't any local gyms withing 10miles so ill be training at home
My routine consisted of 16kg kettlebells, a dumbbell set that can go from 2kg to 14kg and my own body weight for the usual workouts and 5mile runs on recovery days
Thanks for your time and I apologise if I've I've misunderstood information that's already on the board :)
Jim