help me help a friend - my friend was under eating a lot to lose weight but he’s skinny fat

trulyhealy

so basically my friend was eating 1,500 cals a day max while running everyday and i told him it’s too little and to increase his calories to 2,000 minimum

he’s 145lbs and 5 foot 10 and is trying to lose weight but i told him he doesn’t need to lose weight due to him being in the lower end of the healthy section of the bmi.

i told him that his issue was probably the lack of muscle mass and being skinny fat and i told him to eat at maintenance and strength train but he said he wants to lose fat? should i advise him to eat at a slight deficit and strength train??

pls help i don’t want to misinform him. do you guys have any good links to send him about skinny fat and how to reach his goals? i’ve never experienced this problem

trulyhealy

update: just saw his body as before i only saw his stats and he’s not even skinny fat he seems like a good natural healthy weight possible it’s body dysmorphia i just want to help him but obvs not qualified too

Diatonic12

Hi @trulyhealy You're just trying to be a good friend and hopefully he'll appreciate that. It's really good to see and hear from you again. I don't think he should lose anything either. Keep encouraging him to talk to a trainer and maybe he'll listen to another opinion and take it to heart. Stay strong @trulyhealy. Much love.

westrich20940

You could tell him that more muscle mass = a higher resting metabolic rate. So...if he wants to tone up/gain muscle mass he would need to actually eat slightly above his maintenance. He could pretty easily add a protein shake of some sort for like 100-250 calories.

Basically... people with more lean muscle mass actually burn more calories when at rest than others who don't have as much lean muscle mass. But you can't gain lean muscle mass on a calorie deficit. But I'm sure if he did this and kept consistent...he'd see his body change and it would SEEM to him that he 'lost weight'....