Reddit mentions of The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle

The most common misconception about eliminating fat from a specific area of the body--in your case, the chest--is that you need to exercise that particular area to do so: ie through things like pushups or bench press reps. THAT is not the case. To eliminate fat, you need to get your body to call upon (metabolize) all its fat reserves in order to burn the energy you use when you work out. How is this done? Here is the basic model: eat less (and better) and move more (and harder); otherwise known as a healthy, low calorie diet and exercise. Make healthy eating choices, and get an excise routine for yourself. Cool? Now, this is only half the battle, though. The other half is developing the muscles beneath that layer of pesky poundage. I recommend a robust weight lifting routine as weights tend to develop muscle and burn fat efficiently. Don't shy away from cardio pursuits like jogging or swimming either.

The point is to tone and harden your muscles whilst burning through the fat reserves your body has--effectively burning the candle at both ends. If you only do one--say, just excercise, but no diet--you'll be a big guy who might get muscles and be a tad healthier, but you won't loose fat as efficiently and your fitness progress is hindered immensely. You do the other--diet only--you'll screw with your body's metabolism. You might loose weight, but you won't see the results you'll like, and you'll probably yo-yo back anyway.

Feel free to pick the brains of r/weightroom and r/fitness over as well. there are some real savvy people there who'd love to answer your questions I'm sure. Good luck, dude!

edit: some clarity and grammar stuff.

If you want more detail than the FAQ contains (it's good, read it, use it as a launching point for further research), I recommend The New Rules of Lifting which includes a lot of detailed fitness information, diet, and several training programs, including several tailored for fat loss.

Mind: I still prefer the SS protocol. It's simple and effective.

And for all the nuance and detail of lifting and fat loss, it boils down to full-body compound lifting in the 3-6 rep range for strength, and eating at a deficit for fat loss.

For your cardio: once you're down with steady-state work, try looking at HIIT / interval protocols.

There are many ways to tone up your chest area. I'd look into strength training, body building, swimming, or maybe rock climbing.

I recommend this book: The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle to learn about strength training, exercise technique, and dieting.

Obviously, the pot and junk food aren't helping you. I'd at least cut back.

You asked this question quite a while ago, but it's been nagging at me, so I'm going to put down some thoughts here.

I have a similar complaint. After 2 years of lifting I'm still weaker than a lot of people who I know don't do formal weight lifting. I think the advantage they have is their habits and hobbies keep them moving and lifting. I let myself get into really bad shape before I'd had enough.

It's kind of discouraging to work so hard and still be so far behind. To keep myself motivated I remind myself how much better my life is. For example, last night I got home from work and mowed the lawn and did some yard work. It used to be that mowing the lawn was the big task for Saturday that would leave worn out. Now I can play with my daughter and my dog, pick up a shovel and do some digging, decided at the last minute to mow the lawn, and it's not a big deal.

Reading through your other comments I see you squat 250. Dude, that's a lot of weight. I was at 185 before an injury that put me back 2 months. You're doing great.

Okay, a couple of suggestions.

1. Move onto move complex lifting patterns. SS and SL both are both beginner programs. I really like the New Rules of Lifting. It has the same philosophy as SS and SL: Compound lifts with free weights are the way to go. It has several year long training programs you can pick from.
   
   
2. Do some "real world" lifting. This is something I'm just starting to play with. I have 2 5 gallon buckets filled with concrete, they weigh about 80lbs a each. Moving them around is a real work out. I'm going to keep them around and do things like farmers walks, or "dead lifts" with them.

There is no long lasting importance to high protein intake for weight loss. I know, I'm losing weight and athletic. It can help with hunger, some say.

More important is to watch your intake of simple carbs. I learned about the Glycemic Index of foods and that was an eye opener. The foods that are high glycemic index will throw you into food cravings, so avoid them and keep the body balanced. Your Japanese diet sounds good. Because of the high fiber of the veggies you eat with the rice, that will help balance the high glicemic index of the rice. You could take an extra fiber supplement (psyllium, ground flax seed) each time you eat the rice, too.

My husband is 6'2", 178 lbs and a marathon runner. He is watching his nutritional balance and he eats about 2500+ calories a day, and consistently about 12% are from protein.

Since I'm losing weight (female, 5'8", 149 lbs, lost 8, have 9 to go) I'm doing the app LoseIT with great success.
You've got to track calories in. My protein intake is about 16% of my nutritional intake. LoseIT tracks your nutritional values. I am losing weight with that amount of protein intake.

Also, I --and many others-- do circuit training indoors at home. I got The New Rules of Lifting (for me, I got the one for women), and picked 6 exercises. I use free weights, and set a Timex Ironman watch countdown/repeat timer to repeat every minute, and I do one lifting exercise for 1 minute, then I do one of three things: 1. standing in place crunches by lifting one knee to opposite elbow or 2. standing in place pretending to cross-country ski or 3. lifting one leg out to the side while raising the opposite fist with a light weight. Each standing in place movement is done for a minute.

When the timer goes off, I switch between a weight exercise or the standing in place exercise. I do this for 3 rounds. That's 12 minutes a round, so 36 minutes of working out. It can be as hard or easy as you like, depending on the weights and how vigorously you do the standing in place actions.

Hope that helps! Best. Gombatte!

You are obviously competent to take care of your own fitness and this is not meant to be any sort of judgment or rebuttal to your statement, but I think there are different ways to exercise that determine the shape of your body. I don't dispute that you are healthy at 215lbs, but if you'd like to change your appearance (slimmer waist and more "classic" proportions) check out New Rules of Lifting. Again this is not to suggest that what you are doing is wrong, just a suggestion about how to get different results if you want to.

The New Rules of Weightlifting

This is a good book. The authors are very much of the old "shut up and squat" school of thought; the excercises and workouts are simple and effective.

Also, this guy's Westside for Skinny Bastards workout worked really well for me when I was on it. I'm pretty ectomorphic and I gained ~10 lbs of muscle.