“Skinny Fat” Diet: 9 Tips For Optimal Fat Loss and Muscle Gain

In today’s post, I’m going to share nine invaluable skinny fat diet tips to improve your nutrition.

We’ll go over valuable information, such as:

• What goals to focus on
• If carbs are good or bad
• If you should do intermittent fasting
• Lots more

So, if you’re interested in eating better to build muscle and lose fat, read on.

Let’s dive in.

1. Focus On The Right Goal

The first step in any effective plan is to get clear on what you want to achieve. But doing so as a skinny fat person is often easier said than done. The issue is, you lack muscular development, so gaining weight makes sense. But, you’re also at a high body fat percentage, which means that gaining even more fat isn’t the right approach.

So, what can you do?

The most efficient way for skinny fat people to improve how they look is to do a body recomposition protocol. I’ve gone more in-depth into the benefits of body recomp over bulking or cutting here. The simple version is as follows:

Doing a body recomposition as a skinny fat person is the most efficient way to progress. You burn some fat, but you also gain a bit of muscle. As a result, your physique improves even if you make small progress toward both goals.

2. Track Your Nutrition

Yes, I know. Tracking your nutrition can be tedious. Weighing food, calculating calories, and writing it all down takes time and effort. So, many people don’t do it and instead hope for the best. But among the many skinny fat diet tips, tracking your nutrition is the most practical way to ensure accuracy with your food intake, build muscle, and get ripped. Plus, tracking is easier than most people imagine.

Getting started can be challenging, and it will take you some time to get used to the process. But, once you gain some momentum, weighing food and writing it down will get easier. At some point, you might even start eyeballing food quantities effectively. But you need the experience of tracking to reach that point.

You’ll need two things to start:

1. A fitness app (like MyFitnessPal) or a simple notebook to write down your food
2. A kitchen scale to weigh your foods

Once you have both, calculate your daily calorie and protein needs, start weighing your foods, and write everything down. 

3. Stop With The Carb Cutting

Ketogenic dieting is quite popular these days, and countless people swear by its efficacy for fat loss and general health. But how valid are these ideas?

Cutting carbs from your nutrition can lead to rapid weight loss initially. It’s not uncommon to lose five, even ten pounds in your first couple of weeks on a keto diet. Because of that, many people reason that keto is the best way to lose fat. But what many people fail to consider is that most of the initial weight loss comes in the form of water and glycogen.

As you cut carbs from your diet, your body burns through your stored glycogen (a form of complex carbs inside the muscles and liver), which accounts for a part of the weight loss. Each gram of glycogen is also bound to three or four grams of water. For example, if you lose 200 grams of glycogen, you will also lose 600 to 800 grams of water.

People also love keto dieting because it makes it easier to stick with caloric restriction. Removing carbs from your diet can also help reduce carb cravings. While both are beneficial, eating only protein and fats can make it difficult to eat enough calories, resulting in rapid weight (and muscle) loss.

Keto can also hinder athletic performance and recovery because the diet denies us our primary fuel source: carbohydrates. As a result, many people on a ketogenic diet report feeling sluggish, weak, and less resilient. The issue is, these effects would prevent you from training effectively and making good progress toward your goals.

While there are benefits to keto dieting for some people, I don’t recommend it for most skinny fat individuals. You would be better of tracking your nutrition and getting enough carbs to support your workouts, recovery, and well-being.

4. Eat Enough Calories

The reason why most struggle to fix the skinny fat look, and why many people end up skinny fat in the first place, has to do with calorie intake. Specifically, people often eat fewer calories than they should, resulting in a skinny fat physique.

For example, when most people decide to get in shape, they go down the traditional path: lots of cardio coupled with clean eating. As a result, they create a significant calorie deficit and lose weight rapidly. The problem is, rapid weight loss inevitably leads to excessive muscle breakdown. Overweight folks who follow this approach end up skinny fat. Those that are skinny fat initially lose the little muscle they have, ending up even thinner but not much leaner.

One of the most important lessons you need to learn as a skinny fat person is maintaining a high enough calorie intake. In doing so, you can preserve your muscle mass as you shed fat and look much better. As a rule of thumb, I recommend being in a 200-calorie deficit. That way, you can shed fat gradually, but you might still build muscle and pull off a successful body recomposition.

5. Don’t Diet For too Long

Dieting is an often necessary part of getting fit. And while good in moderation, prolonged dieting can bring a host of adverse effects, especially for skinny fat folks. Most notably, the longer you diet, the greater your chances of muscle loss become. Dieting also brings metabolic adaptation, creating resistance against further fat loss. Plus, losing weight can be tough on the mind. You have to deal with restrictions, cravings, and hunger, which can add up.

