What's up, guys?
Sean Nalewanyj on www.SeanNal.com and in this video today we’re talking about the skinny
fat body type.
And I want to explain here why, in most cases, if you're skinny fat, meaning that you have
excess body fat to lose but you also have low levels of muscular development, why bulking
first is, probably, going to be a mistake and why it’s usually best to start off in
a calorie deficit and put the main focus in fat loss instead.
Not in every single case but in the majority of cases, I would say.
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So I actually did a video on this topic a couple of years back and in that video what
I basically said was that either bulking or cutting could be an acceptable option depending
on how exactly you define skinny fat and depending on what your current physique is like.
And I still think that’s true overall because some people who thinks they're skinny fat
or actually lean enough to bulk.
But in that video I also said if you need help determining whether you should bulk or
cut that you should message me through my facebook page and I’ll give you my opinion.
Now, I ended up getting way more messages than I anticipated and I’m not able to personally
reply to all of those request anymore because I get so many.
But over the past couple of years of receiving them almost every single day from guys and
girls asking me should I bulk or cut, probably nine times out of ten, and looking at their
physique, the obvious answer was to cut.
And I feel pretty comfortable now in saying that most skinny fat guys, and females too,
are best to lean down first and foremost before they put their main focus on adding size.
And there are two main reasons for this.
The first reason is pretty simple and that is that fat loss is a much faster process
than building muscle.
A standard rate of fat loss is usually going to be somewhere between one to two pounds
per week depending on how much fat you have to lose and how aggressive your calorie deficit
is.
For a skinny fat person I’d say, probably, more around one pound per week would be a
good number and one and a half pounds for the most.
Whereas a standard rate of muscle growth would be about half a pound per week at best.
So if you're skinny fat, you can probably lose fat around two to three times faster
than you could put on muscle.
Muscle growth is a very slow and very gradual process that really takes time to build up,
whereas with the proper training and diet in place you can actually drop body fat fairly
quickly.
So you have excess fat to lose right now it usually makes more sense to just get rid of
it right from the get-go.
And if you're skinny fat then you probably don’t have a lot of fat to lose anyway.
You know, it’s not like you're significantly overweight and have thirty plus pounds of
fat to lose.
You might only have ten or fifteen pounds for the most to lose, in which case you might
only be looking at a simple eight to twelve week cut in order to get rid of it.
So that’s the first reason: fat loss happened a lot faster than muscle growth.
And the second reason is because if you're skinny fat then that probably also means that
you're still a beginner, and if you're a beginner than there's a decent chance that you can
re-composition and actually gain some muscle even while being in a calorie deficit.
And that because proper weight training is still going to be a new stimulus for your
body and you can actually use the calories in stored fat to fuel the muscle building
process.
On the other hand, if you go with the calorie surplus, yeah, you're getting more muscle
than you would in a deficit but you're also going to gain extra body fat along with it.
You're never going to lose body fat while being in a surplus.
It’s a one way street of gaining muscle and putting on some body fat at the same time.
So if your body fat is already excessively high to begin with then choosing a route that
involves putting more and more body fat on top of it, that doesn’t really makes sense.
It’s not going to be healthy to maintain a high body fat percentage like that over
a prolonged period.
You're not going to look good, you're not going to feel good, and there's even a chance
that you'll start to feel de-motivated as you see that fat accumulating.
And you'll want to go back to cutting before you’ve even put on any significant muscle
mass to begin with.
Again, because it’s a very slow and gradual process.
So, in other words, a calorie deficit means fat loss, which is good and possibly some
muscle depending on your program and on your genetics, which is also good.
Whereas a calorie surplus means muscle growth is just good but even more fat gain on top
of what you already have, which is obviously going to be a bad thing and could even throw
you off track in the bigger picture if end up losing motivation as the result of it.
So, the bottom line here is that if your goal is to build a lean and muscular body and you're
clearly above around twelve to fourteen percent as a male, or about nineteen to twenty-one
percent as a female.
You know, you have a decent amount of extra fat around your midsection, your abs are completely
hidden, no real muscle definition overall, going right into a surplus and bulking is,
probably, going to be a bad idea.
And you'll usually be best off to put your main focus on leaning down first.
You probably don’t have a lot of fat to lose in the first place, fat loss happens
fairly quickly if you do it properly and you might even gain some additional muscle mass
along the way.
Then once you get down to those body fat ranges that I just gave and you have a nice, lean
foundation to start out with, then you can shift into a lean bulk from there.
It’s just a much cleaner, more efficient route for most people.
Now, the main objection I’ll hear to this is people saying that they're free to cut
because they don’t want to look too skinny.
Now, first off if a lot of fat you have to lose is around, like, your chest and midsection
area then you won’t even necessarily look skinnier overall, especially with your shirt
off.
If leaning down brings out a bit of muscle definition then you might even look bigger.
And secondly, as I said before, if your program is properly structured and you're still a
beginner then you probably gain some muscle while you're leaning down anyway.
And in any case, even if cutting first did cause you to appear a bit thinner than you’d
like, you have to keep in mind that it’s just a temporary phase on your way to your
ideal body.
You can't have it all right of the bat and you might have to make certain sacrifices
if this is something that you're truly serious about for the long haul.
Not to mention that if you're skinny fat right now then being skinny lean is still going
to be an improvement.
You're still going to look better than you do right now anyway.
And the final I’d make on all of this is to just mention that if you are skinny fat
and you truly, truly are okay with the idea of gaining a bit of extra fat if it means
putting on some decent muscle size then starting put with a bulk ultimately is your choice
if your body fat isn’t too high right now.
It’ll still work in the long run if you do it properly.
It isn’t necessarily wrong, but do keep in mind that a lot of people will say that
they don’t care about gaining fat but then once they actually start to see that fat building
up further and further, especially around the chest and midsection area, they usually
pretty quickly change their mind and it does end up bothering them.
So just be aware of that.
All in all, for most people and most situations, if they're clearly above the body fat ranges
that I gave, it’s best to lose the fat first and then put the primary focus muscle gain
later on.
So, I hope this was helpful, guys.
If you do want to grab a complete program that will guide you through this whole process
step-by-step in terms of training nutrition and supplementation, along with one-on-one
support, then you can download my complete Body Transformation Blueprint by clicking
here or by heading over to www.BTBluePrint.com.
The link for that is in the description box.
That will lay out everything you need to know in an easy to follow format.
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Thanks for watching, guys, and I’ll talk to you again soon.