+ 10 I’m skinny-fat…what next?
I had a conversation with a guy in the gym the other day about what he should do to bulk up and gain some weight. A little backdrop on the story here. This guy has been in the gym religiously over the last month or so and after I finished my workout he came up to me out of the blue and asked what he should do to get bigger. His conundrum as he explained to me was that he wanted to get bigger but he didn’t want to get fatter. He is early 30 something and about 5’5” and he weighed in at 145 with all his gym clothes on. I estimated his body fat around 16-18%. He is not into to steroids so that conversation never came up fortunately but we went through the usual list of OTC supps that would benefit him. This is kind of the general theory I laid out for him on his journey to get bigger. Let me digress here. I don’t mean anything bad by skinny-fat but I use it as a term for someone who has let’s say a fairly low lean body mass for their size yet is carrying around good chunk of body fat. So if you would classify yourself as “skinny-fat” maybe this process holds some merit.
The first thing I told him is that this process is not going to happen overnight. Building this new body is a 24/7 job and is essentially a lifestyle change. The guy seemed to be committed to this since I saw him at the gym all the time. Hell, he was even there on weekends when I’m usually the only one in there, so I figured I wouldn’t be wasting my time talking to him.
The next step focused on whether or not he should go on a see-food diet and pack on as much weight as possible. Normally I say you need to “eat big to get big” and that is true but there is an “optimum” time when to eat like that. Now was not the time for him to eat big to get big because I wanted that big part to be muscle and not fat on top of fat. Here is my reasoning on that which I am sure you have heard me mention before. I don’t like to start a bulk at a higher BF% and I feel this holds true even if you are very light on the scale to begin with. This guy was already on the upper end for at least what I would recommend for bulking. One of the reasons I didn't think now was an optimum time to eat big was because of the whole nutrient partitioning gig. I am not going to through the whole nutrient partitioning deal because I have explained that before but here are the cliff notes on that:
Nutrient Partitioning Cliff notes
The leaner you are, the better your body is at nutrient partitioning. So, in essence, lean guys are more effective in utilizing and storing those extra calories in their muscle in the form of additional lean tissue or glycogen and much less effective at storing those cals as body fat (nice, huh). Look at it this way; the leaner you are the more you can eat without getting fat (double nice).
The other reason I didn’t want him to start bulking at his current body fat, even though he is skinny in terms of lean mass, is because of hyperplasia. I have talked about that a million times before so here are the cliff notes on that:
Hyperplasia Cliff Notes
Think of your fat cells as little balloons, the more air (fat) you put into those balloons the bigger they are going to get. These balloons are only able to hold so much air so to make room for more air (the additional fat we are producing from too many excess cals) our body is able to produce more balloons. Now, we can make our fat cells smaller but our body is not able remove fat cells (have to do that surgically). So what this all boils down to is the fatter you let yourself get, the more fat cells you produce which makes it easier to gain fat and harder to lose it in the future (bad, huh). This whole hyperplasia deal is what scares me about this whole dirty bulk concept by the way.
So based on this guy’s scenario I recommended that he cut first and bulk later even though he was light to begin with. Bottom line for me, even if you are lightweight , is to lower your body fat first (shoot for 10%) and then start bulking up. Yes you will probably look like a mouth on a twig at first but you need to think long term here. If just starting out you should look to gain around 3lbs or so each month which should keep your body fat at a respectable level throughout your bulk and on your way to being swole.
To end this, I have him on a cut right now to knock of some BF and then I’ll be setting him up with a bulk protocol. Hopefully my rational makes sense here on why you should cut first and then bulk even if you are skinny-fat.
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Thought I would give a little update here. This guy after about 2 months is sitting at 164 as of yesterday with about the same amount of body fat that he started with (I estimated around 16-18%). Pretty damn good for doing this without any drugs. Got his diet straightened out and it was like flicking a switch. People are actually seeing how much he has grown and are now asking him for advice. lol. So for all you guys starting out thinking drugs are your only answer, think again. Almost 20lbs and essentially all of it lean is better than any cycle he could have ran.
good post, as bodyfat creeps up higher and higher gaining muscle becomes harder and harder anyways. SBGH ratio becomes more unfavorable, estrogen problems, as well as a decreased insulin sensitivity/increased insulin resistance. no need to get above 13-15% in my opinion. i know thats not everyone's opinion around here.
quality > quantity. bigger is not always better. better is better.
Big truth to the nutrient partitioning Mak. This is why I don't bulk up for seven months straight anymore. Now I'll bulk for 12 weeks, clean up for 4-5 weeks and ramp it up for another 12, then have a way easier time to get in shape. The first 1-8 weeks gains come on strong then fat just starts storing on top of fat. Poor insulin sensitivity can develop on long high carb runs too.
