Over the years of personal training, I’ve spoke to a lot of guys that complain that they’re ‘skinny fat’. They’re light on the scale but not lean. They complain they’ve got a lot of body fat, especially around the stomach. It’s common! And a pressing issue for a lot of guys.
So why is it you can be skinny fat? What’s the root cause?
The answer is simple.
You have too much body fat and more importantly not enough muscle tissue.
As a result, your body weight is actually pretty light but fails to present itself with a nice leanness.
So now we know why we’re skinny fat, let’s talk about what we need to focus on to improve the situation…
There are a few key things that we must prioritise if we’re to go from skinny and fat to lean and muscular (and I’m not talking bodybuilder big here! think more so Brad Pitt fight club big)
Training
Far too many guys focus heavily on nutrition in an attempt to improve their skinny fat body composition.
And I get it! Why? Because, nutrition is easy!! All you have to do is go fork to mouth and be consistent! Simple, easy!
Now, if we’re to really improve this situation it’s actually training we need to master.
We need consistent, accurate and progressive training. And when I say training, I’m talking weight training! Not cardio. Not body weight exercises at home. Not press ups before work. Weight training, with good equipment, ideally in a gym!
The reason for this is so; if we’re to resolve the skinny fat we need to improve tissue balance.
We need more muscle tissue and less fat tissue.
Weight training is so important because it’s the best stimulus we can present to our body to help us grow new muscle tissue. So, we use weight training to add the muscle tissue and that’s half of the equation solved.
Now, as I said above, this training must be accurate and it must be progressive. Lifting a weight from point A to point B won’t suffice. You’ll know this as we’ve all seen guys yanking machines in the gym that look the same year on year.
We need accuracy as accuracy means tension being placed through the muscle we’re trying to train. This is essential if we’re to add new muscle tissue.
What’s also essential is using exercises that fit our individual body structure. Perhaps you’ve been led to believe that you need to barbell squat to get big legs? But what if you’ve got a short torso in comparison to your femurs (thigh bones)? Well, good luck building bigger legs if this is so.
So, accurate lifting, using exercises that fit your individual structure. Once we’ve got this down, we then need to ensure we’re progressing the lifts with greater tension, slower tempos or more load (notice I didn’t just say more load – it isn’t just about more load!)
Nutrition
Ok now as much as training is important, nutrition is also important.
This body composition game isn’t 50% this, 50% that. It’s 100% all. Well, at least you should try to shoot for 100%.
Anyway, nutrition…
After all, what good is that quality stimulus from the weight training if we’re not providing the raw materials to help support it to transition into muscle tissue.
Nutrition is pretty simple. We need a surplus of calories to add body weight. We need a deficit of calories to lose body weight.
How this is made up will vary based on a few things: preferences, accessibility, cooking ability and physiological need.
As you may know by now if you read our other blogs or listen to our podcast, we’re big fans of animal-based nutrition given the nutritional bioavailability it provides. Not only will animal protein provide, well, protein, it’ll also provided other key nutrients we require from a health perspective such as zinc, iron, B vitamins, creatine, carnitine, essentially fatty acids, shall I continue?
Here are a few more things to consider…
Protein feedings from 3-5 per day – 30-50g per feeding based on body weight. Some healthy fats e.g. grass fed butter, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, omega 3s, to support hormonal health & lower inflammation. And some carbohydrate based on the season. But remember, if you’re skinny fat, you likely won’t have a great ability to handle lots of carbohydrate yet, so try to prioritise protein and fats relative to caloric demands until this improves.
Quantum living
Ahh, the one that guys brush off.
Let’s run this up…
To optimise body composition, we need to be healthy.
To be healthy we need a healthy environment. This includes everything from the light we exposure ourselves to (both natural and artificial) to the interaction we have with the Earth, to the amount of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) e.g. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth we’re surrounded by.
All these things will largely influence health.
You see, health is much more about the food we consume and the exercise we do.
Here’s an easy quantum example to run through…
We need sufficient sunlight exposure at midday (when UVB sunlight is present) to build vitamin D. We need sulphated vitamin D built via the skin from the sun (not a pill!!) to signal our gut lining to repair itself. Without this stimulus, how do we expect to have good gut health? Without good gut health how do we expect to absorb the food we eat well? Without this, how do we expect to build muscle? You get the picture.
You can learn more about this in our podcast:
So, don’t overlook the quantum.
Get out in the sun, connect to the Earth, block blue light at night, process unresolved trauma and engage in temperature therapies such as Cold Thermogenesis or Sauna.
You do all the above and be consistent and you’ll be well on your way to going from a skinny fat looking boy to a muscular looking man in no time. In fact, that’s a lie. This’ll likely take you several years. Get to work!
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