The chronicles of being skinny fat

[Ronnie]

I used to be chubby as a kid. I lost a lot of that weight when I was 10 after going to summer camp. By high school I was this incredibly skinny stick with a fast metabolism. Sometime during college I was in danger of being underweight and I remember struggling to gain weight cause I couldn't eat enough. It was pretty frustrating.

Anyways some changes in my life happened and my hunger increased but metabolism decreased. I've been eating a lot of junk food and I've always been lazy since middle school. I always joked about blowing up into a fat man in my 30s but I never expected to grow a gut at 22 lol. Now I'm this skinny dude with a beer gut (I don't drink) and it's embarrassing as hell. I hate looking at myself in the mirror when all my old shirts expose my gut. I've always wanted to work out and look better since high school but now that my appearance really took a nose dive, I feel more motivated to be active. It's so hard to reduce the junk food consumption though!

[Slumber]

Hit the gym and do cardio.

I'm barrel chested and carry a lot of weight in my mid-section. So my body likes to hold fat in weird places. When I started getting more into nutrition and started losing weight, I noticed that I had really off body proportions that didn't seem to reflect my actual weight(About 150lbs). I still had a slim waist, but my chest was huge(But lacked definition) and I had love-handles, which is a nightmare for a guy.

Having a proper diet can help a lot, but making sure my body stores more weight as muscle helped me a lot more than just cutting down on junk. A good diet is key to losing weight. If you're somebody like me, though, you probably need muscle to go along with it for it to actually show.

Edited January 2, 2018 by Slumber

[EricaofRenais]

Losing weight slowly is the best way because it stays off better then if you drop a lot of water weight.  I needed to lose weight and I have.  What I did was I cut out a lot of the crabs I was eating and I started working out on the areas I want to look better sit ups work very well on stomachs, at least for me.  Just make changes to what you eat, like nuts instead of chips and fruit and veggies instead of other junk food.  

[eclipse]

Are you drinking soda?

If you are, cut it out.  Water is way more helpful.

[Johann]

Cutting out the truly awful shit like soda and junk food, along with getting in some regular basic exercise (stretching, walking, etc) can go a long way and set you on a path for even healthier habits. A lot of it is the self-discipline aspect, reminding yourself that you'll feel more and more awesome over time if you push yourself to do at least those things continually.

[Ronnie]

4 hours ago, EricaofRenais said:

Just make changes to what you eat, like nuts instead of chips and fruit and veggies instead of other junk food.  

Genius. Cashews and almonds are tasty enough to fill the void of no doritos lol.

48 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Are you drinking soda?

If you are, cut it out.  Water is way more helpful.

Guilty. I went 1 year without soda but my family keeps buying it. With nothing else to drink besides water, I caved. Back to water only now!

[Nobody]

Go to a nutritionist and follow the diet they give you. Start working out, doing cardio and other forms of exercise.

I mean, there's no magical way out of it. It's just a change of habits. If you stop eating Doritos and drinking soda, after a while you won't miss them at all and will even find them disgusting. Like, really, I find Doritos disgusting and just the thought of having soda makes me feel guilty.

[May]

1 hour ago, Ronnie said:

Genius. Cashews and almonds are tasty enough to fill the void of no doritos lol.

Guilty. I went 1 year without soda but my family keeps buying it. With nothing else to drink besides water, I caved. Back to water only now!

You should ask your family to stop buying stuff that is unhealthy or only buy snacks in moderation. Sometimes the effort isn't just alone. 

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

21 hours ago, Ronnie said:

Genius. Cashews and almonds are tasty enough to fill the void of no doritos lol.

 

 

YES - almonds are so good to snack on but make sure you get the no-salt ones. It's an acquired taste so it'll probably suck at first if you're used to flavor

[Junkhead]

The one thing that really helped me out was to learn how to count calories. No longer would I leave up to fate to decide whether or not I gained or lose weight, since I would be in control. Learn this and basic nutrition (some fruit, vegetables and lean proteins) and you're already doing very well in that department.

And with that in mind, what follows is a lot easier:

Lifting. Getting stronger.

That will frame you up. With the bit of knowledge you have on diet, work on progressing in your lifts at a steady pace. Lean proper tecnique, and go for a routine that progresses on lower-ish rep schemes (something like 8-10 tops for compound movements).

 

On 2/1/2018 at 7:59 PM, Slumber said:

Hit the gym and do cardio.

I'm not sure if cardio will help all that much. "Skinnyfat" can be tricky. They're not just thin, but they have a bit of blubber on them. That said, eating somewhere around a slight calorie deficit might do wonders.

On 3/1/2018 at 2:20 AM, Ronnie said:

Genius. Cashews and almonds are tasty enough to fill the void of no doritos lol.

Guilty. I went 1 year without soda but my family keeps buying it. With nothing else to drink besides water, I caved. Back to water only now!

 

22 hours ago, BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER said:

YES - almonds are so good to snack on but make sure you get the no-salt ones. It's an acquired taste so it'll probably suck at first if you're used to flavor

While nuts are fantastic, they fall into the "healthy food" trap. They're healthy fats, but fats, nonetheless. This means they're calorie-dense, in spite of being healthy. I legitimately rather snack on a few OreOs and can actually fit that into my diet (as long as I eat in a deficit).

