Hacking The Skinny Fat Body​

Chapter 2 – Hacking The Skinny Fat Body​

The first order of business is learning how to master your small stomach capacity, low appetite, and fast metabolism. Despite being skinny fat our ectomorph body types are actually a blessing in disguise.

You’ll be able to enjoy your life, pack on muscle, lose stubborn fat, and know exactly what your body needs to keep it performing at its best.

But see nutrition is the trickiest part for how to get rid of skinny fat for most people…

Get it wrong, and it could seriously hurt your results and hinder your hard efforts in the gym.

Many “hardgainers” simply do not eat enough. On top of that, they are doing way too much in the gym and focus on the wrong exercises. OR they are living a very sedentary lifestyle on top of poor food choices.

This could be the reason you have yet to see any noticeable gains.​
Almost any male who is consuming fewer than 2000 calories a day is never going to build himself up.

We may think we are eating “a lot of food”…

But if you would keep a food log for a few days (which I am about to teach you how to do) you would discover that you need to eat much more. No amount of BCAA’s, creatine, vitamins, or mainstream supplement will help you if you are deficient in the biggest factors—enough quality food.

If your training is in good order as measured by the guidelines of this guide, and you are sleeping well and not killing yourself in the gym, you will be right on track to transforming your body.

Always keep these 3 key skinny fat components in mind:​
1) You must know the caloric intake that maintains your bodyweight.

2) You must consume a diet of nutrient-dense food.

3) You must train intensely.

Level 1: Eating And How To Get Rid Of Skinny Fat​

Nothing is worse than ruining your physique with a bunch of body fat. We’re already fairly lean. With that said, we must put an emphasis on lean bulking. In other words, eating just enough food to support our training without spilling over in a bunch of fat. And dialing in nutrition to lose that last bit of stubborn body fat. A recomposition if you will is the best approach on how to get rid of skinny fat in my opinion.

And here’s the best part. We’re going to use our natural slimness to our advantage when it comes to building muscle.

You see, when one is fairly lean, they have higher insulin sensitivity. Insulin is a hormone that shuttles nutrients into cells.

If you bulk up too fast, things start to go down hill. As body fat rises, the body becomes less insulin sensitive. Making it harder to burn fat, making it easier to get fat, and even your testosterone will take a hit.

Not to mention, protein synthesis rates will be suppressed.

So trying to “dirty bulk” your way to muscle gains is not smart.

And in the long run, gaining too much fat in the process will make it harder to lose the fat come time for a cut.

Weight Gain Expectations​
As a natural lifter, we are limited to how much muscle we can build.

Typically, you can expect the scale to go up 0.5 lbs to 1 lbs lbs each week. That’s pure muscle! Although, the scale may stay the same depening on your starting position as you lose body fat and build lean muscle at the same time.

Don’t get discouraged. If you don’t have years of proper training under your belt, in your first year of training you could add 20 lbs to 35 lbs of muscle!

Talk about a transformation!

The Skinny Fat Calorie Algorithm​
The first step is to determine how many calories you need to eat each day to put your body in a calorie surplus.

Think of your daily calories like this:

Deficit – Lose weight
Maintenance – Stay the same
Surplus – Gain weight
Part of being able to adhere enough and stick to the plan comes down to keeping things simple. Here’s my favorite formula for calculating your daily calorie surplus or calorie recomposition (more muscle and less fat).

What we are doing here is taking an educated estimate on how many calories your body is burning per pound of body weight each day.

The great thing is that they already take into account our activity level so we don’t need to do a bunch of annoying calculations.

Typically, our maintenance calories (number of daily calories to maintain our weight) is around the number 15-16 times our body weight in pounds.
For example, I’m around 180 lbs. Since I’ve tested this, I do know that my maintenance calories are indeed around 2900.

To place yourself in a proper calorie surplus.

Start by taking your body weight in pounds and multiply it by the number 17.​
If you’re skinny fat and really focused on losing the excess body fat, I recommend you start by eating 12 calories per pound of current body weight in pounds while following the training guidelines below.

Here’s how it will look –

Step 1: Find your body weight in pounds (weigh yourself in the morning after the bathroom).

Step 2: Multiply your body weight by the number 17

Example – 140 pound male

(140 lbs) X (17 calories per pound of body weight)

= 2380 calorie surplus

Just round up to 2400.

Adjusting Your Diet Based On Your Results​
Now, with this part, you will need to be very diligent with tracking your calories as well as your body weight over the next couple weeks.

You can weigh yourself once a week on the same day or even once everyday and take the weekly average. Either method is fine, as long as you stay consistent.

If you nailed your calories on the first try, awesome job!

Again we don’t want to ruin our physiques with a bunch of fat gain. You should be gaining weight in the 0.5 to 1 lb per week sweet spot and feeling strong and powerful in your workouts. Or the scale should fluctuate around the same number by 3-5lbs if you’re focused more on a recomp where you’re losing fat and building muscle.

Although, we still need to take into account that everyone is different.​
And we all live different lifestyles. Some of you may be very active throughout the day, athletes, etc.

If you aren’t gaining weight (especially strength in the gym).

Bump up your calories by 150. Ideally, these calories should come in the form of carbs. Simply do this by increasing a snack or adding more calories to your post-workout meal.

And then re-test until you nail the sweet spot.

The majority of guys I’ve worked with hit this sweet spot around 18 calories per pound of body weight. But again, everyone is different! You’ll soon learn what works best for you.