The term skinny fat is directed at people that have a high percentage of body fat but have a low overall body weight. The end result is someone that is “skinny” and very thin in most peoples eyes, however, they have a high fat content in their bodies.
A skinny fat person is basically someone that is skinny but has a body fat percentage often well above 20% body fat. This often makes the body look “saggy” or makes thin people have cellulite on their thighs (places that carry lots of fat).
People that often are skinny fat are those that don’t eat much or those that do many diets that result in weight loss in quick ways.
If you eat very little every day and are skinny but still fat the reason is because your body at adjusted to the low calorie intake. You’ve effectively lost lots of weight and are skinny, however your body still holds a high fat content.
The reason is because our bodies, when starved, hold onto body fat and get rid of muscle mass. The muscle mass loss helps make the calories eaten worth their every bit of calorie content.
Muscle mass requires a good deal of calories to keep up with. This is why large bodybuilders have to be eating thousands of calories per day. Even if they stopped exercising, to maintain that muscle mass they’d have to sustain a high calorie diet.
Each pound of muscle supposedly requires 50 calories to maintain. When our body loses muscle, that’s 50 less calories needed. When going on starvation or quick fix diets very low in calories, our body responds by getting rid of muscle mass.
Eventually, the skinny fat effect happens. One ends up with low weights but high body fat content. When starved, our body stores fat as it has much more band for its buck. One gram of fat is equal to 9 calories whereas one gram of carbohydrates or protein are only worth 4 calories.
The way to fix this skinny fat problem is to focus on how to burn fat while increasing the muscle mass.
