Skinny Fat Belly

Skinny-fat? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?

The Urban Dictionary defines “Skinny-Fat” as follows:

“When someone is thin and looks great in clothes, but is all flabby underneath

“This term is used when a person is thin, yet does not eat healthy or take care of themselves. They think they don't need to watch the junk they eat because they are thin. They can be more unhealthy then an overweight person.

“Also known as, Skinny on the outside, fat and unhealthy on the inside.”

Or:

“A person  with a thin frame, who has a fat stomach / upper body. A skinny-fat person occurs as the result of bad genetics, poor eating/drinking habits, and complete avoidance of the gym.”

Very often you see someone with a thin frame, skinny arms and legs and yet they still have a layer of belly fat. As we all know, the first place fat gets deposited is around our bellies and this is the hardest fat to get rid of.

To get rid of your skinny fat belly, you need to re-think your diet and exercise plan. Diet is obviously important and should be adjusted to your body type and your metabolism. Forget the fad diets, they just don’t work in the long term and you usually end up putting on more weight than you lost when you stop the diet.

Genetics also play a role here. Some of us are genetically predisposed to storing extra fat around our bellies. We can lose as much weight as we like but the belly remains. So you see, you can be skinny and fat at the same time.

The best way to get rid of the belly fat is to follow a carefully structured exercise plan, one that will help to build muscle and burn fat. Doing the wrong type of exercise can actually make things worse, you could end up burning muscle in areas that make your skinny fat belly even more pronounced. It is important for skinny fat people to combine slow cardio work and high intensity training. Most trainers these days tend to recommend doing only high intensity training to build muscle and burn fat. Although this isn’t bad advice, it’s not necessarily best for those with a skinny fat belly.

You see both high intensity and slow and steady cardio have advantages. For a skinny fat person, high intensity cardio will help burn the excessive calories that are floating around and go right to your stomach. Slow cardio on the other hand will help you burn fat when you do not want to risk the chance of burning muscle tissue.

The best way to get rid of a skinny fat belly is to train properly and eat properly.