Losing the dad bod

W

wayne1980

New member
Ok. Skipping to the point.

Middle age male finally getting the chance to lose the dad bod and get into shape.

DB set 5-80 and treadmill.

Looking for some good recommendations for an upper body hypertrophy program w/ 1 day week cardio.

What’s worth it and what’s not??

I’m typically doing 4 days a week for the past 4 months with shoulder/bicep, and chest/bicep splits and making small gains each night but want to go a little harder than what I create myself while adding a little cardio one of the nights.
 
@wayne1980 A bench would be a huge addition but not needed off the back. Break it in to a PPL (push, pull, legs).

On your push day you can do dumbbell presses and dumbbell flies for chest, Arnold press and lateral raises for shoulders. Skull crushers and dumbbell extensions for triceps.

Push day could be heavy dumbbell row variations, a pull up bar would help as well to better target lats, bent over lateral raises for traps and rear delts. Biceps you can do incline curls in the bench, regular curls, hammer curls. Finish maybe with farmer carries?

Leg day can be squats (back squats and goblet/front) Bulgarian split squats, lunges and RDL’s.

Cardio you can go on a walk a few times a week. If you aim for 10k steps daily, you don’t even necessarily need cardio. If you want to lose the dad bod, you will need to start counting calories. You won’t lose the dad bod belly without cutting calories. Calculate your TDEE, and shoot for 300 calories under that to start. Most importantly, have fun and be consistent. If you’re consistent, in 3 months you will already notice a huge difference.
 
@matt5963 Great advice. Thank you greatly for your detailed reply. Much appreciated.

Forgot to add that I do have a bench capable of incline and decline.

Also aiming for hypertrophy, in your honest opinion, do you think losing dad bod is achievable while trying to build muscle? Or do you cut first then build. That parts always threw me for a loop.
 
@wayne1980 Don’t worry about bulking and cutting yet if you’re semi new to working out. You could do a recomp essentially and workout out hard while in a calorie deficit. Definitely possible to build some muscle while burning fat if you’re a new lifter. Just make sure you’re getting enough protein and rest. Once you get your rhythm and your body closer to your goals, you can look into cutting some more fat or doing a long slow bulk.
 
@wayne1980 Of course man. Reddit can be a great resource so don’t be afraid to ask for help. Biggest take away should be cutting calories and being in a 300cal deficit. If not, you aren’t going to get the results you’re after.

No workout program is going to out work a bad diet. I’d argue that diet is 80% + of fat loss. The other 20% is hydration and sleep. The exercising just helps build and maintain muscle. Add them both together and you will see results.
 
@wayne1980 Focus on lose the fat first, but since you're an untrained individual, you can gain muscle and lose far at high rates quickly. If that's your only equipment, get a bench, at least, and lear about exercising to find out what more stuff you need. But bodyweight exercises can be fine for you. Buy some parallels and a pull up bar. Then scalate difficulty and volume. Moderate the food intake progressively and keep doing effective cardio.
 
@wayne1980
  1. Lift heavy of course
  2. Cardio is fine but it wont be significant if u not doing the following:
-Stop consuming sugary foods (Key factor), throw every thing that is junk food or sweets out of ur house, dont even bother buy them during grocery. You will get to the point of feeling disgusted when there are sugary food in front of u, once that happen it is very to stay in shape.

-Considering lower your carb intake

-Increase protein intake, eat cooked meat and more meat (whey protein is optional)
  • prioritize walking as possible
 
@wayne1980 If by “Dad Bod” you mean “fat belly”, then step one should be calorie restriction. Lose the fat first, then build the muscle. Trying to do both at once is a losing battle.
 
@wayne1980 One big thing it strikes me you're missing is pull ups. Get a pull up bar and/or some gymnastic rings if you have somewhere to hang them. Rings also offer a ton of other upper body exercises to supplement your dbs.
 
I’d like to add in more protein to my diet. Will have to supplement. Would you go with an MRE protein shake or Whey? What’s your go to?
 
@wayne1980 Don’t have to supplement.
Frozen beef patties. Skinless boneless frozen chicken breasts. Eggs. Greek yogurt. Deli meat. All high protein relatively low calorie.
If you have to supplement, whey for sure. Much less bs than atkins shakes etc.
 
@wayne1980 Don't do MRE unless you are trying to gain which you aren't. It has other things in there aside from protein. Get a whey protein isolate. But aim to get your protein/calories from whole foods first if you can.
 
@wayne1980 I did a lot of the work to shed my dad bod in the first year using just dumbbells. I focused on a moderate cut while hitting my protein goals, so the noob gains were in my favor and I ended up with some muscle. You may consider getting a set of resistance bands to quickly expand the types of exercises you can do.

I’m now well into my second year and have expanded my gym slowly over time to include a rack, barbell, and cable system, but still do a lot of work with just dumbbells.
 
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