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What Does It Mean to Be 'Skinny Fat'?

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What is 'skinny fat'?

When looking into body type, specific workouts, and certain diets – you’ll eventually come across the term “skinny fat”.

 

Skinny fat is a body type that appears to be slim or underweight, but the weight the body carries is mostly fat. Basically, it is a situation where someone may have low body weight but a high body fat percentage with little muscle mass. Make sense? Great.

 

Being skinny and fat can be a tricky situation. I mean, if you are straight-up scrawny or obese, then your goals can actually be easier to figure out. Being skinny fat leaves you somewhere in the middle. So where should you go from there?

According to NASM over 30 million Americans can be classified as skinny fat.

How to Determine if You are Skinny Fat:

First, you want to determine if you are underweight or moderate weight for your age in height. Here is a free online calculator to help determine that. Then you should try to figure out your body fat percentage.

 

One way to measure your body fat percentage is using methods like skinfold calipers, bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), or DEXA scans. And if you or your doctor don’t have access to any of those then you can use an online calculator (not the most accurate) or try to eyeball it. Do some quick Google Image searches on body fat percentage and try to see what looks most like you.

 

Another great way to do this is to pay attention to how your clothes fit and where you tend to store fat on your body. If you notice that you have a higher concentration of fat around your midsection or other areas despite being generally thin, you might be skinny fat.

 

If you are in that grey area of being skinny fat, then it can be hard to figure out if you want to gain weight or lose weight. Here’s what to consider – 

Should you cut or bulk?

A great method of determining your goals is to imagine a skinny fat spectrum. Looking at the picture above can give you a general idea of where you're at.

 

Of course, most people want to build muscle and lose fat (which will be the case for most beginners anyway). But which one should you optimize for?

 

Well, if you find yourself more on the skinny part of the spectrum then a bulk will benefit you. If you are more on the fat side of the spectrum then cutting will most likely be best. But in most cases, a moderate bulk followed by a cut will do the trick.

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