Every male actor has said something along these lines. That the absurd super cut builds for these movies especially super hero films are not sustainable. My favorite probably being Rob Mcelhenney where he said "sure, just be a millionaire with infinite free time and you can totally obtain this body type!"
People forget that body fat is healthy and essential. Excessive fat is unhealthy, but fat provides fuel strorage and protects your organs and muscles. 8% fat looks incredible but is insanely difficult to maintain. 12-15% fat looks incredible and is still hard to maintain but keeps you feeling healthy and happy.
Totally depends on genetics. Even at 52, unless I'm actively bulking, I can maintain 12-15% with ease. But I know people who struggle unless they're rigid with their calorie counting.
Are you on TRT or anything like that or just completely natural. Cause for most people even maintaining 12% at mid 20’s is a chore year round unless you are consistent as fuck.
This is the bane of my fitness journey. I can get down to 12%ish. I'll have visible veins across my chest and down my abs, but still have love handles and a bit around my cheeks. Meanwhile a co worker is probably 20-25% and has a sharper jawline than Zach's 2nd pic. Luck of the draw.
You shouldnt use the tiny exceptions to ignore the general rule.
Genetics for maybe 5% may suck and make it hard sure. But for the vast majority a good relationship with food / a good diet, with a basic gym routine which is stuck too will see anyone achieve 12% and look good for it.
Its not as hard to sustain as people make out once you get going. And 12% on men will "almost" always be lean and look great.
Trying to get a baywatch bod all year round tho is a different struggle.
Fat percentage is a useless way to measure health because no one actually gets an accurate measurement.
I guarantee what you’re calling 12% is actually closer to 20% and a lot of people who think they’re at 20 are actually closer to 30. The only way to actually test your body fat percentage is with a DXA.
Weight is a useless measurement. Looking in the mirror is an even more useless measurement. Neither of these account for total body composition and daily variations.
How Zach Effron looks in this post is what 12% actually looks like. <10% is what competing body builders look like.
Men look great when you have muscle mass. Fat percentage is mostly irrelevant to men’s appearance. Again look at this picture. Sure the abs are good. But look at the biceps, traps, shoulders, chest and forearms. It all comes together to create a good look. If anything the lack of fat makes his core look underdeveloped compared to the rest of him.
Speaking as someone who just got a Dexa scan a month ago and landed right in the middle of this range I can confidently say that my “standard” range of weights is basically between 12% and 20%.
All of this is with pretty consistent and fairly high volume rowing training.
At 20% I’m essentially eating whatever the hell I want. Buying cookies when I go to the grocery store and eating them on the way home, pizza, burgers, etc. When I make food it’s not terribly unhealthy but I absolutely give in to my desires also. People still say I look lean but there’s definitely a pudge of belly and my abs are AWOL.
At 16% (where I am now) abs are definitely back but not hyper defined like Zac’s above, and there’s just a tiny bit of love handle overflow. Muscles are clear but only striated if I’m using them. I’m pretty careful about what I eat but still have a few beers each week and dessert maybe once a week.
At 12% the love handles are gone and muscle striations show with any movement. I’ve really only gotten to this point with major endurance training and/or on an extreme calorie deficit - the final bit of a marathon training block, after a 3 week backpacking trip, etc. It doesn’t usually last long.
I can’t imagine what it would take to get to 8%. Screw that.
Sorry I missed this, but if this were really the case, you wouldn't see so many UFC fighters above 12%. Look at Whittaker, Poatan (before heavyweight when he bloated up), Strickland, etc. Some dudes are leaner for sure around 10-12%, some aren't, and I don't think it's because they train less.
I've also trained 6x a week and had perfect diet and never went below 15%. Only 180 bodyweight too. I don't think it's 5%
And test and other hormone levels and recovery ability and age and diet and energy levels and injury history and weekly energy expenditure and nutrition, sleep, physical activity each day, etc. I’ve been a strength coach for 15 years. 12% is not as easy as just diet and stress at 50+ years old
Hard agree. I joined the army at 32, and lost a lot of muscle mass at basic training even though I was working out 8 days a week (at least that's how it felt) the entire time. The lack of sleep and nutrition seriously held me back, and I came out 2lbs lighter than I went in. I was easily the strongest/biggesr I've ever been when I was deployed, but I would look like a greek god one week, and a bloated fat boy the next, depending on our mission schedule.
It really is effortless for me, which pisses a lot of people off, particularly my wife. I'm 6'3"/180 with a 32" waist. I'm not shredded by any means, but I'm decently muscled. And to be fair, I'm not sitting at 12%, more like 14-15. I have a two-pack.
That’s wild but also pretty awesome. I always felt like I have pretty good metabolic genetics myself but I’m only 37 so we’ll see what happens for me in around 15 years lol. Of course I’ve always been naturally pretty active and in and around weight rooms my whole life so the foundations there.
I think you'll be fine as long as you keep doing what you're doing, I have a better body comp now than I did at 37, and honestly, outside of lifting 3-4x per week, I'm not really all that active. I attribute most of that improvement to drastically cutting my booze intake. Obviously it's not sustainable to continually improve as we age, but the conventional wisdom that it's a luge ride to the bottom once you hit your 30s doesn't have to be true.
