How to Stop Being Skinny Fat

Based on my experience

What is skinny fat?

Skinny fat is when you do not have a significant amount of muscle tissue nor do you have abs.

You are skinny fat if, while you are wearing clothes you look skinny but you don’t have abs or any muscle definition.

How I got skinny

As I mentioned in an earlier post, five years ago I was skinny fat. I had a limited amount of muscle tissue but had enough body fat that I didn’t have visible abs. I didn’t look strong like a fat person nor was a toned like a skinny person.

The way that I stopped being skinny fat was that I got skinny first.

Building muscle takes a long time. In their first year of lifting most people will only build about ten to fifteen pounds of muscle.

You can lose ten pounds of fat in ten weeks.

I lost weight in uncontrolled spurts. The first ten pounds I lost were within two months. I did not track my calories or my weight loss during this period. I just exercised relentlessly and ate low calorie dense food. I noticed my face got a lot leaner and I looked better in a t-shirt.

Then, for my second fat loss spurt, I lost eight pounds in about three and half weeks. All I ate during these three and half weeks was pasta, broccoli, and beans. Highly satiating but low calorie meals. Again I didn't count calories so I had no idea how deep my calorie deficit was. When I emerged from this extreme weight loss period my sister said I looked strikingly skinny compared to the prior month.

After loosing all the weight I did not like how little muscle tissue I had. I always admired the thick arms and legs of NFL running backs. But, I was scared to regain any weight because I wanted my face to stay lean. I was also testing a vegan diet at the time and when I did the math I found it was extremely hard to get an adequate amount of protein.

Discouraged I just kept working out really hard and eating a protein deficient diet because I was convinced that eating meat was going to give me cancer and heart disease.

Finally Bulking

I spent the next year doing CrossFit. I barely gained any muscle and got even leaner. One day I came across a YouTube video that mentioned you needed one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight to build muscle. I looked at the label of a can of beans and did the math.

If I ate three cans of beans per day I could reach that protein target. I would only need two cans of beans per day if I had two servings of plant based protein powder.

Seeing how simple getting enough protein could be — if I ate two cans of beans and drank two scoops of protein powder per day — motivated me to start a diet plan that at least included enough protein.

After tracking my protein for a while I realized that it wouldn’t be much harder to track my overall calories. At this point I came across another video which explained that building muscle at maintenance calories or even in a calorie deficit was possible.

This new information opened my mind up to the possibility that I could build muscle without getting fat.

I started a maintenance calorie diet, with sufficient protein, and started hypertrophy training in which I stuck to a consistent week to week program of specific lifts chosen to grow different muscles throught my body. I tracked my progress on each lift, increasing weight or reps every week.

I continued to learn a lot of fitness and health information through YouTube videos. I was building a noticable amount of muscle. In fact, I ended up with stretch marks on my legs after the first month of lifting.

From these YouTube videos I learned that meat is not dangerous and that I could get the highest quality protein from lean meat and fish.

Basic logic dictates that if you want to be 170 pounds and ripped you have to weigh 170 pounds. It is also easier for your body to build muscle in a calorie surplus that at maintenance or in a deficit. If you want to maximize your muscle gains, you have to be in a calorie surplus.

Eventually, after following a maintenance diet for a few months I felt very confident in my ability to follow a diet plan that included measuring my food and meal prepping. I decided it was time to bulk.

I consumed information on bulking and decided to gain 1/2 of a pound per week for three months for a total of six pounds during that bulk. I was hoping to gain three pounds of muscle then diet off the three pounds of fat.

My first bulk was a success in that I was able to gain the six pounds in the time frame I chose. I then embarked on my first fat loss period in two years. I was relatively hungry the entire fat loss period and did not enjoy it but, I stuck to the goal.

I decided after the fat loss period I wanted to maintain my weight for the summer so I would look good. I gained a little muscle during the maintenance period.

I honestly can’t remember If I immediately started bulking during the fall or not but I did bulk again and timed it I would have four months to lose all the fat before Memorial Day.

The second cut in two years was a success. I was very lean by the end and looked strong shirtless. At this point there was no doubt that I was no longer skinny but looked athletic. My friends and family were impressed with my physique. Women complimented my fitness.

I was only about ten pounds lighter than I was when I first started losing weight in 2020 and about fifteen pounds heavier than my lightest as an adult. After two years of lifting I had built about fifteen pounds of pure contractile tissue.

How you can cure skinny fat

Be sure to take a shirtless photo before you begin this process.

Step 1: Lose the fat.

The reason you should lose the fat first is that you will look better and feel more confident than you would if you were to bulk. You will also build the confidence in your ability to lose fat again after the bulk which is step 3.

Start with an eight week fat loss phase with the goal of losing six to eight pounds. One pound of body fat is about 3,500 calories. This means that to lose eight pounds in eight weeks you must be in a 500 calorie deficit every single day.

During this fatloss phase be sure to lift weights at least three days per week. Spend as much time walking as you can. Walking burns calories but is low impact enough not to interfere with any muscle growth. If you have never lifted before there is a good chance you will build a some muscle during this fat loss phase.

Step 2: maintenance phase.

At the end of the fat loss phase, go to maintenance calories for about two weeks while continuing to lift to see how you look. If you have very visible abs when flexing, muscle separation between your quads, and look very lean in the face then you are probably sufficiently lean to start bulking. If not, there is more work to do.

Do another fat loss phase of eight weeks then take a two week maintenance period to see how you look. Repeat the process of fat loss and maintenance until you can really see abs.

Step 3: bulk.

After your final maintenance period, when you are sufficiently lean, it is time for a bulk. Your bulk should be slow and controlled. One half pound of body weight gain per week for sixteen weeks works well. To gain one half pound per week you need to have a 250 calorie surplus every day. The longer the bulk the more muscle you build. The lower the calorie surplus the less fat you gain.

Beware, it is very difficult to measure your calories within 50 or even 100 calories of any target so a calorie surplus under 100 calories could accidentally be maintenance calories. It is best to weigh yourself daily during these bulk cycles to make sure you are hitting the right calorie surplus.

Step 3: cut again.

Do another eight week cut and reassess your level of muscle by taking another two week maintenance period. If you have been eating mostly “clean” food, aka no junk food or fried foods, you will feel delighted that you no longer need to over eat multiple times a day.

After your cut you should be the same body weight as before you started the bulk but leaner unless you were absolutely shredded when you started the bulk, in which case you may have ceased to lose weight a few pounds above your target.

Step 4: final maintenance phase.

After your cut, take another maintenance phase.

By the end of step 3 you will without a doubt look better than you did before starting this process. You will not be skinny fat anymore.

Life after skinny fat

The scale should come secondary to how you look in the mirror. If you attempted to consistently add weight or reps to your lifts every week during the bulk you should look more muscular but it is your job to decide what to do next.

If you really like how you look and want to focus on some other fitness hobby and just lift enough to maintain the muscle you already built you can do that. Or you can set some reasonable long term goals for your physique and continue to bulk and cut until you reach them. For example, my goal is to have my flexed arm size be half the circumference of my waist with visible abs.

At this point you have developed a skill that most people dream about, to gain and lose weight at will. It is a gift to yourself to be able to master your body this way. Many people will come to you for fat loss advice. If you don’t feel like explaining fat loss to the people who ask your advice send them this post.