This one here is mainly for my own future referencing. Not because I myself am skinny fat, but rather as I have become tired of verbally explaining the term to those around me when I speak on the concept.
A short, sweet, single, central point of knowledge, describing and elaborating, in my own words.
What is Skinny Fat?
Sounds weird saying it aloud, especially for the first time. The term puts an image of a centaur-like figure in my head... only the top half is a skinny human and the bottom half is a fat human.
Skinny fat, characterised by having a higher than normal body fat percentage & a low amount of muscle mass. One search on Google Images and you'll get the idea and maybe realise that actually, it is quite a ubiquitous physique - almost the default.
The skinny arms & legs, with the midsection inelegantly wrapped with subcutaneous fat.
I'll fit in this quick lesson here too: When it comes to the gut and the way fat is stored in the body, there are two main types you need to be aware of: Visceral Fat & Subcutaneous Fat. The image below will help me in clarifying.
Subcutaneous Fat: this kind of fat is found directly underneath the skin. It is the fat that can be pinched with your fingers or grasped by the body fat measuring callipers. It's main function is to pad your muscles and bones, protecting them from damage. This kind of fat also helps in temperature regulation
Visceral Fat: is the deep lying (hidden) fat, located in and around the organs (you cannot pinch visceral fat). As can be imagined, this type of fat comes along with huge health complications.
A big belly is constituted of both visceral and subcutaneous fat! They are directly related: an increase in subcutaneous fat is also indicative of an increase in visceral fat. For this reason, an increased waist line is seen as a health risk and is telling of impending health complications.
Generally, subcutaneous fat is stored in the abdomen, hips, buttocks and thighs. The fat being stored differently in males and females. Abdominal fat is seen as much more of a health risk than hip or thigh fat (oh no, this has turned into an article on fat, I'll wrap it up).
Important takeaway:
Studies suggest that you cannot target fat in a specific area, and the best, most reliable way of ridding the torso of fat is to jump on a diet. Eat less, move more! Create a caloric deficit (Burn more calories than you eat). This will reduce the whole body's fat storage with the added benefit of slimming down the face and bringing out that beautiful jawline of yours. Let's move on.
What Causes it?
Genes have a huge part to play in your body's natural state. Body fat percentages and muscle mass differ between individuals.
Other factors playing a role are things like diet, hormones, exercise and age.
Physical inactivity, resulting from a sedentary lifestyle is one of the main contributors to the skinny fat physique. The lack of an organised training regiment results in both the lack of muscle development and the storage of excess fat from a caloric surplus.
Diet also plays a huge role here. A diet constituted of high volumes of processed foods and sugary treats yield a poor body from. Diet potentially being more important than a lack of exercise as you cannot out-train a bad diet. Just as much as over eating is a problem, so is under eating. The digestive system requires a daily (weekly) caloric intake within a certain range, depending on your age, size and gender and your body's metabolic function - the recommended values (Male: 3000kcal, Female: 2500kcal) are highly misleading in most cases. Eating less than this range would mean your body cannot function optimally - coupled with the insufficient protein intake and vital minerals required for hormone production.
Sex and age you can't control but these factors affect hormone production, fat storage and metabolic rates.
Combating the "Skinny Fat" conundrum
quick fix: hang around fatter people
...
Just Kidding!
Reverse engineering the causes of a problem often gives you the resolve.
In this case, combating/optimising the effects of the aforementioned factors will undo the "skinnyfattness".
First, diet:
Protein intake is a crucial measure. Proteins are the body's building blocks for muscle! Proteins are made up of amino acids - there are 20 amino acids found in the human system, 9 of which are essential (histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine). Essential amino acids are not synthesised in the human body and thus must be taken in through diet.
No amino acids -> No protein -> No muscle.
Fat and carbohydrate levels. These macronutrients will need to also be stringently regulated. Excess fat eaten in the diet is stored directly whilst overeaten carbs that are not used up are converted by the body into fat for energy storage. The body preferentially burns carbohydrates for energy and so to be able to burn the stored fat, the carbohydrate content of the diet would need to be kept low.
Consequently, an appropriate diet for body re-composition would contain foods of high protein content (meats, dairy, nuts, eggs and beans), low carbohydrates and fats. Supplements like BCAA's (branched-chain amino acids) and protein shakes can help make up the rest of the protein requirements. Aim for 1.5 grams of protein per kg of weight per day. E.g. a 70kg male would need 105 (70 x 1.5) grams of protein a day.
Physical activity:
You'll need to stimulate muscle growth with progressive overload. Progressive overload is a style of strength training where the amount of stress/weight placed on the muscles is increased gradually over time to force the body to grow muscle to adapt to the new stimulus.
Caloric Seesaw.
Calories are the focus when trying to achieve a certain physique. It is where diet and exercise meet. The calories you eat versus the calories you burn. A caloric Surplus/Deficit is being in a state where the body burns more/less calories than eaten, respectively.
Here's where the strategy element comes into it. To gain muscle, the body must be in a caloric surplus. To lose fat, a deficit is required. Although possible, it is very difficult to burn fat whilst simultaneously gaining muscle.
To resolve this, the issues must be separated and tackled sequentially. But which first.
As the starting point is "skinny fat" beginning with a "cut" through a caloric deficit, to burn the fat will result in a skinny body form, with even further loss of muscle due to the low amount of calories - how unpleasant. Followed by a "bulk" to build muscle which would regain some fat.
Whereas, starting with a "bulk" through a caloric surplus would result in a "strong fat" look, however due to the physical activity of weight training and eating an appropriate diet, a considerable amount of fat would be lost in the process. This would then be followed up by a brief cutting period - an ideal route to a beach body.
Closing
Staying on topic here was difficult as there are a whole host of factors and topics to cover, forgive my transgressions lool. I can't imagine there is any more information needed to achieve your fitness goals, besides a diet plan and personal training sessions.
TDLR:-
- Skinny fat is low muscle mass & high body fat percent.
- 2 types of fat: visceral & subcutaneous - subcutaneous is visible, visceral is not.
- Skinny fat is caused by a poor diet paired with physical inactivity.
-- Fix is to build a workout routine & eat a healthy diet