Very wise to start any muscle building season as close to a clean slate as possible. Although when starting from scratch you may need a year or more just to get a base muscle structure and your strength built up to a conservative level. Basically you just need the guy to lose the excess but he wants all the muscle now. Hopefully he gets it and applies what you are telling him.
I'll weigh in on this mak been wanting too just been busy bro. As always great type up.
Super interesting topic. I have always referred to myself as "skinny fat". I'm overy six feet tall, and as an adult have been as light as 161 pounds. At that weight, I look like I have a foot in the grave. Sunken cheeks, skinny neck, bony shoulders, etc...BUT never in my entire life have I had abs. Not for one minute.
Looking in the mirror, I recently guessed that I was 16-18% body fat. I was interested to discover that I am actually 12.75%. It's as if I carry 99% of my body fat in my mid section. At my current %, I am reasonably vascular everywhere else.
If I am 12.75% today, then I had to have been easily south of 10% at 161 pounds. Yeah, I have put on some fat since then(2 years), but most of my weight is obviously muscle.
I would love, even for one day to have abs/firm mid section. I'm 38 years old.
I carry all my fat around my midsection too. I'll be at 10%BF with veins and striations showing in my chest but it still looks like I have a beer gut. My abs pop out nice when I flex them, but otherwise it looks like I am walking around with a big gut. It is not till I get down to around 8% when my gut goes away.
I'm the same way bro, and I watched a documentary awhile back that says that's the worst place to carry extra fat do to all the organs and etc there....
It was a post mortem documentary a 60 some year old lady who died of heart problems donated her body to science.
Same here, it sucks I'd much rather be one of those guys who carry all their fat on their legs and ass as opposed to my mid section. Judging by my midsection I would says I'm 15% bf, can see my top 4 abs barley, but I have zero fat on my legs and arms. A lot of days I wake up and my and my quads look like a road map veins everywhere and my arms are vascular as hell 24/7. When I get my bf done I always think I'm gonna be atleast 15% but I always come out around 10-11 cause my arms and legs are so damn lean it averages out. If my mid section was like my arms and legs is probably be like 6% bf.
Dam you must be my long lost brother then lol.....
Yep. That's me. I don't have anything close to your kind of muscle mass though, and I just don't look healthy when I get my % down south of 10%. I guess I just have to try and stay in the 10-13% range and continue to add some size. Or, I could do as you suggested with your buddy at the gym, and just deal with some loss of muscle and strength prior to bulking again. I HATE feeling weak though...
Skinny fat is a tough position to be in, do you bulk, and inevitably gain some fat, or cut when you already have little to no muscle on your frame and end up a twig. For aesthetics/bodybuilding purposes I believe one should only bulk when lean. Like you stated the nutrient partitioning is so much more efficient, you just blow up right. This doesn't apply to power lifters/strongman, there's no benefit for them dieting down to 10% bf or below. My genetics are just that, skinny fat. If I didn't workout that's how I'd look. Every male in my family is like that. Tiny arms and legs but carry all the fat in the abdominal/chest/lower back.
This is what I would do. Noob gains are real, and the results are serious. Better results then most of us get from our cycles after we have been using for a while. I put on like 40lbs my first 6-7 months lifting and my strength skyrocketed. Not 40lbs of muscle obviously but I was still pretty damn lean 7 months and 40lbs heavier. that first year of lifting correctly is the only time in ones lifting career they can build muscle and burn fat at the same time sf a good pace without short changing muscle gsins. Maintenance calories or maybe slightly over is perfect, and the main focus should be on bench, deadlifts, squats, overhead press, weighted dips and pull-ups and barbell rows, then maybe some isolation stuff at the end. Always trying to add 5 more pounds, or do 2 more reps then last session. And frequency trumps volume at this stage. Growth will be far superior doing say 12 ssts twice a week then 20 sets once a week. As you get stronger ones CNS takes a. Bigger hit due to the heavier weights and recovery is harder so it's hard to hit it with proper intensity twice sleek. But for the first year it should be no issue and the gains are phenomenal. That first year of mine was great, going from 125/130 up to 170, I blew up so fast year everyone though I was ok gear. I went from deadlifting 95ls to 405 for reps in about 10 months. Starting strength is a great starting routine with a few tweaks. As my good friend says of mine, old timer ifbb pro, "eat like a bodybuilder and train like a powerlifting" and do that fore first year or so. The lower reps build real muscle, myofibular hypertrophy, actual increase and thickening of the muscle fibers compared to the higher "bodybuilding" rep ranges which build primary sarcoplasmic growth which is jurst an increase in the amount of fluid the muscle can hold. Sets of 20 isn't gonna do shit for a new lifter. I've always kept a journal cause I can't remember how many reps j did on my 3rd set of my 4th exercise, and what might fell heavy mah be 20lbs less then I did last week and my body has already adapted to that from last week so I'm not gonna grow if I don't push for a few more reps or a few more pounds. I love looking back at my first of like 12 journals and seeing first set incline db press 30lbs for like 8 reps lol. I think the journal is so important. I do the samd for my food. Then j know exactly how much I've eaten and thrn j can make small changes and see bow if effects my physique. This is what worked for me starting off at almost 6ft 125lbs without abs lol. As for supps, creatine, a good protein powder and if you really wanna really push for the best results bcaas sipped between meals, and during training to keep a constant flow of aminos all day long.