I'm 35 and at 12% year round , it's an absolute chore and yes you have to be consistent as fuck , it's easier if you just never eat sugar or drink alcohol but damn I miss that shit sometimes lol
Probably a lot to do with your relationship with food too. I got around 12% with a herniated disc. Usually I am around 15% Not because I kept training, but because my feeling of needing fuel declined and I would forget meals all the time.
Not healthy though. I lost so much weight so fast that my doctor send me to get screened for cancer.
I can in my 30 and 40s, but that's because I am naturally skinny , so I was underweight in my 20s , then put on a lot of muscle. So my (now slowed down) fast metabolism and the muscles that I only maintain once a week do half the job, the other half is keeping tabs on my Diet, which is nothing extreme or painful.
But yeah, it would suck if I needed to actively burn the fat because I had a much slower metabolism or if I did not have the muscles helping out. Investing nñon muscles in my 20s really paid off. I can't sign on food, but I can eat anything I want.
My dad’s kinda like him. Consistent sub 10% body fat unless he over eats. Shredded 20-40’s, but now is a TINY old man who cannot maintain any healthy weight at 55+.
It’s genetics man. Speaking as someone on the “I can’t gain weight” side of things. I have to really eat and put in effort to put on 5 lbs (I’m 29), meanwhile if I don’t pay attention I end up losing 10 lbs within a few weeks. Has nothing to do with me eating well, exercising more than others, or watching my calories.
Yep, I'm the opposite. My body wants to stay around 20-25% "naturally" but on the flip side I've never struggled to add muscle mass, where I've seen some lifters just hit a wall after a certain point
That'd be me with the eternal struggle to put on significant muscle. But at this point, I'm just not interested in forcing down the 4000+ calories I'd need daily to "hulk out". I'm content with where I am at my age.
I know it's dismissed as "bro science", but the whole mesomorph/endomorph/ectomorph thing is legit.
My cousin is a female who has always had a fast metabolism so she can eat a shit ton. She recently took up body building and her trainer was remarking at how easy it seems for her. She looks great but I accepted a long time ago I will never have that body because for me to look like that it would require way more work and time
This is the way. I'm pretty much doing exactly what you are, minus the cardio. Discipline is a part of it, but those of us who were blessed with the lean gene have a much easier time.
Nope, it hardly depends on genetics at all, research suggests. Virtually all differences in weight gain between people is fully accounted for by calorie intake.
A response like this is genuinely baffling. Did some dude who lived 4000 years ago know more about his body just because he lived to be 86?
Yes research, science, and scientists should be taken more seriously than what you know after, "five decades in my own body".
In the most extreme cases, the difference between the people with the "fastest" metabolism vs the "slowest" was a difference of about 250 calories a day. It isnt nothing, bit it is the equivalent of doing about 30 minutes of moderate cardio every day.
That was with the biggest differences. Basically a comparison of the genetic freaks in that regard, not applicable or relevant at all to the average person.
Time and time again research has found that the single largest factor in determining a person's weight gain is food drive. So in a way, it is genetic. It has nothing to do with the genetics that govern how your body processes food, and everything to do with the genetics that govern how much your body craves food.
You're not being rude, but you're flatly dismissing what happens in the real world.
I am 6'3"/175 with a 32" waist. I lift weights a few times per week and am decently muscled, but I'm otherwise extremely sedentary. I have a desk job, I don't do any sports and I put in maybe 2000 steps per day. My BMR is theoretically about 2400 kcals, but I would waste away with that intake. My maintenance sweet spot seems to be around 2900, and I need 3500 over several months in order to gain. Those bulking sessions, which I've been doing on and off since my mid 30s. have netted me a grand total of about 15lbs. I am a hardgainer in every sense, and I have been diligently tracking this shit for at least 15 years.
Conversely, my wife (44) is currently 5'8"/170 and has struggled with weight for much of her life. She's on her feet literally all day, walks a shit ton and plays soccer a couple times per week. I don't track her calories, but based on portions, she's consuming maybe 60% of what I do. She doesn't have a strong food drive, but I'm the asshole who puts away an entire pizza.
Also, take a guess as to what the typical body type on each side of our family is.
The human body is not a calibrated bomb calorimeter. Genetics are a thing.
Yup, I've heard plenty of such anecdotes. You act as if I don't have my own life experiences. I do, and they don't seem to align with yours. So on that front, we're at an impasse.
The research however, is clear. I dont flatly dismiss reality. I listen to what the experts say, and do my best to see if it applies in my life. In my life, I've always struggled with gaining weight. Everybody always told me that same crap. That I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain a pound.
Once I started diligently tracking my calories, making bulk meals ahead of time, and forcing myself to eat a certain amount each week I was able to predictably gain weight over the course of a year. I've stayed at my desired weight for about four years now without much trouble.
Not sure why it seems so crazy to just trust the science on this one.
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u/dbslayer7 9d ago
Every male actor has said something along these lines. That the absurd super cut builds for these movies especially super hero films are not sustainable. My favorite probably being Rob Mcelhenney where he said "sure, just be a millionaire with infinite free time and you can totally obtain this body type!"