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Skinny fat hell

recompme

Member
Hi so guys I need some advice on how to get out of being skinny fat (thin on the outside fat on the inside, tofi is the medical term), posted in natural thread as I don't want to jump on testosterone.

Context
Most of my life I've been eating one meal a day, early on in life it was a decent home cooked meal but later on it was more like processed junk food. Despite only eating one meal I was fat and decided to lose weight by running and ended up skinny fat (tofi). Dropped the running and I've been training with weights for roughly a year and I've made minimal muscle gains covered in alot of fat. The fat is on my lower belly and over my minimally present aesthetic muscles. Currently I eat 4 meals as clean as possible though two of those are protein shakes with about 30 grams of protein in each meal. I can't bulk too much as I just end up getting fat and neither can I cut as I'm trying to repair my metabolism from the minimal amount I've been eating for years.

It just seems like I'm spinning my wheels beating myself up in the gym and getting nowhere. Can anyone suggest supplements that will help me get out of this skinny fat hell?

Lifting routine was a 3 day a week full body routine hypertrophy type workout, but I'm currently trying out 5x5 stronglifts as I'm just so weak I need to up my strength. I'll go back to a hypertrophy type workout once I start working with reasonable weights. At this point I am able to do bodyweight chinups and dips though they aren't a staple of my workout routine yet and I don't weigh that much anyway.

Any advice appreciated.
 
recompme said:
Hi so guys I need some advice on how to get out of being skinny fat (thin on the outside fat on the inside, tofi is the medical term), posted in natural thread as I don't want to jump on testosterone.

Context
Most of my life I've been eating one meal a day, early on in life it was a decent home cooked meal but later on it was more like processed junk food. Despite only eating one meal I was fat and decided to lose weight by running and ended up skinny fat (tofi). Dropped the running and I've been training with weights for roughly a year and I've made minimal muscle gains covered in alot of fat. The fat is on my lower belly and over my minimally present aesthetic muscles. Currently I eat 4 meals as clean as possible though two of those are protein shakes with about 30 grams of protein in each meal. I can't bulk too much as I just end up getting fat and neither can I cut as I'm trying to repair my metabolism from the minimal amount I've been eating for years.

It just seems like I'm spinning my wheels beating myself up in the gym and getting nowhere. Can anyone suggest supplements that will help me get out of this skinny fat hell?

Lifting routine was a 3 day a week full body routine hypertrophy type workout, but I'm currently trying out 5x5 stronglifts as I'm just so weak I need to up my strength. I'll go back to a hypertrophy type workout once I start working with reasonable weights. At this point I am able to do bodyweight chinups and dips though they aren't a staple of my workout routine yet and I don't weigh that much anyway.

Any advice appreciated.
Click to expand...

I think this is the first time that I've ever seen anyone mention TOFI on here. I'm going to answer your question and then do another post to explain a little about that for anyone reading that may not be familiar with it.

You're basically in a spot where you need to build muscle and lose fat, but more specifically visceral fat, which is a little bit different than focusing on total fat loss and also likely focus on improving insulin sensitivity/reducing insulin resistance.

The supplement suggestions that I'm suggesting are specifically based on your situation and targeting the different aspects of it. I'm not saying that you have to use them all; you could, but that's up the individual and the budget.

Here are my suggestions and reasoning:

I hope this information helps. If you have any questions, please let me know.
 
For anyone interested, here is some more information about TOFI.

TOFI (Thin Outside, Fat Inside), also referred to as 'skinny fat' is used to describe people that appear outwardly thin and appear to have a normal body mass index (BMI) but have a high percentage of body-fat, and normally a particularly high amount of visceral fat (fat around the internal organs) and low muscle mass.

