Help me critique my plan to escape skinny fatness!

I would add weights as others have mentioned. The body weight w/o is good. Break them up into groups of three or four and do rounds of them. Maybe 3 to 5 sets in a 10 to 15 minute cycle.

But get access to some free weights - both barbell and dumbbell. Youtube some different lifts or exercises with weights.

I would go heavy on lean protein including a good, clean protein powder (I avoid powders that add artificial sweeteners).

Good luck.

I'll share my experience. Profile is the last pic I shot @ 169lbs. in January, down from 207. I started doing Stronglifts 5x5 a couple of years ago just before I joined MFP but actually gained too much weight (227) since I wasn't already lean and started consuming nearly 3000 cals/ day! I was getting a lot stronger but also a lot flabbier. No cardio was involved, however, I am a runner.

When I realized this error what I did was figure out what my BMR was, set my MFP activity settings to sedentary and then told it that I wanted to lose 1 lb. per week which was a 500 calorie deficit per day. This gave me my base number of cals to work with. I also stayed with the default macro partitioning set by MFP. Then each and every day I calculated and ate ALL of my exercise calories back - a consistent 500 calorie deficit was good enough. It was a slow, steady, healthy pace. During that time I continued doing SL 5x5 but eventually stopped altogether when the expenditure from heavier weights became too great in comparison to what I was consuming. Then I resumed running 3 x's/ week (8-14km)

With the consistent 500 cal deficit and eating exercise cals back, I lost 1 lb./ week like clockwork with a temporary plateau around 190ish and then again around 180. Both times took about 3 weeks before I saw progress again. I just kept plugging along and went to 169 in about 15 months. At 169 my body just told me that was enough and it was starting to show, thus I knew I reached my goal. Anything lower and I would've started started losing muscle and looking unhealthy.

The plan all along however was to lose the weight and most of my BF and then resume SL 5x5 which I'm back on now because weightlifting is what gives you a nicer body composition. Therefore, as much as I love running, I now either go for a 15-20 minute run right after weightlifting or a longer easygoing run once a week for about an hour because recovery and rest days after weightlifting is more important. Plus once the weightlifting becomes a challenge you'll see that you won't want to be doing much cardio afterwards anyway, lol.

I eat nearly 3000 cals again today (after weights) a year later only this time it gets burned off like kindling in a fire! It's easier to sense if I'm gaining unnecessary weight now and can adjust accordingly. So a plan, patience, consistency, rest... let these do their job. For a plan, I read the Stronglifts report as a starting point a couple of years ago and believe it is still there to freely download. I definitely watch form/ technique videos and search for credible advice when in doubt of anything. i.e. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fmrKmJMQnw

:bigsmile: