Most skinny fat people have a challenge with building muscle. No matter how hard they train, they don’t seem to bulk up, yet they don’t get ripped either. It’s a frustrating pursuit of slow muscle gains with very little muscle definition to show for all your hard work. But, working on your diet can help you break through that plateau and lead to greater muscle gains and a ripped physique faster.
What Exactly is Skinny Fat?
Before we look into the type of diet a skinny fat person needs, let’s assess their unique circumstances.
A skinny fat person is typically someone who looks slim but has a high level of body fat compared to their bodyweight.
A lot of skinny fat people have fat deposits ‘hidden’ within their body. Most times, these fat deposits are inside the abdomen, especially around the liver, heart, and intestines. From the outside, the first and probably only visible sign is a belly covered with a layer of fat.
A skinny fat person will have problems developing a visible 6-pack abs because of the visceral and subcutaneous fat hanging around the stomach.
Risks of Being Skinny Fat
Do you know that as a skinny fat person, you could run the same risks as someone with obesity? In fact, most experts agree that visceral fat is more dangerous than subcutaneous fat.
Visceral fat is the fat deposits around your internal organs while subcutaneous fat is a layer just beneath your skin. Skinny fat people have more visceral fat in proportion to obese people who have more subcutaneous fats.
The risks of high levels of visceral fat include:
- Increased insulin resistance
- Increased blood sugar
- High blood pressure
- Development of diabetes type 2
- Interference with normal heart function
Nutritional Needs of a Skinny Fat Person
A skinny fat guy needs to first drop the diet that’s making them store extra fat as visceral deposits. Then they need to add whole, nutrient-dense foods that speed up the burning of fat.
Foods to Avoid if you’re skinny-fat
So first, let’s look at the foods making them thin outside and fat inside:
Sugars, Carbs, and Fruits
The first thing to stop consuming should be all types of sugars and carbohydrates. Your body doesn’t really need carbs at this point. When you’ve gotten rid of most of the visceral fats your muscles may once again need carbs to produce glycogen, but at the beginning, skinny-fat people should go for a low-carb diet.
When we talk of avoiding sugars, we should also include fruits in this category. Most modern fruits are GMOs. They were tweaked by humans to grow fast, not having enough time to develop the nutritious value traditional fruits have.
The exception is if you grew the fruit yourself. You can eat fruit you grow yourself.
They are also designed to have more sugar so people get addicted and buy more of them. Additionally, they are ripened prematurely using chemicals that can be toxic to your gut health. You can get all the fiber and vitamins you need from leafy greens and other food types and frankly would be better off avoiding fruits from the supermarket.
If you have to eat fruit, limit your intake to one fruit serving every other day. Buy locally-grown organic or grow yourself using organic methods. Choose your seed wisely to avoid GMOs with little nutritional value.
Artificial Ingredients
Sweeteners, artificial flavors, and Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) are a few ingredients that make food delicious, aromatic, and appetizing. But, they come with a steep price attached.
Most of these ingredients are synthetic and indigestible. The result is they compromise your gut health. A weak gut leads to higher inflammation and lower nutrient absorption. Thus, even if you eat lots of good, healthy, nutrient-dense foods, all that nutrition will just pass as waste without helping your body.
In some instances, these ingredients act as endocrine disruptors, changing the way your body releases and uses hormones. As they accumulate, they can also release free radicals, compromising your health. In worst-case scenarios, these artificial ingredients build up into toxins, and could lead to serious illness over time.
Seed Oils
As more research is being done, we realize that seed oils have succeeded largely because of clever marketing and not because of any health benefits. Seed oils or vegetable oils became popular in the 1950s and 60s because they had a high smoke point and a mild taste.
Marketers persuaded us that these vegetable oils come from plants and provide a clean substitute for the animal fats that were common and popular in those days.
Now we realize that seed oils (vegetable oils) are mostly synthetic substances that undergo many phases of chemical changes. Do some research on how your favorite cooking oil is produced from GMO seed and the processes involved and you’ll probably never want anything to do with them again.
Seed oils have been linked to leaky gut syndrome, metabolic syndrome, heart conditions, and has even been linked to negatively impact mental health.