Lots of good info there.
Nice write up. I'm a skinny fat guy. My belly, low back and but fat are the last to go. Other then those area's Im really lean. I'm still learning to manipulate my diet to cut the extra fat. After getting stuck in a never ending bulk. I found myself not making gains like I should and getting fatter. The problem was not the bulking but the cutting process. I have not been staying disciplined on my diet when I cut to take full advantage of the shock to the body. The body will always get used to what you are throwing at it trying to find homeostasis. Therefore we trick our bodies form becoming stagnant whether it is cutting or bulking, training, and use of AAS by throwing a wrench in system. Like carb cycling, change in routine, more rest, less rest, and time on/off aas.
Here is where the truth is told in your post about cutting down then bulking back.
9 months before I was released from prison I was thrown in the hole for beating the shit out of a pedophile.
At the time I weighed 150 at 24 years old. You are not allowed to leave your cell for 23 and half hours a day so as you can imagine depression and stress kicked in so all I ate was vegetables the whole 30 days I was in. I lost 20 pounds in one month and I was like a walking stick figure. When they let me out they also moved me to another area and I ended up getting a gang member as a cellie. He was a twig like me but he talked me into hitting the gym with him so he could have someone to go with since we were both still on segregation. We ate like there was no tomorrow and trained like beasts; im talking see food diet, 4-6 ramen noodle cups a day, ritz crackers, cookies, chips, didnt fkn matter we ate it and of course the 3 hots they served. I got duty in the kitchen so I smuggled out even more food for us to eat. We also drank a shit ton of coffee, more then likely about 2 pots a day apiece. Fast forward to release day. I was 180 pounds and completely solid muscle. I was roughly 10% Bodyfat. He was around the same except he was a little taller then me (like everyone on the planet). I pushed him hard and he did the same to me.
I guess the bottom line is flush your system of all the shit for 30 days if you can. Eat 100% clean even if it kills you to do so. NO DRINKING NO SMOKING Then start training hard and eat everything in site. If you are training properly and getting solid rest every night you will grow like a fkn weed in no time straight. Ask Tonytulo about it and he will say the same thing. We didn't have weight gainers or preworkout or protein powders or aas. We had good old fashioned food and iron. I trained 5 days a week and slept for 8 hours a night. I ate everything I could and more. Im not sure how many calories I ate a day but ate about 8-10 times with only 3 large meals; breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
The problem is noone wants to go to that extreme; they want to have their pizza by their bedside and then throw drugs at their fat and laziness issues. Discipline in the gym should be the same discipline in your life.
The 30 days "cleanse" is actually a great idea especially for guys like us who are eating huge amounts of food everyday. Stuff definitely gets backdd up in ones intestines probably making it harder to absorb the nutrients and just to get rid of all the toxins and stuff built up in our systems. And doing that is like priming for a cycle, the size and strength gains when you get back in the gym and start pounding the food again would be epic, almost like the rebound growth bodybuilders get after dieting for a show and restricting cals and carbs for so long. I always get the best results on bulks right after cutting.
It was actually pretty easy, the first week really took a toll on me though, low energy, slept a lot. But after that week my body adapted. I did drink milk though, quite a bit so I still got some protein.
I went in at 150 and walked out almost 240 with my top set of abs and have pics for proof lol.
You find ways to make it work. 3 way phone calls cost money, opening a store makes money also , being the booky at the table helped too. An if you didn't have money on the books I took your trays of food. That and all the milk, rice , eggs , steak , chicken , etc etc etc plenty of food to get big inside....
Up north only 2 prisons had a commissary with protein powders, preworkouts, and all your supplements. It was Northampton kiddy camp. I lived south of there so I didn't qualify to transfer. They hated me so bad they would not let me go to pre-release and made me do my time all the way through. Besides, I would have caught new charges as that's where most of the rapists and pedophiles were sent. My little brother caught a new charge when he was sent there for A-B with a deadly weapon...his foot fkn lmao.