Characteristics of TOFI:
  • Low Muscle Mass: People with this condition have less muscle tissue.
  • Excess Visceral Fat: They have a disproportionately high amount of fat stored around their abdominal organs, such as the liver and intestines (visceral fat).
  • Despite having a high body-fat percentage, their weight may fall within the 'normal' or 'healthy' BMI range, making them appear normal or skinny on the outside but it is deceptive because they actually have a high body-fat percentage and visceral fat puts them at high risk of numerous health conditions.
Being 'skinny fat' and high amounts of visceral fat increases the risk of:
  • Metabolic Syndrome
  • Hormonal Imbalances
  • Insulin Resistance
  • Type 2 Diabetes
  • Cardiovascular Disease
  • Fatty Liver
  • Inflammation
  • & More

I've written about this some on here in the past when discussing visceral fat, mostly related to discussion on Ab-Solved, Lipoderm Xtreme, and Napalm Xtreme - when I've talked about people with high amounts of visceral fat were the people that would likely benefit more from Ab-Solved (targets visceral fat) over Lipoderm Xtreme (targets subcutaneous fat) and how Napalm Xtreme targets aspects of both.
 
Supplements were mentioned above so il talk about the other stuff. 5x5 is a decent program, any program can work but a 5x5 is more demanding then most ppl think. From a diet and training point of view I normally would say diet hard, get the fat off and reverse back out into your bulk. But if you're in the situation described above (TOFI) I didn't know what that stood for so thanks for the explanation @sns8778 . But if that's the description you fit then I would work on a diet that helps keep insulin stable and I would go into a slight calorie deficit. If follow any program that you enjoy (but you must progress at the workout) you gotta beat the log book and even though strength is not the most important thing, getting stronger with good form is a great way to make progress, especially early in someone's training journey. With consistency, a structured diet and time you should start to recomp a little bit. Once you start developing a little bit more muscle you may want to cut the calories a little more to see more definition and lean up before starting a "bulk". Regardless of your diet direction, if your not taking creatine I would start. It's cheap and a staple for all natural lifters and honestly I think everyone young and old regardless of training should use creatine.

Also, your on 2 meals and 2 shakes, I'd rather see all real food. I'm not saying shakes don't work as food, they do. But a whey shake still spikes insulin and if it's not post workout we don't need to spike insulin. Keep carbs low, around 100gm/day could be your starting point, eat your body weight in protein (if your 160lbs eat 160gm) and get the rest of your calories from healthy fats. If you must have 2 shakes a day then have your first shake when you wake up, add a little bit of fat and cinnamon to slow digestion and for some extra insulin sensitivity. And have your other shake post workout. Maybe look into a GDA for when your having a high carb meal or have to eat off of your plan.

I'm also a fan of fasted morning cardio, or going for a 10-15min walk while I drink a coffee (no sugar)

Time and consistency win this race
 
Do you know if you have any medical conditions that are a contributing factor? Type2 diabetes, thyroid issues, lowT, et. Cetera, many of those are a result but could be contributing as well.
Really nothing more to add to the advice stated above except big plus to creatine and ab-solved. And I would switch training to a Push, Pull, Legs routine this would increase local fatigue while decreasing systemic fatigue...maybe helpful to recovery if you are in a weakened state.
 
ironviking said:
Do you know if you have any medical conditions that are a contributing factor? Type2 diabetes, thyroid issues, lowT, et. Cetera, many of those are a result but could be contributing as well.
Really nothing more to add to the advice stated above except big plus to creatine and ab-solved. And I would switch training to a Push, Pull, Legs routine this would increase local fatigue while decreasing systemic fatigue...maybe helpful to recovery if you are in a weakened state.
Click to expand...
I'm functionally fit nothing majorly wrong with me other than possibly low testosterone, it is classified in the normal range (many people think the range is incorrect though). I'm South Asian so predisposed to diabetes but I don't have it. At the moment I do get compliments from women when in a shirt or t-shirt, so it's starting to look abit like I lift but that's mainly due to the fat padding out the aesthetic muscles that the hypertrophy workout I started with focused on. I decided to try 5x5 to see if the muscles would become less puffy and more dense as well as getting stronger but perhaps a ppl programme might be better. Just to be clear I'm not jacked I've made minimal gains less than would be expected from a year's worth of working out, just the fat pads things out if that makes sense.
 