Pasteurized Dairy
Like seed oils, pasteurized milk is a product of clever marketing rather than nutrition. Pasteurized milk is full of empty calories. It is a poor source of calcium and an even poorer source of protein. Potassium, and folate.
Furthermore, milk has lactose, which is a type of sugar. Some brands even have added sugars and that’s bad for a skinny fat person.
For some wholesome dairy products, you can consume non-pasteurized:
- Cheeses
- Yogurts
- Ghee
- Sour milk
- Whey Protein
Bonus points if you get these from a local rancher or dairy farmer.
Best Food for Skinny Fat People
If you’re skinny fat, you want foods that build muscle without adding fat. You want whole foods that are nutrient-dense and full of the right vitamins. You also want foods that make nutrient absorption fast and easy. These include:
Meat
Red meat is one of the best sources of zinc, protein, vitamin B12, and iron. White meat from and poultry and pork is a superb source of protein and vitamin B3.
Fish
Most of us eat foods full of omega-6 but lacking in omega-3. Both freshwater and seawater fish present the best sources of omega-3, which reduces inflammation. Some of the best types include:
- Salmon
- Tilapia
- Sardines
- Tuna
- Striped bass
- Perch
- Herring
Eggs
Eggs are a complete food just as they are. They have all the essential nutrients which include fats, good cholesterol, proteins, vitamins, and a host of nutritious micro-nutrients.
Eggs are delicious and can be cooked in a thousand different ways. Free-range eggs from pastured chicken are the best but even the rest are good enough.
Fermented Dishes
Eat lots of kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut, and kefir (dairy) to introduce beneficial bacteria to your intestinal tract and keep your gut healthy.
Leafy Greens
For all your fiber and roughage needs, I insist on fresh leafy greens like kale, lettuce, and spinach.
Vegetables
Include veggies such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, peas, and romaine with every meal.
Whole Grains, Legumes, and Pulses
I would suggest whole grains for skinny fat vegetarians looking for alternative sources of proteins. For meat eaters, limit grains as they have high starch content compared to meat, fish, and eggs. Some grains to consider include beans, lentils, and chickpeas.
Water
Last but not least, I would recommend lots of water. A minimum of 8 glasses per day. Hydration helps your body process nutrients and flush out toxins.
When to Eat – Intermittent Fasting
If you’re skinny fat, it’s not only important what you eat, but when you eat it too. You want to maximize fat-burning without your body consuming your muscle. While the food should be low-carb, the timing should include some long periods of fasting.
In some cases, 8 hours of sleep at night is enough of a fast to supercharge fat-burning. However, for most people, you may want to gradually work up to 12-hour fasts, then 16-hour fast, and even 18-hour fasts and beyond.
As early as the 17th hour of fasting, some people’s bodies go into autophagy. At this point, the body switches from burning blood sugar to burning stored fat for energy (ketosis) while also recycling old cells to make new ones.
If you’re on a one-meal-a-day (OMAD) fast, this means each day you have up to 7 hours of autophagy. Another fast to work up to is 18/6 intermittent fasting which gives you about an hour of autophagy each day.
To truly supercharge your fat-burning, have a few days per month when you completely go without food. For example, some skinny-fat people could hold a 72-hour autophagy marathon on the first three days of each month. Do not attempt a dry fast (i.e. fasting without water). Stay hydrated always as your kidneys need a constant supply of fresh water even when you’re not eating food.
Conclusion
Being skinny fat can be a bit frustrating. You aren’t quite fat but no matter how much you try the belly fat sticks around. Your workouts don’t seem to be producing the big muscle gains and body definitions that others achieve with the same workout you put in.
The key to transforming from skinny fat to fit lies mostly in your diet. What you eat and when you eat has the power to jumpstart your metabolism and dig your gym gains out of a rut.
I recommend you look into nutrient-dense foods that are low-carb and high in protein. Intermittent fasting offers a fantastic way to supercharge fat burning. But don’t take my word for it. Try it out and see for yourself. Don’t forget to come back in a couple of months comment on your results.
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