Mistakes You’re Making In Fixing Skinny Fat And Doing It The Right Way!

Skinny fat is majorly a lifestyle situation that can be fixed obviously by lifestyle modifications.

But mistakes, most people make when trying to get rid of skinny fat is that they attempt to lose weight by performing excessive cardio & ab exercises at the gym.

But if you lose weight, you’ll also lose muscle (in absence of weight training & optimal protein) and end up looking more skinnier than before.

And more importantly, you’ve to look at it carefully, skinny fat is a lack of muscle mass on the body and a higher body fat percentage.

So how do you fix that?

By building muscle & losing fat at the same time, aka Body Recomposition. Simple.

Well, it’s not as simple as it sounds.

But body recomposition is very much possible with untrained people and detrained people (who’ve not trained for a longer period).

Now, let’s look at the right approach.

1. Resistance training

The first step is to build muscle. Improve your muscle mass by performing all major muscle group exercises at least twice a week.

If you have three days, do full body workouts. If you have 4 days, perform upper body lower body split and if you have 5 or 6 days, push, pull, and leg is a good split for you.

Also, four steps to optimize your weight training –

• Perfect your form first to avoid any injuries.
• Prioritize range of motion over number of repetitions in a set (meaning, don’t rush for doing more reps, go easy – feel the contraction).
• 6-20 reps per set for hypertrophy however, this doesn’t mean you short rep (read the previous point if you do).
• Include compound movements for improved strength such as the deadlift, bench press, barbell squats, barbell shoulder press, etc.

Once workouts are optimized, the next step is to fix the nutrition.

2. Nutrition

The topmost priority is to consume optimal protein for muscle gain. Try anything between 1.2-2g/kg of body weight to see what works best for you.

Food such as chicken, fish, egg, dairy, soy, bean & lentils, nut, nut butter, whey, plant protein etc. are good ways to increase protein intake.  

Distribute the remaining calories between complex carbohydrates & healthy fats.

After the protein is sorted, the next step in nutrition is to create a calorie deficit or negative energy balance.

How do you do that?

• Use any online calculator to find your maintenance calories.
• Start by eating 200-300 calories less than your maintenance.
• Increase your NEAT or physical activity level in general beyond your gym workouts, such as walking, bicycling, etc. Moving more throughout the day.

Now, what is happening here?

Resistance training & optimal protein will create a favorable environment to build muscle and a small calorie deficit will get rid of that excess fat.

3. Tracking

The last step to getting rid of skinny fat is tracking. Because only, if you track, you’ll know if you’re progressing in the right direction or not.

Three important things here as well.

• Use a food scale to quantify your food
• Record in a calorie counting app
• Click your photos every week to witness changes in body composition.

Also, use this US army calculator for body composition and find your body fat percentage by entering the required information.

Once, you reach a body fat between 10-12% for males & 20-22% for females, you can start with a small calorie surplus to build lean muscle.

This sums it all!

And remembers one thing, the reason you’re skinny could be your genetics but the reason you’re skinny fat is definitely your lifestyle. So, fix that. Make slow but sustainable changes for a better lifestyle. Coming out of the skinny fat zone is just a small outcome of that.