r/fitness30plus

I've been working hard on having a balanced, athletic, capable body. I'm not too focused on a specific esthetic - I seek harmony.

That said, once I leaned out, I realized my stronger, more defined upper body kind of overshadows the hips from the front view. These pictures don't do my broad shoulders justice 😆

I'm aware that we can't change our hip structure but I assume that working on glute medius could help visually? If you agree, which exercises you think or have found to be most efficient? How often would you recommend doing them?

I've always done seated hip abductions and cable kickbacks but maybe I'm not doing them right. From the side view, I think my glutes look great in relation to my waist (I see the growth happening over the past few months), but from the front not much has been changing.

I was also thinking that working on my core a certain way could help but I already avoid heavy oblique training and I don't think I should lean out even more, that would harm the goals rather than help.

Anyway, thanks to anyone who's gonna share some advice!

Last 3 pics were taken at the absolute best point of my life and my physique. I’m still trying to improve and I believe I will.
The gym has really become my life.
I started as 95kgs - 209.4 lbs
Then became 68kgs - 149.9 lbs.
Actually on the first picture I was already a lot of weight down. My goal was a weight loss and then it became a muscle gain.

Muscles on women that’s something that I find incredibly beautiful. That’s definitely not for everyone and some might say “Ew you look like a man”
Well so be it. I enjoy working out and it definitely is such a great therapy!

Throughout my progress I had sooo many setbacks but at the end of the day I still made so much progress. The gym is really the best thing that happened to me. I would highly recommend getting into the gym

Hey everyone, 36-year-old dad here.

I wanted to share my progress after 13 months of work.

The picture on the left isn’t actually my starting point. At my heaviest I was 118 kg, but I deleted those photos because looking at them caused me a lot of pain at the time. I regret it now. In the picture on the left I had already lost around 10 kg.

I started going to the gym at the end of July 2025, training 4 times a week and recently moving up to 5.
I’m really happy with the result so far. Now I’d like to add some more muscle while staying athletic. At 191 cm with long limbs, filling out my frame isn’t easy, so I’m happy with my current proportions.

Most of all, I hope this can give some hope to other dads who feel like they’re getting old and their best years are behind them. That’s exactly how I felt.

36 is just a number. For me, it was a new beginning.

Keep your head down, put in the work and fight every “it’s too late”.

At 36, I have the best physique I’ve ever had.

Hey y’all!

It’s been almost 11 months of lifting now and what a journey it has been. I was a long-distance runner for years and super skinny. I’m 6’ 1’’ and frequently weighed in the 130s.

Now I’m ~170 and feel better and feel like I look better!

For most of this time, I lifted 4-6 days per week. A little less recently because life has been busy, but committed to never stopping. It’s a marathon, not a sprint!

Thanks for all your posts here and encouragement. Let’s get after it!

In my 20s I was literally unable to break 98 pounds despite eating basically the Super Size Me diet and having a sedentary job. All I had to do to get a slight 6 pack was wake up slightly hungry and a little dehydrated.

I had a huge ego about it. I felt contempt for fat people and anyone who couldn’t lose weight. “Stubborn” fat? What a joke! What total lack of self discipline these people must have!

Then I aged ten years, quit nicotine and in what seemed like 3 days my belly hung over my belt buckle. 

“No problem!” I smirked, “I’ll go God-Mode for a few days and be back to normal.”

God-Mode was a single Huel shake (600 calories) a day. It was completely unsustainable, I was starving all the time, but at least I should be losing weight like a plague-victim, right?

The weight didn’t budge. Some days, it went down a bit. Other days, it went up. After a few weeks, I switched to OMAD + zero processed food or carbs.

It’s been six months of zero processed foods, OMAD, and calorie restriction my ego is shredded. The rules aren’t working. The math isn’t mathing.

No, I’m not delusional. I’m not accidentally undercounting sugar in my morning coffee or beer in the evening or sneaking off to the fridge at night. And I’m extremely physically active, including biking to work in a hilly city, 70 pound KB swings, weight jump rope, running, walking everywhere, and weight lifting, and a standing desk.

One thing that’s very clear to me now is that CICO doesn’t tell the whole story. The same calorie in one person is not the same calorie in another. And something has changed at an environmental level that’s made the old rules basically obsolete.

I have a diet and lifestyle that 50 years ago would have gotten me either committed to an insane asylum or an olympic gold medal. It shouldn’t take this much effort to lose weight. This is stupid. It’s insane.

Something is making our bodies fat that has nothing to do with calories or self-discipline. I’m not saying it’s impossible to lose weight, but it shouldn’t be this hard. My parents and grandparents were skinny as fuck, ate like shit, and never exercised. I’ve spent months at what should be an extreme calorie deficit, with no results.

So, anyway, sorry to all the people I judged and mocked for trying hard with no results. I thought you must not be trying that hard. But you were.

Edit: responses here sound exactly like me a few years ago, thus proving my point

I’m 5’2 so technically a hobbit. December 2025 I was around 108/110 lbs and coming off a cut, eating roughly 1700/1800 calories. I liked being lean because it helped curb my PCOS symptoms. But it also wasn’t the physique I wanted. I always enjoyed being more well rounded, if you know what I mean.

This morning I was 116 lbs. Upped my calories to my TDEE, usually somewhere around 2000/2500, kept protein high, and focused much more seriously on progressive overload and getting stronger.

Side quest- I have PCOS, my weight fluctuates a lot, and I still occasionally have binge days where calories get way higher than planned which then leads to 5/10lbs of inflammation and water weight. Not fun, do not recommend. There have been weeks where I’ve looked at the scale and immediately wanted to cut again. But comparing these photos has been a good reminder that gaining muscle is the best thing I can do for myself at this stage of my life.

Hey all, 36m here. I have been in decent shape for most of my life. Having gotten ripped in my 20s and mostly maintaining decent fitness since. Never going much higher than 200.

2 years ago I had my first serious injury to my ankle and was off my feet for months. Then my relationship soured and I got heavy, sluggish, and unhappy. I finally ended it in march, and started my new chapter pretty quickly.

I train a lot. at first I focused on walking and calisthenics. Using the land and my dogs to increase my movement drastically. Then I started lifting heavy. The hardest and most impressive part for me was my consistency and my diet. I lost the weight really fast getting to 200 in like 6 weeks.

From there it was just keeping at it. I had a big trip in August which I was working to. Since then I’ve eased up a bit on diet in favor of quality of life and better lifts. I will probably try and cut to 170 before going into a full on bulk, but the recent weight gain from maintenance was way more tolerable than I expected. During the main cut, I would feel like a failure if the scale went up the next day regardless of my progress. Now I rely on the mirror. Hard work pays off and I’m shocked how well my body adapts still at 36!

I started lifting four years ago at 44. I had slowly started holding onto weight and did not really notice until I was at 150 lbs and over 35% body fat.

The first stretch was mostly figuring out what I was doing wrong. I was working out, but I was not eating enough to actually fuel the training, and I did not understand macros or how much protein I needed. Once I dialed those in, ate enough calories to recover (around 1,500), and started timing carbs around pre and post workout, the change actually showed up.

Weighed in today at 119 lbs and about 20% body fat. I have a few more pounds to lose then switch to slow lean build. It’s been a lifestyle change and I’m loving it!