Skinny fat?

Is it really possible to be skinny and fat at the same time? It’s a odd term, but the short answer is yes.

So what does it mean? Basically, we’re looking at your body composition. How much lean muscle are you carrying vs. how much body fat you have. A person can appear to be quite thin, but actually have a high amount of body fat.

Typically, we see this look from people who are trying to lose that bit of flab around the mid section and hit the treadmill every day thinking that cardio is the answer. Do you know anyone like this:  gets on the treadmill to run 3 miles each day. At the end of every week they weight themselves and check their bodyfat percentage and then exclaim, “I don’t understand why my BF% is going up!” We run into those people every day!

Why?

Well, often times, these individuals have restricted their calories and they’ve focused the majority of their time on cardio. When they do lift, it’s light weight, high reps and usually isolation movements. The thing is, our bodies are machines. They learn and they adapt. So, if you’ve been eating at a deficit for awhile now and you aren’t losing, your body has adapted and has reduced it’s total energy expenditure. There’s also the aspect of turning your training into endurance training,  but we’ll address that in another post.

What Can You Do?

1. Increase your calories to maintain your weight. (Need help? Ask one of our trainers)

2. Don’t freak out. It’s fuel. (If you don’t eat all the crap. You can’t out train a bad diet).

3. Chill on the cardio. Cut it back to 2 days a week.

4. Lift. Compound lifts. Proper form. Heavy weight.

Start here. Give yourself a few weeks here, 2-4. Then stop back for more guidance. We’ll be here.