As discussed in the first skinny fat diet tip, I recommend a body recomposition protocol for most skinny fat folks. Doing so is beneficial because it allows you to shed some fat and build muscle simultaneously, resulting in quicker visual improvements. Plus, a body recomposition requires a smaller calorie deficit, which delays the adverse effects of dieting. But even on a recomp protocol, you shouldn’t be in a calorie deficit for too long. Bump your calorie intake for a while when you see your gym progress stall, or you start feeling excessively tired.

6. Introduce These Foods to Raise Testosterone Levels

Testosterone is an androgenic hormone that profoundly impacts our health, well-being, and fitness. The primary functions of testosterone relate to the development of male characteristics, such as:

• Developing a deeper voice
• Having more body hair
• Having an Adam’s apple
• Having more muscle and strength

Testosterone is also essential for:

• Well-being
• Energy levels
• Cognition and concentration
• Confidence
• Sexual drive and function

Having low testosterone is linked to adverse effects, such as:

• Inability to build muscle and get stronger
• More body fat, especially in the midsection
• Lack of confidence and drive
• Low energy levels and brain fog
• Low sexual drive and erectile dysfunction

While many factors impact testosterone levels, certain foods provide us with nutrients that help us maintain higher levels of the hormone. Some include:

• Leafy greens
• Eggs
• Berries
• Fatty fish, oysters, clams, and similar
• Cocoa

7. Adopt a Flexible Mindset Toward Nutrition

One of the most significant roadblocks to getting fit is having a rigid mindset toward training and nutrition. When they start eating better and exercising, many people develop an all-or-nothing attitude. They try to be perfect by only eating ‘clean’ and ‘healthy’ foods. If they fail to be perfect, many people give up, reasoning, “Why bother?”

You’ve probably been there yourself. I know I have. For example:

• Following a rigid diet for a month and being perfect. But then, you have one unhealthy meal and decide all the effort has gone to waste.
  
  
• Doing a demanding training program that has you work out six days per week. You’re consistent and push yourself hard. But you miss one workout and decide you’ve failed.

Having a flexible mindset means you make room for errors and the unexpected. Life happens, and we are not robots. You have to expect the occasional slip-ups because they will inevitably come. For example, you might go on vacation, unable to follow through with your calorie tracking or meal prepping. Or you might have to attend a social event and eat the food available there.

Understand that what you do repeatedly matters far more than a few isolated events. A single bad meal is nothing compared to twenty good ones, just as missing one workout doesn’t mean you’ve lost all your progress.

8. Consider Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting (IF) is an eating pattern that splits your days in two: fasting and feeding time. Unlike diets, IF doesn’t tell you what to eat but when. A common way to apply fasting into your life is to do the 16/8 protocol: 16 hours of fasting and an 8-hour feeding window each day. For example, you can skip eating in the morning, have your first meal at noon, eat dinner at 7 or 8 PM, and fast until noon the next day.

Fasting is by no means magical. Not eating for a certain period doesn’t mean you’ll lose more fat or build more muscle. Instead, intermittent fasting is a tool you can use to make the entire process more manageable.

The primary benefit of intermittent fasting is that it makes dieting easier to handle. By restricting your feeding window, you get to enjoy larger and more satisfying meals. As a result, you won’t feel like you’re dieting. Instead, you’ll feel more satiated from each meal, which will improve your nutritional satisfaction, reducing the risk of slip-ups or binges. 

You can read more about intermittent fasting for skinny fat folks here if you’re interested.

9. Eat Enough Protein

Proteins are organic molecules that consist of amino acids, the building blocks of life. Eating enough protein is essential for:

• Muscle growth and strength gain
• Tissue repair and post-workout recovery
• Muscle maintenance during a diet (effective fat loss)
• Overall health

Aside from playing an important role in physical development, protein is vital for producing antibodies, neurotransmitters, hormones, enzymes, and much more. Not eating enough protein can often lead to health issues, weakness, poor recovery, and more.

As a skinny fat person, eating enough protein is even more critical because you’re trying to do something difficult: build muscle and lose fat simultaneously. Failing to eat enough of the nutrient will prevent you from building muscle and might even lead to lean tissue loss while dieting.

You should aim for 0.8 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight. For example, if you weigh 170, eat between 136 and 170 grams of protein daily. Fantastic protein sources include:

• Meat
• Poultry
• Fish
• Cottage cheese
• Eggs
• Protein powder