Hate your man boobs? You’re not alone. And, you won’t have to handle how to get rid of man boobs alone either. Why? We have all the info you need to lose the man boobs and replace them with muscles.

Dreaded man boobs are becoming a common site these days due to unhealthy dieting and lack of physical activity. This is not to be confused with gynecomastia. That is developed mainly from steroid use. Man boobs are not harmful to your body, but having them can cause you to lack confidence.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The best part is that it is quite easy to resolve the matter through proper training and dieting. Let’s take a look at what needs to happen for your man boobs to become pecs.

This Is Why Man Boobs Form

Man boobs form due to an excessive amount of calories being consumed and not used. Calories are what your body uses for energy and come from nutrients such as fats, carbs, and proteins. A high intake of any of them without being supplemented with physical activity will cause them to be stored as fat.

The carb is the most infamous nutrient for fat gains and often gets hated for it. However, you should note that carbs are actually good for your energy levels when consumed in moderate amounts.

A carb is basically sugar called glucose. Glucose is mainly stored in your liver and muscles. It’s called glycogen. When you work out, glycogen storages are released to keep your energy levels high. However, when these two storage areas become full, the overflow needs somewhere to go.

This new location is in fat cells called adipose. It will also pollute your blood sugar levels over time possibly causing insulin resistance. This is where the man boobs come in along with stomach fat. Other popular areas for fat storage are your butt, arms, face and neck.

Understand that fat does not just get stored in one single area, so when you diet you can’t focus on just getting rid of your man boobs. A proper diet is designed to target all body fat, which is better anyway to prevent heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.

Proper Dieting Leads To Fat Loss

Proper dieting will have you eating and losing fat. Improper dieting is starving yourself of nutrients to cause fat and muscle loss. Worse yet, you can shut your body down eventually if you do it for too long. So what you need to do is to take in fewer calories than you burn.

Basically, you should be eating enough calories to maintain a healthy life, but fewer calories than what you use for daily energy needs. This is how you lose fat the right way without causing harm to your body. When your body uses all the carbs up for energy, it then switches over to using fats called ketones. The shift in energy use for your body is called a metabolic switch.

Essentially you want to consume more protein than any of the other nutrients. This helps keep your body full and content. Healthy fat consumption is the second most important nutrient you should be eating. That will likely surprise people. It shouldn’t. Fats are truly good for your body when consumed correctly such as through olive oil in your salad dressing.

Nutritious carbs are to be eaten to give your body the energy it needs. That includes such things as quinoa, brown rice, and even oatmeal. Again, too much of anything is not good for fat loss, but eating too many carbs that are unhealthy will quickly boost fat gains. That is why you can’t be eating too many high sugar foods often. And, soda is included on that list. Once you start to lose body fat and have reached a point to where fat is not too big of an issue, you can then proceed to consuming foods for lean muscle gain.

Start A Lean Muscle Diet After Fat Loss

Fat loss dieting only needs to take place until a good percentage of your body fat has been lost, but not to the point of having saggy man boobs. The reason why you do not focus on complete fat loss is because you want to start tightening up the skin around the areas that contained large amounts of fat. In this case, that is your man boob region.

For lean muscle gains, you should consume more calories than your body needs for energy production. It should be only around 200 to 300 more calories. These extra calories are to support the growth of lean muscle while supplemented with training that is intended to boost muscle gains.

Cardio is good for fat loss, but it’s not the best for the muscle building programs you should be doing if you want to transform those man boobs into pecs. Remember, protein is vital for muscle retention and gains to occur. Protein synthesis is what occurs after training. That is when your body uses the protein that was consumed and replaces damaged muscle fibers following a workout.

Do Intense Cardio For Effective Fat Loss

Your fat loss diet will pair up with this type of training. Intense cardio means more than just running for an hour or jogging on the treadmill going nowhere. This type of cardio is good for strengthening your heart and lungs, but when it comes to fat loss, there is a catch. You will also need to research cardio before or after weights.

Studies have shown that steady cardio such as this is great for weight loss, but not fat loss.

Wait there is a difference?

Yes, it’s true. Weight loss is not to be confused with fat loss. When you lose body weight, you lose fat, muscle, water and even bone mass, too. Fat loss is just losing body fat.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is superior to steady cardio when it comes to fat loss and lean muscle gain. These are two things that you need to get rid of man boobs.