Smont said:
Supplements were mentioned above so il talk about the other stuff. 5x5 is a decent program, any program can work but a 5x5 is more demanding then most ppl think. From a diet and training point of view I normally would say diet hard, get the fat off and reverse back out into your bulk. But if you're in the situation described above (TOFI) I didn't know what that stood for so thanks for the explanation @sns8778 . But if that's the description you fit then I would work on a diet that helps keep insulin stable and I would go into a slight calorie deficit. If follow any program that you enjoy (but you must progress at the workout) you gotta beat the log book and even though strength is not the most important thing, getting stronger with good form is a great way to make progress, especially early in someone's training journey. With consistency, a structured diet and time you should start to recomp a little bit. Once you start developing a little bit more muscle you may want to cut the calories a little more to see more definition and lean up before starting a "bulk". Regardless of your diet direction, if your not taking creatine I would start. It's cheap and a staple for all natural lifters and honestly I think everyone young and old regardless of training should use creatine.

Also, your on 2 meals and 2 shakes, I'd rather see all real food. I'm not saying shakes don't work as food, they do. But a whey shake still spikes insulin and if it's not post workout we don't need to spike insulin. Keep carbs low, around 100gm/day could be your starting point, eat your body weight in protein (if your 160lbs eat 160gm) and get the rest of your calories from healthy fats. If you must have 2 shakes a day then have your first shake when you wake up, add a little bit of fat and cinnamon to slow digestion and for some extra insulin sensitivity. And have your other shake post workout. Maybe look into a GDA for when your having a high carb meal or have to eat off of your plan.

I'm also a fan of fasted morning cardio, or going for a 10-15min walk while I drink a coffee (no sugar)

Time and consistency win this race
Click to expand...
Thanks, yes time and consistency is what it's going to take but I'd like to speed things up if possible. Diet wise I think I just need to normalise food intake with a healthy baseline amount of fats, carbs and high protein to try and reassure my body it doesn't need to try and turn everything I eat into fat for storage and yes you are right whey is bad for people like me so I use a pea/hemp protein blend. Insulin response to foods is something I'm going to have to look in too so thanks for making me aware of that.
 
sns8778 said:
I think this is the first time that I've ever seen anyone mention TOFI on here. I'm going to answer your question and then do another post to explain a little about that for anyone reading that may not be familiar with it.

You're basically in a spot where you need to build muscle and lose fat, but more specifically visceral fat, which is a little bit different than focusing on total fat loss and also likely focus on improving insulin sensitivity/reducing insulin resistance.

The supplement suggestions that I'm suggesting are specifically based on your situation and targeting the different aspects of it. I'm not saying that you have to use them all; you could, but that's up the individual and the budget.

Here are my suggestions and reasoning:

I hope this information helps. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Click to expand...
Wow wasn't expecting anything as good as this, I'm looking at each one in detail before deciding on what's best but will obvs pay attention to your recommendations. Is there a UK based supplier and do any of these have an effect on hair? Just I have taken creatine and am pretty sure it caused some shedding nothing major but I like my hair on my head and don't want to lose it.
 
recompme said:
Wow wasn't expecting anything as good as this, I'm looking at each one in detail before deciding on what's best but will obvs pay attention to your recommendations. Is there a UK based supplier and do any of these have an effect on hair? Just I have taken creatine and am pretty sure it caused some shedding nothing major but I like my hair on my head and don't want to lose it.
Click to expand...

None of them have any negative effect on hair. Lean GLP, some of the ingredients have been shown to improve hair health so that may be an extra added benefit to.

Unreal Supps and Predator Nutrition both carry all the products that I mentioned.

Here are the links to those:
SNS and CEL ship to the UK as well.
 
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