Oh and BTW, taking peoples tray's? You fkn big bully.
bigmurphIt must have sucked eating those blan ass vegetables I wouldn't eat them at all or I would throw up in chow.
But you said you got 3 hots were is that shit 1 hot if you're lucky and that Styrofoam makes it to you fast enough where I was.
Besides all that I have seen the basic cleanse diet then go hard work with someone so yeah it works I don't think im as strong willed as you though doing it with them veggies +1 just for eating those.
I was in New England at the time. The meal plan was great lol. Not so much down south I hear.
bigmurphDown south they starve you
They give you what they call food its all almost privatized so its all about them making money off you
That's if you settle and just eat the little bit of shit of the three trays they give you. I'm a born hustler , I had more food than I could shake a stick at....all I did was eat and lift. Prison both federal and state is where I discovered bodybuilding and picked up my first muscular development.
All the junkies will give you there food for protection. Candy from a baby.
bigmurphLol
bigmurphAlot do pick up working out while doing time. I know thats basically what I did and read but you do have to find a hustle to survive. I personally was a trustee in the laundry so I could get fresh uniforms and all the soap you needed. We also got paid by our dep because he would leave us and haul ass to go watch tv and as long as we didn't get him in trouble with his Sargent he would take care of us with real coffee not that commissary crap but legit nestle. That was worth 3$ a glove thats of course how we would get it back to our house.
I've never gone fed do they feed you better or same bs as state?
Fed is a whole different world depending on how your classed. Better food is an understatement. Fed time is long time tho.
One time, we had an inmate escape. All of the news media was there. They were going to let them in at lunch time to film. The warden thought it would be a great idea to send someone out to get steak for us. It was a total PR ploy, but we ate good that day. I look back on it now and think, wtf? Now I get why people think prisoners, especially feds, are pampered. That's the kind of crap they show them on television. Food in the BOP was good and plentiful, but that's the only time I ever had steak.
54 days a yr good time, lol.
Privatized prison are becoming a thing of the past, They signed a bill mandating the removal of them not too long ago.
Man, sounds like you had it rough there for awhile. You definitely got to experience the effects of some good nutrient partitioning. Reminds me of the post-show rebound effect when you start eating everything in site again starting with an uber low body fat and all you do is gain slabs of muscle. I bet I put on more muscle in that month after the show than I do in 6-8 months of training at other times of the year. Really sucks I lost out on that this year.
it was rough but you have a pojnt, the cut before bulk worked for me and you as well. If you get this guy in your gym to do the same I am sure you can build a beast.
+1 for beating the shit out of a chimo.
What were you doing in the protective unit?
The pedophiles were in general population with the rest of us, this was county jail and 1 year or 2 before your release they transfer you from upstate to county to finish your time. There were more but the serial child rapist was number one on my list. I only got to break his jaw before the CO's came in but i stomped his nuts a few times too. Hopefully I fkn destroyed them.
I've seen county jails used for a lot of diff things, short local sentences, holding for contempt of court, pre trial sentencing, or awaiting trial. Even seen them used as federal holdovers, but I've never heard of one used for pre-release for 2 yrs. They didn't have a halfway house or work release programs for pre release? Interesting. And you were very lucky, I've never heard of a county jail with a gym. Sounds like a country club. I was in a county lockup for a few days around Christmas awaiting a pretrial hearing. The place was so overcrowded a bunch of us had to sleep on the floor. And this was a big place for a county, 13 pods if I remember right. Food was horrendous as well. Prison was much better. That was a lifetime ago though. Things change. Hope I don't ever have to find out exactly how.
New england has lots of county jails they use as both short timers (2 and a half years or lower) and of course anything over that go upstate. When you hit short time they can transfer you to county. Most bids up north are 2 and a half, 3 to 5, or 10-15. No overcrowding because they just build a new one to accomodate. All the county jails where I was from were cake walks and you did easy time. Once you go upstate if you didnt know anyone you were fucked.
bigmurph+1
bigmurphThats a good question I didn't think of i just heard 3 hots I've never gotten 3 hots anywhere.
Very nice read +2
I was thinking the same thing a couple days ago..
Hopefully the guy stays receptive, learns something and reaches his goals.
Nice story, bro..
Well he is definitely a work in progress. His form sucks so we are working on that and I have to get him to actually stop spending so much time in the gym. He is a little over exuberant. He is there when I get there and still there when I leave. He told me that his workouts are about 2 hours long. I have to convince him that less is more at this stage of the game. If I am there for more than an hour it is to long. I don't want him to burn out and get frustrated and then scrap everything. He is a pretty good sponge when I do tell him something though.