A study took men and placed them into two groups. One group performed HIIT for 30 minutes, three days a week. The other group ran for an hour, three days a week. The outcome was basically barely any fat loss from running and muscle mass actually decreased. However, the group performing HIIT lost a significant amount of fat and actually gained two pounds.

That is quite a difference, and the funny part about it is the HIIT group basically stayed the same in overall weight. But that group accomplished more because what we see in the weight scale doesn’t matter in most cases. The only exception is for those who are obese, or that take part in sports where overall weight matters. Other than that, do not even bother with standing on a weight scale.

Performing HIIT Is Key

HIIT is basically keeping your body in motion for one round of several exercises. You then take a very short break and repeat the round again usually four to six times. The intent of this training type is to deplete your body of oxygen. This depletion signals your body to rebuild it back up again over the course of the next 12 to 24 hours.

During this recovery phase, your body is burning fat at a heightened rate as protein synthesis is also taking place. Simply put, there’s a lot going on in your body to get you back and ready for the next training cycle. That’s why HIIT cardio is only recommended for three days per week.

In order to perform HIIT, you have to choose several exercises so that you can change up your workouts. Think run, jog, and sprint as an example. Changing your intensity makes your body have to switch energy usage and eventually depletes your oxygen supply.

When it comes to HIIT, don’t think that you are just stuck with forms of cardio. Using a mix of exercises is actually better because you can perform strength training and cardio in one training day. Here’s an example workout for you to use. Remember, after each training day you must take a rest day to recover.

Exercise Sets Reps

Dumbbell Goblet Squat x1 x15 (moderate weight)

Jump Rope x1 x30 seconds

Overhead Press x1 x10 (low weight)

Push-up x1 x20

Mountain Climber x1 x30 seconds

Bodyweight Squat x1 x25

Rest for 30 to 60 seconds.

Repeat three or four more times until 20 to 30 minutes of training have been reached.

You Need To Be Strength Training For Lean Muscle

Strength training for men goes along with the lean muscle diet. This type of training is quite versatile as it encourages muscle gains, increases bone strength and can even be done by seniors, assuming they are medically able to do so.

To get your man boobs converted over to muscle, you want to squeeze them pecs back into the place with chest workouts. In order to specifically target this area of your body, you must perform one targeted training day a week for two months. After those two months, you should do two chest isolation days per week.

Why is there a two-month wait period before you train your chest twice a week?

Obviously, if you have man boobs then you haven’t been very active, and the two months are used to get your body used to the extra attention its muscles are receiving. Rushing the process will usually result in muscle strain.

Now when we say twice a week it means there is a separation between the two days. For example, you isolate your pecs on Monday. In that case, the second day would be Thursday or Friday. The days between this break are to focus on other muscle regions so you are still keeping your body growing as a whole.

This Is How To Perform Strength Training

Strength training doesn’t really require the use of heavy weights. It’s actually better for you when you perform more reps with moderate resistance instead. You would basically be doing 8 to 12 reps per set for x3-4 sets for each exercise. Choose five exercises for your workout and then you are ready to go.

More exercises can be added once you progress and feel you have the muscle strength and endurance to add one or two more. You don’t need to train until muscle fatigue and your body honestly reacts better with enough rest. So let’s get rid of those man boobs for good with the following easy strength workout for your pecs.

 

Exercise Sets Reps

Incline Dumbbell Press x4 x8-10

Close Neutral Grip Dumbbell Press x3 x8-10

Bent Arm Dumbbell Flye x3 x8-10

Single Arm Machine Press 45-Degree sit x3 x8-10

Cable Rope Triceps Pulldown x4 x8-10

Single Arm Machine Press 45-Degree Sit

 

This last exercise is not common so we should discuss it. The intent behind this exercise is to fully contract your pecs and shape the inner region of your chest muscles. You may see a similar movement where the person sits completely sideways on the machine.

But, being seated at a 45-degree angle and pressing places much more emphasis in contraction. The way you achieve this is by placing taking a seat where the pointed edge in the front is directly between your legs, and then gripping the handle slightly near the end. Using a low-moderate resistance level, you press the handle forward and squeeze your pecs.

Conclusion

Do you really want it?

If so, the good news is that getting rid of your man boobs can happen. Converting your man boobs into pecs is not as farfetched as some people believe it to be. Simple dieting supplemented with proper training is always effective when executed the right way. Diving in headfirst is just going to cause muscle strain or other potential issues.

Take the time to learn the exercises and transition into physical training.

By Brian Pankau, CPT