If you're skinny fat, cut or bulk?

sam3218

I'm skinny fat with very little muscle but a comparatively huge belly. What's the best way to proceed?

Retroguy2000

I assume male?

Depending how overweight you are, you may want to lose a few pounds first, focus on calorie deficit. Rather than diet your way to skinny though, start lifting. If you're new to that, you'll get nice beginner gains and it'll start to add some shape all over. Eat at maintenance, to keep your weight stable. Then re-evaluate in six months time. Maybe you'll want to lose a few more pounds of fat then.

ninerbuff

Depends on your goals. If you cut and resistance train, you'll retain what muscle you have. If you eat a small surplus, you can gain some muscle if you're doing progressive overload higher volume training.


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Theoldguy1

ninerbuff wrote: »

Depends on your goals. If you cut and resistance train, you'll retain what muscle you have. If you eat a small surplus, you can gain some muscle if you're doing progressive overload higher volume training.


A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

If he has high bodyfat, why should he be eating at a surplus? His fat stores can fuel muscle growth.

nossmf

They can, but it's slower. The OP said he/she was "skinny fat" with a physical description of skinny all over except the belly, so it's doubtful the overall BF is "high" but more likely moderate.

AnnPT77

@sam3218, I think part of the issue here that's leading to people disagreeing is that term "skinny fat", plus "comparatively huge belly". I think different people have different mental images of where you are.

What, specifically, are your characteristics? What's your height/weight/age/sex? Waist measurement? Do you have even a rough estimate of body fat percentage? Even something from a BIA scale or (bit better) one of these kind of so-called calculators:

https://www.calculator.net/body-fat-calculator.html

Do you have any metabolic issues showing up in blood tests and such? (Cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc.)

People come here often with a description like you're giving us. Sometimes we can get them to post photos.

When they do, some of them are truly "metabolically obese normal weight (MONW)", the actual technical version of "skinny fat". Some are actually quite thin already, but under-muscled for best appearance. Some are concerned about belly fat because they can't see abs, some have posture issues that exaggerate a moderate amount of central fat, while others have more of the classic "beer belly" look.

Those different situations would lead to different advice in each case.

If you feel comfortable posting photo(s) in a bathing suit or close fitting but not compressive clothing, or posting some of the stats I mentioned above, folks here could give you much more personalized advice.

tomcustombuilder

It’s hard to say without a picture because being skinny fat can be a lot of different things and interpreted a lot of different ways.

If it’s a normal situation, you want to prioritize getting on a good beginners weightlifting program and eating right around maintenance calories with the proper amount of protein, you need to build muscle after you’ve built a certain amount, then you can work on the fat and preserve the new muscle.

VegjoyP

It's a process but bottom line, weight training is the priority, no matter what you eat you have to work the muscles to gain muscle. It will take trial and error tofigure out food, which will change over time. The concern would be eating mote than you are burning but also to little. If you don't have some fat stores or calories your body can loose muscle.
I know this because it is exactly what I did. Now I am trying to rebuild strength and muscle loss. Also keep in mind the more muscle you have the better your metabolic rate.
My suggestion is to also make ad best food CHOICeS as possible. Nutrient dense foods can only benefit you.
Another consideration is to make the weight lifting heavy enough to tax muscle and still have form. Research, get a trainer or reliable source to design a well structured plan
Good luck!

PAV8888

skinny fat, as astutely mentioned, has a definition, a person who is normal weight yet metabolically obese. only some of the people who label themselves such turn out to actually be both normal weight and metabolically obese.

A relatively standard answer both to those who fall in that category and to those who believe themselves to be in it would be that a bulk (i.e. ingesting calories at a surplus) is out of the list of appropriate suggestions for your individual case.

Because If you really are metabolically obese it would be the wrong move for your health. And if you are not, but believe yourself to be, bulking is not very likely to help improve your self-perception, whereas re-composition (without the fat gain associated with bulking) is much more likely to help you achieve positive results.

So when the question plays out the real discussion is whether the calories to be consumed would be leaning towards re-composition or leaning towards weight loss depending on where one's starting point is at.

The gym component would pretty much remain the same in all scenarios, though with more calories there could be room for a bit more gym time and effort.

zebasschick

if you're skinny fat with no health issues, build some muscle.

i weight 170 twice. once i was very muscular, lifting heavy at the gym 5x per week, and once i was 170 and low muscle high fat. my waist was much smaller when i was more muscular and i wore a smaller pant size.

SoCalSwimmerDude

Man... just get fit. Eat healthy at or below maintenance, lift hard, and eat enough protein. You'll be great. Don't overcomplicate things.

ddsb1111

I’m like you, I like informed decisions so I can power through them with focus and confidence 😊

Unfortunately we don’t know if your belly is just some extra rolls and love handles vs a barrel shape, so it’s hard to say. You can’t go wrong working out so definitely do that if possible. As for eating at maintenance or below, maybe start with a small deficit and see if your hunger levels agree with your workout schedule. Adjust accordingly. Let us know how it goes after 5-6 weeks.