Everyone keeps talking about the zombie apocalypse that is ever approaching on the horizon but I first want to address 
the silent epidemic going on right now.
Body Snatchers…
Yes body snatchers.
Whether you may realize it or not there is a plague in the industry going on of this trend to where we are seeing more and more skinny fat people
Men and women that use to be overweight lose all this weight then they are skinny fat.
Young teens and early adults seem to be the favorite target of this fiend.
These people are walking in not really appearing to be overweight but still look very “soft”; they are what we would call “skinny” but yet they still have a pudge sticking out.
Remember the days when there were true hard gainers? Individuals that walked into the gym that WERE skinny but they HAD abs!? I have yet to see many of those anymore; they have been taken over by the Body Snatchers.
Instead they have been replaced by skinny people with very little muscular development but more pudge in certain areas; most notably breast tissue (gynomastia in the fitness circle for men) and lower ab fat.
If you thinking that you may be a skinny fat person then you have been taken over… but at least you haven’t lost all of yourself to the body snatcher just yet!
In an effort to treat this body snatching skinny fatness and get those people fixed so we are better prepared to battle out the predicted zombie apocalypse.
5 Rules to rid the skinny fat
1. Fix the Hormones
Skinny fat people tend to have horrible hormone profiles, and in some cases I have seen these rival obese individuals, and if your hormones are off then dropping that fat and gaining the muscle that you want is almost near impossible. This right here is the perfect time for the skinny fat body snatcher to sneak up on you.
Get a hormonal panel.
The best way to look at this is that we can’t fix what we don’t know and there are multiple hormones that need to be check: cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, thyroid, etc.. So I have personally found that going to your primary care physician is always the best first step; this way we have a starting point and we know where to go from there.
If for some reason you can’t get a hormone profile… or honestly your just too lazy and don’t want to spend the money then take a look at this blog where it was discussed that depending on WHERE you carry your fat can determine what hormone MAY be out of wack.
Stop eating mass produced meats
I’ve ranted and raved on this countless times but all the hormone laden foods are, in this trainer’s opinion, the reason we have such hormonal issues going one now such as: overly developed your girls, guys wearing skinny jeans and the emo culture <=== Tweet that
Start consuming more free range beef, chicken, wild fish, free range eggs and I can assure you that you will notice a difference VERY quickly
Supplement
Hey I’ll admit I’m not a supplement junkie like some people I know (I just talked with someone that spends more on his monthly supplements that his car payment… oh, and his car payment is in the high 300’s) but supplements are there for a reason.
Supplement what you are deficient in, or what needs to be corrected, to give you body a jump start and begin realigning itself. Test boosters, estrogen blockers, cotisol buffers, etc…
My first recommendation would be to start with one or two and THAT’S it; let’s see how your body feels after that. Then if more needs to be added you can. You don’t want to start taking 10 different supplements at once, feel better and not know which one corrected the issue.
2. Do more than just BIG LIFTS
For some reason I hear from a lot of people that all “hard gainers” only need to do just big lifts and that it.
Well I don’t agree on that on multiple levels but first off we are talking about skinny fat people not hard gainers, big difference right there.
If all it took was to have the skinny fat person do the big three (squat, bench, dead lift) then don’t you think that would have corrected some of the issue by now?
Now let me clarify first that the big three SHOULD be in your routine but you need to do more than that. I would include some isolation, body weight, dumbbell and band work to help keep your body from being so beat up from the big lifts
3. Train more frequently
This is to piggy back a bit off my last comment of having the skinny fat person do more than just the big three but I would recommend that a skinny fat person needs to train more than just three times a week.
I would recommend 4 MAYBE even 5 days for no more than 45-60min at a time (cortisol levels tend to go up after 50ish min and that we are trying to avoid at this time).
Make sure though that when you are training frequently that you are keeping track of your numbers in your workouts then beating your those numbers the following week. We call this progressive overload.
This way you are getting stronger and with strength comes FORCED hormonal correction.
Try it, you’ll soon find that that fat drops quickly and muscle is added VERY quickly.
Don’t worry I’ll be doing a blog over this in the next several days outlining a plan on how this works and what you should do. Just for now beat your numbers from last week… this includes you as well ladies.
4. Conditioning is a MUST
Come on they are called skinny FAT for a reason so there is fat that needs to be dropped but we need to do this in a specific way.
We can NOT do long duration cardio, which has been shown to increase body fat and increase muscle burning, we need to do high intensity conditioning or HIIT cardio.
In addition to doing 4 strength training sessions a week I recommend two days of short intense conditioning workouts such as: sprints, sled work, sledge hammer, ropes, band/body weight work.
These workouts should be short, no more than 15-20min and INSTENSE.
This will spike up your GH (growth hormone), increase your body’s ability to utilize the food you consume for a good purpose (think higher metabolism), keep you lean and help you recover MUCH faster.
Body snatchers can’t keep up with people who sprint 😉
5. Sleep
When the body is resting this is where it finally gets a chance to work on self and begin some of the process of realigning the hormones.
GH levels go up, cortisol down, testosterone up, etc..
If you take a look at most skinny fat people they do not have regular sleep habits and they are probably not getting in good quality sleep. Think of it as a person that sleeps only 6 hours a day but it waking up ever few hours for various reasons; even though they did sleep for hours they didn’t get a good nights rest.
I you were to correct this ALONE you would notice a huge difference in body fat reduction, increased recover and improved muscle growth rate.
If you are serious about getting rid of the skinny fat and defending yourself against the body snatchers sleep a minimum of 8hrs a day, go to bed early and turn off the damn TV.
You can combat the skinny fat body snatcher! The thing is strong but we do know its weakness.
Do these steps above and you will be well on your way to getting you perceived self back and get the body that you have been busting your butt for.
If you want a good start to this program and and can’t wait for anymore info to come out take a look at FREE Report No MORE Wimpy Fat Loss
In Health and Awesomeness,
Travis Merritt, BS, CPT, CES, RBT is the owner of Fitness Revolution in Rowlett, TX.
P.S. – If you enjoyed this post please share it with your friends using the social media buttons below.
P.P.S. – Please ask a question or share a comment with us in the Leave a Comment section at the very bottom of the page. We love your feedback and will use it to develop future blog posts.
PLEASE CLICK THE “LIKE” BUTTON, POST A COMMENT AND SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS…