 

Cutting out the shit if you're eating shit goes a long way in it's own right. You can still indulge on some things, assuming you're tracking your calories.

[Slumber]

5 minutes ago, Soul~! said:

'm not sure if cardio will help all that much. "Skinnyfat" can be tricky. They're not just thin, but they have a bit of blubber on them. That said, eating somewhere around a slight calorie deficit might do wonders

Cardio will help you keep calories off and boost your metabolism. Lifting weights will be the more important part, and it will also boost your metabolism, but if you're not watching weight/calories, you won't really do much to your body fat. You'll just be, in the best case scenario, putting on weight through muscle.

Obviously that's also a solid way to go about it(Put on weight and muscle, then lose weight again while maintaining your muscle through lifting), but it's probably the longer route than just continuing to lose weight while lifting.

Edited January 5, 2018 by Slumber

[Junkhead]

2 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Cardio will help you keep calories off and boost your metabolism. Lifting weights will be the more important part, and it will also boost your metabolism, but if you're not watching weight/calories, you won't really do much to your body fat. You'll just be, in the best case scenario, putting on weight through muscle.

Obviously that's also a solid way to go about it(Put on weight and muscle, then lose weight again while maintaining your muscle through lifting), but it's probably the longer route than just continuing to lose weight while lifting.

While I'm not one to advocate cardio makes you lose gains, it may be kind of counterproductive in this specific case. Being at a slight deficit while lifting weights would ensure he's gaining muscle, but the energy expenditure isn't such that it would sabbotage said gain. If anything, we could suggest one of moderate walking (literally, a walk in the park I guess) or some HIIT (more explosive, a lot less time consuming).

[Slumber]

13 minutes ago, Soul~! said:

While I'm not one to advocate cardio makes you lose gains, it may be kind of counterproductive in this specific case. Being at a slight deficit while lifting weights would ensure he's gaining muscle, but the energy expenditure isn't such that it would sabbotage said gain. If anything, we could suggest one of moderate walking (literally, a walk in the park I guess) or some HIIT (more explosive, a lot less time consuming).

I should probably have specified. I generally advocate HIIT, which is my preferred way to do cardio. I'm lazy and would rather get done as soon as possible, so the benefits of HIIT are perfect for me.

But yes, it should be stressed that you don't go overboard with cardio while you're trying to build muscle. I like to do some light-ish HIIT runs to cool down after lifting. It's quick, you're building cardiovascular endurance, you're building speed, and you're basically tricking your body into thinking you're going to need to burn fuel, even though you're not going to continue doing intense exercise.

I'd say that if you start working out to lose body fat, try not to burn more than 100 calories doing cardio per session(Any methods you have to track burnt calories are probably crap, but they're better than nothing). Maybe 200.

Oh, and yeah. As others have pointed out, cut out the soda. Once it's away from you and look at how bad soda is(It's like, 200 calories and 50 grams of sugar per can that aren't even making you less hungry. Totally wasted.), it's easier to see the path to cutting down on calories. If you absolutely MUST have it, treat it like an after-dinner or after-school/work treat, and substitute whatever else you're having as a snack with it. Eventually you'll come to the ultimatum of "Do I want to keep drinking soda, or do I want to have soda, but deal with the more intense hunger-pangs I get from not having another 200 calories in my diet?"

Edited January 5, 2018 by Slumber

[Junkhead]

6 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I should probably have specified. I generally advocate HIIT, which is my preferred way to do cardio. I'm lazy and would rather get done as soon as possible, so the benefits of HIIT are perfect for me.

But yes, it should be stressed that you don't go overboard with cardio while you're trying to build muscle. I like to do some light-ish HIIT runs to cool down after lifting. It's quick, you're building cardiovascular endurance, you're building speed, and you're basically tricking your body into thinking you're going to need to burn fuel, even though you're not going to continue doing intense exercise.

I'd say that if you start working out to lose body fat, try not to burn more than 100 calories doing cardio per session(Any methods you have to track burnt calories are probably crap, but they're better than nothing). Maybe 200.

Yeah, that's pretty decent.

The thing HIIT has on steady-state cardio is that it's not only far less time-consuming, but it's also far more explosive. Steady-state is sluggish, and you need to run for a lot of time to make some noticeable result. Take a look at the comparison between marathon runners and then sprinters, and you'll see the difference in their physiques. Some sprinters are outright jacked.

 

It's also worth mentioning, another good advice is making simple food replacements. In my case, since I've got a bit of a sweet tooth, peanut butter is my treat. I can also fit around half a roll of OreOs into my calories and still hit deficit comfterbly (actually doing it right now).

 

[Slumber]

3 minutes ago, Soul~! said:

It's also worth mentioning, another good advice is making simple food replacements. In my case, since I've got a bit of a sweet tooth, peanut butter is my treat. I can also fit around half a roll of OreOs into my calories and still hit deficit comfterbly (actually doing it right now).

 

Never underestimate peanut butter. That stuff can fit snugly into a lot of keto diets, depending on the carb content and how much added sugar is in there(Depends on the brand).

Peanut butter on some whole grain/whole wheat toast was one of my go-to snacks for a while.

Edited January 5, 2018 by Slumber

[Junkhead]

Peanut butter on whole grain bread (with the little seeds and shit) is omgwtf.