I’m currently skinny fat and I’ve been trying different things like sprinting, bodyweight exercises, weightlifting etc… But haven’t seen any significant changes. I think that is because I don’t have a workout and diet plan or strategy. If anybody has something that worked for them kindly share your strategy and your over all experience.
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> I’m currently skinny fat and I’ve been trying different things like sprinting, bodyweight exercises, weightlifting etc… But haven’t seen any significant changes. I think that is because I don’t have a workout and diet plan or strategy.
How long have you been doing it?
Can’t out train a shitty diet.
Cut the sprinting and focus on weights, eat 3,000 cals a day. Don’t do cardio (just walk) – cardio means burning calories which you need for volume.
You either bulk or cut, forget about the 6 pack for a while. Getting bigger is harder than getting smaller.
WTF is “skinny fat”?
You need to manage calories and lean body mass.
You probably should first cut weight (calories deficit) until a low body fat percentage. You probably won’t love how you look because you don’t have a lot of lean body mass yet.
From here, then do a ‘bulk’ surplus of calories with weight training.
A good overview in this Youtube: https://youtu.be/eDQbx70Tl4E
Also, get Myfitnesspal is free and log your food.
Most people fail because they don’t stick to either cutting or bulking and don’t manage calorie intake.
It takes time. Good luck.
5×5 StrongLifts is 5 compound exercises that start small and progressively move up. A/B routine is simple you’re doing one of two sets.
People say you can’t out train a shitty diet but being skinny fat, my problem wasn’t eating too many calories. The junk food was an efficient calorie delivery method when I didn’t want to eat much food. I didn’t have to change my diet at all to drop 40lbs and get strong in under six months in my early 30s.
Lifting and good diet
Diet was more impactful than exercise for me, trimmed right down in about 6 months sticking to salads/white meats as macros, almonds for snacks, and dark chocolate for deserts.
Reducing going out and drinking also makes a huge impact, as well as cutting out most sugar. In that department, seltzers are the way
Edit: this doesn’t mean you can’t indulge every once in awhile but it’s easy to fall out of
Edit 2: also would recommend what the other redditors suggest and lift weights to build out a little more
I would summarize my own journey plus the people below:
– Eat a clean 2700-3000 calories a day and train hard
– Give yourself minimum 1 year to build more muscle and 2-3 years to have your skin tighten up as it takes some time (pending your age/stage/how skinny fat you were)
– Training should focus on weights over cardio. Cardio should be any activity you love when you love it (Sex/Hockey/Hike/Soccer – you name it, as long as you love it)
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I have been eating heavier calories now for 5 weeks and the difference is night and day in my body progress!
Ate less and slightly better. Not a huge change to diet, just less food.
I got on trt and found that was the only way I ever was able to put on muscle. I did 5×5, squat everyday for 30 days and every other thing along with a perfect diet. Only later did I find my testosterone was at levels of a 75 year old man.
Your body type will also make a difference in how much muscle you can build or where. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic (not bro weightlifter theories) have shown the strongest tie is body proportions, bone mass and testosterone levels as the highest natural indicators of ability to put on muscle. Muscle is the least thick at your wrists and ankles, if you have thin wrists and ankles, your bone mass is far less than someone with thick wrists and ankles, that’s what the science says, anyway.
If you’re ever at the gym, just take a look around at the wrist size of guys, I can promise you the big guys will have thick wrists, mainly as muscle connects to bone, more bone mass, more muscle can grow. Muscle does not connect to itself and the less area it has to connect to, the less of a plateau you have.
Trial & error and consistency. My first two years of lifting were more or less wasted due to lack of knowledge.
As of October I’ve been training 10 years and worked as a P.T. for some time.
Aside from hiring a P.T. the best thing you can do is go with an experienced friend, binge free youtube videos on everything from form to diet, and never be afraid to ask for advice.
Lifting weights consistently and realizing it’s more important that cardio, or specifically low intensity cardio
Diet and exercise. Simple to say- more complicated to implement due to a lot of bs, marketing and nutritionally misleading labels out there.
Also- something I’ve found is that many people who are genuinely motivated to make positive change have no clue about the intensity required to do it. It’s not easy- but it is worth it.
I recommend you pay and get help from coaches.
Can you do it on your own? Sure- I did and lots do. But if I look back- I could have massively shortened my learning curve if I had just paid someone to help me with the weight room and nutrition earlier in life.
The short version for nutrition is eat whole foods found usually on the outside aisles of the grocery stores. Processed items aren’t your friend. Learn to cook and make shakes.
Find a trainer that trains the old way- the new stuff can work- but what worked in the 70’s works the best today unless you have some type of injury requiring modifications. A good coach can help you here too.
There are tree different approaches. Skinny fat means low muscle high body fat.
1. Body recomp: eat at maintenance and lift. You are gonna recomp the body by losing fat and gaining muscle. Truth is this approach is extremely slow and is gonna take you years. It is fairly easy physically as you will eat a good amount of food but mentally draining because of the slow results. The more time passes, the less you respond to training without a surplus so it gets progressively even slower. But it works at the end if you are willing to put the years.
2. Bulk: caloric surplus and lifting. You are solving the low muscle part but not the high body fat. You need to build the muscle and then lose the fat in two different stages. It is an option but you are going to gain more fat during the bulk. That’s mentally hard and might stop you from bulking effectively as you will look progressively worse before looking better.
2. Cut: the approach I went for after the two above failed for the reasons I explained. Eat less and move more while lifting, focus on losing weight and body fat first. Physically harder because of the low calories for a long time and lack of results in the gym..however, you get a positive feedback as you will look more thin over time, clothes fit better, scale moves and you will look better over time. Generally faster approach. You will look skinny only at some point without fat and you will be prime for a proper bulk. I’ll finish my cut in October, I’m now quite skinny and although I lifted the whole time I didn’t build much muscle. But I’m ready for a good bulk to solve the muscle issue starting with a low body fat now
Pick your poison
Check r/fitness
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you need to involve more cardio, and a better diet.
you’re going in circles if you aren’t following a diet.
My husband joined me doing intermittent fasting. He’s never looked better. We’ve been doing it a few years now and will never go back.
Diet and exercise
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