Coming to the realisation that you are skinny and fat can be quite a shock. For me I didn’t realise at all until someone pointed it out to me that I was no longer a thin skinny guy, but had started to get fat! You can read about how I got like this in my five stages of getting in shape article.  Being skinny isn’t anything to be proud of, but when you’ve been thin for years you get used to it and accept that is how you are. Waking up one day and discovering you are now fat can come as quite a shock!

What Not to Do if You are Skinny Fat

When this was pointed out to me I pretty much joined the gym the next day and started doing what other people were doing in the gym which was mainly running on the treadmill for hours a week. Looking back now, this is not what to do if you are skinny fat and want to become something else.

Why not do endless cardio to stop being (skinny) fat? Next time you are at the gym, take a look at the people who regularly slog away on the cardio machines. Are they in the good shape? Do you want to look like them?  When you see them there, months later, still pounding away, chances are they will look the same. Cardio is great for increasing your fitness levels but isn’t so great at changing your body composition, which is what you need to do if you don’t want to be skinny fat anymore.

The Skinny Fat Solution

So now we know what not to do, it’s time to look at what works and what needs to be done. If you are skinny fat I’ll wager you have little to no muscle mass and aren’t toned at all. You aren’t too fat, as otherwise you’d just be fat. What we need to do is bring some muscle to the table and change the equation from skinny + fat to muscle.

Why Muscle Makes You Look Better

A bit of muscle in the right places can improve your posture giving you a confident appearance and help diminish the visual prominence of any pockets of fat you might have. By developing muscle on and around your problem areas, where the fat is more prevalent, can help you look less flabby in those trouble spots. Lift up your arm right now and give your upper under arm a little poke. Does it wobble around like a jelly on a plate? Tense your muscles in that area and notice whether it makes a difference to the wobble factor. By simply developing some tricep muscle tone you won’t be losing fat in that area but you will be making it less visible and wobbly. This is just one place where adding muscle, for men and women, can make you look so much better. Your body is full of areas like that where some muscle tone can tighten things up and stop the wobble. Your belly, your chest, your legs, your butt and even your back are just some of the areas where a little muscle can go a long way to making you look a whole lot better.

Overtime, through exercise and good diet, the fat stores will shrink, but by adding some muscle tone you can start the process to stopping skinny fat at both ends and get toned and lose fat as the end result.

Diet and Muscle Growth to Stop Skinny Fatness

You need to clean up your diet to beat skinny fatness. Despite being skinny, you are also fat and eating better can help with this. Despite being fat, you are also skinny and weight training to grow muscle can help with this. By taking this two pronged approach you can make real changes to your body composition over time.

Think about how you’d like to look this time next year and for the rest of your days. It can most likely be achieved with an increase in lean muscle tone and a drop in fat. Neither of these things can be accomplished overnight but wouldn’t you rather stick to a simple training schedule and moderate diet on a long term basis than multiple punishing fad diets that leave you back where you started once you finish them?

Maybe you are not ready to take up this long term skinny fat solution and still have some more 30 day fruit juice diets or 21 day fasts and extreme colon cleanses to try out before you hit rock bottom and realise a change in lifestyle is needed. A change that will leave you looking better, becoming healthier, getting stronger and having increased energy on a daily basis.

If that appeals to you, it’s time to start the skinny fat solution and join the revolution.